The Grandeur of the Rio Grande

      I could see there were two distinct types at the mesa; probably were many more; as many types as there were individuals; but I noted that the typical parking lot winos had a concept of free-love, free-land and communal living that more resembled the crash-pad mentality I found in Los Angeles and San Francisco. While those who were what I will call “the founders” for only the purpose of clarity, differed in several ways. They were the builders; the workers; the people who made things work: the women had babies and the babies had needs. The mothers were good mothers and the children were, by and large, very good children. It wasn’t possible to do all of this as well as they did and stay stoned at all times. Standing around waiting for a turn at the grain-grinder we talked and shared what was going on. The simplicity and natural beauty of it was what I needed. Clothing was at all times optional. Women walked bare breasted and children ran naked. Men stood at the doorways smoking a chillum naked as we chatted. It was as natural as anything I’ve ever experience before or since. There was also an attitude towards drugs that was at times sacramental. Peyote, mushrooms, psilocybin, mescaline and LSD were respected as vehicles used to take them to a better awareness while the winos basically just wanted to get stoned. No one seemed to hold their noses up at it but there was this difference and I don’t believe that alcoholism and drug addiction was well understood at that time. There were those who could have wine and not become winos and these were those who were able to use drugs without becoming addicts.

      Solitude in the A-frame gave me plenty of time for reflection and reading. The Aquarian Gospels of Saint Thomas was standard reading on the mesa. Trivial books like a biography of W.C. Fields made for good laughter. Another biography of Tesla inspired some interesting introspection and awe for the gift that guy had tapped into. I even read the Bible and some other stuff like the Bhagavad-Gita the Krishnas gave away so freely. I was definitely looking for something… I didn’t know what.

      However good it was, I was then, and still now, an alcoholic; it was a constant struggle not to drink. The psychedelics were at first a consciousness raising that gave me temporary relief from the bottle. They were what kept me from going full bore into alcoholism and I never became addicted to those types of consciousness raising drugs. At the time I was at Morningstar I tried to stay away but drifted towards the parking lot with the winos. I wanted very badly to be a part of the commune… a working part of Morningstar. I felt that I had missed the boat, however, and as I drank, I gradually saw that I wasn’t yet made of the stuff it took to stay there.

      Someone was always at the parking lot fire-pit. It was between the goat pasture and the pueblo and kiva. I know that it isn’t much of an excuse but I gravitated towards that damned fire-pit and jug. I know now that one taste of wine would have compelled me to walk miles out of my way for another. Before long I was spending more time with the winos than the pueblo and became, albeit part/time, one of the guys sitting at the parking lot, panhandling new arrivals and hippy tourists for spare change towards a jug.

      Wine might be good for some people but for people like me wine sinks me into a cynical outlook about everyone and everything: a lower spirit level after a time. Thankfully, there was enough positive energy about the people and place to distract me from the jug most of the time. Exploring the mountains and hikes down to the Rio Grande for several hours soaking at the hot springs called Stage Coach was a powerful experience and one that was arduous enough to make carrying a jug too difficult to take along. Someone always managed to have a bag of weed, a couple of extra hits of acid or something to enhance the day. The Stage Coach springs were inside the ruins of a stone structure built years before… I don’t know how long ago but it looked old… old enough for a stage coach stop at any rate. The hike down the Rio Hondo to the Rio Grande and a trail that went through boulders (sometimes boulder hopping) alongside of it surrounded my senses with awe: the need for alcohol faded away on that trail hiking by that sacred river.

      Another hot springs down a dirt track into the chaparral out beyond Rancho De Taos was good too. The hot springs were originally made for a spa back in the thirties or twenties. The water was trapped into three levels of concrete pools. The smallest at the top, the size of a considerably large hot tub, was the hottest: a dozen people could sit in it comfortably. An outlet from it dropped down a few feet into a larger pool in which one could cool off but still hot enough to stay comfortably warm in mid-winter. That one too let out into an Olympic size pool that you could to cool off in but it was only as mildly warm enough to swim in but not warm enough for soaking.

      At the time I had gone to the one near Rancho de Taos it was in mid-winter and no one was hanging out there. I heard later that a group of questionable characters discovered they could survive in those ruins by hitting-up the fairly regular stream of folks who came to enjoy the pools. I heard stories of some violence that took place but I don’t recall any details now. I stuck to the smaller spring by the Rio Grande. It was magical and closer by. It was the one from the Easy Rider movie I was told. I’d seen that movie when I first got out of the Navy and its message was clear to me: there is more to this business than just staying high.