Holy Trinity Monastery – St. David, AZ

We were more than ready to leave the crowds of Patagonia, and as usual, we went to check out future sites before taking the RV on the road. Patti had read that Sierra Vista was a place where lots of winter RV’ers stay, so we took a day trip to Sierra Vista. As Patti was getting her Starbucks fix in Sierra Vista, talking to an employee, the barista mentioned Benson and St. David were better places to RV for the winter than Sierra Vista. The town of Sierra Vista has quite a large military presence and base, and that is a bit much for me (as I am an aging, peace loving hippie). So we decided to drive north to check out Benson and St. David. We found Benson easily enough, but if you’re looking for St. David, you almost have to find the town before the road signs indicate where it is located. Go figure…

Benson is a sleepy little town with a great restaurant called the Horseshoe Café. It was lunchtime so we decided to have a bite to eat and get out of the sweltering heat, 105-degrees (oh, we do miss the coolness of Colorado)!!! This café was celebrating it’s 80^th year in business – so we thought it would a great idea to eat here. If they’ve been here 80 years we ought to be able to get a decent meal. I had a tuna sandwich and Patti had the meatloaf, we also ordered one piece of blueberry/raspberry pie to go. Later, back at the RV, we ate the pie and it was scrumptious – we should have gotten 2 pieces!!! The food was excellent so we NOW know why they are still in business…

After lunch we asked for directions to St. David and discovered that it is about 5 miles southeast of Benson. Too bad there were no signs – but then we wouldn’t have had that fabulous pie! We checked out one RV park and it is certainly do-able, for next winter. We ventured down the road to see what we could see and found a huge Celtic cross erected in the middle of a pecan orchard, which led us to the Holy Trinity Monastery. The sign said they had an RV park and all were welcome. We toured around the Monastery grounds and found the portion allocated to “transients” and the energy I experienced there was fabulous. We decided that this could be our next stop (tomorrow) when we left Patagonia.

That night, when we returned to Patagonia, we hooked up Rosalita (our travel trailer) so we could head out early before the heat set in again. 105 degrees is way too hot for us! It was very pleasant and cool leaving at 6:30am, but the temps would climb to 100 before we reached St. David by 9:30am. We got settled, turned on the AC and stayed inside till the sun went down – by the afternoon, the temperature would climb to 105 and the following day it reached 109 degrees!!! Although the energy felt great in this sacred place, it was too hot to enjoy or even to explore its’ beauty.

The following morning I decided to get up with the sun, about 5am, and take a walk along the birding trail to the San Pedro River, which was a trickle this time of year. To my surprise Patti was up with her iced coffee in hand, me with my morning hot tea in hand (it is much too hot to enjoy my hot tea any later than 6am) and together we walked down to the river, passing an ancient cottonwood (which was mostly dead but surprisingly, still had green life – hope); before the weather became too stifling. Someone from the Monastery had taken a couple of chairs (also ancient relics) and makeshift benches down to the river’s edge for enjoying the river, the enormous cottonwood trees, birds and meditative space. We walked back to camp, and then I decided to check out their meditation pond.

The Meditation Pond was a literal oasis in the desert with cottonwoods and willows overshadowing the entire serene area. The pond had enormous koi swimming around, along with some small black fish and I am sure there was at least one frog, yet they were camera shy. There was a bright red, arching metal bridge with circular symbols sacred to the church, welded into the frame. Beside the path to the bridge was a plaque with a printed sheet explaining the meaning of each symbol. There was a magical waterfall that fed the pond and encouraged minute insect life. The sound of the bubbling water cascading down the rock-lined waterway was music to my ears. Surrounding the pond were benches for sitting and reflecting, various statues from different cultures, and an island where Jesus and St. Francis protect and oversee the sacredness of this intimate space.

 

Also inhabiting the area of the pond were several peacocks making their raucous calls and displaying their magnificent mating plumage for all to admire. They are very humorous and not really afraid of people. A young peacock came right up to me while I was taking pictures on the bridge over the pond and I could have reached out and touched him, but did not. At one point, the dominant male was vehemently defending his pecking order status against this young male rival, who was obviously vying for the attention of his mate. A behavior I observed was that when the younger male came close, the dominant peacock would not only spread his tail feathers and strut around in a circle – but also shake all of his feathers and body, as if having a seizure. It was so awesome to watch! I now understand the term ‘peacocking’ much better.

I have seen peacocks before but never watched their antics for an extended period of time. Their amazingly brilliant blue and vivid green plus the intricate patterns of their feathers impressed my photo-art eye to no end. So, despite what my fashion conscious mother told me when I wanted to wear mismatched, unusual or bold colors together… blue and green DO go together exquisitely! As a side note… peacocks are most often photographed from the front with their blue and green feathers in all their brilliance: BUT have you ever seen the beauty and pattern of the ‘backside’ of a peacock? Although, it is certainly not as fabulous, gorgeous or intricate as the front; it is nonetheless artful & delicate yet subtle, reminding me of wild turkeys. I had never before seen this beautiful backside of a peacock; I always assumed both sides were the same… Later, when I was walking back to Rosalita to get out of the heat, I saw two young males chasing a (female) peahen round and round the fences and trees, trying to mate, but luckily she was really quite evasive. After this merry-go-round went on for several minutes, the males lost interest in the female and returned to the gigantic cottonwoods surrounding the pond. There they continued to strut their plumage over and around the limbs of the trees. I was surprised to see peacocks fly high into trees, pretty agile for big birds with long flowing feather veils. The peacocks and peahens were certainly entertaining as I snapped photos and enjoyed the vibration of this sacred, meditative space.

Before I returned to the AC of Rosalita, I toured around the grounds to see the beautiful buildings. Most of the buildings looked like they were adobe, or at least adobe-looking, to help control the heat in the summer. The walls and arches were magnificently sculpted and maintained. Intermixed with the adobe structures were tree limb fences and trees everywhere for shade and siestas. The architecture reminded me of a mix of Spanish and Italian cultures. I could see a time when this Monastery would have flourished with friars, monks and sisters preparing the way for others

Holy Trinity Monastery is a Benedictine Monastery founded September 3, 1974. Throughout the year personal and group retreats are held for spiritual renewal. Outreach ministries include food and clothing distribution to an orphanage in Mexico and donated time to Quiburi Mission, a nursing home in Benson, AZ. The San Pedro Valley Center for the Arts is housed at the Monastery with on-going workshops in sculpture, pottery, painting, woodcarving, etc. The Benedictine Monastery is also affiliated with the Cochise Community College music department, which brings concerts to the Monastery. The musical programs are open to the public, as well as, the Benedictine community. These workshops have been available since January 1992. The Monastery sits on 92 acres and borders the San Pedro River. At one time the Monastery was a working farm that housed goats, sheep, chickens and grazing cows: we did not see any evidence of domestic stock or farm equipment. Maybe it is no longer feasible to farm the land and maintain livestock or maybe the ‘farm’ happens on some other part of the land. There IS a pecan orchard on the property and a working bakery with awesome breads, pastries, pecan pies, as well as, fresh, shelled pecans for sale, yum.

The southern part of Arizona is not a place for us to visit again until winter, when hopefully, we will over-winter in the town of St David or other points, as yet, unknown.

After 3 nights, which was a bit too long (because of the heat), we moved to New Mexico for 2 nights and on June 9^th we headed north toward the coolness of Colorado.