My friend Ellen said often this weekend that my first trip to Mesa Verde was a unique trip. My first tour into the ruins was an early morning hike down into Oak Tree House and Fire Temple ruins guided by two park rangers. When we were leaving the Fire Temple site I was overcome by deep sadness, but not sure if the sadness was my awareness of the residual energy of sadness of the people who were once forced to leave their home, or if the powerful energy of this place magnified my own sadness of feeling homeless and wandering myself. Either way, as I walked along the narrow cliff trail back to the surface of time, I either felt (or imagined feeling) the presence of an ancient shaman walking along with me singing somber prayers of hope for an uncertain future.
Yes, I understand the journey of these people. . .
The day ended with a twilight historical reinactment guided tour down into Cliff Palace. By the end of the day I had already seen more ruins than I honestly care to visit again, but this site brought a different experience. I was tired of being guided through the ruins, and wanted to just be left alone to wander through on my own. I was overwhelmed by all of the words being spoken about something we really don't have language or experience to explain. The words are just theories, because we honestly don't know. Like how the greatest and brightest minds once thought the world was flat, it is hard to know really what life was like for these cultures, or what circumstances might have been forced upon their existence causing them to depart these homes of such impressive magnitude.
As I sat there on the ground of this sacred space, I could smell the earth rising up in the pre-rain air, surrounded by the thunder clapping its way around the carved out stone amphitheater city slowly losing its light. Hot and thirsty, exhausted by the long day's journey, I could feel the energy surging and moving through me, feeling like the earth was shifting and swaying beneath me, except that no one else seemed to be aware of this intoxicating movement of earth and thickly densed air.
Was I simply dehydrated and exhausted? Or was I aware of something more than earth and stone? I may never know for sure, but the "truth" of the feeling doesn't change the experience itself, an experience now indelibly etched upon the layers of memory of this great and powerful place.
I grow weary of all the noise created by the endless and meaningless words to explain. . . .
I will most likely never return to the land of Mesa Verde, but the sadness of their homeless migration continues to haunt my own journey as I wander on in search of home and connection to the land of my own ancient past, a long and overdue homecoming that awaits my return to a far and distant shore.