High Desert Healing in Taos
“WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME you had a massage?” AnnaMarie Vaughan asks. I am face down on the table in the attic of her cozy cabin just north of Taos. Afternoon light hits crystal suncatchers and throws…
Read More
Tag: Traditions
The Persistence of Memory
THE FIRST SUNRISE OF 2025 has yet to warm the buttresses of San Francisco de Asís church in Ranchos de Taos. Several dozen people shiver in its front courtyard. A few wear a hodgepodge of ceremonial…
Read More
Prickly Pear’s Comeback
THE LATE-SUMMER BATTLE FOR prickly pears in my Albuquerque backyard is fierce. The purple fruits, perched like crowns atop spiny cactus pads, are icons of Southwestern landscapes and cuisine and a key…
Read More
La Nueva Resolana
IN 2001, New Mexico Magazine published my article “La Nueva Resolana: Norteños Find Respite in New Gathering Places.” In the manito traditions of northern New Mexico, resolana is synonymous with…
Read More
What We're Reading: New Mexico Fiestas
THE LONGEST-RUNNING FESTIVAL in the United States takes over the Santa Fe Plaza September 2–10. In New Mexico Fiestas: A History of Music, Dance & Fandango (The History Press), historian Ray John de…
Read More
Why We Love NM: Our Art Tells Sacred Stories
THE ART OF THE SANTERO, or maker of saintly images, is believed to have begun around 1760 in colonial New Mexico. Franciscan priests, charged with the task of establishing Christianity on the…
Read More
Celebrating Traditions at Acoma Pueblo
THE 2,000 LUMINARIAS, set and lit by hand, line the road up the mesa to Acoma Pueblo’s 370-foot-high Sky City. Inside the 1629 San Esteban del Rey Mission Church, tribal dancers pound their feet onto…
Read More
Christmas Old And New
Above: Albuquerque’s Twinkle Light Parade illuminates the streets of the Nob Hill neighborhood. Photograph by ZUMA Press Inc./Alamy. THE FAMILY CALENDAR HUNG IN THE KITCHEN of our downtown Albuquerque…
Read More
Where Ancient Ways Abide
Above: Sky City towers over Acoma's rugged landscape. Photographs by Gabriella Marks. MARISSA CHINO, OUR TOUR GUIDE, spots me lagging behind the group and urges me to join everyone else at the sheer…
Read More
Sacred Rites
A LONG TIME AGO, this happened at sunrise, each girl sprinting toward the new day. Years pass. Traditions change. Fourth of July heat already shimmers off the tallest pines of the Sacramentos, in…
Read More