About 30 miles east of Farmington, New Mexico, there is a county road which heads into Dinetah lands. 
I
It isn’t well marked, which I think is a good thing.
Because after driving more than 20 miles over gravel, sandy washes, facing closed bridges 
forcing a detour through dried up river beds,
past more gas and oil wells pumping the earth’s life blood than one wants to contemplate,
we arrive at a sacred place.
The Canyon of the Crows, or Crow Canyon,
Made it! 
is a side canyon in the middle of the vast four corners region.
More than 400 years ago, nomadic bands of people chose this place to stay awhile.
.
It is a smart location, defensible,
We are fortunate that those historians and artists of their clans documented their stays. 
100’s of images have been found along the walls over miles of the canyon, paying homage to deities 
celebrating the hunt, 
marking the harvest.
Some of the images have yet to be interpreted.
I love these three, holding hands.
I was fortunate.
Yesterday’s Red Flag Warning had lifted, the winds settled, and it was a perfect 66 degrees, meaning I could hike through the slot canyons,
over and around trails
and along the cliff
without overheating.
I wear a hat, a UV protective long sleeve shirt, and take eough water along with enough food and emergency supplies that should I end up stuck for a day or two, I’ll be fine.
This Goddess image bottle wanted to have its picture taken.
Most of the rock art has been determined to be from the 16th, 17th, and 18th, centuries. 
Crow Canyon is the most extensive, best preserved collection of Navaho petroglyphs in the American Southwest.
There are earlier Anasazi images mixed in with the later glyphs but I couldn’t tell the difference. 
There is also a small amount of graffit from more recent years mixed in with some of the images. 
I tell myself that it’s just more of the same: artists making their mark on the walls of time.
Most of the art is clustered in the lower cliff faces of the canyon, 
which is a good thing for me, since those are the ones I am able to photograph. 
There were trails up into the rocks where the Pueblito ruins are but without a traveling companion, it wouldn’t be wise to try to climb over the boulders.
So instead, I sat for awhile in the meagre shade provided by a small cave created through an overhang of stone thousands of years old. I was acutely aware of sitting where who knows how many other souls had sat, just as I sat, contemplating the vast, unforgiving panorama before me. 
The air smelled of sage, iron, ozone, dust. Crows, for which this valley is named, soared in the drafts above, occasionally calling to one another–or perhaps, to me, stranger in their strange land.
I felt a stirring of fear, a feeling one does not want to welcome in when one is alone in such an unforgiving environment. I think fear simply arises due to the fact that the desert is, despite the life within it, not a sentient being. So vast. So timeless. Eternal.
It exists as it always has, whether I, or Anasazi hunters, or greed driven natural gas extractors bent on disturbing its severe beauty, come through.
Were I to stumble, fall, break my leg bones making it impossible to walk out of this canyon, my flesh would become food for the various birds, insects, and other flesh eating mammals that survive here, delighted to drink my blood, a source of moisture where there is so little. my bones would dry out, whiten, maybe become another feature of this canyon of crows, and the desert, this canyon, would be an unemotional witness of it all.
The fear passed as soon as I had named it.
I noticed this guardian as I breathed in the dry air, 
gave thanks for being even one small speck of light, life, matter, consciousness, placed my hands on the living rock to remind myself that yes, we/it are all One.
Crow Canyon Archeological Site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. 
It has been under the protection and management of the BLM since then. Let us pray it remains protected.
And from what I experienced, there was not another human soul to be seen except for the drivers of the big white trucks working the gas drilling rigs.
May it remain so.
Beautiful pictures Nyla! I appreciate you sharing your travels. So many stories in the petroglyphs and very special to be there in the quiet. 🥰
Celeste, I’m glad you are along on the journey. As our bodies age, our souls still love to wander.
Love that you are able to find and visit these remarkable places along your journey and share them with those of us who are following you along the way. I was deeply moved when I visited the Pictograph Caves in Montana many years ago (prehistoric pictographs on the cave walls) because the urge to communicate creatively about our lives knows no historic period. It’s throughout history. And it touches us across the generations.
I sat for awhile in an alcove of the rocks knowing that so many had sat there before me. The view across the valley was vast, timeless. I felt a part of time.