Month: May 2025

I want to write about silence.

No, maybe not silence. Silence implies a void. What I want to talk about is absolute stillness.

At 8000 ft, coming the back way into Bears Ears, I stopped at a vista. The view was spectacular.

I could see all the way to the Canyonlands to the south, Dead Horse Mesa to the west, the La Sal peaks to the east. Behind me the Abajo range, which I was making my way through.

The view is what first captured my attention. But the absolute stillness took over.

There was the sense of no sound.  A false sense because after only moments I could discern the cry of a hawk, soaring in the currents before me, a wren trilling their distinctive, happy trill. The familiar tones of a Meadowlark, my childhood favorite.

A bird I sat within fields of deep grass in for hours in west Eugene just so I could listen to it sing.

someone caught this one mid-song

 

The meadowlark’s contribution was sporadic. The wren, consistent. A crow, far away down in one of the canyons at the base of Bears Ears, chastised something. It’s throaty rebuke carried up to me on my perch in the Abajo Mountains, crystal clear.

A breeze sipped up a gentle caress now and again. To the west, storm clouds were building, white fluffs filling with water, turning dark grey, then black.

They would keep welling until another inevitable spring release. Which from the looks of it, would hit about the time I arrived down inside the canyons.

I stood in this profound silence, in the stillness, taking it all in.

Absorbing.

Time drifted away. Lost meaning. In its place, I became aware of the actual ions, microscopic refractions of energy filling the air.

Energy so palpable it buzzed.  A very faint, high-pitched buzz. Almost inaudible.   The buzz of the universe.

A bee, lonely traveler to the high altitudes, hummed its way from teeny, tiny, hardy, low growing yellow desert wildflowers. Arnica, I believe.

Good for aches, and pains     Sparse,

they bloom only for a brief time after the rain.

Stillness.

That union with the Divine.

Which is not really a union because we have been part of it all along.

The mountain, the canyons, the clouds filling with life giving water, the meadowlarks, the tiny wildflowers. Me. You. All of us.

All of us are it        This.

A few hours later, I made my way back from the Canyonlands National Park where people queued up to gaze at the stillness, too hurried to take it in,

I re-entered Bears Ears  Canyon.

so incredibly lush in May.

Thick, green, filled with giant oaks, aspen, willow, and the lonely call of a wild turkey hoping to lure a mate.

The canyon, meandering around the entire base of Bears Ears.

 

Newspaper Rock is a place in this lush canyon where travelers past did gaze at the stillness. Lived within it.

Wrote their stories for the next ones to read.        I killed this buffalo.  My friends and I killed these buffalo, these deer.  I shot this magnificent many horned elk from horseback with only a bow. These birds live in this canyon-they call me awake each morning. Our village goats are thriving this year.  I swear, it was the longest snake I’ve ever seen.  The sun shone at festival time. We skinned these two beavers. Or are they something else?  The Bear stopped by.  So did these weird ass men with horns who tried to tell us something about the wheel of time. Who were those guys and where did they come from?!!    

A few miles away, looking south in the stillness, the teats of Mother Earth,

                              

 

Ranchers and miners are hungry for Bears Ears. Lusting

for the possibility of minerals and gasses.

In a unique, somewhat hopeful move,  the Nature Conservancy in 1997 purchased the historic 5000 acre Dugout Ranch, owned by Cowgirl Hall of Famer, Heidi Redd.  The mission:  to create the Canyonlands Research Center, dedicated to studying grazing, ranching, canyon watersheds, and land management impacts on climate change.

 In addition to the 5000 acres owned, there are over 350,000 acres of “public” land, which has been continually leased as grazing rights to Redd, who ran her cattle operation for nearly 50 years.

It is still a working ranch, though now studied by scientists from all over the world. It remains controversial, however, because even with the Conservancy’s take over, the land  remains depleted due to overgrazing, while as always, the water used takes away from an already stretched system. Several conservation groups banded together to challenge the conservancy’s recent plan to build more reservoirs on the ranch and add more fencing.  The judge ruled in their favor after finding that the conservancy failed to adequately monitor and report on its own cattle operation.

I was stunned to see  overhead irrigation being used in such an arid climate. It is the least effective system, losing a high percentage of water to evaporation. I would have thought the Conservancy, as part of their research, would have switched to drip.

BTW, Redd, a very interesting woman now in her 80’s, still lives on the ranch, helping work the land in partnership with the Nature Conservancy.

A few more miles along the canyon and I found this corral set into the stone.   Been there a long time,

chose black and white

The free ranging cattle overgrazing the already sparse desert get driven into here come the fall, then loaded for shipping to market.  Your tax dollars at work!

