Santuario for the Earth

There's a santuario in northern New Mexico with a votive room for holy earth.

I've always loved visiting it with my family. My father, whose livlihood was working with the earth, would drive my mother up to Chimayó to visit the pocito room, the small reliquary room with holy dirt. The earth from this santuario is supposed to be healing and photos of loved ones are left on the walls hoping for prayers from visitors and family.

Around the time my father had passed, proposals to sell and commercially exploit US National Parks left me with an overwhelming sense of grief.

Intuitively, I started a garden. The garden was to surround my childhood home and I felt this deep urge to connect with the lands that shaped my upbringing. I listened from inside my home as a way to heighten my sense of hearing, and I'd stand outside to feel for any changes. I knew these lands intimately from my childhood, and the energy was completely different.

In spending so much time outside as a little girl, immediately I could tell that the seasonal rhythms of my childhood were gone. The sounds of the seasons were unnatural, almost as if the musical arrangement was composed to be completely chaotic. I stood there many mornings and afternoons with this feeling that I was trying to learn a new language.

“We Americans are reluctant to learn a foreign language of our own species, let alone another species. But imagine the possibilities. Imagine the access we would have to different perspectives, the things we might see through other eyes, the wisdom that surrounds us. We don’t have to figure out everything by ourselves: there are intelligences other than our own, teachers all around us. Imagine how much less lonely the world would be.” -Robin Wall Kimmerer

As I was grieving my father, a man who turned earth into shelter, and grieving the loss of public lands, precious metals also underwent an immense change. As more countries declared war against each other, one of the main uses for silver was being diverted for defense, in other words for the creation of weapons.

Silver became inaccessible, the prices unattainable, and I didn't think much about how this would affect me. I thought about the Pueblo peoples, and the many whose whole livlihood was being taken away.

“Joanna Macy writes that until we can grieve for our planet we cannot love it—grieving is a sign of spiritual health. But it is not enough to weep for our lost landscapes; we have to put our hands in the earth to make ourselves whole again. Even a wounded world is feeding us. Even a wounded world holds us, giving us moments of wonder and joy. I choose joy over despair.” - Robin Wall Kimmerer

As I was planting my garden, I started with this idea that I wanted to show thanks. To thank her for my childhood, to thank her for the livlihood that supported my family, to thank her for the endless support.

I also began to feel a rage on her behalf. I was tired of the idea that systems could so quickly take things away. Nature, creativity, joy, how could I express my resistance?

I read about how jewelry had been created as an act of resistance against Napoleon, and I felt called to experiment with other materials, and to use what I have. I began to sketch ideas for jewelry as beautiful acts of protest, ritual, resistance, gratitude, rage, and joy.

I returned to a design from 2023 and considered how it might hold all of these ideas. The original name, Santuario Ring, referenced the votive room of holy dirt in Chimayó. I had also recently incorporated earth into a personal reliquary piece.

I removed the original gemstones, and replaced the center of the design with layers of faceted gemstones, satin velvet, and rock crystal. This was my way of enshrining the lands, to turn the earth into something sacred, to create commentary around it being a precious thing, and to put into question what we value. The new name is Reliquary Retablo Ring.

Along the way, I made intentional changes.

To plant as many seeds as possible.

To experiment freely with materials as a way to create more meaning.

To break away from systems to channel my desire for change.

The Reliquary Retablo Ring holds earth as testament. It asks what we protect, what we exploit, and what we are willing to hold sacred. In this way, making became both ritual and resistance. I created it in grief, in gratitude, and with the belief that the land must somehow be cherished.

“I want to stand by the river in my finest dress. I want to sing, strong and hard, and stomp my feet with a hundred others so that the waters hum with our happiness. I want to dance for the renewal of the world.” - Robin Wall Kimmerer

Thanks so much for reading.

Take care for now,

Caitlin