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The world religions meet in Sangre de Cristo Mountains

Film looks at spiritual attraction of remote Crestone
“The Flame” is a feature-length documentary about spiritual centers located in the remote community of Crestone. Buddhists, Hindus and Catholics all have found a home in the community tucked into the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.

Sean Owen climbed the mountains behind Crestone, a remote town in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, earlier in his life. Little did he know he would later direct a documentary about the spiritual centers there. You name it, Crestone has it: Catholism, Hinduism, Zen, Tibetan Buddhism and more.

Center of Southwest Studies will host a free screening of “The Flame” on Wednesday night. The film was released in 2013 and shows differences and similarities between the religious groups that have been attracted to the mountain hamlet. And it connects the spiritual centers with the environment. The weather is harsh: Crestone has hot, windy summers and brutally cold winters.

“Durango is like Florida compared to that place,” Owen said.

In Crestone, people can talk with priests and monks who practice their faiths day in and day out in the same beautiful setting.

“Everybody, really, in their own way, was saying the same thing: That there is a God, that we may think of the face of God being different from one another, but we’re all kind of in the same boat,” Owen said of his experience filming in Crestone.

It took two years of going back and forth to the spiritual centers from Durango to get the material he needed for the 76-minute film.

And after spending a month in Nepal last fall, which he also is turning into a movie called “Karma Goes Home,” Owen can see why religious people from all over the world have ended up in Crestone. He said it looks like places in Nepal.

“I know that Buddhists came there because it’s very like Tibet. You cross that valley, and you run against those giant mountains, and it looks like places in Tibet,” he said.

The Center of Southwest Studies chose to screen “The Flame” because its spring programming series focuses on peoples and beliefs of the Southwest, said Julie Tapley-Booth, business and public relations manager.

The screening begins at 6 p.m., and it is open to the public.

mhayden@durangoherald.com



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