A Spirituality of Hiking in the Landscape of the Ancestral Puebloans

Whenever I hike down into the canyons where the Ancestral Puebloans (the Anasazi) once lived, I find myself profoundly affected.  This is especially true in the Grand Gulch Primitive Area, and in the other canyons of Cedar Mesa, located just west of the town of Blanding, Utah.  Somehow, my usual mental chatter is soothed and quieted by a silence and solitude that hold me in an embrace that is almost palpable.  There, the beauty of the red-and-white candy-striped canyons stuns my mind away from its usual ruts.  The scents of pinyon pine, juniper, sagebrush and cottonwood function like smelling salts, awakening my spirit from the daze of societal stress.  The sand has a cleansing feel that strips away mental complexity, replacing it with a grounded and healing simplicity.  The pueblo dwellings, kivas, rock art and artifacts scattered throughout these canyons bring a feeling of connectedness to something Bigger and more Ancient.  Modern Native Americans would argue that the spirits of the ancestors are present within this land, and can be felt by anyone who is spiritually perceptive. Finally, the ever-present desert heat dazes the mind, suspending chatter and placing it into a spacious meditative state, a condition amplified by the vastness of the landscape.  There is, I find, a feeling of impending danger as well, for it is fairly easy to become momentarily lost in these canyons and on the mesa-tops.  But overall, a healing sense of tranquility, silence, solitude and connectedness prevails.

Photo: This is one of the sites at Turkey Pen Ruin, 4.5 miles from the Kane Gulch trailhead.  It was abandoned in the 12th century, probably because of a period of extended drought. In the foreground are a mano and metate - grinding stones - and some corn that the people left behind.  Because most of the corn cobs are so small - averaging around 3 inches long by a half-inch in diameter - it is easy to imagine that the drought had eventually made farming impractical.  These peoples moved to the pueblos on the Rio Grande River - and to other, more well-watered areas in New Mexico - where they thrive to this day.

Grand Gulch Primitive Area, UT; September 2, 2012