by Jessica Rath
​
New Mexico’s only Demeter-certified Biodynamic® farm.
There’s a lot more to Abiquiú than Georgia O’Keeffe, once one looks a little closer. Not to detract from her fame and significance, but there are other topics of interest, and she would have been the first to agree. 

I learned about biodynamic farming and gardening when I lived in California in the 1980s and 90s. When I found out that there was a farm in Abiquiú that followed biodynamic guidelines and was actually certified by Demeter USA (a non-profit organization that upholds the required standards), I was curious: what motivated the owners to follow the biodynamic farming method? How did they end up in Abiquiú? I contacted Sarah and Peter Solmssen who kindly agreed to meet with me, answer my questions, and show me around the premises.

But first you may want to know: what in the world is Biodynamic® agriculture?
​
Biodynamics grew out of the work of Austrian scientist and philosopher Rudolf Steiner (1861 - 1925).  During the early twenties, a few European farmers began to worry about the decline in soils; the loss of fertility; the increase of pests, fungi, and insects. Crops could be grown in the same field for fewer and fewer years, the quality of seed-stock was rapidly declining, and there was an increase in animal disease. The application of mineral fertilizers only seemed to intensify the problems. In 1924, a group of farmers and gardeners, soil-scientists and agronomists approached Dr. Steiner who had achieved recognition as editor of Goethe’s scientific writings. The resulting eight lectures, given in Dornach/Switzerland from June 7th to June 16th, 1924, have since been published as The Agriculture Course and form the basis for the biodynamic method. 

The first group of farmers who practiced this new method called it “biodynamic”, based on the two Greek words “bios” (life) and “dynamis” (energy). This name was meant to refer to a working with the energies which create and maintain life. Since life and health of soil as well as plants depend on the interaction of matter and energies, more than just organic and inorganic chemicals need to be considered.

The ideal biodynamic farm is a self-contained, well-balanced ecosystem, with just the right number of animals to provide manure for fertility, and the animals, in turn, being fed by what the farm provides. The healthy and nutritionally balanced soil grows unstressed, nutritional plants, which in turn ensure the health of humans and animals. The vital forces of vegetable waste, manure, leaves, and food scraps are preserved and recycled through composting.
 
And now, after this necessary digression we’ll return to the Solmssens. Peter, who was a member of the Vorstand (the managing board) of Siemens AG in Munich as its General Counsel and the head of its businesses in North and South America, retired in 2013.   After having lived in Europe for ten years the question was  “Where should we go back to?”    Sarah suggested looking in New Mexico, because they both love the Santa Fe Opera and attended performances off and on for close to forty years.  Sarah, by the way, had retired from a career as a public finance lawyer at a large Philadelphia law firm to raise three children.

So, while Peter was still at work in Munich, Sarah came out here for a week, met with a realtor, and looked at everything within an hour’s drive from the Opera. They wanted to be able to bring their horses and they looked for privacy; for one week Sarah went everywhere – to Galisteo, Las Vegas, Pecos, Mora; even up to Coyote. This farm which was owned by Marsha Mason was the last place to look at. A monsoon broke while Sarah and the realtor were out in the bosque, with hail the size of golf balls!  They got stuck in an arroyo, some guy in a pickup truck had to rescue them, and it was quite the pandemonium. Cesár, the property manager, said they'll never be back, but Paula Narbutovskih who worked for Marsha Mason at the time said, no, she’ll be back – I see it in her eyes. So – Sarah emailed Peter who was at work in Munich, and said: this is it!  They bought the farm a few months later.
​
Sarah: ”And we’re still here – nearly ten years later! Still feels like we just arrived.”

