Only In Santa Fe

A transplanted Californian and columnist for "The Santa Fe New Mexican" shares stories she's coaxed out of the local people, revealing the culture, history, and charm of the unique Southwestern city. (U.S. History)

ART CAPITAL, TOURIST DESTINATION, MODERN ADOBE CITY-SANTA FE, NEW MEXICO, NOW MAY ALSO BE ONE OF AMERICA'S MOST IMPORTANT SACRED SITES. Santa Fe, the City Different, has deeply excited visitors for over a hundred years with its crystal blue skies, Blood of Christ mountains, pure dry air, old adobe charm, and beautiful light. But this high-desert State capital and artists' haven may also be a Land of Light-a premier landscape of multiple sacred sites and heightened spiritual charge. People love this place, they say, for its uplifting, spiritually leavening effect, for how it starts a process of transformation, healing, deep change, and self-reinvention. People revere this place as an axis of creativity, a hotbed of innovation, and a paramount center for recreating culture and spirituality capable of inspiring the world. Santa Fe Light explains why. An able travel guide, it takes you to 111 different locations and their Light temples in and around Santa Fe, numinous places usually only encountered in myths or dreams. And it proposes that the observed social qualities of Santa Fe, its livability, might be due to this fabulous visionary geography alluringly just beyond the veil of our ordinary perception. Richard Leviton, an investigator of visionary terrains for over 25 years, provides firsthand accounts of what it's like inside all these Light temples, what it's possible to see and experience, and how they co-create Santa Fe reality. The total impact of these on awareness and the feeling for life here he calls Santa Fe Light. Touch one Light temple and you open a door into the universe, and you suddenly find immediately practical ways to help the campaign with Gaia to restore the Earth.

Cartoonist Ricardo Caté describes Indian humor as the result of “us living in a dominant culture, and the funny part is that we so often fall short of fitting in.” His cartoon column, Without Reservations, is a popular daily dose in the Santa Fe New Mexican. Actor Wes Studi says, “Caté’s cartoons serve to remind us there is always a different point of view, or laughing at every day scenes of home life where Indian kids act just like their brethren of different races. Without Reservations is always thought-provoking whether it makes you laugh, smirk, or just enjoy the diversity of thought to be found in Indian Country.”

For the first two centuries of Santa Fe's history, weary wayfarers were out of luck. Not only did the Spanish authorities enforce a strict travel ban on foreign visitors, but there was also no place to stay in the territorial capital. That all changed in the 1820s. When Mexico gained independence, a flood of traffic cascaded down the Santa Fe Trail, and the Plaza became a hub of hospitality and trade. From the Exchange Hotel to La Fonda, the inn on the corner of San Francisco Street represented one of the most welcome landmarks in the West. Author Allen Steele recounts stories of trailblazing pioneers and the lodging on which their daring depended.

Reproduction of the original: Santa Fe ́s Partner by Thomas A. Janvier

Santa Fe boasts an incredibly rich multicultural history, and the gorgeous Pueblo architecture conceals a chilling past. Indian spirits haunt the city and the nearby Sangre de Cristo Mountain range. La Llorona, the Wailing Woman, cries along the banks of the Santa Fe River. The unnerving ghost of Julia Staab wanders endlessly through the hallways of the La Posada Hotel. And strange noises and unexplained movements stir in the PERA Building basement. Join local historian and author Ray John de Aragón for a frightening journey into the unknown and the forbidden world of phantasms and the beyond.

This remarkable book unfolds a detailed and thoughtful history beginning in 1598 and continuing through 1924. Chapters are devoted to events preceding the founding of the city; the Pueblo Revolution; the reconquest of the city by General Diego de Vargas; its 25 years as a Mexican provincial capital; the city during the military occupation period; and stories about Billy the Kid, Gov. Samuel B. Axtell, and the Santa Fe Ring.

Insiders' Guide to Santa Fe is the essential source for in-depth travel and relocation information to this beautiful New Mexico city. Written by a local (and true insider), it offers a personal and practical perspective of Sante Fe and its surrounding environs.