Georgia O'Keeffe – The Write Mind of a Lefthander

Three years ago, I became aware that I had arrived at a stage in my life where I had no duties or obligations to hold me down. I no longer had a job. My children were adults with children of their own. Two of my grandchildren were young adults pursuing their own paths. It was time for me to pursue mine.

There have been many changes since then, physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. My birthday is in August and I love celebrating the joy of being alive. This year I decide to observe it differently, to contemplate my life, where I’ve been and how I got here; where I want to go, and how to get there. I find the perfect place for silent reflection, the Benedictine Monastery of Christ in the Desert in Abiquiu, New Mexico.

Freedom’s navigation system routes me along country roads. Driving is pleasant and unhurried. Along the way, I see vibrant canyons, their faces etched by time, and wild sunflowers growing beside fast running rivers that skirt imposing mountains. There are small, old towns strung out like beads between long stretches of ranchland where I need to stop from time to time while cattle cross the road.

I drive through Chama, and down pine covered mountains. I don’t need a sign to tell me when I’m in Abiquiu. I see it in the grandly shaped and striated rock formations composed of volcanic debris from eighteen to twenty-seven million years ago. Tuffaceous sandstone, pebbly sandstone, siltstone, gravel beds, and mudstone in gorgeous shades of color from white to light grey, buff to ochre, red-orange to magenta. I fell in love with Abiquiu last summer and I’m happy to be back in this beautiful place.

From the highway, it’s a thirteen mile drive to the monastery over a sometimes gravel covered, deeply rutted, bumpy, red dirt road. It takes forty minutes to get to the guest house. I have enough time to unload my car, make the bed in the simple room I’m staying in, and walk to the chapel for Nones. As I enter, the monks are chanting, “May you live to see your children’s children…”

Dinner is in the Guest Dining Room. Meals are taken in silence, but there are quiet introductions among the guests. Afterwards, I walk around the grounds and back to the guest house. In the courtyard I relax into the peaceful surroundings. The sun is about to set. The changing light creates more definition in every crevice of the rock formations. It’s magical.

I wait for darkness to see a star filled sky, but clouds roll in and draw a shade over them. I go to my room. When I lay my head on the pillow, I fall into a deep sleep.

In the middle of the night, I’m jolted awake by a car alarm going off in the guest parking lot. It seems like an eternity before the alarm stops. My body adjusts to the adrenaline coursing through it and just as I’m falling asleep, the alarm goes off again. This happens several times. Now I’m awake waiting for the next alarm. It doesn’t happen again, but there is the noise of my mind wondering about this and that, making comments on every speculation.

Silence is something I’ve always longed for. It’s quiet here, even the whip, whip, tweet of a bird, the chattering of crickets, and the howling and yipping of coyotes that echo throughout the canyon are sounds that do not intrude on the tranquility of this remote place. In “civilization” there is always noise, even at night: motors for refrigerators, heaters and air conditioners going on and off, the drone of traffic in the distance. I conclude that there is no such thing as silence, but there is quiet. Now that I’ve weighed and measured the difference between silence and quiet, noise and sound, I’m wide awake.

It’s my birthday. I get up, dress, and go outside to look at the heavens. I’m greeted by a half-moon and Jupiter brightening the pre-dawn sky. I was so excited by this sight that the photo is blurry from not holding the phone steady enough.

It’s been rainier than usual in this part of the southwest, making the landscape astonishingly green with a profusion of wildflowers in bloom. I find a spot to sit in the midst of all this splendor and send love and blessings to my family and friends, on this plane of existence or beyond the veil, who have walked life’s seasons with me, through joys and sorrows, and the hard lessons that created growth. I think of those who walked with me briefly, sometimes only moments, who had a great influence on my life, changing its course by pointing a way to go when I couldn’t see one. I’m filled with gratitude for the life I’ve had and for the good health that allows me to continue to experience it to the fullest. I ask the Divine Spirit how to be a better person, and what more can I do to help bring nature and humanity into balance?

During Vespers, as the monks chant, thunder booms and rolls. Puffy white clouds gather and turn gray. The thunder grows more frequent, like the drumming of Grandfather, the Native American name for the Great Spirit. It rains hard for five minutes and stops as abruptly as it began. The sky remains cloudy, but at sunset it turns a brilliant shade of rose. The camera doesn’t capture the true color. The rain starts again, and continues all night, the booming of Grandfather’s drum speaking to me.

Everyone here is seeking solitude. Some do not speak at all, their days spent reading and in contemplation. Others observe the quiet, but are open to conversation. Mira Nakashima-Yarnall and her husband, Jon, are warm and friendly. We talk in the courtyard of the guest house. Mira’s father, George Nakashima, is the architect who designed the monastery chapel.