They wanted to have a place for their horses. It was a farm already; Marsha had been growing herbs for her own line of cosmetics, Resting In the River. “We didn’t come here to farm, we wanted the space and privacy,” Sarah explained.  “But since then we have become smitten! Also, Cesár had been working the farm for close to ten years. He is so invested, it’s his land too, and we love the fact that the farm supports four local families.”
​
Peter added: “When we came we found that in addition to what Marsha needed for her cosmetics, some herbs were being sold to a company in Albuquerque for medicinal supplements. I was very suspicious about this ‘herbal stuff’, I felt it’s not scientific, it’s unregulated, it’s dangerous. But we learned a lot from our customer Mitch in Albuquerque who makes tinctures, pills, and herbal remedies.  There’s a lot of good science behind what he sells and what he says about efficacy.  The more I learned the more I became convinced of the benefits, so we grew more.”

Sarah added that they also grow hay for the farm’s consumption, following the ideal of biodynamics: they’re planning to be self-sufficient this year and won’t  need to buy any hay for the horses.

I was thrilled to learn that most of Sarah and Peter’s horses are rescues. Sarah told me about Sierra, a little black quarter horse: “ When the horses come from kill pens, they’re sick, starved, and terrified. Frequently they’re very badly injured. I spent months nursing Sierra back to health.  Once she was healthy again, I thought: this horse probably needs a job. We have a very good friend who does equine body work and she knows a woman in Tesuque who does horse-centered therapy for people; she runs a company called Equus. That’s where Sierra is now.  A New York Times reporter heard about Equus, wrote an article about it, and my beautiful horse Sierra was featured in many photos: Can We Learn Anything from Horses.”

They have six horses, five are on the premises right now. They also have two rescued donkeys, Romulus and Remus. And they have peacocks; after they got two from a neighbor, they sort of exploded, and now there are quite a few. They’re considered wild birds! It’s best not to feed them, or they will stay with you… and peck your car or truck. The males are very vain, they like to look at themselves in the shiny parts of a van or truck, and they peck on it.

Peter explained that the  horses play a significant role because of the manure, also the chickens and the  donkeys;  all contribute nutrition for composting.

The compost pile could be described as the heart of a biodynamic farm, and composting as a key activity. But there is more to it than just heaping a bunch of organic leftovers together and letting them rot at random. It is a rather scientific way of producing humus, which takes ideal setting, size, moisture content, ingredient combinations, temperature, and so on into consideration in order to gain the most beneficial microorganisms and the highest concentrations of usable nutrients in the finished product. Crucial to biodynamic composting is the addition of certain substances, called “preparations”,  to the finished pile. These contain  enzymes, traces of certain types of natural humus, extracts of certain plants and activate the humus-forming process and “digestion” of raw materials.

Most biodynamic farmers don’t make their own preparations, and Abiquiu Valley Farm gets them from the Josephine Porter Institute for Applied Biodynamics. The farm manager, Cesár Barrionuevo, is a graduate from some courses that they offer, and is a real expert.  On the day before my visit the farm was audited for organic and Biodynamic compliance and passed with flying colors.

Sarah explained that they do import one thing, namely the bedding that they use for the animals: organic barley straw from Colorado. They bring it down but it is organic, certified, and then goes into the compost.

Peter took me on a tour: we walked the circuit of the farm, starting with the poop in the stable. Every morning it has to be cleaned out, and the stuff  becomes compost. Next, we looked at the greenhouse, which is empty right now but earlier had 60,000 seedlings which were transplanted into the fields. They grow orchard grass and alfalfa for horse feed, and a variety of medicinal herbs: St. John’s Wort, Ashwagandha, Echinacea, and others. Steiner/biodynamic method at work! 

“One of the systemic problems with herbal remedies is that a lot of the stuff on the shelves of pharmacies isn’t what it says it is. Or it has the wrong dosage, which can be dangerous. That’s because there’s no regulation, no testing,” explained Peter.  “Our biggest customer, VitalityWorks, takes both labeling and manufacturing processes very seriously.”
​
“Mitch [the CEO of VitalityWorks]  has a QA [Quality Assurance] lab that looks like an FDA-compliant facility!” Sarah added. “So, we were convinced that the tinctures and herbal remedies he sells are ethical and safe.”

