Monday, May 02, 2022
To Santa Fe last week. I have never been to a place that felt so ancient. The old Spanish churches, built with technology learned from the Moors seem new by comparison. The landscape suggests a place that is nearly uninhabitable by humans, and even the lizard we saw on the hike seemed startled to find himself there. I suppose all animals deliberately leave some trace of themselves, to mark territory, to attract a mate, but here, at the top of a ridge we reached by scrambling over volcanic rock, a person or persons left their trace in the form of art, a uniquely human thing. These petroglyphs are nearly invisible until you are right upon them and the sunlight catches them just right, and then there they are, startling in there antiquity, a message from the past. I found myself experiencing mystical sensation that I have never felt before, a greeting from across millennia: "I was here. Now you are here."
// posted by Bill @ 3:22 PM 
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