The leaves are turning orange and gold, the nip of fall is in the air, and my thoughts turn to - Raspberries. At the end of September - or beginning of October - my friend and I plan our annual trip to the Salman Raspberry Ranch, in the fertile highlands of northeastern New Mexico.
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While birds from all over North America migrate south to New Mexico's Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, my husband and I and two friends sought refuge from the snow and cold of Santa Fe to bask in the 60-degree warmth of a calm and sunny Saturday in January. Although the powder on the slopes in the north was calling us, the mystique of wildlife had a stronger pull. We migrated south on I-25 at a civilized 10am, not in a V-shape but in our station wagon, with mountain bikes on the roof.
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A desert wetland; impossible, you say? Yet just outside of Santa Fe, one of the few remaining wetlands in New Mexico is there for public enjoyment. The Leonora Curtin Wetland Preserve is open every weekend from May to October, under the guidance of the Santa Fe Botanical Garden and its crew of dedicated docents. Walking paths meander throughout the preserve, on boardwalks and over bridges in the wetland, up and down the rolling dry areas, and over a wagon wheel depression that just might be a branch of the storied Camino Real which led from Mexico City to "La Villa Real de la Santa Fe de San Francisco d'Asís."
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Driving along the valley of the Rio Grande, lush with early summer green from winter run-off, reminded me that the simplest journeys rejuvenate.
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Zodwa Maphumulo practices izimbenge, a form of basket weaving using coiled telephone wire, in her native South Africa. Zenobia Paricela, a young Quechua woman from Peru's windswept Andes weaves narratives into her embroidered textiles. Agnes Papatit fashions brightly colored beads into art and everyday objects in her Maasai village in Kenya. And Rangina Hamidi, originally from Afghanistan, has established Afghans for Civil Society to share weaving techniques and ideas among the artists of Kandahar.
For the past six years, women like Zodwa, Agnes, Zenobia and Rangina have traveled continents to participate in the Santa Fe International Folk Art Market. They are just a few of the women - and men - whose lives, families and communities have been transformed through their art.
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The final leg of the drive to the Kasha-Katuwe National Monument, over a dusty, washboard access road, seems interminable. But the reward is astonishing.
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Who can remember which of our group of dedicated hiking friends had the original idea of making the Good Friday pilgrimage to El Santuario de Chimayó north of Santa Fe, New Mexico, a tiny 200-year-old chapel believed to have been built on sacred earth, rife with healing powers? We always have plenty of company. No matter the weather or Easter's roaming date, each year thousands of pilgrims take to the rural lanes that snake through the hilly, eroded, Northern New Mexico landscape.
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