Take a breath.  Let it go. Bring it in.

The air surrounding me is potent.

Rejuvenating. Clear, clean air.

Fresh and scented with rainfall, juniper berries, flowering sage, the faint top note one of a blend of Silvery Lupine, Blue Columbine, and the rare Sago Lily.

I breathe it as I crawl along the canyon floor, absorbing as much as possible.

Several times, I stop.

Step back into the stillness.

As if to check the reality of such a sacred thing.

Each time, I feel my place in the unified field of One-ness.

The Oversoul, above, below, around, within.

Timeless. Beyond time. Precious beyond measure.

A’wee Chi’deedloh is Baby’s first laugh ceremony. That first laugh marks the time a baby transitions from the spirit world to the physical world, ready to join the community.

I learned this from my host, Jeremy, who grew up right here, right amongst these massive monuments.

In the Navaho tradition, the person who causes the baby to laugh first is the one responsible for hosting the party. That was Jeremy. A large, strapping 21 year old, with an affable personality and glittering brown eyes.

Jeremy invited me to boondock on his family land months ago; it was serendipity (is there really such a thing?) that I arrived at the same time as thirty of his family and friends.

I did not intrude on their special occasion, merely added my blessing to the baby’s blessings basket

then set up out in his side field    

away from the action, content to listen to the sounds of drumming, singing, and happy voices coming from inside the family hogan nearby.

. (keep your eyes on those clouds)

Soon, everything was drowned out by the action of a fierce storm which came roaring out of: first, the west with a sandstorm as intense as the one in the movie the Mummy, then an hour later, from the north with wind gusts to 40mph.

I didn’t try to stand out in that sand to take a picture.

I had been caught in it while peeing, sand infiltrating my eyes, hair, nostrils, and of course, the lovely bits,

but here, (facing west)

you can see the storm moving in from the photos I took before it hit.

(looking northeast)

Besides rocking Pearl (with me cocooned inside) to and fro, the wind sent a jackpot of tumbleweeds racing  from the direction of the monuments in front of me toward the ones behind.

(yeah, like this

but a LOT of them at the same time)

One smacked right into my window on its journey. Startled the bejeezus out of me.

Next, thunder began rumbling impatiently throughout the sky,

until it unleashed lightning, cracking and echoing across the valley. (not my capture but the exact image)

I thought “this is a fitting show for a baby’s first laugh celebration.”

Yes, the rain came down.

Gentle at first, it soon pounded down, turning the red dirt into a sticky, clay like cement which I discovered in the morning while answering the call of nature.

It did a nice job of rinsing the dust off of Durga and Pearl, though.

It got cold.  The temperature dropped down into the high 30’s.

I stood out in the storm awhile, letting the rain and wind baptize me, loving the wildness of it all, thinking how fortunate I was to be experiencing this event in Monument Valley in May.

But soon, it became too much. I scrambled into Pearl, holding tight to the door while the wind fought to rip it off.

I peeled off my drenched clothes, brushed my teeth, peered out at the storm awhile, shivering, climbed into bed.

Burrowed inside my covers even though it was only 8:30. Occupied myself for several minutes with blowing hot breath down between my legs to warm my toes.

Inside my nest, I thought about the ancients I’ve been visiting these many days.

I imagined being inside one of their earthen cave rooms watching such a storm run its course, wondering if the Gods were angry, planning how to appease them.

Then I laughed.

“Nyla, they weren’t parked out in the middle of the flat desert inside a fiberglass shell, being blown to and fro.  They were wisely nestled into snug crevices, out of the wind. Enjoying fires and each other. And maybe baby’s first laugh.”

 

This beautiful woman is Ila.She is my guide.

Ila grew up in Canyon de Chelly, which she loves. She said, “it is my umbilical cord, the place I am forever attached to.”

Ila’s father’s clan comes from the Mummy Canyon, a north side canyon so named because two mummies were discovered in the ruins of the largest pueblo anywhere within the canyon system, located 300 feet above the canyon floor within a huge cave.

She told me these mummies were Anasazi (Ancestral Pueblan) and must have been special to have been mummified and left there alone.  Her father’s family owns the largest land in that back canyon

Ila grew up climbing among the ruins, the cliff houses, crawling along the canyon trails and exploring the verdant canyon floor.

Ila’s mother’s people come from Black Canyon, a smaller side system on the south side. We stopped at the intersection of these two canyons, which she explained is a very important meeting location.

She also explained that her Dine’ people are matrilineal; all land passes through to female clan members and their female heirs, and on and on.

There are about 40 families with roots in the Canyon.  Most of them have traditional hogans (this one is Standing Cow)

and/or cabins on their hereditary parcels.

Ila said that many are just now returning to prepare the land for spring planting following the harsh winter. Most share land tending duties among family members, also sharing weeks or weekends, though some do stay throughout the full spring, summer, and early fall harvest season.

She told me that her family had driven their 30 head of cattle down into the canyon to their land where they would free range until fall.  She said it was one of the most fun days she’s had in a long time.

“I wish we would have brought our gear and spent the night. The stars are so amazing. It’s hard to even pick out the known constellations because there are so many stars scattered about.’

“Turtle was given the job of creating the constellations. He was careful but slow. Coyote got impatient so stole the rest of the stars, then threw them up into the heavens with no thought.”

A few minutes earlier we had been making our way across a wash when shestopped abruptly.

“What is that?  Do you see it?”  She asked.

“It’s a coyote.”

“Yes, it is. I need your help.”

She had us gather up handfuls of the sand we were walking on, then she tracked coyotes tracks in the sand in front of us.

“We’re lucky,” she said after studying the footprints in the sand. “He didn’t cross directly in front of us, but veered away off north.  Coyote crossing in front of us would be a more serious message. He is a messenger. Still, we need to cover his tracks.”

I followed behind her, scattering the sand I’d gathered into Coyote’s footprints as we moved forward.

“Thank you, Grandfather,” she spoke earnestly to the direction Coyote had ambled, “We appreciate you and your message. Go in peace.”

I thanked Coyote, too.  Then, we continued on our trip deeper and deeper into the canyons.

Ila stopping frequently to point out wall art

those zigzags tell of big flood

This cave is thought to be a birthing cave. The small handprints would be of women or children.  If you look, you can see Kokopelli on his back, playing his flute.

Ila said it is the only known image of him on his back, which is the position often used to depict women in childbirth.

She made sure I would  see the cliff dwellings almost hidden in the clefts of the canyon wall.

At each stop, I pointed out the faces in the rocks of Guardians I saw.

“You like to find the faces in the rock,” she said, more of a statement than a question.

“I do,” I answered. “I always see faces. The rock is alive and I believe that the Guardians show themselves if we’re willing to see.”

She liked that. So showed me some that she knew.

A man came galloping by on a slender Palomino, two half wild looking dogs trailing behind.

She spoke to him awhile, asking where he was headed. Shared that we were going way back, all the way to Big Cow.

At that he looked at me and smiled. Then, wheeled his mare around and headed across a deep seasonal stream into the canyon.

When we came to Antelope Canyon,

she shared with me a fact that I’d never been taught in school.  And this is that shortly after the forced marches of her people (and so many others), Navaho prisoners on the “Long Walk”

there was a big gathering in this fertile canyon valley of the chiefs, or their head representatives if they were unable to attend, of many, many tribes. They met to discuss strategy: should they continue fighting, dying, fighting some more or what?  Finally, they agreed to send a delegation to Washington, DC. to plead their case before the president that they would stop being forced from their lands.

When we came upon this panel, Ila pointed out the horsemen on the left side.

“Ah, the Spanish, who brought the horse to our country,” I offered.

“Yes. They traded with my people: horses for food, blankets; they hoped for gold.”
“But look,” she continued, “this panel tells of a sad story. It shows the Conquistadores racing down the canyon to kill our people. Which they did.

The people fled deeper into the canyon. The women and children hid in a cave high up on the walls. The warriors met the invaders to protect them. But the Spanish had archers up above the canyon shooting down on the men, they had the mounted horsemen on the ground shooting up at them. They killed them all. The women and the children jumped from the caves to their death rather than being taken hostage. It is now called Massacre Cave.”

“Raped. Enslaved. Tortured. Or die free.” I added quietly.

“Yes.” Ila said.

We both stood and read the story in the wall. I thought of how many generations of people, just trying to live their lives in this challenging environment, had been prevented from doing so. Over and over again.

“You know,” I shared with Ila, “I saw the sign for Massacre Cave Overlook yesterday when I was driving in.  I couldn’t bring myself to check it out. I didn’t know who was massacred, or why, but I knew that it would be a tragic place filled with anguish. I am very receptive. A channel. I couldn’t allow that energy to enter me.”

“I understand,” she said. “It takes a lot of medicine, energy work, to cleanse ourselves from such evil.”

We got back into the Jeep and continued our journey.

“Look,” she would say, “do you see that?”

Or, “Can you spot the two owls?”

And I would look and I would find what she was showing me. Sometimes take a picture. Sometimes just join her in a chuckle of appreciation.