A biodynamic farm (or, on a smaller scale, a  garden) becomes a teacher, where the observation of nature’s cycles, the connection with the living soil, and thoughtful planting and planning can have a transformative influence on the practitioner. While some organic farmers pursue a similar ideal and others do not, this is an essential and elemental goal of the biodynamic method.  It will not only result in improved soil and thus healthier vegetables, but also in a deepened awareness of our connection with all living beings, and indeed with the cosmos.
​
Biodynamic farming restores fertility, sequesters carbon and regenerates insect, plant and animal life. Each farm  is a living farm organism, with its own individuality, and guarantees biodiversity through good practices like polycultures, crop rotations, virgin forests, long-term grassland, water bodies, insect and bird shelter, and wildlife protection. At least 10% of the farmland is left wild or dedicated to biodiversity. Chemical pesticides and herbicides are prohibited. 

The whole area certainly benefits from Sarah and Peter’s endeavors. Most of the electricity is derived from solar panels which can turn with the sun. The black fences are made from recycled plastic water bottles. And all the rescued animals have the best time of their lives and will be loved and cared for until their last breath. I’m so grateful to Sarah and Peter Solmssen for showing me around their special place, when a farmer’s time is at a premium. May you have a bountiful harvest this year! 

By Zach Hively
Fool's Gold

Injustice plagues us. So very, very many injustices. A man can feel overwhelmed by the great variety and scope of injustice out there. Partly this is because, being a man, he is unfamiliar with experiencing any injustice more severe than a bad umpiring call. Mostly it is because he can do very little to fix all the injustice, and he would much rather fix the injustice than think about it. Unfixed injustice makes him uncomfortable.

If you sympathize with this man, he’d rather not talk about it. Feelings make him uncomfortable too. But I—I would recommend identifying one single injustice you CAN fix. Preferably a personal injustice. Taking direct action against it will do wonders for your self-esteem, much more than wanting to fix the whole world but ending up falling asleep on the couch.

My chosen injustice is this family I see in town with an impeccably trained border collie, the kind who locks eyes on its human and reads their minds and can go into public places without stealing someone’s french fries or attempting to play tug-of-war with their forearms.

I love my dogs very much, and I almost never forget to walk them or feed them. They are Very Good Dogs. But when I watch this border collie, I suddenly and deeply appreciate those old “My kid can beat up your honor student” bumper stickers.

You adolescent Einsteins would be safe with my older fella, Hawkeye, who has never beaten up anything tougher than a tree branch. If your kids are smart enough to throw a tennis ball,

Hawkeye will be their friend. He has border collie-like focus on anything thrown. He also has no desire to interact with strangers outside of this throwing-things arrangement, which means he and I understand each other.

My younger dog, Ryzhik, on the other hand—he really COULD beat up your honor student. He would not do so out of academic inferiority. He would, however, do so out of sheer and boisterous friendliness, and a strong misconception about his own body mass.

I am fairly helpless to prevent this ballistic playfulness; Ryzhik knows all his basic commands, but he knows them best in two languages I don’t speak: Russian, and English with a Russian accent. You see, his foster dad was from Russia.

“I have been teaching him in English too, so that he is learning how to listen to you,” his foster dad explained to me. “Also, we have not been calling him by his name. We have been calling him Ryzhik. Is a cute nickname. You pronounce it well. But you are not needing to follow his name with saying ‘and squirrel.’”

I have now spent the better part of two years perfecting my terrible Russian accent, the better to communicate with my dog. This does not help matters when Ryzhik is joyously beating up a schoolchild, though, or a grandma out for a walk—honor roll or not.

So: to mend the sense of injustice I experience when I see the border collie intensely NOT gumming the skin off some elderly pedestrian, I took Ryzhik to a professional dog trainer.
I anticipated learning some insightful hacks to create more effective two-way communication with my dog, which I could then use to tell him to sit down and get over here and drop that old lady RIGHT NOW YOUNG MAN and other useful things. Ryzhik is indeed very smart; I just needed him to learn to listen to me through my thick American accent, thus becoming not only a Very Good Boy but an immaculately well-behaved one too. Let him become someone else’s injustice—let them envy me and my dogs!

