Little Mesa Land Conservation
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Mission Statement:
Your tax-deductible donation to the House of Mica Peace Chamber will help us raise funds to purchase and care for 22 acres of land on Little Mesa, Abiquiu, New Mexico to:
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Ceremonies at Little Mesa, August and September, 2021
Click here to learn more.
How We Came to Little Mesa
by Rick Cotroneo
After I met Joseph in 1984, I began having powerful dreams of ancient sacred dance ceremonies. The dreams are what initiated my life-long commitment to the Sun-Moon Dance and peace chamber. So, years later, I wasn’t surprised when I started having this recurring dream of walking an awe-inspiring, desert landscape that looked like it was somewhere on the moon. I visited that place in dream-time for years before I began to talk about it with Elisa. After a few discussions, we realized there might be a chapter, a story, a calling of sorts ahead of us. We decided this landscape must be a place where we were being called to hold a Sun-Moon Dance. In the dream, I knew the land was somewhere near a body of water and I believed it was in New Mexico. Based on this, we focused our search on the area of Abiquiu, New Mexico, where we knew there to be a reservoir.
In in the spring of 2015, we took a trip to Abiquiu in search of the place that had become so familiar to me from my dreamscape. We dedicated five days to the trip. No real leads to start. We sent emails to a few people about looking for land to hold a dance. One email contact led to another contact. For one of the days, we had scheduled a trip to visit Joseph in nearby southern Colorado. We had dinner with him in our hotel room. He said, “I’m very proud of both of you. Don’t worry, you’ll find the place.” The next day we received a return call from an email contact. She said, “There’s this woman who has a yurt. Go talk to her.” We called the yurt lady. She seemed interested in our story, but it turned out she was booked for the next two days so she wouldn’t have time to meet with us before we had to leave. We gave up. Maybe its not meant to be. Elisa said to me, “Let’s just enjoy our last day and head back down to Santa Fe”.
The next morning, the woman with the yurt calls back. “I changed my plans. Can you make it out here this afternoon?” “Sure. We’ll be there.” We make the hour drive back to Abiquiu and locate the address – dirt road, small house, a couple of acres along the road. Yurt. We get out of the car and this dog appears. It’s the spitting image of Magic, our beloved friend of 15 years who passed away not so long before this day. “Wow, is that you Magic? Lord, that’s strange”. We both have goosebumps. The woman with the yurt is friendly, talkative, interested in what we have to say. We look around and then at each other. Nice place. Nice woman. But this is not the place. And, not nearly enough land for a dance. She says, “Yeah this isn’t the place you need. She points toward a steep hill. Let’s take a ride. Hop into this four-wheeler. I have friends up there. You can look around.”
The ride is more than a little scary. Dirt road. Serious hill. No ramps. We drive to the end of the road. The vista is amazing. White rock formations. Its familiar. There is plenty of space for a dance arbor. So far though, I didn’t see the landscape of my dream. She says, “Well, if we’re gonna walk out on the mesa, we should get permission from my friends, Bill and Sonia.” She goes to the house and gets their OK. We walk on a path heading west. We pass a small round building that she refers to as the “Sanctuary”. I think, “Well that’s crazy. It looks a lot like a peace chamber”. We walk up a hill and see a path that leads down to a stretch of flat land dotted with brush. As we head down the hill, I look to the right and there is the landscape I knew from my dream. My heart begins to race. “Is this possible?” I ask myself. We walk quite a ways, the length of the mesa, to this amazing circular platform that looks over what she referred to as Plaza Blanca, the White Place. The view from the platform out onto Plaza Blanca is awe-inspiring and ancient and it sure looks like it would be somewhere on the surface of the moon. Just like my dream. Yes, this would be a powerful place to dance.
The yurt lady, Mary, takes us back to the house. She introduces us to an elderly couple – Bill and Sonia. They are inquisitive. “What brings you up here?” I say, “We’re looking for a place to hold a ceremony. It’s a Sun-moon Dance. Four days. We fast and pray for healing. Its for the earth, for all the people, for world peace.” Their eyes light up. They say, “Yes”. I say “Yes, what?” They say, “Yes, you can do it here. This is why we have this land.” “Are you sure?” “Oh yeah. Well, we have to go now to a doctor’s appointment. We have to leave. When do you want to do this ceremony?” I say, “In about three months.” “OK, we’ll see you then”. They get in the car and drive off.