“What kind of wildlife live in the canyon?” I asked at one point after we’d stopped to take our picture together.

“Oh, we have black bear, deer, bobcats, coyote, wild turkeys, the smaller ones like skunk and squirrel.  Wild horses.”

“Is there a well or year-round spring?”

She thought for a moment.

“Most of the water comes from high in the mountains. Snow melt. Rainfall. Floods which travel through the washes and irrigate the land. We had a well but it has been dry for a long, long time. There are two lakes up on the canyon rims which send water our way in seasonal river or creek flow.”

Ila’s grandmother, older than me by five years, hikes these canyons, runs marathons every year.

Ila shared that running is an important ritual to her people.

“I try to run every day. In the mornings. From the trail at White House to the mouth of the canyon is five miles. To the Holiday Inn, six and one half.”

Ila then shares with me that she was in a bad accident five years ago. She shows me the scar which runs from her thigh down to her ankle.

“Head on collision.” She says, “I almost died. My leg is now held together by screws and pins. I had many surgeries. My gut was almost sliced in half by the seat belt-instead, I ended up with a severe hernia. I had to go through months and months of rehab.  I had to learn how to walk again. I didn’t think I would ever run again.  I was an athlete in school. I couldn’t imagine never running again. I trained and trained. I run now. I’m not 100% and its hard accepting that I’ll never be the way I was, but I walk and I run. It’s my number one clan. The mover on the land. My number two clan is water.”

I marveled at Ila, climbing these steep canyon walls, running the uneven sandy and rocky roads, at her grandmother, at 75, doing the same. Strong women.  Beautiful, strong, matriarchs.

I chose the Navaho owned company, the Beauty Way, for my day tour through the canyons because I loved the name. Their website also posted the Beauty Way Poem, which I share here:

Ila and I laughed over the fact that my name is Nyla and hers, Ila.

“I knew somehow that today would be a good day. I knew I would have a good tour,” she told me, smiling with her bright, white, sparkling smile.

“I’m glad you feel that way,” I said, “I am so grateful to have gotten you as my guide. Thank you for sharing your time, your knowledge, your land with me. It has been a wonderful day.”

She got out of the jeep and gave me a warm, full body, generous hug. One which carried affection. I hugged her back.

“You stay safe out in your canyon,” I told her.

“And you, on your solo pilgrimage. You stay safe, too.”

We smiled at each other for several seconds. I felt like I was saying goodbye to a family member.

We each went on our way, the Beauty Way.

  And lest we forget: Spider Rock,

the abode of Spider Woman,

she who originally wove the web of the universe

A kind Navaho elder told me, elder to elder, that the most beautiful drive on the entire vast reservation is BIA road 13 through the 9482 foot Buffalo Pass in the Chusksas Mountain range.  “It is very steep and twisty,” he said, “but if you go slow, you will see beauty to make it worthwhile. It is the Holy Path.”

I didn’t have much choice about going slow.   And certainly a Holy Path deserves mindful attention.

The 14% gain, then drop, as you wend around the mountain, brought Durga down to 25 mpg. I opened all my windows and listened to bird song most of the way.

This drive begins behind Shiprock, a massive stone monument which the Navaho call “the center of the world.”  It is easy to see why.

 At a time when travel might be limited to walking or riding horses, Shiprock stood in the center of an area bounded by mountains, canyons with sheer drops, and amazing geologic spines across the terrain.

Shiprock  is a true holy site.

Permission must be granted by a tribal member to come onto the land surrounding it.  Climbing it is forbidden, though many culturally ignorant Anglo climbers have been attracted to its sheer walls, with some violating the space and hospitality of the People.

I settled for stopping roadside, just outside of Red Rock Valley, when I was close enough to zoom in.

The drive meanders through gorgeous vermillion landforms, the dirt heavy with the cinnabar which gives it such a striking color. Here and there, small circular clusters of tribal members live in modest, tidy housing among the rocks.

A few miles further along the road, I passed the village of Lukachukai, one of the few communities in Navaho Nation which is actually gaining, not losing, member. Tribal Community Services Coordinator, Gayla James, says it’s mostly young people moving back.

“They’re coming back from college and wanting to live here,” she says.

Though there are only two businesses in Lukachukai, one of which is the historic Totsoh trading post, where one can still buy a cradleboard for their baby.  They also have a beautiful new building which houses the senior center and the Head Start program.

But what the area really has is a wealth of beauty.

The mountains climb above the flat plains below, rich with trees of good size. Juniper, Pinon, Cottonwood, Spruce, Fir, and Aspen stand tall due to the tribes sensible land management, unlike the clear-cut madness our NW forests have endured.

