Christ in the Desert Monastery, Abiquiu, NM.

I left Durango and drove the lovely route 550 through the mountains of Colorado. As I descended I began to encounter the red rock and earth that I had seen on earlier parts of my trip. Then I came upon the beautiful Chama Valley, near Abiquiu, NM. I planned on staying at the Abiquiu Inn  (http://www.abiquiuinn.com/), near the monastery. In 1997 I stayed here for the first time.

Before arriving at the Inn I passed the Echo Amphitheater (http://www.digitalabiquiu.com/pages/tours/echo_t.html),  near Ghost Ranch  (http://www.ghostranch.org/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=cpc-adwords-event-calendar-2010), the famous residence of the artist Georgia O’Keefe (http://www.georgia-okeeffe.com/ghost-ranch.html). This whole are is filled with different kinds of artists and they are having a special showing of different ateliers in the area the first week of September. The Inn is typical of the adobe construction here. It is truly amazing that the temperatures inside can be almost twenty degrees cooler than outside. The evenings can be cold and each apartment at the Inn has a gas adobe fireplace.

Christ in the Desert Monastery (http://www.christdesert.org/) is off of the main road some 13 miles in the middle of a National Forest area, along the Chama River. In bad weather, the road is nearly impassable, but it has been recently repaired after several washouts, and is now nice and dry and hard. It is dirt and gravel, so it is very much open to the elements.

The guest house of the Monastery has no electricity. In fact, there is no trunk line of electricity into this part of the canyon. The monks have a series of solar panels which provide for electrical needs in the Monastery proper. We had Coleman battery lanterns at the guest house which charge during the day from a solar panel on the roof. The small refrigerator in the guest common room is run on propane, which also provides fuel for the small heaters in each room which are used in the winter. The inner garden of the guest house has a statue of St. Francis made from local wood. You get a sense of the dry desert but also of the lush green produced by its proximity to the Chama River. The guest house is a five minute walk to the Monastery.

The Monastery was designed by the a Japanese architect to fit in with the area. It is very simple and beautiful, providing spectacular views of the canyon walls behind it. At the top of the mesa you can see three crosses, where the monks hike during Holy Week.

One of my work assignments while here was to help harvest the hops for Monks Ale! I’m glad I visited the Budweiser brewery while I was in St. Louis so I had some knowledge of what they are used for. It was a wonderfully relaxing morning spent under the shade of a huge cottonwood tree down by the river with several other monks and friends from nearby.

On September 6th I left the Monastery early and made the trip to the Sangre de Cristo Center (http://www.sangredecristo.org/) in Santa Fe., NM. Since I had just finished reading Death Comes for the Archbishop, by Willa Cather, it was a particular delight to see the old cathedral (http://www.cbsfa.org/home0.aspx)  in the center of town which I came upon while looking for someplace to wash my car. As soon as I get situated at Sangre, I will send more news.  The day I arrived here was Labor Day and most things were closed.