New Mexico Mercury

Friday Voyage: Alaska

The rugged beauty and cultural distinctness of America's largest state make it a country unto itself.

Insight New Mexico - E.A. “Tony” Mares

V.B. Price talks with poet, historian and author E.A. "Tony" Mares about the book he helped write as well as the concept of "Resolana" and the those who have embodied the concept from Padre Antonio Jose Martinez forward.

Shutdown Saves Money

Humphrey's World

Hanging together—reluctantly

Edgewood is a tranquil rural village of pastures, mountains, cows and blue skies. This Edgewood is in northern California at the base of Mount Shasta, at 14,179 feet the tallest summit in the region and the second tallest anywhere in the Cascade Mountains.

Shasta’s year-round snowfield and five glaciers hang over Edgewood like a living presence, a white ghost exhaling pure, cold air over fields and homes. Rising some 11,000 feet above the village, the massive mountain doesn’t just dominate the skyline; it is the skyline. It is as if Sandia Peak rose 2 miles above Albuquerque instead of 1 mile and was sitting virtually on top of the city...

Weekly Poem: Silence of the Messengers

We hear only hush of wings
these angels who
sweep around us
never a word spoken
never a sword drawn
though their voices be strong, their hearts brave,
knowing we would not remember
if they spoke
would not remember one soft word
nor recall one firey blow...

Provincial Matters, 10-14-2013

V.B. Price's weekly collection of appreciations and observations.

Friday Voyage: Greece

A journey through the home of gods and goddesses and pondering mythological manifestations in our daily lives.

Weekly Poem: The Spring

Like the way a spring seems
To rise, fresh, out of a silent earth,
So my words, once started,
Find their own way
From my equally silent depths.

I suppose the invisible machinery
Of my subconscious is involved,
But a poem is more than something
Stirred from darkly distorted memories of
My pasts...

The Most Beautiful Classroom in the World

The most beautiful classroom in the world lives in the middle of a Southwestern painting.  The vaulting blue sky gives way to the magnificent whites of the billowing clouds--smoke signals from the gods.  Their shadows fancy dance on the hills.  Triangulated among the peaks of the Jemez, Sangre de Cristo, and Sandia mountains, our classroom provides a bridge from a traditional community to the modern world.

Each morning, a bus travels the dirt roads of the Pueblo and fills with bleary-eyed children.  Nearly 900 years ago, these children’s ancestors settled the fertile soil near the confluence of the Galisteo and Rio Grande rivers...

The Taos Hum

The Taos hum has long been a mystery.  Ever since 1956 residents of Taos County have periodically noticed what some have described as a low-frequency vibration, a deep rumble from the earth most often felt through the soles of the feet.  They say it is most noticeable when barefoot, but there have been reports of some people sensing the rumble while wearing Birkenstocks.  High heels and Gucci loafers seem to have a dampening effect on the vibration...