Opposites in One Hand: Antelope Canyon, Day Six

Newspaper Rock, detail

There are others, of course, and they have had their own singular experience of this land.  They knew it well, far more than I ever will.  They drank its water, hunted its game, and ate its plants.  As we head south, we take a detour west off US Highway 191, to Utah Route 211.  This is a long and relatively flat road, with no stunning scenery. We enter the Needles District of Canyonlands.

The Abajo, or Blue Mountains are to the south, and they wear caps

Abajo Mountains

of snow that cascade downslope of ridges. For most of the trip, they will remain oddly  to the west and immobile, all of their peaks over 9000 feet.  Route 211 rises in elevation as we move south and west, yet a creek appears and a valley, shaded by deciduous trees (which are now bare).  Just before our destination, we slow down.  A hump of rock leans over the road – hitting it appears certain.  But we clear it, and turn to the right and our destination: Newspaper Rock, 500 feet ahead. 

In the west, Indian remains can last for centuries.  In a sparsely populated, dry and warm climate, the material culture of a people survive long after they have been killed or displaced.  Newspaper Rock is a case in point: a protruding, roundish stone at the bottom of a Cliffside, 200 square feet of exposed rock which displays nearly 2000 years of human artistic activity.  These are petroglyphs, which are picked, incised or otherwise carved into a rock face.  This rock has a black, volcanic varnish, and the some 650 figures leap off a glossy black background in shades of white and tan.  Most are clearly animals: deer, buffalo, antelope, and horses (often with riders).  Yet there is a host of abstract figures and symbols, including the “god” type figures from Capitol Reef, the strange boxy beings with headdresses and tails...the most ancient of all the carvings.

The sign informs us of how many cultures have decorated the rock: Archaic Desert, Anasazi, Fremont, Navajo, and Pueblo.  The figure are layered, ghosts of previous etchings can often be spied.  Despite their great age, the rock figures are vibrant and bold; it seems they were made in

Newspaper Rock, detail

the last few years. But they represent a vast span of time.  There is so much disorder to the rock face (disorder is not an accurate word… no one ever tried to order it, or even knew the concept of order as we know it) that we are naturally inclined to find a story here.  Even the Navajo, one of the last people to engrave the rock, felt it must have some latent narrative.  They called it “Tse’Hone” the rock that tells a story.

But there is only a story in Newspaper Rock by practicing extreme visual editing.  You have to focus in on two or three figures to form a little story.  And even then, the figures, are still a Rorschach test.  They saw more about the viewer than anything else. Nothing is fixed. The figures might as well be swimming in a liquid medium.

Across the Arizona line, the landscape opens, as if we had traveled down a series of ragged steps to the world’s cellar.  We find ourselves in a vast expanse of tan and yellow.  Here is the desert as we imagine it.  Sand, ground hugging plants stretching to the horizon – like the dream of a desert that only appears to be real.

the vanishing point, Monument Valley

Most of the family is asleep or drowsy.  The landscape commends sleep.  We move forward , but there is little sense of momentum.  I gaze at the speedometer: 105 mph, yet the rate seems completely natural.  Nothing of note passes us; there is no way to accurately judge speed or progress.  The land simply shallows your speed in a giant maw.

I want to get out and stand in the center of the road and get one of those distinctive photos where the road ends at a vanishing point.  But it is not wise.  Cars come on quickly and silent.  When they do, you are suddenly aware of a human scale in a frightening manner.  At Monument Valley, people do just that, and when you catch them in your forward gaze, you realize the preposterous position they are in; little people about to get eaten by a road.

We stop at the gas station on the Navajo Reservation.  A young white man, his skin speckled and red from drug use, tells me a story of being stranded without gas money.  Does he believe that I will believe him?  Inside, near a case of soda he can't drunk, a man is telling another of how he was arguing with yet another man about the status of Joseph Smith's murder.  "I said, he was killed, so that makes him a martyr, beyond double!"

Outside, I give my friend all the change my family has collected.  He appears surprised – because it is not more?  Because I gave him anything at all?  I tell him to be careful, to be healthy and safe.  Don’t harm yourself, I say, and his face clouds with confusion.  Is he surprised I would give him drug money?  Is he shocked by kind words?

We drive through the staggering vastness of the Navajo Reservation.  Their reservation is larger than West Virginia.  But beyond Utah and Monument Valley, the land is monotonous, and even dreary.  I know it contains secret wilderness realms, true hidden gems, back country that is little explored.  But we only see road.  So we are left wondering what is next.

Our motel in Page Arizona looks out over an alley with a mason block wall with symmetrical windows at the top, like a face without features.  But I am far from annoyed.  It is

75 degrees and sunny, and in the 20s and snowing back home.  I prop open the door and sit on the desk chair half in and out of the room.  My son starts reading the Gideon Bible, ridiculing the King James prose.  I have him read Psalm 23.  I tell him that even people who never read the Bible are familiar with it; he reads, and I explain the words.  This goes on for longer than I expect.  Perhaps he is surprised that these words actually mean something at all.

Antelope Canyon

 

“Is that place sacred to your people?” that is my first question to our Navajo guide.  He is a young man, round, friendly, calm.  I am surprised to hear no.  But then again, why would the Navajo escort

thousands of tourists through their most sacred space?  Antelope Slot Canyon, although natural, is not entirely so; it was discovered by a Navajo woman grazing sheep in the 1920s, and has been open for tourists through the years.  The slot canyon was formed by flowing water, often at torrential rates, so periodically the canyon floods and sand is deposited.  The company the runs the tours and owns the canyon must regrade after each heavy rain.  Otherwise, the few metal stairs and ladders would not be be at the "proper" level.  Eventually, the canyon would clog with sand and once again be hidden from view.  It would wait for yet another flood, and a curious Navajo. 

So, the canyon is, to an extent, not "natural," but how can any sane person claim it to be otherwise?  The canyon like nothing on earth, and it is nestled in the earth.   With each step, with every shift

of light or perspective, the wall take on a new face.  This in itself is odd, as the rock walls are always a variation of the theme of smooth stone flowing like solidified water.  And light and shadow provides it motion and depth. As we move, we climb.  Sometimes gradually, often steeply.  Other groups are behind and some ahead.  So the guide gently nudges us forward.  Thousand of people will enter the canyon today.  We need to vacate.

When it is over, I am surprised at how prosaic yet grand the end is.  We emerge from a crack in the earth... like a second birth, or a glimpse into the mystery of death.  We are claimed by a subterranean realm that is not quite real (and should not exist) but that is undeniably real, and beautiful.  We get tossed back up into the quotidian without ceremony. 

This is a beauty both simple and complex.  The canyon is a place where opposites can be held in one hand.

Re-born?  Or Rising from the Dead?