Placitas and Sandia Mountain— Sanctuary for the Human Spirit
According to legend, and before time, the Pueblo Indians lived protected and confined in darkness with only an occasional ray of light. Their world changed, however, when a young woman with a restless soul, called Changing Woman, was impregnated by a ray of light. She was pushed out of the darkness and forced to climb the mesas and hills to find those that could accept her. Her lonely journey ended when she met Spider Woman on the summit of the Sandia Mountains. Spider woman became godmother to Changing Woman’s children, the Twin Warrior Gods, who were born on Sandia Mountain. She and their father the sun taught them the skills they needed to rid the outer universe of its dangers. The Warrior Gods had the rainbow as their bow and lightning was their arrows. The feats of the Twin Heroes enabled the Indians to leave their dark world for the warmth and light of the outer world. The gods continue their vigilance from the mountain tops, and Sandia Mountain remains the home of gods.
Sandia Mountain has made life possible here from the time when the first hunters came through Las Huertas canyon to the present as globe-hopping professionals, retirees, doctors, lawyers, professors, business people, and writers and, especially, artists of all kinds find Placitas a very attractive place to live. The climate, the sunshine, the sunsets, the horizontals and verticals of the landscape, the light (emphasizing contours or erasing them into flat silhouettes) enhance a certain mood or feeling— “the land of enchantment,” as we say. Being considerably less romantic, I might say this enchantment emanates from an enormous block of limestone covered granite rising 5000 feet above the Rio Grande (and thus 10,678 feet above sea level) which is eroded and fractured into dramatic cliffs, pinnacles and canyons. It both makes and affects our weather. It blocks the polar air from the eastern side of New Mexico and gives Placitas, on the western side, a milder climate. Pacific storms travel across the west, gradually losing moisture over the various mountain ranges in their path and eventually dumping some moisture right here on the Sandias. Most of the small amount of precipitation we get, however, occurs in the summer—July through September—and it comes in the form of convectional thunderstorms which rage across the mesas and roll off Sandia Crest providing those sudden torrents of water we occasionally see in the usually dry arroyos radiating out from the mountain across the high desert plain leading to the Rio Grande. These storms are responsible for the amazing light shows we experience on the mountains and mesas and the sunsets which pick up the pink in the granite and give us blood or watermelon colored cliffs and pinnacles which named our mountains (Sangre de Cristo and Sandia), inspire our writers and artists, and provide an aesthetic and spiritual dimension to ordinary lives. More important Sandia Mountain is a catch basin for water which soaks into the ground and percolates through the limestone to recharge springs and aquifers. Albuquerque receives only about six to ten inches of rain a year, even though there may have been twenty-five inches in the higher elevations of the Sandias. Clearly life, both material and spiritual, has been made possible here in Placitas thanks to the Sandia Mountains.
Now having introduced the Sandia Mountains and their physical and spiritual importance to us, what in the world is Placitas? We are a distinguishable area, unincorporated, but with our very own zip code and new post office. We spread over thirty to forty square miles, and we are bounded by Indian Pueblo lands and public lands. We stretch almost from the Rio Grande to the sides of the Sandia Mountain but there are no dwellings over 6300 feet as most of the higher elevation of Sandia Mountain is Cibola National Forest. The Village of Placitas is not a governmental entity, but it is certainly descended from one, having been established by the twenty-one families who were given land by the King of Spain. The Village is the only man-made artifact that has been around for a long time, the subdivisions being a post-World War II phenomena at the earliest, and otherwise a development of the last twenty years. Even today the San Antonio de la Huertas Grant is alive and well. Prior to the grant, and undoubtedly even since, the Village and near surroundings were gardening, grazing, and hunting areas for the Rio Grande pueblos. There was water here, and animals were attracted to it, I’m sure, just as the wild horses are that still roam our hills, kept alive by little reservoirs, irrigation ponds, occasional creeks and springs. Sandia, Santa Ana, and San Felipe Pueblos abut Placitas, and there are unquestionably places sacred to the Indians in our midst.
Various entities held land that became Placitas. There was the Felipe Gutierrez Land Grant in western Placitas, and the Tejon Grant in the northeast. The Bureau of Land Management gave up, or sold, some of its holdings to private ownership at various times, and much land was homesteaded before being privately owned. Some privately owned lands were surrounded by Cibola National Forest, and they were often traded out for forest land on the periphery. Vista de Oro is a result of such a transaction.
There were young people who came to Placitas in droves during the sixties. They were disenchanted with American life and politics and particularly the war in Vietnam. They believed that there might be a better, more communal and caring way to live. The Upper and Lower Farms were born as alternative living communes where various architectural, agricultural, and social experiments were undertaken. Some years later, these people entered the economic mainstream, and some are yet in Placitas.
Thirty or forty years ago, city dwellers began going to the country, seeking a more rural way of life for their children and perhaps not wanting to deal with the larger issues of urban living. Placitas became their community, too. They have been joined by hundreds of others attracted to Placitas because it looks and feels good to be here. Taken together, these folks comprise an unusually diverse mix of people.
There are various sub-communities. Some are defined by sports—for instance golf or volley ball. The golf community enjoys the Santa Ana and Twin Warriors golf courses so close by. Dome Valley, guided by volley ball stars, has produced volley ball stars. We have Jardineros de Placitas (garden club) which unites local women, not really around garden culture, but a variety of activities such as hiking, birding, bridge, books, local history, crafts, fine arts, support of local institutions, and support of one another. There are the churches and church schools, choirs, and service activities, our volunteer fire department, the elementary school activities and those that volunteer to teach kids in their area of expertise. The Senior Center and its programs, the Extension Club, The Optimist Club, the Friends of Placitas and the Las Placitas Association, the latter two organizations keeping an eye on our development and good health.
The Placitas Artists Series unites us around our interests in and appreciation of music and the visual arts. There is an active art community here, and we share in the lives of our artists when they open their studios to us or invite us to their openings.
I always say “Thank God for the grocery store and the Pinon Cafe,” as those are the places where daily I catch up with friends and renew acquaintances—at the very least have waving relationships—American life being what it is with work making it hard to keep up with everyone I’d like to. And I can say the same for the bank, the beauty shop and spa, cleaners and video store, the real estate companies and the post office. There are a variety of small businesses here, and many of our residents operate their businesses from their homes--high speed Internet, fax, and proximity to a good airport making this possible.
And best of all perhaps is yet another community we all can share and enjoy. We have the community that shares our open spaces. I meet neighbors in the morning while chasing after my dogs in the national forest. Not just human neighbors either—often a family of coyotes follow us. They know where we have come from and what our route is. So do flights of jays, finches and in winter, mountain bluebirds. Quail skitter across the trail and rabbits leap from beneath cactus and zigzag across the desert. Many of us feel a connection with these and other creatures. I know I do.
We often speak of “building community” in a place like Placitas where we aren’t a municipality and don’t have many public activities or places, or world view (as in cosmic) that unite us. We, each of us, live in various life worlds—the larger ones defined by government or work, and more private life worlds which are almost entirely of our own creation, our choice. In traditional societies societal and private life worlds were pretty much the same for all and united people in community. Today our life worlds are vastly different and even our ethnic backgrounds seldom completely define our life worlds. We are a richly diverse body of people. In Placitas there is one constant unifying element and that is that magnificent geological phenomenon Sandia Mountain in the shadow of which we live, and which lifts the spirit with its beauty and provides us with psychological strength. We all may not have benefited from the same gods, but at the base of Sandia Mountain there is Placitas, a sanctuary for the human spirit.