Peaceful Power

"Peace at Pecos," 5 x 7 watercolor holiday greeting card

As we witness a violent power struggle in our country's politics, it is worth remembering that there is a different kind of power that transcends human greed.

There are simply places around the world of peaceful power, where where you can feel the connections between mortality and eternity, where the line between physical and spiritual is very, very thin or overlap.

I suspect different people find different such places, though there seem to be some that are almost universal....such as Jerusalem.

One of my places are the ruins of the old Franciscan mission church at what was Pecos Pueblo in New Mexico. I've been there many times, and am always drawn to it. It, and the ruins of the pueblo have an ancient history and always calls me. 

There is more here than just adobe and rocks--not exactly ghosts, but somehow still inhabited. It is a place of power, of peace, especially in the silence of a winter snow.

I've tried to photograph and paint its essence many times and am not happy yet. I may have to try it abstractly. But for now, here's an attempt in watercolor, catching the evening sun that turns its southern adobe face  red, appropriately at the foot of the Sangre de Cristo (blood of Christ) mountains.