Travel With Me Tuesday: Days in Bernalillo

Once I arrived in Bernalillo, I attended a spiritual conference held up on the Santa Ana Pueblo land. The funny part was that it was actually in a Hyatt hotel which was quite posh but still felt respectful to the land it was on. I met a lot of people I really liked and fortunately found the conference not too 'church oriented' but with a strong message of what it meant to be connected to God and doing God's work whoever you found your god to be. Be inclusive just as God is inclusive. Don't make your faith a list of should not's and cannot's.

Sunday we - my new friends and I- mostly sat at one of the back tables amidst the rest of the thousand people. We could still see the various presenters as well as both of the large screens.

At lunch time, the Sandias were gorgeous...well they were gorgeous all the time and I could imagine looking at the ever changing light and cloud patterns over a lifetime up on the pueblo. I went out to get a green chile fix but decided on another Christmas style meal. Green chile is wonderful but sometimes it's nice to have the red also.  Delicious!

That evening, there was a film at 20:00 and the friend who chose the same table at the back said she would be going outside to take photos of the rising full moon. I said I'd join her as I wasn't sure if I wanted to stay for the whole film. It was about ecological crises of the earth and it was preaching to the choir for me. I also didn't want to go to bed on 90 minutes of those images.

We saw the moon rise through the mountains and I'm sure my friend's images were gorgeous. She had a big girl camera & lenses and I had my iPhone. But what I saw as the moon rose was good enough for me. This was Mother Nature at her spectacular best and driving home in that moonlight was amazing.

Monday was more of the conference starting with a meditation session. That was very good and got the hundreds of people settled into a centered mode.

That evening we had our only meal included with the conference.  It was very nice and there were many vegetarian options. However,  I've been spoiled by the food my son cooks at the Fairmont Hotel in Newport Beach CA. The Hyatt didn't quite meet that standard but a buffet for a thousand is not the easiest to do with the space available.

Tuesday was both the farewell and a free day for me back in Bernalillo. My one friend from Dublin was going on to Los Angeles (she is a screenwriter) and we ended up having lunch with a couple from Kansas. We learned a lot about them over lunch and as with most people, you see the things you have in common when you take the time to listen. We really are all the same.

I'll leave you with the many views I was blessed to see on this trip while at this conference from the little clumps of flowers blooming in the desert climate to the fabulous clouds and mountain views.

On my last drive down into town from the Hyatt Tamaya, I stopped to take a photo of the chopper I passed at least twice a day. I hope I didn't worry the police inside the building but they stayed in and I left as soon as I took the picture. Phew! My next day would be my birthday and a drive south to Las Cruces.