Epic Travel → North America → Mountain States → New Mexico → Dwan Light Sanctuary

Location: Montezuma, East of Santa Fe, New Mexico

Time Required: 15 minutes – 1 hour

Red Tape/Notes: Free to visit! Open daily from 6am – 8pm. Located on the UWC campus, which is otherwise closed to the public; stop at the school’s Welcome Center and talk to the security guards who will direct you to the sanctuary.

What’s Nearby?: Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument, Montezuma Hot Springs

Built as a place of refuge from the conflicts and anxieties of daily living, the light sanctuary opened in 1996 with a design that capitalizes on Northern New Mexico’s light – two apses hold six large prisms each and 12 more prisms are mounted in the roof, which combine to create beautiful, shifting rainbows around the room. On full moon nights, you can even observe lunar spectra. It’s a great place to meditate or just spend a few moments in peace and tranquility; even you’re not into all that self-reflection stuff, it’s still a cool place to appreciate the way the designers and architects capitalized on the location to create an interesting building that makes lots of rainbows. If you don’t like rainbows, there’s something wrong with you.

Epic Travel → North America → Mountain States → New Mexico → Dwan Light Sanctuary