I never forgot that church docent’s enigmatic invitation (‘YOU can come back anytime…’) so when Kurt & I returned to Santa Fe 7 years later, in the fall of 2006, we made a point of trekking back up to Chimayo.
To say the place had changed would be putting it mildly. In the years since our last visit, Santa Fe and its environs had been featured on a number of cable TV shows, the kind that focus on travel and the unexplained. ‘History’s Mysteries,’ that sort of thing. And those shows put Chimayo on the map in a big way.
We didn’t even recognize the place as we approached, and had to drive back & forth past it several times before assuring ourselves this must be it. Half a block away we found the parking lot expanded to 5 times its previous size to accommodate the scores of tour buses and cars driven there by eager pilgrims.
Sadly, on approaching what was now a huge complex of buildings and vendor stalls, we could find no trace of the Holy Chile or the shop that once housed it.
In the church I could find no sign of that docent. And I was deeply disappointed to discover that there was now no folk art.
Oh sure, the 19th century pieces were still there. But all the sad, funny, wildly tacky and heart-breakingly sincere stuff contributed by local parishioners had been swept away and replaced by shiny new plastic Kmart treasures, bland and mass-produced and completely without character.
I couldn’t help mourning the loss of the winking Jesus and the papier mache rosary and all the rest. http://twitpic.com/qe4pd
But oh, that Holy Dirt. The Holy Dirt sits just beneath a smallish hole in the church’s floor. On our first visit the hole was cordoned off on 3 sides with a sign warning not to step in it. (Again, oops.)
But this time the hole was thronged 3 deep with devotees patiently waiting their turn to scoop out buckets of that Holy Dirt into baggies or jars or Tupperware containers to take home with them.
OK now, really. If that were truly the original Dirt in that hole (the very foundation the church was built on)…at this rate of removal the Santuario would have collapsed in on itself long before this. Besides, while the Dirt looked like dirt on our first visit, this time it bore a serious resemblance to clean, commercial-grade sand from the hardware store.
I’m just sayin.’
It may sound like I’m mocking the faithful who scooped that Dirt, but I’m really not. I was serious when I named this story The Awesome Power of Belief. In 1858 one person had an authentic revelatory experience at Lourdes, but countless others who later heard her story have also experienced miraculous healings there. Why?
I don’t doubt the initial revelatory experience that happened at Lourdes (or the one at Chimayo). I can say from personal experience that revelatory experiences can and do happen anywhere. I’ve had some of my best ones while driving an offroad jeep in Sedona; in a Parisian clothing shop; and in the ladies room of Wuksachi Lodge in Sequoia National Park, to name just a few.
And I’m not saying it’s the power of suggestion that makes the Healing Waters or the Holy Dirt work for all these later people. It’s way more than that. Belief is a truly awesome (and underappreciated) force.
Let’s consider this for a moment: That we are all One infinite being of unlimited creative power. But that’s a very tough concept to take seriously while we still believe we’re separate minds housed in separate bodies, living in the 3-D world of form.
When we’re awakened to the memory of our perfect Oneness, then together we’re able to exercise our divine creative powers. But we can’t access that unlimited creativity if we believe we’re not One. As separate individuals, our unlimited creative abilities can’t be used properly, so instead we funnel all of that awesome unused power into belief.
If we believe something fully, in other words, it becomes 100% true for us. (All those fans of the Law of Attraction out there would no doubt agree.) And if all us individuals believe in something together, then that thing becomes collectively true for all of us. Sickness is real only if we believe in it; spontaneous healing becomes real exactly the same way. Regardless of whether your Holy Dirt comes from the Santuario de Chimayo or the hardware store.
So I guess the moral of this story would be to always take a good close look at what your beliefs are.
Awesome, powerful you.