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Go with the flow(Dallas Morning News, The (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Thirty years ago, under this same towering stand of cottonwood trees and azure New Mexico sky, I shared a lunch of green-chili burgers and root beer floats with my parents and a boisterous black-and-white magpie. The El Monte motor court's grassy picnic area and string of unassuming adobe casitas was our Taos home-away-from-home, a place we returned to each summer for more than a decade, site of my 18th birthday and, later, a portion of my honeymoon. Those memories returned in a sweet flood last summer, as my husband and I followed a guide across grassy "sacred circle" (picnic tables long gone), under a string of Tibetan prayer flags, past waterfalls and a mossy, koi-filled "swimming hole," through rose- and sage-scented courtyards to our room at the luxury eco-spa, El Monte Sagrado. We were about to discover the pleasures of pampering, 21st-century style. El Monte Sagrado, "the sacred mountain," opened in July 2003 _ replacing the vintage motor court with an oasis of plush suites, gourmet food and environmental sensitivity just four blocks east of historic Taos Plaza. Owner Tom Worrell Jr. conceived the $55 million resort as "more than just a beautiful place to stay and find yourself." It's also, he hopes, "an educational experience about connectedness and kinship with Earth." To wit, the entire four-acre retreat is built largely of organic or recycled materials, powered by solar panels, cooled by water and warmed by geothermal heat exchange. Worrell's greatest pride, though, is a natural wastewater treatment system dubbed the Living Machine, a series of filtering tanks, waterfalls, ponds and non-chlorinated pools that gurgle through a glass-walled, rain forest-like biolarium. The New York Times writer who termed it a "knock-off Eden" wasn't far wrong. All of the wastewater from El Monte Sagrado's drains, toilets, showers, baths and sinks flows into the Living Machine, and cards in each room remind guests that "being fed the wrong type of waste" can harm the system. Yet another reason to be glad I packed the Tom's of Maine toothpaste and gave up Diet Dr Pepper for green tea. But El Monte Sagrado is no hippie Maya Tolum. The only hippies here (aside from Taos' customary cadre of crystal healers and other colorful eccentrics) are those with gold cards. Rooms begin at $255 off-season. But the high-season rate for our Japan suite _ a sybaritic, shoji-screened, two-bedroom, two-bath retreat with kiva-style fireplace, private courtyard and teak hot tub offering glorious views of Taos Peak _ is $1,095. That's enough to ripple anyone's pool of Zen calm. Self-indulgence also comes with a price in El Monte's "Living Spa," where the waiting room resembles a Balinese water garden _ if only Balinese water gardens offered comfy chairs, pots of tea and stacks of no-stress magazines. Once, I might have been content with a simple hike to the Arroyo Hondo natural hot springs. But today, I hand over my credit card and ponder menu options that run the gamut from a $60 High Desert Body Polish using blue-corn meal and red Jemez clay, to a $240 Egyptian Anointing and $300 Native American Cleansing courtesy of a Cherokee medicine woman named Grandmother Jean. Spa director Amy McDonald, who previously oversaw Tucson's famed Miraval, shares Worrell's vision for El Monte as a sanctuary where nature meets nurture. The spa's paraben-free product line, which she dreams of seeing on the shelves of Sephora some day, is based almost entirely on ingredients that are certified organic (exact percentages are listed on each potion) or indigenous to the area (wild-crafted Taos mesa sage, New Mexico blue-corn meal). Her next goal: to be the first spa to recycle 100 percent of its water. McDonald's husband, Ed Moffett, leads El Monte's sunset fitness hikes and improvisational "yoga jazz in nature" sessions, and also gave me the massage of a lifetime _ manipulating not just muscles and sinew but liver and spleen. (He asked first, and I was game.) Afterward, feeling unimaginably buoyant, I did a five-minute headstand in the patio. In the midst of all the laid-back grooviness, El Monte's packed Anaconda Bar is as bustling as any big-city hot spot. It even sports a signature drink, the $75 Gold Leafed Tequini, garnished not with an olive, but an actual Mexican fire opal. The nourishment is only a bit more traditional in De La Tierra restaurant, a soaring atrium of adobe and native rock. The menu manages a tasty balance of healthy and decadent, from elk osso bucco and pinon-crusted halibut to miso-marinated grilled tofu and carpaccio of yak tenderloin (the latter made from organic yak raised on the nearby Latir Ranch). Maybe it's the memory of all those long-ago summers, but in the end, my happiest moment at El Monte Sagrado wasn't in the restaurant or even on the massage table. It was sitting in the hot tub, watching a haiku moon rise over the sacred mountain. Some things about Taos never change. ___ ABOUT TAOS If you can bear to leave El Monte Sagrado, Taos offers much of interest _ from the 1,000-year-old Pueblo and renowned Taos Ski Valley, to scads of museums, shops and galleries celebrating the arts and culture of Northern New Mexico. Our visit happened to coincide with an annual mid-July powwow, which brought hundreds of Native American dancers from around the Southwest to compete in a variety of traditional dance styles. Free maps and guides to the historic area's many attractions are readily available at stores and restaurants. See-worthy Web sites include www.TaosGuide.com, www.TaosWebb.com and www.TaosChamber.com. El Monte Sagrado, 317 Kit Carson Road, Taos, N.M., 800-828-8267; www.elmontesagrado.com ___ (c) 2006, The Dallas Morning News. Visit The Dallas Morning News on the World Wide Web at http://www.dallasnews.com/ Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services. ___ TO SUBSCRIBE TO TRENDSETTER Items in the Trendsetter package are not included in your KRT News Service subscription. You can subscribe to the Trendsetter package or purchase the items a la carte on KRT Direct at www.krtdirect.com. 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