Little did I know I would be the one getting trained.

First up, I learned that I most definitely was not using enough treats in my daily life routine. I thought that a command well executed was its own reward, plus massive amounts of praise and physical affection. Nope! Turns out that I, like my dogs, need more than that. What my dogs want most are pellets of salmon and peanut butter the size of your typical pencil eraser. These are how I let my dogs know they are safe and loved. And after a successful training session, I give myself pieces of chocolate. This is how I know I am safe and loved.

Second up, I learned that there was far more to my early childhood education than I ever suspected. One of my earliest school memories is showing up one day and being expected to conduct long division. But did you know I had multiple years of schooling leading up to that triumph? I did not! It must be true, though, because dog education is founded on the same principles.
​
Whatever early schooling Ryzhik had, we’re starting fresh. Which is fine by Hawkeye—he gets treats simply for hanging out with us. He really likes training. As for fixing injustice? The biggest injustice is how little I’ve worked with Ryzhik up til now. But that’s all changing, and I will keep you posted on our progress. Just as soon as I get my arm back.

Jessica Rath
​
For horses, donkeys, dogs, cats, and one pot-bellied pig!

And, I almost forgot:  two resident mice who live happily in a spacious terrarium.
When I found out that there is an animal rescue organization in our area, I was excited because I love animals. And when I heard that their location was not far from where I live, I just had to learn more about it! The owners, Tina and Mike Kleckner, graciously agreed to meet with me, show me around, and let me take photographs. It was so heart-warming to get to know these two people who dedicate their lives to rescuing neglected, abandoned, threatened  animals and to witness the deep, genuine love they give to their charges.
 
They had no plans to take in animals when they bought their property in Youngsville. It sort of just happened – and the way they grew and changed with each new rescue is truly remarkable. It all started with one horse, Arrow. A good friend of Tina and Mike’s, Bridget McCombe from the Abiquiu Inn,  had been   rescuing horses from Oklahoma kill lots.  Horse slaughter is outlawed in the United States,  and any horse no longer useful to its owners will be sold or auctioned off at kill lots. From there, they’re sent to be slaughtered in Mexico. The  transportation is inhumane and horrible. So, when Bridget had brought a truckload of horses back to Abuquiú and asked Tina and Mike whether they’d be willing to take one, they brought Arrow home.  He was a thoroughbred off-track horse  on his way to the slaughterhouse. Only three years old, he had won some 23 races, but because he was too young when they started racing him he developed a little bone spur, was deemed useless for making more money, and was sent off to slaughter. He changed the Kleckners’ lives,  when they realized how much they could do for horse rescue. 

They acquired some more horses, but then, Mike told me, he really wanted a donkey. And a pig. When Tina came home from a weekend visit with her mother in Kansas, she was greeted with a loud HEE-HAW and first thought that their horse Belle had gotten ill with bronchitis! But no, this was Josephine. And soon after, they got another donkey, Wyatt. And quite recently they added Shoni, a donkey who had lost her siblings to sand colic – a serious gastrointestinal ailment which develops when the animal grazes on a sandy pasture. Since donkeys are very social creatures, the former owner felt that Shoni would be lonely all by herself, and so she joined Josephine and Wyatt. 

And the pig – I was curious, how did they end up with a pig?

Tina explained: “ We’re now licensed by the State of New Mexico  Livestock  Board. We’re one of twelve licensed rescues in NM. When we get a call about an injured or hurt animal,  we call the State of NM, and they will legally pick them up. They house them on their site for five days, and if nobody comes forth to say they are theirs, then we can legally adopt the animal.

The State of NM called us a couple of months ago and said they had a pot-bellied pig that somebody had alerted them about  over in Velarde. He was  living in the wild, somebody must have dumped him, and his ears had recently been removed.”

Mike added: “One ear was clearly cut off. The other ear was mangled, and dangled off his head.”

