An artist friend eagerly awaited the completion of her new house. She’d acquired one of the last remaining lots in the South Capital area near downtown Santa Fe. Everyday Margo dropped by, watching the slow but steady progress. The day the plumbing trenches were dug, she peered over the edge of one leading to the kitchen.

“I’ll never forget what I saw,” she told me later. “At the bottom of this hole was a small pot shard. I jumped into the trench and got it. The whole day felt special after that.”

Then things began to happen. She moved in just before Christmas. Trying to move and feel festive at the same time wasn’t easy.

“I remember one night hearing chanting,” she said. “I thought it was coming from the neighbors down the street. But it kept up night after night. It wasn’t loud but soft and far away. One evening I went outside to follow the sound. The street was completely quiet. When I walked back in my house, the chanting was there. In my house!”

Intrigued, Margo continued to listen to the soft chanting for weeks. But then the sound, almost on the border of not being heard, became irritating. Then a vase mysteriously tipped over and fell off a shelf. Loud knocks on the door began happening late at night. When she opened the door, no one was there. And the chanting wouldn’t go away. She brought in a psychic.

“Turns out I was living on an old, old Indian campground,” Margo told me. “They’d spend months living here, gathering food in the fall. Then another tribe came and forced the first ones to leave. A fight took place, killing many of the original settlers.”

The psychic told Margo the early inhabitants didn’t want anyone living on their land. The “events” of tapping, chanting, picture frames tilting right after she’d straightened them continued until she eventually complied with the wishes of these unseen ghosts, sold her beloved house and moved.

Stories like this aren’t uncommon in Santa Fe. As with any old town, the past tends to stay alive. Though most prefer that the past remains static in the form of history records, vintage photographs, and old land deeds, a portion of the past remains active. And this activity often happens in the form of unexplained sounds, weird feelings and sightings of haunting apparitions.

Santa Fe’s most famous ghost resides at La Posada de Santa Fe Resort & Spa, the newly remodeled inn on Palace Avenue. In the early 1800s three brothers, who had emigrated from Germany, acquired the land. They opened a mercantile business that became a thriving center of exchange. Eventually Abraham Staab built a stately mansion, often referred to as the Staab house by locals. The grand mansion became a center of social activity, entertaining such notables as Archbishop Lamy and governor Lew Wallace.

The Staabs had four boys and four girls. But when an infant son died people reported that Julia Staab’s hair turned prematurely white. She became distressed, inconsolable and wouldn’t leave her bedroom. The story goes she eventually died of a broken heart.

Rumor now has it she still inhabits her old room in the original section of the hotel and that Julia often flicks the lights on and off. People specifically ask to stay in room number 100, just for a chance to experience an event with a ghost. Apparently she is benign and some guests have even said Julia will periodically speak with them and answer their questions.

Elissa Heyman, one of Santa Fe’s more prominent psychics for the past 15 years, did a reading at La Posada many years ago and “picked up” a lot of sadness from a disturbed woman. “She seemed young, but not silly yet certainly unstable mentally,” said Heyman.

Whether for fun or other reasons, Ms. Staab continues entertaining a select handful of guests periodically, making La Posada probably the best place for testing one’s ability to sense discarnate beings. But other notable places around town have had their share of ghostly encounters, as well.

In the book “Adobe Angels, the Ghosts of Santa Fe and Taos” by Antonio R. Garcez a rather hair raising experience occurred for awhile at what is now the Grant Corner Inn. According to a boarder who lived in the old rooming house, loud poundings began accompanied by foul odors. Screams could be heard. Lights flicked on and off. These events lasted several weeks with no plausible explanation.

The man who gave the information for this story, Art Garcia said he brought in a clairvoyant who “picked up” vibrations of lost souls who were “reliving their past lives with much energy.”

It turned out that the house, built in 1905, saw a series of owners and occupants come and go. At one point a postal worker apparently kept his paraplegic wife trapped on the second floor, where the sounds emanated from. Then the daughter, who lived in the house until the 1970s, was killed along with her husband in a car accident.

“I cannot verify the accuracy of this information,” reported Garcia, “but it does coincide with what the clairvoyant had said.” He had a priest bless the house and the loud intrusions stopped, though neatly stacked clothes would soon be strewn about and lights would go on and off. But since new owners took the house over, completely remodeled it and turned it into a bed and breakfast in 1982, no rumors of ghosts at the inn have floated through town.

