Over the Edge
“Out here on the perimeter there are no stars. Out here we is stoned, Immaculate”
-J. Morrison
This story starts about 30 years ago. I had heard about a big prehistoric pueblo on the east side of the Rio Grande and had also been thinking about remote sensing and aerial photography. Forrest Fenn, an old friend and always up for any sort of adventure, volunteered his Piper Malibu/Mirage with a special turbo engine to see if we could spot it from the air. There was always a catch with Forrest or some way the Piper had to be paid. So he took me up and we searched a bit and at some point I think he got bored and decided to to do barrel rolls and inside loops, so we pulled negative Gs. I first turned grey, then a whiter shade of pale and finally a sickly green. When it became evident that the cock pit was about to be redecorated Forrest slowed down. By the way Forrest is an excellent pilot he just likes to show off his skills which are considerable and except for my temporary discomfort were lots of fun.
We did not find the big site, but I was able to spot a little one. I counted power lines and approximated distances and figured out a way to get back there on four wheels. The roads at the time were little more than traces and very rough. The site was small but on the edge of a beautiful little canyon with a crystal clear pool that seemed to stay clear and full in both wet and dry years back then. There were petroglyphs around the pool and it was a great place to picnic.
Many years later I returned to the little site and canyon. The pool was a shallow mud hole, not it’s crystal clear past self. I was alone, except for my trusty dog Zelly. I walked around the edge of the canyon and got to a very steep vertical wall I had not explored before. Why would I have? It was steep and dangerous, heavily wooded with twisted, snarled juniper but checking my compass it did face south. Most Pueblo petroglyphs do face south or east or a combination of both those 2 directions. I could see some natural rock walls that might be good for petroglyph placement, but given the other conditions it seemed very unlikely.
Over the edge I went. My shoe got caught in the basalt, my camera and canteen swung out almost pulling me over and into the abyss, but I regained my balance and stuck. I realized I was alone and if I fucked up nobody was going to help me, at least not for a long, long while. I have broken my knee caps twice while out hiking and it is no fun. Centered I took it slowly, fighting my way through the junipers on those narrow ledges. I took a breather and looked around for Zelly and what did I behold but 3 foot high image of a kokopelli playing his flute with burden basket on his back. This is a much more detailed rendering of the deity than usual and he sort of just appeared out of a tangle of branches. Now this is cool! I am staring right at an image at least 500 years old. Working further along the edge I saw a kachina mask on the other side of the rock.
I worked my way down a bit and then back up and I saw a Mt. Lion with a human head descending into a small cave. Let me tell you fellow seekers, the blood was pumping. my mind was racing, the possibilities nearly endless. Unfortunately there was no Aztec Treasure, no Spanish gold but more petroglyphs, cool, cool cool. I photographed and while resetting my camera I looked over my left shoulder and someone was staring at me. He was almost life sized , big round head, big ear tabs, big round eyes and had a chevron pattern in the center of his face.
That is it Fellow Seekers I had made contact. The aliens had landed and I was staring right into the big round eyes of one of them. I practiced my meditative breathing and calmed down, no this was not an alien come to our planet to mutilate cows or commit unspeakable experiments on humans. I was looking at an image created by man 500 years ago, an image of a supernatural being, a mythical ancestor made by Pueblo peoples. Though there was both a time gap and a cultural gap this image still resonated with me. The kachina held a rabbit stick, ( a kind of Pueblo boomerang ) in his left arm in a somewhat threatening gesture. Was he protecting the cave/shrine? Was he there to threaten unwanted visitors to this hallowed ground? Though I did not know the exact meaning of the image, it still gave me goose bumps and though the maker and I were separated by time and space we were still communicating and I realized it was time to get the hell out of there.
Well fellow seekers that is my story and I am sticking to it. There is nothing like taking that leap over the edge, that leap of faith. There is nothing better than that feeling you get from discovery. Am I the only White boy to have found these petroglyphs? Probably not, but I found them by myself. The trail was not easy and at least for a few moments, the world as I knew it had vanished, time and space had collapsed and there I was unexpectedly confronted by an image, created by a culture alien to mine but still speaking across the gulf of time. Seek out!
Copyright: The Lonesome Prospector, all rights reserved. A division of The Lizard King Productions. 1/8/18