Open the Plaza — it symbolizes welcome, tolerance

In his weekly column, New Mexican editor Phill Casaus recommended the removal of the much-despised plywood box as well as the remaining base of the toppled obelisk (“Española shooting shows there is no next for the Plaza,” Oct. 7). His rationale was threepronged: public safety, taxpayer money and cultural pragmatism. He noted, “Almost anything of substance the city puts in place of the brown box — now a monument to indecision — almost certainly will create a controversy as predictable and unavoidable as the destruction of the Soldiers’ Monument in the first place.”

I agree with his conclusions but for a very different set of reasons that have nothing to do with public safety, money or culture wars. The deeper issue is what, if anything, might symbolize the ceremonial center of our city. In a curious way, the box now in the middle of the Plaza is a perfect symbol for an individual, a town or a nation in the midst of radical changes and divisions that leave them all feeling boxed in. When politicians feel boxed in, they either play a blame game or do nothing, hence indecision.

The historian of religions Mircea Eliade wrote, “Every inhabited region has what may be called a ‘center,’ that is to say, a place that is sacred above all.” The emotional, psychological and spiritual implications of such a center should not be underestimated, even in our secular times. Eliade cites many examples from all over the world going back tens of thousands of years. “The symbol of a Mountain, Tree or Column situated at the center of the world is extremely widely distributed.” [sic]

This aspect of “mythological geography,” to use Eliade’s term, was given short shrift by the expensive CHART project, which was so laden with painstakingly transparent process and data that it wound up revealing nothing, if anything, that everybody doesn’t already know. For example, Santa Fe is not a tri-cultural lovefest. No kidding.

One provocative CHART participant was Setha Low, a multidisciplinary scholar of public spaces. She gave a first-rate lecture about plazas throughout history and their function as symbolic centers of civic life. But even her talk failed to dig into the primordial symbolism of the center. Under the everyday functions of commerce, politics and socializing lies the timeless fifth dimension, what Jung called the collective unconscious and others call the world of imagination, dream and myth.

With all due respect to brave 19th century soldiers, for many of us the obelisk was less about a piece of history than simply the not-very-prepossessing marker at the symbolic center of town.

The final CHART report itself wound up being about much more than a toppled Civil War memorial. The report became about life and culture in Santa Fe, writ large. This is the hidden power of symbols: They are always about more than the surface, and they often mean different things to different people.

The Soldiers’ Monument should be restored, preserved and honored — but someplace other than the Plaza. Let the Plaza be as open a space as possible.

On the mythopoetic level, the message is “an open center.” What could be a better symbol for a town that aspires to tolerance, the welcoming of visitors and keeping an open mind?

There is precious little open space left in this town. In open space, imagination is promoted. Four ravens might swoop down from the four directions. A coyote, a foil for plans and pretensions, might venture forth to sniff his way across the Plaza. When people squabble about claims on the land, they might remember that others predate all of us.