Canyon de Chelly

On Friday a friend and I drove to Canyon de Chelly National Monument, a couple of hours away from Petrified Forest. This place and Chaco Canyon, over the border in New Mexico, have interested and drawn me for some time with their reputations as places of spiritual significance. I had plans to go to Chaco this spring before reporting to Petrified Forest, but learned that Grace would likely tear out another water line on the road in, so I've delayed a visit there for a while.

Canyon de Chelly is spectacular. Overlook after overlook leads to wide unfenced vistas of deep, sheer-walled canyons. It's dramatic and, yes, another place I've felt a presence of something outside of and more powerful than myself.

My last post, about the Painted Desert Inn, used a song sung by Dawn Boy on entering White House. I didn't know what or where White House was, but was delighted to learn it's here in Canyon de Chelly. I will return to spend more time, take tours of the canyon floor, and hike in to see White House. I hope to feel the connection Dawn Boy felt, the one that prompted him to sing such a love-filled psalm.

I've processed just a few pictures from that road trip. Like all other photos I've taken on this path of discovery, this path with heart I've been traveling, they don't do this special place justice or begin to show the soul-touching beauty, but they're the best I could do.

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Thought of the day:
“If a man is to live, he must be all alive, body, soul, mind, heart, spirit.”  (Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude)