My New Mexico Ghost Story

I'm feeling very ghostily blessed to have many special blogging buddies that like me enough to ghost me this month.

Callie at Midwest Horse blog is a kind and friendly lady who also has a beautiful painted pony, like me. She leads an interesting life and I covet her adorable pellet stove.

Lisa over at My Horses my Life has a blog that is just a joy to read, especially since it's usually about horses.

Jamie at Seatbelt for my Saddle is just a sweetie with a good heart. She and her horse look amazing together and I enjoy reading about the trail rides and competitions they do together.

Valerie over at Fantastyk Voyage is my neighbor, friend, horse riding buddy, and letterboxing/hiking pal. She's got beautiful horses, a fun sense of humor and a quirkiness I enjoy.

The rules for Ghosting It Forward are:
1) Have a Ghostly Image and/or a story to pass along.
2) Tag three people (I'm doing four. Boo!) on your blog, with links to their blogs. Tell about what great folks they are, or offer to send them a Ghostly Treat.
3) Include a link to Ghosting It Forward in your blog.

The blogs I choose to Ghost are:
CeeCee because she's a fascinating person full of interesting facts and stories. And I just have a feeling she'll have a good ghost story to share.
Grey Wolf because he's clever and full of knowledge and interesting stories, and I can't wait to get goosebumps after reading what he comes up with.
Michelle is wonderfully wacky, funny, and brilliantly clever. I just know she'll knock my socks off with a good ghost story, or something really scary (no more snakes in the riding helmets, though. Gah!)
Goat Girl because she has llamas, a new mini horse, lots of goats, chickens and she's one funny gal who's been around and has seen enough to tell a good scary yarn.

My Ghostly Story begins with me and my husband wishing for children. We had tried for over five years and went through all sorts of testing, and had almost lost hope. A family member who makes a pilgrimage to an old historic church every year, encouraged us to visit this mission church, too, because it was well known as a place where miracles occur.

This historic church is located in a small town called Chimayó, located south of Taos and northeast of Santa Fe, in the Sangre de Cristo (Blood of Christ)mountains. The quaint town is situated on the "High Road to Taos" –a scenic route through beautiful old Spanish villages and gorgeous Georgia O'Keeffe-esque landscape vistas.
Around 1810, a Chimayó friar was performing penances when he saw a light bursting from a hillside. Digging, he found a crucifix, dubbed the miraculous crucifix of Our Lord of Esquipulas. A local priest brought the crucifix to Santa Cruz, but three times it disappeared and was later found back in its hole. By the third time, everyone understood that El Senor de Esquipulas wanted to remain in Chimayó, and so a small chapel was built on the site. Then the miraculous healings began. These grew so numerous that the chapel had to be replaced by the larger, current Chimayó adobe mission church in 1816.
Believed to be built on sacred earth with miraculous healing powers, the legendary shrine El Santuario de Chimayó, is probably the most visited church in New Mexico. The crucifix which began the original shrine still resides on the chapel alter, but for some reason its curative powers have been overshadowed by El Posito, the "sacred sand pit" from which it sprang. Each year during Holy Week thousands of people make a pilgrimage to Chimayó to visit the Santuario and take away a bit of the sacred dirt. Pilgrims walk a few yards or a hundred miles. Many claim to have been cured of diseases, infirmities and unhappiness. The walls of the sacristy are hung with discarded crutches and before-and-after photographs as evidence of the healing.

We lit a candle in the quiet sanctuary and said our prayers. And though we are not Catholic we had faith and hope in the church's healing powers. Afterwards I stepped into the tiny room containing the small round pit filled with the famous Miracle Dirt. I was all alone. I bent down and scooped up a cupful of the dirt and poured it into my brown paper bag, and as I stood up, a strong gust of wind blew through the little window and made all the candle fires flicker and go out, except one.The lone lit candle sat below the statue of Saint Anthony of Padua, which I didn't realize at the time, until asking a Catholic and showing them a photo of the Saint statue that I saw there that day. Apparently Saint Anthony of Padua is the Saint of Fertility.

I was pregnant....with twins....a month later.

This is a true story.