A Sculptured Landscape

WALK WITH ME WEDNESDAY

I haven't done a Walk With Me Wednesday in a very long time. Today is the perfect day. We had time for a long rambling walk in the snowy sunrise, and the snow and wind had done its work to make a sculptured landscape, sparkling like diamonds.

As we set out, the sun shone on the Sandia Mountain Front, but the clouds heralding the coming of the next storm were already coming across.

In the sunrise, the work of the wind and cold on the pristine snowfall was striking. The sharp cold overnight had preserved the wind's artistry on the new road.

The bare gravel on the edge of hill is contrasted by the deep snow at the bottom. The wind had playfully moved the snow from one place to another, and yesterday's footprints on the hillside were drifted in, but todays were already frozen in place on the road.

In the meadow, last summer's grass stands above the frozen drifts that sparkle in the sun and undulate as the blue shadows move in the morning sun. We are cold, but reluctant to leave this winter garden in which every turn gives new delight to the eye.










But breakfast awaits for the dogs, and coffee and hot chocolate are warming inside.


There is much to be done today, as the whispy harbingers of tomorrow's new storm are already drifting across the sky above the house.

The Kimo

NEARLY WORDLESS WEDNESDAY

It is late, and I am going back to work and school tomorrow, after being sick for five days. So this post will be more nearly wordless than most!

As we were doing our walking tour of Albuquerque last month, we stopped in the Kimo Theater Office, and the people working there graciously gave us a spontaneous tour of one of Albuquerque's oldest theaters. It was designed as a tribute to the Pueblo revivial style on the inside, and it's name is an acronym for goodness and blessing in the Tewa language. It has been recently remodeled, and the interior is stunning.

The entrance features a ceiling with petroglyph-like native symbols, and a tiled ticket box and walls. This is the original, lovingly restored as it was, but shinier.












A grand stairway leads up to the mezzanine seating.
At the mezzanine level, the lighting, replete with pueblo culture symbols shows off retablos set in nichos, and the beamed vigas of the ceiling. These are more visible than they were prior to restoration.








On the mezzanine level, theater goers can enjoy replicas of sand paintings.
Original sand paintings are not permanent art, but are made and then brushed away as part of Navajo healing ceremonies.
Notice that the circle is broken to the south.
In Native American art, there must always be a flaw, in order not to capture the spirit in perfection.





The high ceiling above the stage is done in strong colors and more native symbols. The stage is framed by dream-catcher like symblos that include thunderbirds, war shields and other symbols.

In an alcove in the lobby, mission style chairs and table are an inviting place to rest under a skull, and colorful geometric wood design above.

Even the carpet has a New Mexico native colorful geometrical design.








A colorful retablo-like mural of a cliff dwelling is set back in a nicho above the cast-iron rails of the grand stairway to the mezzanine. These are the beloved touches of the Pueblo revival style, tucked away and yet quite spectacular.


The Kimo used to be a movie house, and is now owned by the City of Albuquerque. It is rented out for stage shows and other entertainment. I have seen Phillip Glass perform Koyyanaskatsi on that stage, and the Chem Geek Princess once participated in a performance of an original work to commemorate the Holocaust there.

It is so Pueblo Revival, that one might think it would seem overdone--Another Death by Santa Fe Style. But the scale of the place makes it simply beautiful.

I love it. It's such a piece of the real Albuquerque.

Walk With Me Into Autumn

NEARLY WORDLESS WEDNESDAY

Ragamuffin Studies is taking a break from the One Hundred Species Challenge this week in order to bring you a special Autumnal Equninox Walk with Me Wednesday.

The Autumnal Equinox marks the day upon which we have equal lengths of daylight and darkness as the days shorten in the northern hemisphere.

This was the somewhat clouded sunrise on equinox. The sun is rising almost due east. By the Winter Solstice on December 21, it will rise above the ridge on the right of the picture.

Even though summer was officially due to end,

it was still a beautiful day for a walk.

Here, the Engineering Geek,

all decked out in an astronomy T-shirt,

stands poised with Lily, ready to set off.

We finally had a chance to walk

in Sedillo Canyon again, now that the summer

rains have finished. Here we saw that the monsoon had cut the channels a bit deeper at the confluence of the east and south branches of the wash.

Although the sun is still warm,

there is gold on the mountain,

the gold of newly turning Aspens.

Caterpillars climb to the tops of slender stems. Though the sweet clover still blooms like summer, they caterpillar knows that the time of Turning has come. It wraps itself in silken tallit*, reminding us that we too must change or die.

*prayer shawl

The first sunset of Autumn, and the sky is anticipating the deep October blue.

The sunset just three months ago was at the top of the mountain at the right of the picture.

The days are getting shorter.

The sunlight is getting weaker as the solar angle becomes smaller. We can no longer ignore the seasonal shift in the light.

Autumn is here. The time and the season for counting the harvest of the year. The time and the season for Turning and Returning.

April Walk

NEARLY WORDLESS WEDNESDAY

April is almost over, and we have not yet taken an April "Walk with Me Wednesday."

Today is the day for it, sunny and warm, but windy.

This walk takes us back into the canyons of the hidden world.

The dawn is showing over the ridge and highlighting the buds on the Mountain Mahagony at the edge of Sedillo Canyon.

This time, we took the west fork,

walking north along the bed of Sedillo Creek.

Deeper into the canyon, the sunlight

does not yet reach the dry ground.

Crossing the at the meeting with the east branch

of Sedillo Creek, we turn south again,

following the east branch back up canyon.

The canyon bottom here is rocky and thick with

vegetation that is barely greening with spring.

Still, some signs of the changing season

are apparent in the sheltered canyon wall.

Here is the spring burrow of a rodent.

Who knows? Young may be growing

in there, sheltered under the bank.

As we climb south towards the meadow,
the sun finally reaches the height
where it can shine into the canyon,
changing the forbidding feel of the pre-dawn
into a play of light and shadow across our path.

We break out into the meadow,

where deep swales of greening grass

reveal the source of the east branch

of Sedillo Creek. A short walk along

the new grass of the meadow path,

and it's home for breakfast,

our April walk complete!

Pictures by Elisheva Levin and N., April 23 and 30, 2008.

A March Walk in the Hidden World

Nearly Wordless Wednesday

The Walk with Me Edition

This month, as early spring creeps across our mountains, take a walk with me into the hidden world just north of our meadow.


North of our house is the meadow, and north of the meadow is the woods.

Looking across them from the house, you might think that the land goes on rising towards the high meadow and the mountains.

But if you enter the woods, you enter a hidden world...

The sky is that deep New Mexico blue as you

descend from the vacant lot by the road,

down into the Sedillo Creek drainage.

Here, the scrub Oak is brown, and the brush

is bare beneath the taller trees.

We seem to go back in time to winter

here in the canyon.

Down the side of the canyon,

we walk. The dogs on a short leash

as we wend our way across the rock.

The rising sun beckons us,

shining on the pines and juniper.

The air is soft, as the winds cross above

the canyon, which shelters us from the blow.

Here in the creek bed, Ponderosa Pines

rise high, nourished by the hidden water

that flows below the surface.

The ground rises on both sides, and

Pennsylvanian limestone tumbles toward us,

as float, down the steep flanks of the canyon.

Here in the hidden world,
snow lingers on the hillsides,
and makes frozen pools among
the tumble of rock.

Uphill, we walk now, toward the meadow

and the rising sun.

A tangle of scrub,

a field of broken rock,

between us and the open space.

And as we crest the canyon top, the open meadow and home is before us.

Hot coffee and breakfast await us, as the sun gains height in the morning sky.