Sabbatical - Ghost Ranch

June 15, 2011

I'm back from Ghost Ranch and had an amazing week!  Below are a few photos from the week. Just click the arrow to begin a slideshow set at 10 secs per photo.  It that's not enough time you can pause and resume.  Below the photos are some reflections on my time there.

Ghost Ranch is a place of enchantment, inspiration and imagination.  How can one not be when surrounded by such ancient beauty?  The conference center is nestled among mesas and cliffs whose strata visibly reveal millions of years of earth's history.  Its no wonder that shaman, artist, writers, photographers,  geologists, paleontologists, film makers and common pilgrims like me have found themselves here listening to the Spirit of Creation.

I was fortunate that the workshop for which I had originally registered didn't make and was canceled.  Since I had already made travel arrangements, what was supposed to have been a week spent with others became a solitary personal retreat.  I was the only resident at Casa del Sol for the entire week!

The only time I was not alone was at meal times which I had in the dinning hall on the main campus, along with the summer and permanent staff of Ghost Ranch and several hundred Quakers attending an annual mountain states "meeting."

All I'll say about the "Friends" I encountered throughout the week is that to be part of a tradition grounded in silence, they sure are a talkative bunch!  I enjoyed meeting many of them and learning more about their tradition and current practices.  I even attended a couple of silent worship services (when they really are silent) and in the course of a couple of hours spent more time in corporate silence than I have in my life as a Baptist and Presbyterian.   It all seemed to fit with the solitude and silence of my individual time just sitting and watching the landscape, hiking, or gazing into amazingly brilliant night skies.

The thing about listening is that sometimes you hear something you never expected.  And this was just the case with me as I reflect on my week.  If there is a central hearing for me it was one in learning to listen to my own inner voice as opposed to those around me.  And this came in some quite practical ways through several encounters and experiences.

My first day at Ghost Ranch, Monday afternoon, the smoke from the Arizona wildfire had made its way north and by dusk the Pedernal landscape across the Piedra Lumbre Valley was not even visible and you could not only smell but taste the smoke.  On Tuesday at dawn the winds had shifted and the sky was crystal clear all day.

My plan for Wednesday morning was to hike up the Chimney Rock trail.  The wind turned back to the north and at dawn on Wednesday the smoke had already made it's way to the southern horizon and there was a faint haze on Pedernal.  The word was that if it was too smoky, like Monday evening, we were to limit outdoor activity.  Well, as long as I could see Pedernal and didn't taste smoke my inner voice was saying, "Hike!" before it gets worse.   As it turned out, it was quite hazy and not nearly the normal spectacular view from Chimney Rock and sure enough by mid-afternoon, a few hours after my hike, the distant landscape disappeared again.  But I made the hike!

That night at dinner when I told one of the summer staff that I had hiked Chimney Rock that morning and planned to hike Kitchen Mesa the next morning, if the air was clear.   He asked who I was hiking with and I told him, alone.  He immediately said I shouldn’t do that because a “minister friend” of his went up there alone, got disoriented, fell and was killed.   I replied something like “ Wow, how tragic.  I’m sorry to hear that.  Thanks for sharing it.”  All the time thinking, why would he tell that story to me?  

I also had the same feeling I had some 30 odd years ago when Peg and I were in a major snow storm headed to Red River, NM to ski.  We were driving from Oklahoma and stopped at a service station store at Eagle’s Pass to ask if we were on the right route to Red River.  The man said, “You from around here?”   I said, “No.”  He shot back, “ The you got no business on these roads tonight."  We were the last car into Red River that night, and unbeknown to us right behind a snow plow just out of sight ahead of us.   The next morning we had some of the most amazing white powder skiing ever.

Anyway on Thursday morning I hiked the Kitchen Mesa trail and except for a 20 ft long 20 ft up, 3 ft wide crevasse with a pull rope it was pretty easy.  And, was it worth it!  The view was spectacular and I had the trail to myself as well as 30 minutes alone on the top.  Until a young man shirtless and earphone adorned, came up as I was leaving.

The next morning, even though I was extremely sore and had a tender knee from the previous day's hike/climb (enough of a reason to take the day off)  I stopped by the health cottage for an ace bandage for my knee and headed off to Box Canyon to complete the Ghost Ranch Triathlon of trail hiking.   I walked up the stream bed (my mistake because it’s not clearly marked) instead of the dirt road, but the two eventually merge.  I vaguely remembered a few spots from the hike/pilgrimage I had take with the Newells a few years ago, but we had stopped even before the pond.

At the pond, it wasn’t really clear where to pick up the trail, and to confuse matters more, the same young man I had met on Kitchen Mesa the day before came bounding up the trail.   We acknowledged that we had seen each other the day before and he started hoping the large rocks above the pool.   The written guide mentioned “large rocks” before the canyon and if these were the ones, this would be the end of my hike.  However, the guide also said the trail continued “on the right of the stream” so I followed what was a well-traveled trail until it became less so. 

It was then that this guy came up the trail out of nowhere.  He was definitely a wilderness looking guy, brown weathered skin that accented a long gray beard, adorned with serious backpacking gear and walking as if he were on a mission.  “You know this trail?”  he asked without any introduction.   “Not really.”  I said.   He said, “I took another trail back there that led to no where so I came back up this way.   They don’t tell  you much in the way of directions back at Ghost Ranch.” 