In the morning, Mira and I go for a walk. We cross the field that leads to the horse corral. The path is a red mire from the heavy rain overnight. The Rio Chama was low when I first arrived, but it’s full to its banks and runs fast and muddy. I enjoy being in Mira’s presence. She exudes peace and kindness. She’s the President and Creative Director of George Nakashima Woodworkers in New Hope, PA. Mira narrates the documentary A History of George Nakashima on You Tube, about his life and evolution from architect to furniture maker. It’s an interesting video and worth watching, as is a visit to the website: https://nakashimawoodworkers.com

Later in the day, I walk down the road and see a van with Ojai on the license plate. A man is sitting behind the wheel. I say, “Oh, hi. Are you from Ojai?” He looks up. “Yes. Do you know it?” I say that I’ve been there many times to hike and sit in the hot springs.

His name if Jeff. He just drove down from the Benedictine Abbey at Snowmass, CO and hopes to speak with a monk here about Father Keating and the Centering Prayer. I’d never heard of the prayer. Jeff explains that it is a way to quiet the mind, to get to mindlessness through a self-selected mantra. I say it sounds similar to Transcendental Meditation. We talk about the difference between mindlessness and mindfulness, about Eastern philosophies, mysticism, and the many roads that lead to inner peace, self-realization, Divine Spirit, the All Oneness.

He drives me to the guest house and gives me a tour of his van, outfitted for overlanding. There’s a solar panel on the hood to run an extra battery for the refrigerator, a satellite GPS, and many other features to accommodate self-sufficient travel in remote places.

We walk to the chapel and I introduce him to Brother Andre, the Guest Master who takes Jeff to speak with another monk about the Centering Prayer.

It rains all night again. After breakfast Jeff follows me down to the highway to make sure I have no problems on the muddy road. We wish each other well on our journeys. Jeff turns to the mountains, and I towards Ghost Ranch.

Ghost Ranch

Ghost Ranch is lush with grasses and colorful wildflowers, hardly the desert xeriscape I saw a little over a year ago. In this time of severe drought throughout most of the western part of the United States, it’s a bold reminder of the life giving function of water.

After I check in at the Welcome Center, I go to the campground, choose a space and plug Freedom into the electrical outlet. I realize that I forgot to pack a mallet. I walk to the maintenance building and borrow a hammer from the foreman. He drives me back to the campsite in his golf cart. He says that in the spring the local water company sent the ranch a letter that there would be severe water restrictions because of the drought. Thankfully, the rains began on June second.

While I set up the tent, I realize that if there hadn’t been this stream of rain all summer, I might not be here now. I think of the pervading problem of drought in some parts of the world that lead to severe wildfires, and extremes of rain causing floods in other parts. I worry over how we human beings will solve the environmental crisis we are living through, and how much we are willing to forego as individuals to live in harmony with Nature.

The tent pops up easily and the soft ground yields to the hammer as I pound in the stakes. I roll out the mattress and sleeping bag, and situate a flashlight and the book I’m reading next to it. I wander around the grounds the rest of the afternoon, taking in the beauty.

It’s a lovely evening. Instead of eating in the dining hall, I find a table outside. A gentleman sits at the next table. He says his name is Dave Mitchell and we talk about our travels. The conversation turns to ecology and we learn that not only are we concerned about it, but we are seeking ways to help solve the environmental crisis. Dave is a contributor to Eco-Radio on KKFI.org, Kansas City, MO. We talk for a long time, and then walk together to the campground.

The night sky is once again shrouded with clouds. I intend to read a while, but it’s so cozy inside the sleeping bag that I close my eyes and drift into sleep.

The tent is bright. Have I slept the morning away? I get up and look outside. The waxing moon lights the pre-dawn sky, a scattering of stars shine dimly around her. I dress for the day and sit at the camp table and read, waiting for the sun to rise.

I walk down the road with the marker to Georgia O’Keeffe’s house. It’s private property, owned by the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, but I hope that just one person ambling by might go unnoticed, and I can stand on a spot where she stood and see what she looked at. Past the horse corrals, there’s a gate covered with wire and a “No Entry” sign. I walk up a hill that overlooks the road. This is as close as I get to her house.

Later in the afternoon, Dave and I meet up and hike the trail to Chimney Peak. We stop from time to time to enjoy the views and take photos.