Tina continued: “So, they asked,  ‘Can you take the pig’? Pot-bellied pigs are considered pets, not livestock, so they couldn't take the pig, but  they could  pick it up and bring it to us, if we would  be willing to give it a chance.  We said, sure, bring him out. We knew nothing about pot-bellied pigs, but we knew nothing about horses either when we started, and we learned everything. So, they brought the pig, and we wondered, could it have been a coyote who bit off his ears, or a dog?  But we noticed his reaction to human beings. He snapped at us like an alligator, he was mad at the humans, but he liked the dogs. Then we read up about earless pigs, and there were other cases where humans cut off their ears – to train their dogs for wild boar hunt.  They use the pig with a bloody ear as bait. It took him a couple of weeks before he finally stopped snapping at us, and now he’s like a dog, he trusts us, but we had to earn his trust.”

He probably can’t hear much because of the scar tissues around his ears, but all his wounds have healed really well. He wags his tail, and he loves everybody.  “He gets along with the horses and the donkeys, and the dogs, and the humans. He’s part of the family”, Mike adds. “Pigs are so intelligent, I was trying to feed him, I had some older bananas cut up on a dish. I tried to put it down over the fence, and he figured out how to get the banana out of the dish which wasn’t easy for him to do because his mouth just doesn’t work that way.  He turned the page about a week ago. He’s a totally different pig now. Before, when we had food, we had to be afraid he’d snap at us, but now he’s fine.”

And what’s his name, I asked?

Mike chuckled.  “We didn’t know whether he was a boy or a girl. It’s hard to tell with a pig. We thought she was a girl and named her Piggy Sue, but then we found out he’s a boy. So Tina wanted to call him Sue anyway, because Johnny Cash wrote a song about “A Boy Named Sue''! Then somebody said, call him Sumo, so that’s what I like, and I call him Sumo.”
​
But for Tina,  his name is Piggy Sue. “If you listen to the words of the song, it’s just like our pig, because he snapped at us like an alligator. In the song, the parents called him Sue to make him stronger; he lost his ear in a bar fight, and he snapped at some guy like an alligator! This is too weird! So he’s got to be a Boy named Sue!”

 Mike said  that they have a total of 26 animals that we’re feeding. Seven horses, three donkeys, six dogs, seven cats, and two mice! Another story!

They have some barn cats, and they noticed that they were playing with something on the ground. Something tiny – the size of a thumb – no eyes – rolled up into a little ball. Mike exclaimed, it’s a baby mouse! No hair! He started stroking its chest, and soon he noticed that it’s breathing! He took it inside, researched what to do next, and learned: where there’s one there’s more. Sure enough, when  he went back out he found  another one. Mike got a tiny paint brush and some baby formula, and he set the alarm, and every four hours he would feed these two little mice. Nine days later, they opened their eyes. They probably were only a day old when he found them.

They could never survive in the wild, once they’re used to being fed. Both Tina and Mike became quite attached to them. At a Holiday gathering  they  had a line of people waiting to go into the bathroom to see the two little mice (who live in a large terrarium) and to hold them because they are so cute. But if they had a male and a female, they’d multiply…. They called their equine vet who’s used to work on 1000-LB animals, and asked whether he  could castrate the boy. “The vet thought we were nuts”, Mike laughs. “Finally somebody told us to wait another six weeks. If you have a male and female, you’ll have babies. But if you don’t, then you know you’ve got two females. And we never had babies.”.​

I was curious: “Did you already have this ranch when you took in the first horse?”

Mike explained that they had  the house, but nothing else. They went to Big R in Santa Fe, bought some horse panels, and built a round pen. Then they built the paddock where the horses spend most of their time.  Then they fenced in some pasture land, then they built some walk-ins, so the animals could get out of the wind and the sun, and then they built a barn. It was a process, because there was absolutely nothing for horses here. They bought some water buckets and some horse panels and built the round pen – that’s how it started. When I looked around outside, at the two big barns, the different paddocks, and the feeding stations with lots of hay, I was duly impressed. What a labor of love!

