Chaco Culture National Park, NM
Some places stretch your thoughts, Imagination, emotions and soul beyond their normal boundaries. Chaco canyon is one of those places. You can’t be in the presence of such a place without trying, however blindly, to see how life was lived here when it was new. The immensity of the structure, the precision of its design, the patience and perseverance displayed in what remains of this place speak volumes to the importance of its existence to its creators. The walls are 3 feet thick in places, but the outer ‘bricks’ of the facing are only a fraction of an inch thick in places. The care and intricacy of this building process is astounding. As the daughter of a carpenter, I am always intrigued by really well-built structures, this place knocked my socks off. Not just because it has survived for so many centuries, but that the precision of the placement of each large and tiny stone is still intact; well thought out is a complete understatement., care to detail doesn’t even come close. The people who built this place loved it. It was not a shelter to them, it was sacred. It was their heart and life.
This structure is built in alignment with both the solar and lunar calendars. The cliffs above it are full of precise drawings marking the solstices. Everything is aligned perfectly to these diagramed points. This was a spiritual home to thousands of people for countless generations. There is no other explanation for the precision and care with which it was designed and built and it is a testament to how important belief is to the human heart.
It isn’t easy to get to Chaco canyon, maybe that’s also by design, you need to want to be there. You need to feel the pull of it in order to traverse the 21 miles of bumpy, dusty washboard dirt roads to get there. Your reward for this choice is a view of wild horses enroute and an enduring awe upon arrival that is hard to put into words and leaves you thinking, imagining and talking for days. It leaves you wanting for more understanding to say the least. We found a fascinating documentary that helped our understanding of this place but also piqued our desire for more: https://www.pbs.org/show/mystery-chaco-canyon/. Also, the ongoing study of the alignment of the structures is alive and well at: https://solsticeproject.org/the-mystery-of-chaco-canyon/. If you are curious, I encourage you to check out these links.
It’s Sunday morning as I write this, we’re on the road in Texas and our minds are still reeling from our experience. I think sometimes our modern society is sorely lacking in a spiritual connection that these ancient people had, we became untethered somewhere along the way. Then again, maybe the structure has just evolved to encompass everything and everywhere. Through the miracle of Starlink internet we were able to connect to our own spiritual home this morning to receive our weekly spirit shot at Northeast Christian Chruch. Maybe the structure isn’t as important as the internal connection. After all, in spite of all the generations of people that spent their lives dedicated to building the magnificent structures of Chaco Canyon, it was eventually abandoned. It’s still a place that pulls the spirit, but the spirit has staked its place in the heart of the person no matter where the person is.
In any case, this is a worthwhile destination that evokes many questions and thoughts. The great thing about experiencing places like Chaco Canyon is that they change us in some way, we have a new appreciation for a people and place we knew nothing about before.
That is a thing that only travel makes possible.
