The village of Chinle is a “census designate place”, in other words it only exists because people live there, it was not formally recorded in “official” records. On the Navajo reservation, people lived here beyond recorded time. It is called in their language “flowing out”, where live giving water flows out from the canyons.
There is a fine Best Western in Chinle, better than most of that brand and the only choice for mile and miles and miles.
In Junction Ruin Musings, the previous post, a ruin from the Anasazi people was contemplated. Above is a traditional Navajo dwelling from a later, more secure, time.
Ouch!! Everywhere in the southwest, watch where you tread.
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Music
A Native American, seeing the flute playing Kokopelli, hears in the mind the sonorous melodies of their native flutes carried in as if on the wind. The hands waving in rhythm, “Here we are.”
I recall our guide, Peter, describes this as a scorpion.
The feeling of movement and the story invoked viewing this drawing etched carefully on the rock demonstrates we are in the presence of an accomplished artist. The story of the times for us to learn from.
A Navajo woman, fleeing Apache captors, flew over this cliff, or seemed to. Survival depended on knowing how to run over slickrock without stumbling and to know where and how to disappear into the rocks.
Light
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Wind
Click for the first posting of this series, “Portrait of a Navajo Guide”.
Click for the next posting in this series, “Moon Fin”
Michael Stephen Wills Photography 