{"id":1169,"date":"2023-09-19T07:48:44","date_gmt":"2023-09-19T13:48:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/earthwalks.org\/?p=1169"},"modified":"2023-09-19T07:48:44","modified_gmt":"2023-09-19T13:48:44","slug":"the-welcome-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/earthwalks.org\/?p=1169","title":{"rendered":"The Welcome Fire"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cOnce you’ve walked and left footprints in the canyon a part of you will always be here,\u201d Daniel said.\u00a0 What he didn’t say was that Canyon de Chelly, Arizona will call you back. And so, it has for over 30 years.Every return has been different yet somehow always the same.\u00a0 On one occasion I was joined by 13 others. Some had been to the Canyon before, some never.\u00a0 But all had heard the call.\u00a0 It was October, 6 a.m. and dark in Santa Fe when we started the journey, none of us including me sure of what lay ahead but truly ready to go on the adventure.<\/p>\n

First, we offered cornmeal to feed the directions, the morning, our journey, the vehicles and each other and all others.\u00a0 It was an Indigenous tradition from the Southwest I had been shown to do, and almost every early dawn whether it was downtown Washington, D.C., Kolkata, India or my own backyard in Santa Fe, I had done so. Din\u00e8 (Navajo) elder Annie Kahn, in the spirit world as of this writing, once led me in dawn prayer, when the stars were shining and a thin line of light threaded its way across the eastern horizon.\u00a0 She said it was a special time of \u201cH\u00f2z\u00f2n\u201d \u00a0(beauty in the Din\u00e8 language) when prayers could be sent and heard most clearly. Annie was and is still a light in the dark for me and many others.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Offerings made, we traveled on past pine clad mountains, the looming flat-topped volcanic Tsi Ping (Pedernal) peak made famous by artist Georgia O’Keeffe, through red sandstone cliffs of Gallina, the rolling plains near Regina, past billboards, gas stations and fast food eateries of Bloomfield and Farmington.<\/p>\n

We stopped as if compelled by some invisible force near the visually stunning and dramatic immensity of a sharply jagged dark peak commonly known as Shiprock.\u00a0 No ships around here, though.\u00a0 It was a misnomer.\u00a0 The Din\u00e8 named the peak Tse Bit’a’i, \u201crock with wings\u201d which refers to the legend of a great bird that brought the Din\u00e8 from the north to their present lands.\u00a0 Other traditional stories surround this mountain which thrusts starkly upwards into the cobalt blue sky with its \u201cwings\u201d of volcanic rock radiating north and south from the central formation.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Traveling westward we snaked our way over the Lukachukai Mountains, with stunning views towards Tse Bit’ a’ i’ in the east, then dropped down through massive red sandstone cliffs to the west, eventually reaching the mouth of Canyon de Chelly and the Din\u00e8 family who would be our guides for four days.<\/p>\n

From the Earth Walks I remember:<\/p>\n