Hi there! Thanks for stopping in! I hope this entry finds you well 🙂

I’m a bit excited that I’ve found myself on a little bit of a writing binge! It’s definitely been a good while since I’ve had the urge to write as much as I’ve had in the last month. I feel like a major energy shift has graced me, and the once blocked creative flow has been released to carry these expressions out from my brain into the real world in whatever form they choose to take. In a short 10 days I’ve drafted 3 different entries and hope to edit and schedule them very soon. Hopefully I can find the steady wave to ride, continuing to blog weekly like I had once before. Fingers crossed. 

This entry topic is very very dear to my soul, and if you’re at all close to me, you’ve heard me talk about this subject to the point of nauseum and I apologize in advance if you have already heard this spill from me haha. The one thing that I’m probably the absolute most passionate about, connected to, and overall honored to be a part of- is my Castillo family. The formative years I spent growing up with my elders, learning the lifestyle, and finding the true meaning of home, have been embedded in the spirit of this vessel. It’s been the one constant and the most influencing sense of identity I have carried throughout my life. It’s absolutely, literally THE most important part of my existence.

When I was around 3 years old, my family moved from Colorado Springs out to a ranch on the outskirts of Raton, NM. My Great Grandfather Castillo had suffered a stroke and would need help maintaining the work that needed done on the family cattle ranch. It would be my dad, mom, little sister, and myself that would move in with grandma and grandpa while we awaited our new trailer. I can still remember that trailer perfectly, the day it arrived was like opening the biggest present these little eyes had ever gazed upon. It was a single wide that was brought in by a big semi truck and it was wrapped in plastic, just like a present should be haha. The first night I got to see inside will hopefully be a memory I get to keep for a good long while. I can remember my dad having to lift me up into the door frame because we didn’t have steps yet, and I remember it being almost pitch black without the flashlight because it was still without electricity. I can still remember all of the brand new furniture, the texture of the carpets, and the wallpaper. It was nothing short of perfect! I wouldn’t spend a whole lot of my childhood here, because we would move by the time I was 6, but nothing has or ever will feel as much like home as that place did. 

While grandpa was recovering, I can remember my dad taking on the daily chores and helping with other things that were in need of his attention. One thing I learned young and quick, was that out on an active ranch, every single day had work to offer. Something was always in need of repair, or improvement, and that’s just how it was and how it went. Once grandpa was able, I remember him and dad tackling the day’s work together, and instantly I became intrigued with their hard work and ingenuity. Great Grandpa knew a lot! And had a way of knowing how to fix anything and everything around him in some way or another. Grandpa had more of a McGuyver approach to mechanics, but in his mind he was able to easily understand how something worked, what parts he could substitute, and how he could assemble everything to accomplish the desired function. I was always so fascinated with Grandpa’s way of being, he was a very intricate man, and needed to be doing something almost constantly. Life kept him busy, and even when it came to “down time”, he usually read books or played with his collection of brain twister puzzles. His frequent and unique problem solving is something that has found its way down the generational line and has even left its impression on me…. And it makes me so proud when I feel that light turn on and the gears begin to turn. The most gratifying feeling is when those pieced together ideas and parts end up coming together and working! Just like they did for grandpa 🙂

Great grandma had her way of contributing to the work that needed done around the ranch and the house. She was an astounding partner to grandpa and filled in wherever she could to help him complete a task or help keep him on his toes to complete what he had set out to do. I would have to say some of my most cherished memories were of days grandma spent cooking a large meal to feed the neighbors that lived close by who would arrive to help out in a larger task, which was usually branding. The men would be out at the corral (me included) each lending a hand in a place needed in order to undertake the job at hand. Branding usually took most of the morning and we usually gathered up 3 or 4 helpers, sometimes more! From early in the day until around lunch time the friends and family worked through the young herd of calves until they could finally turn the branding stove off. Grandma always had an abundant spread ready for the help as a thank you for their time and their labor. I always appreciated this barter-like system, because no one ever came expecting anything for themselves. They came to be of help, true help. The community of our neighbors was different from anything I’ve witnessed outside of that lifestyle, and it certainly gave me a different set of expectations for others.   

It never really dawned on me how unique this made my early childhood, and how much it would shape the person that I am. Like I had mentioned previously, I left there pretty young. It goes without saying that those years and that lifestyle molded the person that I am today, and the person I feel that I was destined to be. I find that I’m pretty old fashioned for my age, proudly resourceful (or cheap ahaha!), and quite naturally an Earth Child. There’s always been a sense of a deeper/divine connection, and given the opportunity of being a small imaginative child, I very much grew and thrived in that felt connection. I felt the energy in what I deemed as “special” rocks, I sang amongst the tall grasses and trees, and I felt one with the flow of the creeks when my feet were submerged.  It was kinda like my own real life Disney movie, and I was the princess of this land haha. The circle of life was all around me, in the land beneath my feet, the animals both wild and domesticated, and the skies above that brought the changing seasons. All of it had its place, and watching how grandma and grandpa lived, I could see how we had our part to play in it as well. I was taught that it was our job to respect our land, care for our animals, and learn how to survive when resources were minimal or less than convenient. I learned that hard work and calloused hands were a sign of a life well lived and well earned, and certainly a badge of character as well. I learned that neighbors were people you could trust in times of need, and people you looked out for as they did the same in return. Above all I learned that you can create from anything, or nothing at all. My favorite gift from that time out there, is the wild imagination that I still have today. I didn’t need toys, I had a ranch, a dog, and a crazy little mind that could turn those pastures into anything I desired. It was my sanctuary. It still is my sanctuary.