Tina agrees. “ We had the heart and the passion, the willpower to do so, but it was a lot!”  Mike adds  that they started in 2018, so everything one can see has been accomplished in the last five/six years. It’s been a journey!

Mike and Tina have so many stories about all their rescued animals, one could write a book. Here is another one, the story of Marshall, a German shepherd mix. They had a chihuahua when they first moved out here, and the poor creature was killed by a coyote – right in front of Tina’s eyes. So, they decided they needed a big dog. 

​Two days later Tina found a totally emaciated dog right by the Youngsville post office, one could see  each of his rib bones. And he followed her home, two miles on a dirt road. When the dog saw  the rain barrel he just plopped right in it and started drinking. Then he took a big dump, and out came a ketchup package from McDonalds’ – he must have been scavenging for a while. He was so emaciated and had  mange all over. Tina and Mike  decided to clean him up and started feeding him – that’s how they got Marshall. He’s not a marshal but a marshmallow, Tina claims, but he does a good job chasing off the coyotes.

The Horseshoe Canyon Rescue Ranch is  limited to taking in only ten large animals. For other animals, Tina and Mike  try to find connections; for example,  the Christ in the Desert Monastery has two horses that they  arranged. “This is good, because Mike and I do this all by ourselves”, Tina adds. “We don’t have help. So, we don’t want to get so big that we can’t give each animal proper care. That’s our mission right now; we had a call yesterday about  nine wild mustangs in Colorado – would we take them? We can’t, but I connected them with somebody who can. We have a huge network now, the State helps us a lot with that too.”
“ This work comes with a lot of heartache. We had our first equine loss last week, Belle,  she probably was in her twenties. She was the first horse we directly purchased from the kill lot. That was tough. She’s in a great spot now, in the back, where we have a little cemetery.”

​Tina is clearly moved, but she has a wise strategy that helps with grief. “A friend told us, ‘this dog or horse taught you so much to love, and now in your heart you have room for another one.’  When we lose an animal, we make sure we fill that spot right away.”  Mike adds, “ When we lost a cat, we came back with two! Another one of our special needs, he’s blind in one eye, and only one ear! This is Rocky – from the Rocky-movie – and we got Adrienne, his girlfriend, both from the shelter.” 

With Marshall as guard dog and three donkeys (they keep coyotes away too), Mia, the chihuahua mix, can safely enjoy the sun. What a pleasure to know that all these animals who otherwise would be suffering or dead have such a safe, happy place for the rest of their lives. Thank you, Tina and Mike Kleckner!

~ Brian Bondy

​The world is an amazing place. It’s natural beauty, it’s glorious variety, it’s amazing opportunities for adventure. Sometimes though, nature plays ‘tricks’ on us. Hurricanes, earth quakes, volcanoes, sinkholes, etc. Yes, the world is a fascinating place.
 
If you’ve never been to Yellowstone National Park, then you are missing out on seeing some natural wonders that are very active and somewhat dangerous. Geysers, hot springs, mud pots. They are glorious. One thing though, they pretty much stay in one place.
 
There’s a mud spring in California that’s been moving about 20 feet a year, since 2016. So, like Melanie, ‘don’t go too fast, but it’s gone pretty far’. I paraphrase. This mud spring started in a farmer’s field in 1953. It wasn’t moving then, just appeared in a field and sat patiently, not causing any particular harm, for decades.
 
In 2016, the farmer noticed the mud spring had moved. In 2018, the spring was moving towards a railroad, so the railroad attempted to block it….unsuccessfully. So, while this all sounds like one of my April Fools jokes, it’s true, and there’s a great video on it, below.

​Watch the video and learn why they think the mud puddle started moving. The video comes from someone called Physicsgirl, on YouTube. She has other interesting videos as well.

Glenwood
 
Heading west from Socorro, in the center of the state, you reach the Catron County line about halfway across the vast plains of San Augustine. In the 1990’s, Catron County was called “The Toughest County in the West,” because of conflicts between ranchers, loggers, environmentalists, and the U.S. Forest Service over land use, spotted owls, and wolves. In 1993, The Catron County Commission passed an ordinance requiring every citizen to own a gun. It’s still on the books.
 