We decide to walk around again down on the mesa. We begin to feel out where to put the dance arbor. Walking around, it was easy to lose orientation. We were each walking in circles but both came to the same open area – a circular space without any larger brush or tress. It would make a perfect place for a dance arbor. We look for some good-sized stones to mark the area. We place the stones, look at each other and say, ‘Is THIS a dream?”
A week after returning home, we call the elderly couple. They remember us. “When are you coming?” Well, we’d like to come in July. Would that be OK?” “Yes, this is why we bought this land.” “Are you sure? They say, “Yes. You’re helping us fulfill the mission of this place. We look forward to seeing you.”
The first dance, in 2015, required a lot of effort. We had to obtain needed resources, build an arbor and figure out how to care for the dancers, support people and drummers. The previous year, someone had given the House of Mica a generous donation of $10,000 to support our work. We used that money to buy what was needed: cedar posts, tee-pee poles and tarps for the arbor. Everything fell into place. The land is sprinkled with lava rock for the sweat lodge. Saplings for the sweat lodge could be found nearby along the Chama River. Bill and Sonia had a friend with cottonwood trees on their land. One of the dancers allowed us to use a large passenger van to transport ourselves and our stuff, including the tree. A nearby local business rented port o potties. We hosted 21 dancers in a powerful ceremony for healing and peace.
Sonia passed away in the winter after the second dance. We dedicated our third dance to her. We completed a cycle of four dances – each different, each a powerful act of love. After the fourth dance, Bill shared with us the language from the Covenant that he and Sonia placed on the land to outline its purpose. He said, you came to do the work that was intended for this land. He read the following text from the legal document to the group of us during the closing circle of the fourth dance.
“This land, held in trust is dedicated to the purpose of learning to live in harmony and balance with each other and nature. It is a place for gatherings, retreats, workshops and ceremony combining education and community to learn and honor the interconnectedness and sacredness of life. This land is protected in recognition of the natural beauty of the fragile desert land. This declaration is intended to protect and preserve these features, to provide for the preservation, enjoyment and use of property in harmony with the natural environment and to insure, insofar as possible, that these permitted uses, cause the least disturbance to, and detraction from, the natural beauty of the land”.
In the late summer of 2020, we became aware that the family needed to sell the land. They asked if we would be interested in purchasing it.
That is how we came to be here. Our goal is to honor the above Covenant on the land and to ensure it remains in effect into perpetuity. Sonia used to say, “Everything is in divine order and for the highest good”. We hope to honor her legacy and the land.
by Rick Cotroneo
After I met Joseph in 1984, I began having powerful dreams of ancient sacred dance ceremonies. The dreams are what initiated my life-long commitment to the Sun-Moon Dance and peace chamber. So, years later, I wasn’t surprised when I started having this recurring dream of walking an awe-inspiring, desert landscape that looked like it was somewhere on the moon. I visited that place in dream-time for years before I began to talk about it with Elisa. After a few discussions, we realized there might be a chapter, a story, a calling of sorts ahead of us. We decided this landscape must be a place where we were being called to hold a Sun-Moon Dance. In the dream, I knew the land was somewhere near a body of water and I believed it was in New Mexico. Based on this, we focused our search on the area of Abiquiu, New Mexico, where we knew there to be a reservoir.
In in the spring of 2015, we took a trip to Abiquiu in search of the place that had become so familiar to me from my dreamscape. We dedicated five days to the trip. No real leads to start. We sent emails to a few people about looking for land to hold a dance. One email contact led to another contact. For one of the days, we had scheduled a trip to visit Joseph in nearby southern Colorado. We had dinner with him in our hotel room. He said, “I’m very proud of both of you. Don’t worry, you’ll find the place.” The next day we received a return call from an email contact. She said, “There’s this woman who has a yurt. Go talk to her.” We called the yurt lady. She seemed interested in our story, but it turned out she was booked for the next two days so she wouldn’t have time to meet with us before we had to leave. We gave up. Maybe its not meant to be. Elisa said to me, “Let’s just enjoy our last day and head back down to Santa Fe”.
The next morning, the woman with the yurt calls back. “I changed my plans. Can you make it out here this afternoon?” “Sure. We’ll be there.” We make the hour drive back to Abiquiu and locate the address – dirt road, small house, a couple of acres along the road. Yurt. We get out of the car and this dog appears. It’s the spitting image of Magic, our beloved friend of 15 years who passed away not so long before this day. “Wow, is that you Magic? Lord, that’s strange”. We both have goosebumps. The woman with the yurt is friendly, talkative, interested in what we have to say. We look around and then at each other. Nice place. Nice woman. But this is not the place. And, not nearly enough land for a dance. She says, “Yeah this isn’t the place you need. She points toward a steep hill. Let’s take a ride. Hop into this four-wheeler. I have friends up there. You can look around.”
