La Bajada and Sun

There are moments in nature that will never leave my mind. They are too numerous, and too intangible to be worthily described on paper, but I will attempt to do so for the reader’s sake. It was a day late in summer, and I set out for the small town of La Bajada, its inhabitants old Hispanic families who still subsist on farming and share land with Cochiti Pueblo. I knew the location of large and detailed petroglyphs – a body with two heads, a kokopelli smoking a peace pipe, alien-like figures with antennae protruding from the head – and determined to find them after a year’s absence from visiting the spot. I hiked up the old Camino Real, heat flooding over me, the ground dusty. I found the glyphs, chipped away centuries ago on the purple, pocked lava rock but for what reason. Were these figures ceremonial, sacred sites where shamen transgressed planes of existence, or just graffiti sprawled on the rock by teenagers? With these questions in mind, I sat down to observe the dirt gathered in a ping-pong ball sized hole in the rock –over how many years had it collected? That hole was once an air bubble in the hissing molten lava, in some unimaginable time when Tetilla Peak above me was erupting. An assortment of sun bleached cow bones were perched on rock downhill from me, unmoved from the last time I visited this site, a reminder of my mortality and the immortality of these images carved into the rock. I gazed out over the open golden fields which stretched out to the horizon. How many wonders would I find myself faced with if I sat beneath a distant tree in that field, I wondered. Looking up, two hawks circled over my head, lofty-winged and majestic, gliding through the air with the chaotic harmony of flight. They circled lower and lower, before one swooped down and passed feet above my head. What did he think of me? A meal? Just another animal? I closed my eyes and sat crossed legged to meditate on that spot, hear the inner mumblings of my person which are so often shut down and ignored in the rational society of today. This was just one moment of wonder and discovery which nature has provided me with, teaching me above all humility. Within any square foot, I can observe an infinite amount of things – pine needles, cones, dirt, decomposing leaves, twigs, rocks – just as I can do some on a larger scale. Sitting on my favorite rock of Sun Mountain, perched close below the summit on the west face, I can see my school, buildings no bigger than the nail on my pinky finger. The horizon is the Jemez Mountains, where I have spent days exploring slot canyons, hiking along rivers, and soaking in hot springs, all vivid memories in my mind and important to me yet from this place invisible. I see the city of Santa Fe, each individual house the dwelling of an individual, each with his or her own story, life views, perceptions, noble actions and inner evils. Just as there is an endless amount I can study in a square foot, so is there the same amount I can see looking over an entire city. The scale can quickly recede. I go from a single grain of dust at my feet, to the rock resting atop it, to the larger rock I’m sitting on, to the larger rock which is this mountain, to the city of Santa Fe, to the state of New Mexico, country of United Sates of America, American continent, planet (merely another large rock,) Milky Way, solar system, to that incomprehensible thing called the universe. How many others at this moment share my thoughts? Others in this state? On this planet? In our universe? In others? With such thoughts, comes a humility. I am small. This world is, on a cosmic scale, small. The problems and worries of the day are truly nothing.