On this August day, the Plains of San Augustine are dressed in sunflowers, a gown of yellow extending to the Very Large Array, a line of giant radio-telescopes whose round faces also bend to the heavens, like alien sentries along the horizon.
 
The Village of Glenwood, population 57, In the southwestern corner of the county, is ranching country, and conservative, hard by the Arizona border to the west, and the vast Gila Wilderness to the east. Like Vallecitos, there are no grocery stores here. The elementary school is closed for lack of students, and the few remaining are bused to a school 30 minutes away.
 
Lynn Neidermayer is the Glenwood Community Library’s director and sole employee. She is exuberant, engaging, and an accomplished ceramic artist whose whimsical tile work, along with child and adult contributors, adorns the outside back wall of the library. Most everybody for miles around seems to know her and values her book-cased domain as a safe place--- a space that has helped to bridge this rural community’s political and environmental divide. She began that effort 12 years ago by starting a monthly book club.
 
This morning, Neidermayer is facilitating a lively discussion of The Chilbury Ladies' Choir by Jennifer Ryan, among, as she described them, six very diverse women. The only rules---you can talk about the book, your family, your vacation, or yourself, but not politics. “What I love,” Neidermayer says, “is bringing people together, the ranchers and the environmentalists who would normally be in two different worlds, opposing each other. I’m trying to make the library a place where both can meet and feel safe.”
 
Her next job was attending to a family of 4 teenagers, driven by their mom from Reserve, the county seat, an hour north. The kids are out-of-central-casting wholesome, engaging, and smart. They are also home-schooled, and this is their library. They each arrive with a big shopping bag for books, and leave with them stacked full, many recommended by Neidermayer, along with wise literary critiques.
 
The library’s collection is impressive, over 11,000 books, 3000 dvd’s, and 600 audio books, each extensively described and cataloged thanks to a volunteer, Mike Rose, a retired professor of anatomy who has taken special pride in developing the classics section. Neidermayer says the audio books are extremely popular because folks must drive so far to get supplies, to visit the doctor. And for people who can’t get out because of disabilities or lack of transportation, Lynn Neidermayer makes home visits. Today, she visits a woman who recently lost her husband, and a man who she describes as a bit of a hermit, bringing them books, dvds and just plain kindness.

Designed by Renowned Architect and Woodworker  George Nakashima

​~Jessica Rath

​If one wants to visit Christ in the Desert, the Benedictine monastery near Abiquiú, one has to drive north on US 84 past Ghost Ranch, and turn left on Forest Road 151. It’s a dirt road which becomes quite winding and steep at times, with towering sandstone walls on one side and deep chasms on the other. Signs warning of flash floods and falling boulders aren’t reassuring either. While I was driving along  the almost 15 miles for my meeting with Brother Chrysostom, Guestmaster at the monastery, it struck me that hardly anything had changed during the almost 60 years since the monastery was founded. The road was just as rugged, just as undeveloped now as it was around 1964. ​

This was definitely one of the reasons for choosing the location, as Brother Chrysostom later explained to me. The site of the monastery is surrounded by the Santa Fe National Forest, which would guarantee the silence and solitude required for the monastic life.
 
The monastery was  founded on June 24, 1964, the day of the  Feast of St. John the Baptist,  the patron saint of the Order of St. Benedict to which Christ in the Desert belongs. There was only a ranch house, nothing else was there. Father Aelred Wall had found the site, and became its first Prior. With very limited resources but lots of dedication, Father Aelred and a handful of fellow monks began to build a community which would eventually provide a home for around 18 monks, accommodate overnight guests, maintain a gift shop, AND offer solar-powered electricity!