The ride is more than a little scary. Dirt road. Serious hill. No ramps. We drive to the end of the road. The vista is amazing. White rock formations. Its familiar. There is plenty of space for a dance arbor. So far though, I didn’t see the landscape of my dream. She says, “Well, if we’re gonna walk out on the mesa, we should get permission from my friends, Bill and Sonia.” She goes to the house and gets their OK. We walk on a path heading west. We pass a small round building that she refers to as the “Sanctuary”. I think, “Well that’s crazy. It looks a lot like a peace chamber”. We walk up a hill and see a path that leads down to a stretch of flat land dotted with brush. As we head down the hill, I look to the right and there is the landscape I knew from my dream. My heart begins to race. “Is this possible?” I ask myself. We walk quite a ways, the length of the mesa, to this amazing circular platform that looks over what she referred to as Plaza Blanca, the White Place. The view from the platform out onto Plaza Blanca is awe-inspiring and ancient and it sure looks like it would be somewhere on the surface of the moon. Just like my dream. Yes, this would be a powerful place to dance.
The yurt lady, Mary, takes us back to the house. She introduces us to an elderly couple – Bill and Sonia. They are inquisitive. “What brings you up here?” I say, “We’re looking for a place to hold a ceremony. It’s a Sun-moon Dance. Four days. We fast and pray for healing. Its for the earth, for all the people, for world peace.” Their eyes light up. They say, “Yes”. I say “Yes, what?” They say, “Yes, you can do it here. This is why we have this land.” “Are you sure?” “Oh yeah. Well, we have to go now to a doctor’s appointment. We have to leave. When do you want to do this ceremony?” I say, “In about three months.” “OK, we’ll see you then”. They get in the car and drive off.
We decide to walk around again down on the mesa. We begin to feel out where to put the dance arbor. Walking around, it was easy to lose orientation. We were each walking in circles but both came to the same open area – a circular space without any larger brush or tress. It would make a perfect place for a dance arbor. We look for some good-sized stones to mark the area. We place the stones, look at each other and say, ‘Is THIS a dream?”
A week after returning home, we call the elderly couple. They remember us. “When are you coming?” Well, we’d like to come in July. Would that be OK?” “Yes, this is why we bought this land.” “Are you sure? They say, “Yes. You’re helping us fulfill the mission of this place. We look forward to seeing you.”
The first dance, in 2015, required a lot of effort. We had to obtain needed resources, build an arbor and figure out how to care for the dancers, support people and drummers. The previous year, someone had given the House of Mica a generous donation of $10,000 to support our work. We used that money to buy what was needed: cedar posts, tee-pee poles and tarps for the arbor. Everything fell into place. The land is sprinkled with lava rock for the sweat lodge. Saplings for the sweat lodge could be found nearby along the Chama River. Bill and Sonia had a friend with cottonwood trees on their land. One of the dancers allowed us to use a large passenger van to transport ourselves and our stuff, including the tree. A nearby local business rented port o potties. We hosted 21 dancers in a powerful ceremony for healing and peace.
Sonia passed away in the winter after the second dance. We dedicated our third dance to her. We completed a cycle of four dances – each different, each a powerful act of love. After the fourth dance, Bill shared with us the language from the Covenant that he and Sonia placed on the land to outline its purpose. He said, you came to do the work that was intended for this land. He read the following text from the legal document to the group of us during the closing circle of the fourth dance.
“This land, held in trust is dedicated to the purpose of learning to live in harmony and balance with each other and nature. It is a place for gatherings, retreats, workshops and ceremony combining education and community to learn and honor the interconnectedness and sacredness of life. This land is protected in recognition of the natural beauty of the fragile desert land. This declaration is intended to protect and preserve these features, to provide for the preservation, enjoyment and use of property in harmony with the natural environment and to insure, insofar as possible, that these permitted uses, cause the least disturbance to, and detraction from, the natural beauty of the land”.
In the late summer of 2020, we became aware that the family needed to sell the land. They asked if we would be interested in purchasing it.
That is how we came to be here. Our goal is to honor the above Covenant on the land and to ensure it remains in effect into perpetuity. Sonia used to say, “Everything is in divine order and for the highest good”. We hope to honor her legacy and the land.