Life would be pretty unstable after this, my childhood would remain out on the ranch, and I would go on to struggle to understand society and people’s behavior…. I still struggle to understand it all. None of it is anything like what I was raised around, and I wasn’t much of a fan. Since life was always in an uproar and I never was able to get too comfortable in any one place, at least not enough to consider it “home”. Home would and will always be that cattle ranch I remember so vividly, and I could feel it every time I returned for a visit. The way the air smelled of earth and cow shit (hahaha), the way the wind whisked through my hair, and how the scene was filled with the songs of the meadowlarks. Peace never found me anywhere else the way it did out there, and I would run back as often as possible to get a piece of solitude in the midst of the chaos that was my life in the city. Going out there was sacred to me, and like ritual I would always roll my windows down the minute the pavement turned to dirt. I could feel the calling of my creek as the winds welcomed me back, and I would sit with bated breath as I anxiously awaited the sight of that yellow bus parked by grandma and grandpa’s house. It’s how I’ve always known I was only seconds away from home <3 As soon as we’d pull onto our “street” my Red Heeler/Dingo mix, Diamond would be trailing right behind the truck. She’s been my baby since I was roughly 3.5, and somehow, even with all the years I spent away, she never ever forgot me. I knew it in the way she’d come flying around the fence post into the yard, only to see me getting out of the truck and she would slow to a whimpering crawl as her whole body would wag with excitement. She would make it only a few feet in front of me before flopping onto her back for a belly rub. I was always tickled by this response to my presence and often got weepy seeing her. After belly rubs she always stood on her hind legs for a dance, just like we did when I was a kid… (I’m realizing there’s so much to say about her, I think I may just have an entry all about her).  After our dance I would fire up the 4 wheeler and her and I would tear ass up and over the hill to my favorite place on earth, my creek (as my great grandmother would call it <3). I’ve loved that little spot for as long as I can remember, and every time I came home, that was the first place I was dying to be. It’s always been so obvious to me, in everything about that place, that it’s just where I belong. Where I have always belonged. It’s the only thing that has ever offered me that feeling.

It’s been many many generations of family on both my great grandma and great grandpa’s side that have homestead out in the lands of New Mexico. Each lived in different ways, some had gardens, orchards, chickens, pigs, cows and so on, but one thing that they all did the same, was they built their own lives with their very own hands. They took pride in what was theirs and they didn’t need much to be content and happy with their lives. It’s always made me so proud to have come from a long lineage of people who worked so hard and lived so honestly. I would grow to cling to that heritage and that way of being, and the value of being a Castillo would only grow as I did. Our land has mostly managed to stay in the family though many of my elders have passed, but the legacy still thrives deep in my heart. Each property is like a museum of family history to me, and there are remnants of the lives they lived all over. Since I was pretty small, I have always wanted to return to that life, to take my place in the lineage and my place as a steward to our Mother Earth. As time has gone on, I have recognized the blessing it really is to have the life and spirit that I do, to be born into this way of living. To have done nothing in this life besides belong to a specific bloodline, to have the privilege to carry on in the way my elders did, and to hopefully one day inherit the earth they built their lives on, to build my own life. To someday continue the legacy by bringing a generation of my own into this life and raising them in the similar ways that I was. In hopes that they would feel the magic I felt growing up so close to nature, learning the value of hard work, and to one day fall in love with being a Castillo. Only to have children of their own and continue it all again and again for generations to come <3 I might be crazy to think that’s how it’ll all go… but a girl can dream 🙂

So, I guess in some sort of honky way, I am indeed a princess <3 A lover of dirt roads, farm animals, the smell of alfalfa and cow shit, and a descendant of hardworking land owners and homesteaders. Born into what I appropriately and affectionately call “Cowboy Royalty”. I dream everyday about taking my place out by that mesa, where I’ll get to return to my roots and spread them far and deep. This dream has been with me all my life, and will be my dream until I die, and I plan to die living that reality or die making it my reality <3

I think this will sum up my ramble for today. If you’ve made it this far, thank you for spending the time <3 I hope to have another blog entry ready and posted up for you next week. As always, thank you, and I love you <3

<3

Miki Len  

Ps. A lot of these pictures are much more recent, I hope to gather some older photos to add here or to another entry, because I know this won’t be the only one I make about this life, my beautiful family, and that sacred land <3 Also, these are private and protected properties, and trespassing is illegal and my family believes in the 2nd amendment.