La Cieneguilla

The rock on which I sit was worn down by the centuries, smoothed and shaped by the men who dwelled here eons before I have. Sacred images are carved into the rock, the only physical trace of Ancestral Puebloans on this spot. A horned serpent curved up the rock, body twisting and kinking to its horned head, each protrusion aligned on either side of a natural hole in the rock, an air pocket in lava, which in times unfathomable shot steaming and hissing out of a volcano – Tetilla Peak, which looms before me hauntingly in the distance, a landmark for travelers on the Camino Real in days when this land fell under Mexican control.
But, first came the Spanish in heavy armor and pomp, landed on distant shores, in unknown lands with men who were different, so utterly different that one assumed the other not man – not the same plane of existence as him.
The Kokopelli abounds here, sending echoes of the past through the wind, blown through his flute. He enchants from all angles with a hunched back, a trickster. From where did this image arise – flute god with horns and a corporeal form certainly not human. If, as those early philosophers pondered, God had not created man in his image, but man created his gods in man’s image, where do these conceptions of such unique beings arise from, and to be found in such a plethora of locations? There is so much we do not and cannot know. Animals – what separates those from man, merely an animal species – inspire these glyphs. Or extraterrestrials, as described in so many native legends.
Who sat on this rock before me? Whose rear helped shape this seat – wore down the ancient rock. Over the millennia this spot has been sacred, some native of this land spent hours carving petroglyphs into the rock from the spot where I sit.
What was the purpose of these symbols? Clearly religious, spiritual, connected to that part of pre-Columbian life so rarely acknowledged in this day. Ceremonial? Graffiti? Places to come and think, as I have?
The temporary green plains of July’s rain have come about so quick. Even if in two months time they shrivel, dry and die, the Kokopelli with his flute will still fill the air with chanting melodies so strong – but only if you truly listen. The land is dry, brown, and dull – many the beauty cannot see. Yet so much life is upon the rocks: pictures, carvings, lime green moss, and bright yellow lichen that life’s iron will cannot lend a hand to fade.