The first building that went up was the chapel. Father Aelred turned to his personal friend George Nakashima, a Japanese American architect and furniture maker who had won numerous awards, for the design of the chapel. Because he knew that the monks had no money, Nakashima offered his services for free. Another benefactor was Georgia O’Keeffe; the Christ in the Desert Monastery website sports a lovely picture from the mid-1960s of Father Aelred, George Nakashima, and Georgia O’Keeffe

Brother Chrysostom provided me with lots of interesting details about Nakashima’s life. His parents immigrated to the United States, and he was born in Spokane, Washington, in 1905. He earned his Masters in Architecture from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1931 (incidentally, Brother Chrysostom is an alumni of MIT as well). After graduating, he spent a year in Paris, then went to Japan, and eventually to India. In Japan he had worked for the American architect Antonin Raymond. When Raymond’s company was commissioned to build Golconde, a dormitory for the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry,  Nakashima finished the project after Raymond returned to America.

All this happened years before he came to Christ in the Desert. He was a world-traveler, a seeker, trying to find out what his purpose was. Brother Chrysostom called him an amazing man who wanted to experience everything on a deep level.
​
When he was in Japan, Nakashima had met Marion Okajima, who would become his wife. They returned to the United States in the early 1940s when Nakashima became convinced that as a builder of furniture he could achieve his standards of design and craftsmanship. And then they were interned as Japanese Americans during WW2, George, Marion, and their young daughter Mira. At the relocation camp in Idaho he met a man trained in traditional Japanese carpentry who taught him the use of traditional Japanese hand tools and joinery techniques. 

In 1943, the architect Antonin Raymond who had become an honorary consul and had quite a bit of influence, vouched for Nakashima and his family and they were released from the internment camp. They moved to resettle in New Hope, Pennsylvania, where slowly George built his shop and home on several acres of hilly woodland. From there, Nakashima became entrenched in woodworking, and by 1949 he was established as a designer and builder of fine, handcrafted furniture. 

Father Aelred had  connections to many important and famous people, that’s how he happened to get George Nakashima involved with the design of the chapel. According to Brother Chrysostom, it is  arguably one of the tallest adobe structures in the world, because of the steeple! Nakashima designed it, and it was  built with the help of volunteers over a number of years. It was first used in 1968, and ever since.
​
Brother Chrysostom thinks that Nakashima probably was involved with the choosing of the site, the location where the church would sit, given the majestic view of the canyon behind it. “Thomas Merton once remarked on one of his two visits here that this church is probably the most monastic church in the U.S. the way it is situated, the architecture, everything”. That is high praise, indeed.

I asked whether he did any furniture for the church? “Yes indeed, he created some of the pews and seats in the original configuration. We no longer have those, we have other pews that were crafted in Mexico and brought up here. But our tables and chairs in the refectory are pure Nakashima. They’re very heavy and durable and probably last 600 years!” 

I had to ask Brother Chrysostom about his name: is it  Greek?

“Yes, I’m named after my Patron Saint, St. John Chrysostom of Antioch who was one of the early patriarchs in the church, I didn’t get the name because my secular name was John. Generally when we enter  the monastic life we get a completely changed name, that’s the whole purpose, your life has changed. Chrysostom was the name that I submitted, St. John Chrysostom was a doctor of the church, and what he was known for was his preaching. His name is actually an adjective, it means Golden Mouth. His name was John, and Chrysostom was an add-on. It’s a high standard to reach!” I think he can be very proud of that name!  

I’ll close with a quote by Nakashima about the concept of the buildings:
“Architecture and structure are not just abstract ideas; they must relate to the environment of the building and the materials available; in a sense a structure evolves from the materials used. I am at war with the usual architectural practice of starting with form; this is an egotistical concept for then you are left having to fit structure into form. Here, we are 25 miles from the next town and getting materials is a big task in itself. But we have adobe in the Canyon and we have vegas, so it’s natural to use them. The use of adobe affects the structure and appearance of a building. The walls have to be very thick, between three or four feet; the openings are therefore small and the form of the building is necessarily very different from most modern buildings with their large expanses of glass and curtain walls”.
Jubilee, September 1065.
 
Many thanks to Brother Chrysostom who kindly took the time to chat with me, and with gratitude to Mira Nakashima and David B. Long for providing me with a number of useful newspaper clippings!