I was residing at the New Buffalo commune outside of Taos, N.M. in October 1970 when I decided to return east to join the Brotherhood of the Spirit in Warwick. I had hoped the New Mexico commune scene would offer lifetime possibilities, but most had degenerated into apathy and squalor by the time I arrived. New Buffalo, which inspired the commune scenes in the iconic film “Easy Rider” (Dennis Hopper is buried in Ranchos de Taos), was the most functional but even it lacked the dynamic quality and the purposeful mission of the Brotherhood.
Back I went to Massachusetts only to return 44 years later to Taos. Like most Anglos (local term for white people) who find themselves moving here, none of our decisions were intentional or, for that matter, rational. The locals have a saying, “The mountain called,” and that mountain truly called to me and my wife, Lisa. That mountain, which is held sacred by Taos Pueblo, is part of the Sangre de Cristo range overlooking the sage-filled mesa where Taos — and the Rio Grande — is located.
She and I came to Taos in 2006 as part of our three-week honeymoon throughout the Southwest. We were only in town three days and characteristically, on the exact moment of our arrival, the power went out. Undeterred, we explored various shops and were amazed by the depth of connection with everyone we met. During our brief stay, nothing extraordinary happened but in the subsequent weeks, we couldn’t get Taos out of our minds.
The following year, we rented a casita for a month to get a better sense of the community. For the next six years, we traveled to Taos for our annual vacation and Lisa would literally weep with joy the minute we touched down at the Albuquerque airport. Our friends and family back East got used to us pestering them about the glories of New Mexico so it was no surprise when we decided to move there.
We had no intention to. But at a concert of Southwest and Texas musicians in 2013, I fell into a casual conversation with a young woman who told me that “The mountain is calling you.” No matter what excuses I threw up to her, she was adamant that the mountain was calling. The next day — our seventh wedding anniversary — Lisa and I discarded logic and, like any true Taoseño, asked the spirits for a sign.
The spirits responded with four, one of which still causes the hair on the back of my neck to stand on end. The next day we called the Realtor and upon our return a week later to our home in Greenfield, immediately began packing boxes.
I lived at the Brotherhood of the Spirit (renamed the Renaissance Community in 1974) from 1970 until 1984. While the commune invokes for many the controversial actions of its mercurial leader, Michael Metelica, for me it was a transformational experience.
I spent the first winter outdoors logging and tearing down barns, a far cry from my sheltered life growing up in upscale New York City. Eventually, I created artwork for our Free Spirit Press magazine and traveled around New England selling it from our rainbow-painted school bus. I joined several painting contracting crews and ended my communal sojourn managing its orchard of 75 trees in Gill while designing T-shirts and posters for Silver Screen Design.
Even while living there, however, I began to view the Renaissance as a historical entity and knew that unless that history was preserved, it would become lost or distorted. I saved our vast photography and print media collections and have since transcribed the saga of the commune for three Communities magazine articles, Wikipedia and the UMass Amherst library’s rare books collection that documents progressive social movements in western New England.
After I left the commune, I co-founded and launched two popular summer programs before teaching for a decade at Bernardston Elementary School, which I consider the most rewarding 10 years of my life. The crowning achievements of my teaching career there were an all-day field trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and having letters from my students to the children of the Holocaust displayed at the Auschwitz State Museum in Poland. To this day, I’m still close to many of my “kids,” who are now in their 30s and 40s.
I discovered photography in the commune and it became my favored activity for decades. I made a point of writing and recording on film social justice actions that flew under the radar of the mainstream media. These included the Kehler-Corner Colrain Tax Resistance, the Convocation at Auschwitz and the Interfaith Pilgrimage of the Middle Passage, the last two sponsored in part by the Leverett Peace Pagoda.
During my last years in the valley, I mentored teenagers and enjoyed flying my little Cessna aircraft out of the Turners Falls airport. I still have a special affinity with Turners (my son was born there) and consider the Connecticut River valley in Gill to be one of the loveliest spots on Earth.
Before Lisa and I moved to Taos, we chose to do so with eyes wide open. We knew it would be tempting to spend our time merely sitting on the patio, margaritas in hand, enjoying the spectacular sunsets, but we wanted to become involved with this truly multi-cultural community.
Historically, each new group of arrivals to Taos has been fiercely resisted at first and then grudgingly accepted. Over the centuries, Northern New Mexico has seen the influx of Pueblo, Apache and Navajo Indians (the preferred term used in Taos), conquistadors, Hispanic descendants of old Castilian families, Marrano “Crypto-Jews,” Catholic Penitentes, artists, hippies, tourists, Mexican nationals and now Texans seeking a second home.
We were lucky to find an actual adobe dwelling (as opposed to poured concrete “adobe style”) built by a local contractor whose family has lived here for generations. When the building inspector arrived, he told us, “The Spirits want you to have this house.”
We agreed. Lisa joined the “Women Give” sub-group of the Taos Community Foundation, which donates grants to local organizations and individuals that benefit the Taos population. I got involved with SOMOS, our version of the Montague Book Mill but that also unites professional writers with school students to mentor their literary skills.
Through SOMOS, I taught a creative writing course at the Butterfly Healing Center on Taos Pueblo that offers a residential treatment home to Native teenagers from across Arizona and New Mexico. The young people, one in 50 of whom come from anything resembling a “normal” home life, live at the center for up to three months and receive holistic remedial care as well as a safe haven. Although some of my students had undergone traumas that clenched your gut, they were a brave, resilient bunch who wrote hip-hop poetry, explored Buddhism and Wicca, desired to travel the world and ultimately arrive at a happy ending to their lives.
Until COVID hit, I taught fourth grade at the Taos Elementary School, where my classes included Hispanic, Taos Pueblo, Mescalero Apache, Jewish, Cheyenne, Anglo and Jordanian kids. I enjoyed their routine hugs in the hallways whenever we met. When I took them skiing and fell on a downhill run, they surrounded me with concern and said, “You’re old, Mr. Daniel, so we have to look out for you.”
There has always been a strong spiritual presence among the Native, Hispanic and Anglo cultures. Taos has as many Buddhist centers as Catholic churches but it is the thousand-year-old Taos Pueblo that I believe supplies the battery of the sacred energy that we all feel the presence of. To witness the Buffalo Dance, Powwow Grand Entry, San Geronimo Day foot races and the spectacular Christmas Eve procession amid four-story burning pyres at sunset are profound experiences that I cannot give full justice to in this limited space.
Visitors are welcome but no explanations of the rites are given or solicited. People are formed by the land they live upon and the interconnection in Northern New Mexico between earth, sky and water takes on both an esoteric and a pragmatic quality. The sky supplies the rain whose waters flow to nourish the earth to ensure growth and sustenance. Living in a drought-prone area, I’ve come to appreciate the raw quality of nature not out of fear but because it’s a part of everyday life.
There’s a saying that you can tell who you are from where you have been. I grew up and came into adulthood throughout my 4½ decades living in Franklin County and for that, I am most grateful. My family and the bulk of my lifelong friends still live in the valley. Whether we will return is not up to us. The flip side of “The Mountain called” is “The Mountain spits you out” if you can’t make it or if your reason to be in Taos has ended. To date, that hasn’t happened but the mountains around Taos are a billion years old so I trust they know better than me.
Daniel A. Brown lived in Franklin County from 1970-2014 as a teacher, writer, artist and photographer. He currently lives in Arroyo Seco, north of Taos, New Mexico with his wife Lisa and dog, Cody.