Even Ten Thousand Waves, the benign and lovely spa in the hills north of town has had its share of ghosts. When Duke Klauch bought the land for the health spa, he didn’t know he was buying a ghost, too. “There were nights when I was awakened by what sounded like iron hitting iron or chains and metal items being dragged across the hardwood floors,” he said in his story in Adobe Angels. He then learned that the former owner’s daughter killed herself, followed by her husband less than a year later.

After Klauch opened his business, several sightings of ghostly origins occurred. At one point he decided to bring in a priest to do an exorcism; afterward all “other worldly” activity ceased.

Santa Fe isn’t the only town with ghosts. Taos has its share of unexplained unearthly phenomena, too. Probably the most renowned is the Taos hum. At one time it even made national headlines. No one yet has been able to locate the source or find an explanation for this vibrational hum that has come and gone since the 1980s. People without any predilection for psychic stuff can even hear it. All sorts of theories have cropped up over the years from Indian ancestors returning with their dances to Taos being directly opposite the globe from Tibet and the hum is some kind of message trying to get through.

Another local experience that excites visitors from time to time is a strong, sweet cinnamon smell at the Mabel Dodge Luhan House. The smell often comes just prior to an apparition appears in a long white flowing gown. It’s said that Mabel Dodge Luhan, the diva of Taos in the early days, loved cinnamon and loved to wear white. And by this one would assume Mabel still likes to stir things up a bit in her old home town.

Today the living history museum is on the site of the old Hacienda Martinez, which was built in 1804. Passing from generation to generation, the land and the house remained in the long time prominent Taos family until 1931. Elma Torres, who worked as the receptionist at the hacienda, told a hair raising tale to Garcez for his book.

One cold October afternoon she heard footsteps outside the front door. As the commotion continued, she finally opened the door to see no one. A year later she heard the same footsteps then felt the presence of someone in the room.

“I froze and then suddenly I heard the deep, hard breathing sounds that someone makes as they inhale then exhale a breath of air. I actually felt the breath on my neck!” she said. She immediately ran to her car and left, later to be told that several other people had seen and heard a woman crying in one of the rooms of the hacienda.

“We’ve even had a medium or psychic walk through the room who has told us that the woman is definitely very sad about something,” continues her report in Adobe Angels. Other workers have seen a ghost woman walk by the windows and Torres also reported later seeing shadows looking in windows or walking past doors.

It’s probably unlikely for most people visiting Santa Fe or Taos to get a glimpse of a ghost or two. They aren’t every day happenings. Still, there is something in the air along Rio Grande Valley that continues to remind everyone this is truly an enchanted place. For some reason when people come to town they often experience a higher level of serendipity. Things happen in conjunction with seemingly unrelated events and soon the two become meaningful. Many people report stumbling upon the area quite by accident and never leaving. Sometimes within hours they’ll find a place to live and a job. And stories abound about people meeting in odd occurrences and end up married shortly afterward.

Heyman said she has walked the plaza area and also along Palace avenue and “picked up” vibes from old spirits. “I just get the feeling from them that Santa Fe is a good place to be. Even discarnate beings like hanging out here. There’s just something conducive to the spiritual world here,” she said.

People often feel led to a certain store or particular part of town only to find something that fits with their own inner life. It often makes the old adage “nothing happens by accident” show itself to be true.

My friend Margo said at one point she was having a series of dreams.

“They’d come in waves. I’d have a long dream and then a short one followed by another short one, then a long one. This went on for several weeks. It was like a design,” she said. “Then I happened into a ceramic store and saw mug. On it was an I Ching symbol that was the same design as the way my dreams had come. I bought the mug, bought a book on I Ching and that experience moved me to start my own art gallery. It was just the sign I needed.”

Another friend lived in a rented mobile home in Pecos. After weeks of strange things happening – poundings, smells, doors slamming – she invited an Indian friend over who possessed an uncanny ability to “read” the air. He knew immediately the trailer was situated on an old Indian battleground. A ceremony was performed and the souls got released and the odd stirrings never happened again.

In many ways the world of spirits is quite noticeable here. Not only do thoughts have an uncanny way of manifesting, but the ability to see those thoughts manifested is intensified. For some reason magic abounds here and, of course, that makes it a place where souls, alive and dead, don’t want to leave. It’s a great place to live and seemingly some of the old timers are still hanging around.