The Land of Enchantment

This past weekend, my girlfriend and I went on a road trip to New Mexico. Along the way we visited Chaco Canyon, which holds the remains of a Native American settlement, and has been declared one of eleven world heritage sites on the planet. It is the only one in the United States. Upon arriving, we watched a video explaining some of the background of the site. It was built and inhabited from the years around 850-1250 AD. One of the commentators compared it to the clouds that come together to form a thunderhead, then disperse after dumping their rain, implying that the inhabitants simply moved on after a time in contrast to the site being vanquished by an enemy.

Being someone who works in construction, the architecture of these structures was impressive. They consist of multiple layers of stone that are mortared together, forming walls that are at least two feet thick. According to the park ranger, the mortar has lyme in it to serve as a hardening agent, and that the lyme was imported seeing there was not a source of it in the area.

The pueblos are “D” shaped structures. This picture of the corner shows the width of the wall, and gives an indication of their ability to build a square, plumb, and level edifice. The back side of the wall shows larger stones symmetrically interlaced with small ones. If you look at the picture below closely, you can see a window sized opening that was later filled in.

One of the primary features of the pueblo is the kiva. It is the place of assembly for worship. This subterranean chamber originally had a roof, and was accessed through a staircase that is presently covered with wood logs.

At least two of the pueblos in this settlement were built at the base of a cliff face. Here you can see a large rock coming away from the cliff. Behind the one pueblo is a rock that the natives were aware of separating from the cliff because they had built a retaining wall to support it. After the US National Parks Service took over the care of the property, they removed the retaining wall, and attempted other methods to prevent “Threatening Rock” from falling. Regardless of this, the rock eventually fell on January 22, 1941, and destroyed a small portion of the pueblo. Upon learning this, I was immediately reminded of a picture I saw on a Steemit post of a list of events that occurred on the 22nd of various months in different years.

While examining these structures it became evident that they weren’t just slapped together, but were built with an intent. And while it isn’t known what that intent was, I could feel that it is still present in the environment surrounding the site. After learning about the date of the fall of Threatening Rock, we went back to the visitor center to purchase a book entitled, “Dine’ behane’: The Navajo Creation Story (which I’m still reading) to try and learn more about what brought this together.

The first thing that came to mind while contemplating this is that at the height of its existence in the 11th century, the crusades were happening in the Middle East. The crusades were an attempt by the Roman Catholic church to heal the schism between them and the Eastern Orthodox church. It made me consider that God drew these people to this place to demonstrate something about Him that was obviously being mischaracterized on the other side of the planet.

Another thing that struck me about the date of Threatening Rock was the year it fell, 1941. In 1947 the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered. There is a document in those scrolls that speaks of someone referred to as the final prophet and teacher of righteousness. It just so happens that the person whom I accept as being anointed to be this individual was born in 1941. I can’t say for sure if these events are connected, but it does impress me as being beyond coincidence.

After leaving Chaco Canyon we went to Taos, and took a tour of the pueblo there. While there we stepped into a shop on site to buy a souvenir, and spoke with the proprietor. She was a full blooded native who lives on the pueblo land. I made an observation about her not having to charge us sales tax, and that lead to a brief discussion about the white man’s civilization. She had a clear sense of bitterness in her voice. It came to me later that being bitter, while understandable, isn’t a substitute for having justice. If anything, it is an admission that your intruder is authorized to subjugate you.

From Taos we continued on to Union County in the northeast corner of New Mexico to visit our Church family for two nights and a day before heading back to Arizona. Along the way we drove past the Palisades Formation in the Cimarron Canyon.

Overall, it was a wonderful trip that we would do again with one thing to remember: make sure you have good shocks, struts, and a spare tire because it is 20 miles in and out of Chaco Canyon on an unpaved road.