Wupatki Ruin

Wupatki Ruin

               I went out to Wupatki early on Christmas Day because I wanted to be with the spirits and had a feeling they wanted to talk to me about something.  It takes a while to get there and I don’t like driving, so I committed myself beforehand to make sure I did it. 

               Walking outside established visitor areas is prohibited in Wupatki National Monument, so I walk in the adjacent National Forest.  I have visited all the ruins that are available for visitors to see in the National Monument, and they are beautiful and instructive.  It is almost impossible for those of us in a highly technological society to imagine how the ancient inhabitants of this land survived.  Hopi lore says humans learned from the “ant people” how to work hard and unceasingly.  It must have been an extremely difficult life.  The ruins of this vanished culture speak of human adaptability, but are also a sobering reminder of our dependence upon our environment.

               There is more to be gained here even than this because the spirits of the ancient people who once lived here are still present today: alive, aware, at one with Creator, and able to do whatever supports the highest good from their seat in the eternal now.  I really do not know who or what the spirits actually are, but this my best guess based on my experiences with them.  For some reason I don’t feel them as strongly around the visitor areas as I do in some of the undeveloped places.  Maybe the sites selected for reconstruction by Monument personnel aren’t the ones the spirits think are the most significant.  Maybe they know we can’t walk around or do ceremonies in the Monument, so they meet us elsewhere. 

               A sense of silent presence always awaits and lifts my heart when I arrive.  On this day the juniper trees seemed unusually sentient, and there was a noticeable atmosphere of love.  So often my lessons from the spirits are about shifting from a world of fear into an incredible alternative existence of love.  I can never seem to stay there, though. 

               The weather was cold and a thin haze of clouds obscured the sun, which meant it wasn’t going to warm up much.  Even at this lower elevation there was snow on the ground.  I walked through the trees about a quarter of a mile to where the land dropped off into broken country below.  The Painted Desert lay in the vast distance, and I felt at peace.  I thanked the spirits and offered corn meal, water and tobacco to the directions.  I asked them to help me perceive and understand anything they wanted me to know.  I was content if all they wanted to do was bombard me with love.

               Usually from there I go down the hill to the first wash, which leads to my vision quest site.  In that place of serenity, anxiety I don’t even know I am carrying slips away, and I relax and go to sleep on a rock ledge.  When a ranger once flagged me down and asked what I do back there, I told her I meditate, which I figured covered vision quest too.  My toes were getting cold from the snow and I didn’t feel a pull from the vision quest site.  Instead, I marched down and up and down again, across the upper reaches of several drainages below Doney Mountain.  My feet warmed up.

               Following a sense of the mysterious and compelling, I turned down a small wash leading towards Dead Man’s Canyon, and arrived shortly at the confluence of another wash and a hillside of craggy, eroded limestone and black cinders.   Much charmed by the rocks, I climbed up and examined them.  The sun came out and the cinders radiated warmth.  The sense of love was extremely strong here.  I looked across the wash to the wall of limestone on the other side, and to my amazement, saw a ruin at the base of the cliff.  It consisted of a low overhang with a wall of rocks along the front, creating an enclosure -- possibly for corn storage.  Someone had pulled down the wall in the middle and tossed the rocks aside, presumably hoping to find artifacts.  Nothing was there now but a pot shard and a packrat’s nest.

               The spirits must have led me here to see this – but why?  I left the ruin and climbed back up to the warm cinders on the hillside and sat down to think.  I asked the spirits what they were trying to say to me.  In my mind’s eye I saw the white light of love pouring forth from the ruin.  It made no sense.  Could this be a burial site?  Did it matter?  The sun lowered in the sky and I decided I had better go.  I didn’t want to – the love surrounding me felt like Heaven.  I was reminded of the story of Christ’s resurrection, when the women went to his tomb and found it empty, the stone rolled aside.  Maybe the spirits were demonstrating the relative worth of worldly things versus the light of Creator, encouraging me to have less fear and live and do service in Heaven on earth.