Intimate Infinitude
Photo by Marann Langlois
I prefer to travel vertically, not horizontally.
I am not compelled by the next new exotic place.
My desire leads me to return time and again to know a place ever-more intimately.
I’ve just returned from a sojourn to Ghost Ranch, a 21,000-acre retreat and education center in Rio Arriba County in north central New Mexico, where I served in a two-week chaplaincy residency. I was there last spring for the Western Constellation Intensive Retreat.
As I camped out last year amidst the striking and luminous red and orange cliffs, under the blue sky expanse, my spirit mated with the stones, the bones of this land called Piedra Lumbre, “Valley of the Shining Stones.” I knew I would return, and so I have.
The Lineage of a Place
Here, STONE presents a vista of compelling magnitude….
Really, everybody who has journeyed or dwelled in this landscape is awe-struck.
As such, this place has drawn a fascinating array of beings.*
A few highlights which informs the lineage of the land of this place, that you feel in standing on the ground:
First, may we honor that Ghost Ranch is on unceded ancestral Tewa Land. Their descendants, the modern day Tewa people still exist and live in Santa Fe and the local Pueblos of Nambe, Pojoaque, San Ildefonso, Ohkay Owingeh, Santa Clara and Tesuque.
1880’s: The notorious cattle rustlers, Archuleta brothers who hid their operation there in what became known as Rancho de los Brujos (Ranch of the Witches)
1930’s: Carol Bishop Stanley became owner of Ghost Ranch at age 51, having just put her husband in a sanatorium for alcoholism, (who won the GR deed in poker hand). She was at a threshold in her own life. With enormous courage and agency, during the 1930s when it wasn’t so easy for women or anybody to do this. She’s responsible for bringing GR into the modern era.
Arthur Pack, the last private owner from 1936-55, was a pioneering 20th century conservationist/activist, writer/editor of Nature Magazine. founded the American Nature Association, crusaded to bring sustainability and environmental consciousness to American public. Under his aegis, many notable figures visited including most famously Georgia O’Keefe, Leopold Stokowski, Ansel Adams, and Cary Grant, to name a few.
Current stewardship by the Presbyterian Church, who determined to make it not a luxury spa, but conserve it as a place for conservation and education, incorporating the best of radical social justice witness.
And so still many come to Ghost Ranch at a threshold time in life.
Seeking a vision and opportunity to find a new truth of themselves in the high desert.
You’re there in the desert and that’s the point.
To find the bone of truth and purpose in their life.
To be scoured by the heat and raw, barren openness of the land and sky.
We come to know how we are ‘one among’ the ancestral dimensionality of those who have dwelled in this landscape.
Orogenesis; the Infinitude of Vista
In geologic terms, the stunning landscape of the Sangre de Cristo mountains at Ghost Ranch was created by the volcanic movement of magma as tectonic plate shifting allowed for the transcendence of transmuted mineral formation while leaving the denser sediment behind. This process is called orogenesis. The word orogeny comes from Ancient Greek ὄρος (óros) 'mountain' and γένεσις (génesis) 'creation, origin'.
Orogensis epitomizes in geologic terms what the monumental stone ‘architecture’ of Ghost Ranch evokes in our spirit. Through the tectonic shifts of our own threshold moments, the desert heat creates a distillation of our essences, releasing the density of our past.
The Intimacy of the Stones
Consider the Stones, the bones of the Earth.
Ancient, silent in their integrity.
Find a stone, pick it up, and put it in the palm of your hand.
Feel its just-so weight in the palm of your hand.
Its very quiet integrity.
Feel how the stone evokes a subtle alignment to that which is Eternal.
The tangibility and discreteness of the stone in your palm.
Stand among the Shining Stones.
Behold the ancient and contemporary lineages of people who have also stood there.
Hold the discreteness of your own being in the palm of your hand, as you gaze out to apprehend and view the impossible infinitude of life.
Works for my nervous system sometimes…
We don’t have to go to Ghost Ranch to do this. However, when we sojourn in otherworldly and transcendent landscape, we have the opportunity to remember in our body sensation our true place in the company of all beingness. Our egos become right-sized.
* with gratitude for GR research by Lesley Poling-Kempes
Joanna Macy’s Great Turning in The Labyrinth at Ghost Ranch June 2026
We come close to the truth of ourselves, walking step by step, while held by a vista of astonishing beauty. How perfect a place to honor the courage and witness of Joanna Macy’s Great Turning.
I was honored to create this event during my Chaplaincy residency at Ghost Ranch, Abiquiu, NM this past June. Gratitude to Marann Langlois for her co-creation, ritual music capacities AND for her original piano composition as the audio for this reel! And to Trinke Alexander for her Singing Bowl mastery! And to Zella Riley for her Sacred flute! And to my beloved Amy Little for her support willingness to be on this adventure with me!
UPCOMING SUMMER WORKSHOPS
We have some amazing events coming up - Join us!
Sounding The Field: Music and Constellations
an immersive day integrating Kaleidoscopic Constellations & Sound-based practices
Saturday, August 8, 2026 | 10:30am - 5:30pm at SoundWell Barn Marlboro, NY
Facilitated by Kathleen Mandeville and Katie Down, Sounding The Field brings together their expertise and wisdom, rooted in Music Therapy and Family Constellations.
Sounding The Field invites participants into a deeper relationship with themselves, their ancestry, and the living web of human connection. As a group, we will explore how sound can reveal what has been silenced, restore connection across generations, and weave a sonic container for grief, belonging, reconciliation, and transformation.
This will be a hands-on, participatory experience with the opportunity to engage with a variety of instruments and their dimensional, sonically archetypal energies.
Space is Limited / Advance Registration Required
FB Event to invite Friends
Proceed Where the Way is Open:
Tracking Essences & Origins on The Rail Trail
Saturday July 25, 10am - 12 NOON
Rail Trail Cafe, New Paltz, NY
In this workshop, we will create a living, three-dimensional map on The Rail Trail, a timeline of signature events in our lives when our original essence felt most alive, guiding us to our purpose in life. We’ll source items from the local environment, as well as personal object/s (item/s of meaning) from home.
photo by Kathleen Mandeville
Monthly In-Person Group
at Gateway House | 12 Fairview Ave | Rosendale
Saturday, July 11 | 3 PM – 6 PM
Space is limited; Advance registration is now required. $50
Gateway House Summer Solstice Ceremony at the Rail Trail Cafe
Click the video to see our beautiful blessing for Tara and Brian of the Rail Trail Cafe and hear a Fairy Poem by Gateway House’s beloved bard, Meryn Oakwood!
Warmly,
Kathleen C. Mandeville, M. Div.
Community Pastor, Consultant, Facilitator, Coach
Contact me at The Outer Edge Coaching to schedule an initial 30 minute consultation.