When I return to the campground, I realize that my phone is out of charge; the charger is in the car and I can’t access the car without the phone. Max Re, who works at the Trading Post, says he has a charger that will fit my phone. After dinner we walk to his van and plug my phone into the charger. We talk about where he attended school and his changing path in life. Max is a writer, and our conversation flows between what kind of books we like to read, psychology and philosophy, and quantum physics. After a while Dave joins us and ecology becomes part of the conversation. When there is enough charge on the phone, Max heads off for a gathering with co-workers and Dave and I talk for a while longer.

At the Welcome Center there’d been talk of rain tomorrow, a river of it according to some accounts. I hope it will wait until I leave, but as a precaution I pack the car.

I’m awakened by the sound of drips and splats on the tent. I peek outside and see misty drizzle. I get dressed, roll up the mattress, stuff the sleeping bag into its sack, put them in the trunk, and walk to the dining hall to meet Dave for breakfast. It takes two people to fold the tent. I ask Dave for help and he graciously says yes.

It’s raining steadily as we walk back to the campsite. I pull the stakes out of the ground; we fold up the tent like a taco and twist. It’s covered with mud and doesn’t want to stay folded, and we’re getting wet. Dave suggests that we move the tent under the bathhouse portico. We fold and twist numerous times, but the tent prefers to pop up, or folds into a circle twice the size of the trunk. Finally, we unload the trunk, put everything in the back seat of the car, and stuff the tent in the trunk. I imagine getting home, opening the trunk and the tent popping out like a Jack in the box.

Dave and I exchange email addresses and say farewell. I’m grateful for his patient help and camaraderie the past few days. My water repellant jacket is dripping wet and my shoes are caked with red mud. I take the jacket off as I slip into the front seat of the car and drape it over the passenger seat. I’m glad I had the forethought to put my sneakers there and change into them. Dry and cozy in my car, I drive into the rain and up the mountains surrounding Taos.

The ride home is in and out of squalls, along roads curving through pine forests. I think about what I learned this week. I’d gone away for quiet and solitude, and while I did have plenty of both, the Cosmos surprised me with an array of interesting people and thoughtful conversations. Nature embraced me with her beauty, and I realize that my wish to save Her is wrongly placed. Nature always comes back after fire or flood or humanity’s abuse, more beautiful than before. It is humanity that needs to be saved. Meeting people who are seeking a higher standard in their lives, looking to live in peaceful harmony with neighbor and nature, living with concern over the environmental crisis and working towards solutions, made me feel my prayers were heard. Grandfather’s drum replied, “There is hope, keep spreading the word.”

And after dinner on my birthday, the Cosmos supplied a slice of cake to celebrate.

To read more about the history Ghost Ranch and Georgia O’Keeffe, read my blog, The Best Place on Earth.

Shortly before I retired from flying, there was an article in Life Magazine about Georgia O’Keeffe. The photos were mostly of her, but her sensibility, and the one piece of her art that was shown, captivated me. I was surprised that in any of my flights to Albuquerque, I’d never heard of her. This was before Google, so I was limited to visits to museums hoping to see her art, or the occasional magazine article showing her work. The most memorable exhibition I’ve seen was a collection of her work at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1989.

Over the years my son lived in New Mexico, I visited the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe several times. Each time the museum exhibited different pieces of her art. Now, I am eager to visit again to see the familiar, and the different.

When I enter, the museum is hushed, the way a church is. I stand in front of her paintings and notice how smooth the paint is, how precise the lines. I sit at a distance on a bench to absorb what I see and feel.

Today I learn that she was influenced by Zen principles. It reflected in the way she lived, as well as her art. She was inspired by Arthur Wesley Dow’s innovative concepts based on principles of design and composition in Japanese art. She traveled the world, most of which she did in her sixties and later.

Above the Clouds, a series of paintings she made between 1961-1962 of clouds seen from airplanes.

A replica of the banquette with rattlesnake skeleton beneath glass in Georgia O’Keeffe’s home

I drive through Abiqui, a sliver of a town, and through red clay canyons as majestic as the Grand Canyon. It’s as if I’m driving through O’Keeffe’s paintings.

Up ahead a dark cloud looms, lightning flashing in the sky, sometimes striking the ground. The cloud seems to rush forward. There’s a burst of rain, the windshield wipers going as fast as they can and then, about four car lengths ahead, a bolt of lightning to the road. I’m awestruck and wish I had the gift to be able to paint what I see.

A few minutes later, I turn into Ghost Ranch. There’s no indication of the storm on the parched road to the Welcome Center. I check in and drive to the cabin where I will stay. There is a woman sitting on the porch. Her name is Kalika Antao. She’s staying in the other room of the cabin. Over the weekend we go on hikes and take our meals together in the dining hall. She recently bought a truck and is experimenting with camping on her own. Talking with her, I realize that is the best way to travel for the experiences I’d prefer.

