The Legacy and Universal Principle of Plumed Serpent a Kaleidoscope

As a young boy I was blessed by growing up in a magical land in the Santa Fe National Forest.   My family were owners in common with the Tom Childers family a cabin in the Holy Ghost Canyon which served as a summer home for us all. The old cabin was once owned by the Ice Man of The Tererro Mines. He provided all the ice to the Tererro Miners Hospital that was located at the junction of the Holy Ghost Creek and the Pecos River. After the mines shut down there was little use for his product so the Ice Man sold his cabin and left the canyon

It was a two-hour drive from Santa Fe to Holy Ghost Canyon in the 1950s. After turning off the two lane back top at Glorieta onto a narrow dusty road to Pecos we would drive past the “Oldest Well in the U.S.A” Glorieta Battlefield, Arrowhead Lodge and into Pecos Village where we turned up-canyon at the junction near the Casanova Bar.  But usually we would stop at Adelo’s Store first, to get refreshments, pick up supplies we forgot in Santa Fe and catch up with the latest “fishing gossip.” Then on to Tererro, driving past the fish hatchery, Broomes, Camp Blue Haven, Brush Ranch, Los Machos, Tres Lagunas, Trout Haven until finally!  Holy Ghost Canyon.

To this day I don’t know how Mom and Dad (Allan and Violet) handled driving the two station wagons filled with five kids, friends, Eva the house keeper, Muggins the wire haired terrier and all the food and clothing required for our three week jaunts. We would stay in canyon three weeks then go back to Santa Fe for a week, then return. My father would come during the weekends re-supplying the cabin with goods not obtainable at either Happy Ley’s General Store or Joe’s Store, a liquor store just up the road from Willow Creek and the abandoned Tererro mines.

Our cabin was located on the north facing shady side of the canyon and next to Judge MacPherson’s whose cabin was the oldest in the canyon. Because our cabins northern exposure on the side of the canyon where the forest is shady and holds moisture, even in mid-summer it could be cold..  Fir and Spruce trees are laden with Spanish moss and ground vegetation is lush.  Flowers of all types bloom all summer and ubiquitous berries bushes grow in places where sunlight reached the foliage.  In late summer a wide variety edible mushrooms could be found. The musty smell of rotting wood and moss was in the air and amiable sounds of Holy Ghost Creek whose origin is Spirit Lake sets the mood in the canyon.

Holy Ghost Creek is located about a 100 yards down hill from the cabin. In the early days before electricity was installed and the cabin was remodeled. My mother cooked over a wood stove which us kids (with a little help) would provide fuel for. We were also the water “fetchers” By using gallon buckets we bailed water from the creek by means of a cable bucket system. The system consisted of a cable attached about four feet above the ground to a pine tree with a cable stretching 50 yards down the canyon side to a pool in the stream and attached to another tree at pool level. The bucket had a pulley and a rope attached.  To get water one would attach the bucket to the cable letting the haul rope slide through your fingers until with the help of gravity the water bucket reached the pool, then waiting until the pail slowly filled up with water we would slowly, hand over hand, haul the water bucket back up the slope, finally carrying the heavy sloshing water bucket it to the cabin. Then after being warmed by the huge fireplace in the living room, that seemed to always be burning, we would continue the horrible chore until finished. Only then would us kids be allowed to run amuck and hang out at our special places in and around the canyon.

The canyon  was a kids paradise with practically no parental supervision, we were on our own in the wilderness!  Activities included fishing, hiking, hunting with bow and arrows, slings, slingshots, B.B. guns, and when we got older, after finishing Doc Clodfelters gun handling class, .22 rifles. Rites of passage were  big game hunting, horseback riding, horseshoes, multi-day pack horse trips into the wilderness, white water inner tubing in the melted snow named  the Pecos River (without life preservers) , climbing cliffs( without ropes), sneaking booze and cigarettes, fantasizing about the girls at Brush Ranch and exploring “The Cave”.