Santa Fe & Taos New Mexico – The Art of Living

By: Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood 

And looked down one as far as I could

 

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I–

I took the one less traveled by, 

And that has made all the difference.

 

 

Frost’s, The Road Not Taken, seemed a fitting inspiration for the title of this blog.  Its theme has paralleled my life such that I was always the friend doing the unconventional, or as one friend said it, “doing it your way,” and another: “That’s just Christin.”  Pursuing my passions hasn’t always been what some people would consider “practical,” but it has brought a sustaining fulfillment and fine-tuned my bestowed gifts.  Luckily, through yachting I was able to bring financial stability and my artistry into balance, with more freedom to pursue writing and take this trip of a lifetime.  The whole van summer travel started with my boyfriend’s itch to adventure the unknown beauty of this U.S. backyard, and check out the west coast for settling potential.  Many didn’t agree with his decision to leave his well-paying captain job and take the summer season off from yachting.  Many could not see past their own projections of individual ideals and dollar-sign fears.  But sometimes, you just have to trust your own instinct and follow your heart if that’s what’s beckoning you.  Honing your intuitions and gut is a constant practice.  Following the guidance of your heart requires courage.  And sometimes, those signs pull you down the road less taken.

 

 

We were following our inspirations day to day and a month had already passed since we’d been on the road.  The kinks on the van were continually working themselves out and we were finally in the flow of properly stowing and situating things for drive days.  We’d utilized the outdoor shower with efficiency, averaging around a minute, and only ran out of water once.  We had had great luck provisioning at local farmer’s markets and stores, and meals in our little kitchen were never short of amazing.  The phones had stopped ringing.  We were immersed fully in the open road, and the embrace of mother nature.  

 

 

The next road led into Santa Fe, New Mexico for some artistic immersion and Native American influence.  It was much hotter than our forested and mountain retreats, but we adapted quickly to the desert lifestyle.  Everywhere you looked the architecture reflected the quintessential pueblo style, in a painted nature spectrum of terracotta clay colors.  Galleries lined the street of the art district and we spent our afternoon strolling from one to the next, taking in the array of artistry. 

 

 

The art instillation at Santa Fe’s Meow Wolf was nothing short of a psychedelic incantation, throwing you into the jowls of an artistic trip where fantasy comes to life.  It was like walking into another dimension.  We entered a dated, two-story, wooden house with a mystery awaiting inside.  The deeper we wandered, the more the immersion, and the more surrender that overtook us.  We passed through an ecstatic connecting flight portal, into rooms of magical, childhood imagination, where a hands-on playground awaited us, possessing the power to ignite the FUN
switch inside anyone who encountered it.  Another layover passed us through rooms of a higher dimension of conscious metaphysics, where something unconscious, an inner-knowing, was stirred up in us.  At one moment, you may find yourself inside a frosty, illuminated carcass of a magical dragon, then another, wandering down a narrow Chinatown alley, or another, inside a washing machine resplendent with crystal light shows.  We wandered for hours through the labyrinth–or was it a maze–or perhaps a giant web?  Upon deeper analysis, my perspective interpreted as more like the brain’s branches, broadcasting its endless synapses, each firing its unique glimpse of their particular images. 

 

Up high, down low, interpretation of mind was fine-tuned so the themes could be felt and experienced through the senses and beyond.  One can look at a wall hung with paintings, yet one can also EXPERIENCE the art and bring about a lasting gestalt.  The same can be said of nature.  We’d left there having been imprinted with this frequency.  

 

The town of Taos is nestled in the northern sphere of New Mexico, and turned out to be a gem.  We even came to find that one of my favorite authors, D.H. Lawrence, the avant garde, modern British writer, spent time there with his wife at their ranch, where he completed what would be his last novel.  We parked Le Van in a BLM spot in the nearby National Forest which backed up to the San Juan river.  We fell asleep to the gushing sound of the water thrusting over heavy rocks while snuggling tight through the night’s crisp, cold air.  

 

                                                

 

Further up the same mountain is Tao’s ski village, 11,000 ft of goodness.  We packed a picnic lunch and took the ski lift to the top where we ate on top of a large flat rock then threw snowballs.

We were driving again, to the next destination, integrating that which had passed.  Nature had shown off her many facets to us and at times it was hard to wrap our minds around the unique diversity of it all.  One moment, we were walking through a brightly-lit, white sand desert, the next, wrapped up, sitting by the fire in an enchanted forest of pinon pines next to the river, and the next, being lifted up a ski slope over a verdant mountain in summertime, with sparse patches of leftover snow.  We could feel her muse, the mother.  Her passion had infiltrated our beings and we could feel the flood in our hearts.  This was the road we travelled; this was our road.  Thankful to have listened to our instincts to fulfill such a trip.