ALTERNATIVE DOCTOR, LLC

Old Friends from Far Away

Dr. Lloyd May

January 15, 2006

I am sitting in the solarium at the Mabel Dodge Luhan House in Taos, New Mexico, on Thursday, January 12^th, 2006.   The full moon shines through the windows, and Taos Mountain rises to its side.  I am attending a course taught by Natalie Goldberg entitled “Old Friends from Far Away,” taught by Ms Goldberg (www.nataliegoldberg.com)

Natalie Goldberg pioneered Zen writing in Writing Down the Bones in 1989, and periodically she has seminars elucidating her methods.  This course also provided a forum to debut her first documentary film, Tangled up in Bob, which is a film about

 Bob Dylan’s early life.  The film was shown to its first audience Wednesday night, January 11^th, 2006.  The producer of the film is Mary Feidt www.feidofilms.com.

The Mabel Dodge Luhan House (www.mabeldodgeluhan.com) is a Historic Inn and Conference Center located in Taos, New Mexico.  It has been a center for alternateducation for years.  The house is a retreat-style facility with no televisions or phones in the rooms.  The main house has a kitchen with tiled floors, a large gas stove, and an old wooden table.  The dining room is patterned after an Italian villa, with an iron chandelier, silver wall sconces, and with the ceiling of latillas (slats) painted black, red, and white to resemble a Navajo rug.

The Big Room features vigas (beams) topped with latillas topped with straw and mud.  Looking out the east window is the Taos Pueblo, and the white cross painted by Georgia O’Keefe when she stayed here. 

Outside the building is typical adobe except the third floor, where I am sitting, and the second floor bathroom, which has clear panes of glass, painted in 1929 by D H Lawrence when he stayed here.

The dry ditch in front is lined with massive cottonwood trees.  In summer, water usually flows from the mountains through this ditch (Acequia Madre), and waters the Taos valley below. 

Mabel Dodge moved here from New York in the early 1900’s.  While in New York, she entertained many artists at her salon, including Alfred Stieglitz, Margaret Sanger, and John Reed.  In 1991, this house was listed as a national historic landmark.  It is highly unusual in the variety of artists and creative people who have visited or stayed here over the past ninety years.  Some of these artists include the following:  Mary Austin, Myron Brinig, Witter Bynner, Willa Cather, Harvey Ferguson, Aldous Huxley, Spud Johnson, D H Lawrence, Oliver La Farge, Jean Toomer, Frank Waters; others included Ansel Adams, Dorothy Brett, Andrew Dasburg, Mariam DeWitt, Maynard Dixon, Nicolai Fechin, Laura Gilpin, Marsden Hartley, Ernest Knee, Ward Lockwood, John Marin, Georgia O’Keefe, Agnes Pelton, Ida Rauh, Arnold Ronnebeck, Maurice Stern, Paul Strand, Rebecca Strand, Cady Wells, Edward Weston.  Also included are Carlos Chavez, Dane Rudhyar, Leopold Stokowski; Robert Edmond Jones, and Martha Graham.  Finally, John collier, Carl Jung, Jaime de Angulo, Elsie Clews Parsons, and Ella Young were here as well.  This is well summarized in the book Utopian Vistas by Lois Rudnick, who states “ many who came to the Luhan house were at a critical point in their lives…for them the house functioned as a life crisis center…because several visitors stayed simultaneously with the Luhans, the opportunities were…enormously rich.”   The same holds true today with the Goldberg seminars.

During the 1970’s Dennis Hopper owned the house, and was visited by Bob Dylan and Alan Watts, as well as others.

The course had about fifty attendees, mostly from the West Coast, and the Southwest, with a smattering of Northeastern attendees.  The books studied were Chronicles Vol I by Bob Dylan, Truth and Beauty by Ann Padgett, and The Great Failure, by Natalie Goldberg.

Natalie Goldberg taught again her writing mantra:  “Keep your hand moving, pay attention to original detail, write from first mind.”  She has been teaching writing courses here at least since 1989, and she is an integral part of Mabel Dodge today.  Her paintings line the walls, her books fill the gift store.  There was daily meditation, periods of silence for several mornings.  Our society is so noisy, that the few minutes of silence felt like being on another distant alien planet-no empty chatter filled the space-no cell phones ceaselessly ringing with their obnoxious tunes-no noise.  Only the sound of breathing and writing.  Before each writing practice, and before each lecture and discussion, there was a brief meditation.  We were taught to listen without judgment; to really listen with attention, not with thoughts on our tongues.  Also, the practice of slow walking, sort of a walking meditation, was introduced. 

I arrived early on Sunday, and awakened Monday morning to a blanket of snow, the first snowfall of the season at Taos.  The snowfall made the scenery breathtaking, and beautiful, especially with the mountains in the background.  The weather this week was bitterly cold, with biting wind, and icy steps.  This contrasted with the warmth of the group and the beauty of the teacher, which led to an inspirational atmosphere.  Inside, ancient fireplaces crackled with pinon tree fires, and writers huddled to stay warm.  The stucture of the course was a large group meeting as the focus, with small groups of five or six persons who met about two hours a day to write and read together.  Over the week, a community was formed, a community of fifty persons dedicated to writing.  The depth of writing increased exponentially with each passing day, due to a combination of silence, meditation, listening, small group intensity, large group discussion, stark Taos beauty, vegetarian food, coffee, music (we were introduced to the Iowa singer Greg Brown), and most importantly, the leadership of the enigmatic and charismatic Natalie Goldberg, who intoned “do not waste your time and your life…”  The last evening we slow walked to the Cross on the Pueblo, a slow dramatic meditative walk that culminated with the sun falling from the sky, the Taos mountains rising up in the distance with Blue Lake in the foreground, and the Full Moon majestically rising at the Moment we stopped at the Foot of the Cross….we placed pebbles at the base of the Cross…and slowly returned….

There were two other places I visited while there.  The first was Tazzo’s Coffee Shop, now owned by Vanessa Rooy.  I did not visit the famous Lawrence  tree this time, although I saw it the last time there…I did revisit Taos Pueblo, the oldest continuously inhabited place in the United States (over 1500 years).  It is also the first Living World Heritage Site.  There are approximately 820 sites in the world today.  See www.taospueblo.com and www.world-heritage-tour.org  for photos.

The pueblo is divided into North and South by an icy stream.  The pueblo is the place of the Red Willows.  “We have lived up on the land days beyond history’s memory…” states the Tribal Manifesto.  The natural philosophy of sustainable living community has much wisdom to offer to Modern Man today…”If you drink from the river every day, you will not pollute it; if you have to cut your own wood from the forest to heat your home, you will take care of the forest….”