Unveiling the Depth of Places
Proof of Concept in a Not So Foreign Land
A fascination with landscapes—whether urban or natural—extends beyond two-dimensional, aesthetic appreciation. Experiencing the land requires an understanding of the sociocultural forces embedded within. In New Mexico, a short drive reveals a captivating interplay of climate, geology, history, and human influence, with merger always more complex than first imagined.
This blend is why, of course, people are drawn here. In my case, I’ve learned how understanding what I see requires figurative travel back hundreds, if not thousands, of years, and thinking differently about the concept of place.
The search for deeper connections abounds here, from artists and writers to minstrels of inner-directed wellness amid stunning views. Some may see commercial exploitation of landscapes and history; others may argue that modern land uses like retreat venues, lifestyle resorts, and high-end galleries are new gateways to a more profound understanding of the land.
On Saturday afternoon, I saw the inherent blends, overlaps, and layers represented by the images above, which have inspired so many who have written and created here. Books like Tony Hillerman’s The Spell of New Mexico (1984) come to mind, in which he assembled timeless observations of authors who heard calls that, in many cases, could not be completely reduced to words.
Hillerman championed the people-based stories of Oliver LaFarge about a range of inhabitants, from indigenous peoples to those imported by Sandia Labs and Los Alamos. He countered these anecdotes with the place-based perspective of poet Winfield Townley Scott: “The breadth of the land, its huge self and its huge sky, strike you like a blow.”
“I can only say that New Mexico seems to make me want to write,” concluded Hillerman.
For D.H. Lawrence, New Mexico held secrets older than the Greeks. He never felt religion till he came here.“Underneath is everything we don’t know and are afraid of knowing,” where one can “break through the shiny sterilized wrapping, and actually touch the country, and… never be the same again.”
Carl Jung, during his time in New Mexico, saw the virtue of abandoning European rationalism, and thinking from the heart. The Pueblos taught him that “knowledge does not enrich us; it removes us more and more from the mythic world in which we were once at home by right of birth.”
New Mexico still reveals the tension between those who wish to capitalize on the environment and those who want to immerse within it. Instagram vistas coexist with the deeper places described by Lawrence and Jung and continue to display a dynamic landscape of history, culture, commerce, and the enduring natural world.