I once had a Volkswagen van. We took out the back seat, built a platform for the bed with storage underneath. We did a lot of traveling in that van, but it usually involved parking the van and backpacking to a lake somewhere near the top of a mountain. Only one trip, to Mexico, involved staying at campsites. Kalika gave me something to think about. Now all I need is the courage to drive a truck. Maybe another camper van is the answer.

Kalika is a talented artist. If you’d like to view her work, you can find it at www.kalikaantao.com.

Ghost Ranch has an interesting history, beginning with the Archuleta brothers who were cattle and horse thieves. They hid their stolen stock in the Box Canyon below the Camposanto Mesa, and kept the curious and angry out by saying that the ranch was haunted. Anyone who suspected that their missing livestock was there, found human remains. They didn’t stay long, one way or another. The brothers also told tales of a flying dragon that haunted the hills.

After an argument over hidden gold, one brother killed the other and held his wife and daughter hostage, hoping they’d tell the whereabouts of the gold. The women escaped at night to the San Juan Pueblo. The men of the Pueblo rode to the ranch and hanged the remaining brother and his gang from a cottonwood tree that still stands near one of the casitas. It became known as El Rancho de los Brujos, Ranch of the Witches.

The ranch remained uninhabited for thirty years, until Carol Bishop Stanley moved in. Stanley was born in Boston, MA into a prosperous family. She was a classical pianist, and in her thirties fell in love with a musician. He did not meet her parents’ approval, so they sent her away to the southwest to get over it. She spent a couple of years on a horseback excursion around the Four Corners, and married a cowboy she met on the trail, Roy Pfaffle. Roy was a gambler and won the deed to El Rancho de los Brujos in a card game. Stanley recorded the deed to the ranch in her name, and when they divorced in 1931, she moved there and named it Ghost Ranch. She built guest casitas and turned it into a dude ranch. It was visited by wealthy and creative people of the time.

In the summer of 1934, a woman drove up in a Model A. She’d read in Nature Magazine that this was the best place in the world. It was unusual because guests came by invitation. However, the woman was Georgia O’Keeffe, and accommodations were found for her. She discovered that it was indeed the best place in the world and lived and painted there the rest of her life.

Stanley had married another gambling cowboy, and struggled financially. In 1935 she sold the ranch to Arthur Pack, writer and editor of Nature Magazine. In 1945 Pack sold a seven acre parcel near Chimney Rock to O’Keeffe.

As Pack grew older, he was concerned with how the ranch would be cared for after him. He didn’t want the ranch subdivided and offered it to the Boy Scouts of America and the Archdiocese of Santa Fe to have and maintain, but neither were able to accept the offer. He gifted the 21,000 acre ranch to the Presbyterian Church in 1955 to use as a retreat and for education.

It seems the story about flying dragons wasn’t so farfetched. In 1947, George Whitaker of the American Museum of Natural History in New York was hunting for fossils in the red hills of Ghost Ranch when he found a graveyard of hundreds of the Theropod Dinosaur, Coelyphysis from the late Triassic era. They were light, agile and fast moving. Their form may have looked dragon like to someone viewing skeletal remains. There is an excellent exhibit at the Ruth Hall Museum of Paleontology near the Welcome Center.

The Florence Hawley Ellis Museum of Anthropology also has an excellent collection of aritfacts from Paleo-Indian culture through ancestral Puebloan times

Ghost Ranch has been the setting for many films, among them: Silverado; Indiana Jones ~ Kingdom of the Crystal Skull; 3:10 to Yuma; Wyatt Earp; Hostiles, and City Slickers.

I spend my time hiking around the ranch alone, and with Kalika. It’s breathtakingly beautiful. A weekend is not long enough to explore everything I want to see, and hope to return. Next time I will use the campground. The accommodations are disappointing. The ranch is in a terrible state of disrepair. The people at the Welcome Center blame it on the year it was closed due to Covid. It took many years of neglect for the ranch to fall into this condition. The Presbyterian Church owns Ghost Ranch but no longer supports it financially. The Ghost Ranch Foundation is responsible for care, preservation, and maintenance of its facilities. I imagine Arthur Pack would be displeased if he saw the condition it’s in. Fortunately, the natural beauty of the land is intact.

The weather is moody and dramatic. Kalika and I decide to hike to Chimney Rock after dinner. It was lovely as we started out, but dark clouds rolled in and we think it best to head back to the cabin. By the time we return, the clouds pass. Later that night, there is thunder and lightning and a torrent of rain.