JDSP 13 (1+2) pp. 235–238 Intellect Limited 2021 Journal of Dance & Somatic Practices Volume 13 Numbers 1 & 2 www.intellectbooks.com 235 ABSTRACT The United States has a long, shameful history of destroying the culture of its Indigenous people. This poetic reflection narrates an experience of mine at the ancient site of the Taos Pueblo in New Mexico. This UNESCO World Heritage Site, open to visitors and closed during sacred ceremonies, provoked a somatic shift in me. I chose to write about the shift using the intimacy of poetic language to blur the boundary between self and environment, human body and Earth body, subject and object. For there to be a change in how humans regard the environment, it seems helpful to hike into the wilderness and sleep under the stars, an embodied experience that can heighten perceptions, which then informs the language used to write about the natural world. 1. You asked about the whereabouts of my husband after my telling you I was on my honeymoon. In the car with a cactus spine stuck in his foot, I replied. He should come in anyway, you urged, the pain from the swelling preventing him from doing so. Without him I toured your ancient adobe village once home to nearly 2000 Taos Pueblo people, now only housing 150 with its mud and straw walls without plumbing or electricity. Without him I peered over the stone wall at gravestones of mostly women and children killed during the 1827 war with Mexico when US soldiers set fire to your church, which you never wanted built in the first place, the bell tower and stone rubble all that remains. I meandered the courtyard and alleys strewn with rusted bicycles © 2021 Intellect Ltd Artistic Work. English language. https://doi.org/10.1386/jdsp_00053_1 Received 4 January 2021; Accepted 6 October 2021 CHERYL PALLANT University of Richmond Taos conversation KEYWORDS Taos Pueblo ecosomatics consciousness ecopoetics heightened perceptions