As a result, the mountains still are home to black bear, elk, mule deer, wild cats, wild horses, and coyotes, none of which I saw, though I did spot tracks at the base of the holy spring high in the pass.

Waterfall Spring comes singing down from the highest part of the mountain. As I came upon it, a huge surprise in this mostly dry area, I had to stop. It called to me.  The water is so cold, so clear.  A long path upward to its source was inaccessible to me, but a shorter path along the banks exposed one of those areas Edward Abbey used to write about: steep walls of red where ferns live perched on the side, thriving under the constant sprinkle of the water which falls from fissures and cracks high above.

When I stopped at Antelope House overlook miles later, a Grandmother there and I got into a chat. I told her I’d come over the pass, stopped at Buffalo Overlook and at that waterfall.

“You should have filled up a bottle of that water,” she told me, “it’s holy water. That water falls all year round, a gift of our Gods.”

“I bathed my face and hands in it,” I answered her, “I could feel it was magic. It called me to stop. I mean, it’s like a miracle, falling from so high through the rocks. I gave thanks.”

“That’s good,” she said.

“I also said a prayer for the healing of our planet, our country.  This is a very sick time we are in. Let us pray it continues to fall and heal as many as possible.”

She then showed me a collection of juniper seed and bead necklaces she makes.  I was drawn to one with glass beads the color of turquoise.

“That one is called Ghost Beads,” she said, with reverence,”It is meant to protect from nightmares and evil spirits which might want to come to you.”

I told her about my Tibetan friend, Tenphel. How he’d described hungry ghosts and their desire to feed off of the living because they are never satisfied.

“Yes, like that. You say a prayer to keep them away,” she advised, as I handed her twenty dollars for the Ghost Beads.

“I’m traveling alone since March 1,” I told her. “I figure protection against evil is never a bad idea.”

“You be careful,” she warned, “We have a problem with too many women disappearing out here.”

“Yes, I’ve read about that.” I said. “It’sterrible. And it just seems to keep happening.”

“Well, you say your prayers and hang your beads.  And you be careful where you go to set up camp. Some places will have the bad energy. You, I think, will feel it. Get out of those places.”

I promised her I would.

“We women must look out for one another.” I smiled sadly.

But back to Buffalo Gap, which actually comes before Waterfall Spring as you travel west, is a lovely little place where the tribe has placed a few picnic tables to entice people to stop and take in the view.

The view is pretty spectacular, with the Center of the Universe down below, jutting up. (look hard to the right above the tree line.

Still visible.zoomed in

Buffalo Gap is named after the actual buffalo which used to travel this route from one side of the Chuskas to the other.  Sadly, they are long gone.

Coming down the west side of the pass, still managing those 14% grades, I stopped to gaze upon this canyon.

In a land with so many canyons, some of them call to me more loudly than others. This was one of those.

Quiet, smelling of sage and wild mint, the calls of crows and jays, mixed with the sweet sound of seasonal warblers penetrating the stillness, I stood humbled before the scene. I longed for a horse with a knowledgeable guide to ride me through the land, share some of its history.

Instead, I plowed on westward, leaving beautiful BIA 13 for a different experience.

BIA 12 is the back road into Canyon de Chelly.  The one the locals use to get from here to there.

A side road with a small, unobtrusive sign said, “Antelope House.”  Somewhere in the gray matter of my brain a memory kindled.  I turned south and followed the one lane to its dead end, a parking lot with only one other car.

I wandered through the junipers and large sage bushes until I found a path. I clambered over rocks, through narrow spaces, across hard packed sandstone plains

and stairs cut into the living rock,

until the Canyon came into view.

Canyon de Chelly, which I will write about more tomorrow, unspooled before me.  The canyon is actually quite long and is really many canyons interconnected: the two largest, Canyon de Muertos and Canyon de Chelly, hosting numerous side canyons.

All of them following the cut outs made by Chinle Creek, a tributary of the San Juan River, as it makes its way down from the Chuska mountains and through Apache County, where it will eventually join the Colorada.

I hiked to both accessible lookouts into the main canyon in preparation for a day long tour tomorrow I have booked.

When Joe and I came through here on our honeymoon so many years ago, we didn’t do that. Content to drive the rim, we were stupefied by the beauty but as I have learned over the years, its going inside canyons, any canyons, where the real magic happens    

Buried here

In this sun blasted

Pauper’s cemetery

                                  

Bones

Laid to rest

Each one knew Love

                (Old Mission San Juan, May 1, 2025)