“Where you from?”  I asked.

“I’m hiking the Continental Divide Trail and somebody said Ghost Ranch would be a nice side trip.  And they recommended this canyon trail.”

“I’m not really sure where to go from here.”  I said.

“That looks like the trail.”  He pointed and headed toward a somewhat beaten path.  So I followed.

Evidently he didn’t care I was following because he swiftly went ahead and basically walked up the stream bed.   It wasn’t long before he was out of sight so I continued on what looked like a trail that crisscrossed the stream.   In a few minutes I heard him holler up ahead, “I don’t think this is it.   I can see what look like walls of a box, but there is no way to get there past these big rocks.”   Just as quickly, he was back to me and never stopped as he passed and said, “That might be it, but I don’t see how you can get to it over those big rocks.”   Soon he was out of sight.

I started back down, feeling disappointed and somewhat of a failure, not having actually seen and been in “Box Canyon.”   I stopped at the pond to reconsider if the young man had actually taken the right path when “voila” he came bouncing down the large rocks.

“How was it?” I asked, sort of fishing to see if that was the actual way.

“I went as far as I could just doing some rock hopping.  How about you, did you get to the canyon?”

“Not yet.”

“It’s a special place, enjoy.”   And he was off.

So, I pulled out the written description of the trail and it said,  “…takes you over large rocks to the box of the canyon.”

I put my backpack back on and headed back up the trail to see those rocks myself.  It was clear that there were several “climbing” paths up and over the rocks so after studying them, I chose what I thought to be the less difficult and began climbing.  I’m not lying, it wasn’t easy and I was pushing my “safety” buttons, but I made it and the payoff was in an over used but appropriate word,  “awesome!”  It was like a natural nave with a stream running through it and a giant bolder for an alter in the center.  It was cool, damp, and in the shade, except for a halo of sunlight at the top.  And to think I nearly missed it.

After coming in off the trail I discovered my sunglasses were broken.  There were none to be bought at the Ghost Ranch store so I asked a volunteer at the welcome desk who told me I would have to go all the way into Espanola because Bode’s (a gas station / snack bar / general store) in Abiqui didn’t carry things like that, which seemed kind of odd to me.  So I made the 74 mile round trip into a Walgreens in Espanola driving by Bode’s at the 15 mile mark thinking I should at least stop to see what they have, but didn’t.   On the way back I passed Bode’s again deciding to drive on in to Ghost Ranch with a quarter tank of gas and get it on the way out on Sunday morning.

At dinner I visited with another staff member whom I had met earlier and he asked if I planned to visit the monastery of Christ in the Desert during my stay.  I had totally forgotten about wanting to do that and as a result of our conversation he went into his office and looked up their prayer times and I decided to try to make it out for Terce at 8:45 a.m. the next morning.   But because the monastery is 15 miles from Ghost Ranch, 13 on a one lane dirt road, this would mean that I would have to get gas in the car first.

So the next morning, since it looked like I couldn’t make breakfast and the 8:45 prayers,  I drove to Bode’s to get gas and a snack.  Not to my surprise, Bode’s has everything I had driven to Espanola for and more!  I even got a giant delicious breakfast burrito.   So much for listening to myself on this one.

I arrived at the monastery at exactly 8:45 but had not planned on having to park a 10-minute walk away, plus I had to go to the restroom really bad.  In short, I missed the prayers with the monks, but went on in the sanctuary, found the Terce readings for the day in the book and did them on my own.

After exploring the monastery grounds I headed back, planning on stopping to enjoy the amazing scenery along the dirt road as it wound its way along beside the Rio Chama River.   I was driving pretty slow and noticed a SUV coming up pretty fast from the rear so I pulled over on the shoulder and let them pass.  A ways down the road the SUV was pulled over, a woman outside take a photo.  I went on past and it was only a matter of minutes before they were coming up on my bumper again so I pulled over again as they sped by.  After stopping a couple times myself to take photos, in a few minutes I saw them pulled over again.  This time I pulled in behind them and as I got out of the car the man driving said thanks for allowing them to pass.  I joked that I just decided to stop when they did so we wouldn’t have to play leapfrog anymore.

They had stopped to watch a rafter and some canoes go through some relatively gentle whitewater.   After we took our photos we struck up a conversation, which resulted in our introducing ourselves.   They had been at the monastery and begin to ask my interest in going there and pretty soon they knew I am a Presbyterian minister, and I found out they are Buddhist and looking to relocate to the area.   I gave them my card and took a photo of them.   I mentioned Ghost Ranch and suggested they stop and check it out.

Not only did they stop at Ghost Ranch but I took them out to Casa del Sol where we had a beer and began what was to be a long discussion about religion, spirituality, interfaith dialogue and much more, on through my buying them lunch at the dinning hall and afterward.   I have a strong feeling this conversation will continue in some form or fashion.

So, there you have it.  For me these were some pretty good lessons in learning to listen to and trust my inner voice - a good beginning to a sabbatical, I'd say.