Petroglyphs • Archaeology & Spirituality

Last night I explored further the idea of Petroglyphs and the Communication Wonder that they are. In late April, Joel and I explored the high desert and came upon them quite unexpectedly while spontaneously choosing a side juncture. I grew up in Washington DC with a Historian mother and an Antiques dealer Grandmother so I went to Monticello, the White House, George Washington’s home, Smithsonian Museums but always history was behind a velvet partition. So to come upon these communications so present and yet tied to peoples from the year 1000 created a sense of awe, wonder, shock based on the lens of my life story and what I have experienced so far.

I read two interesting blogs about the power of the Petroglyph and what they mean to the modern day native Americans. In New Mexico this refers to the Pueblo peoples, with ties to either the ancient Mogollon in the middle part of the state, west or to the Anasazzi north of there that built Chaco Canyon. Blog one was written by a PhD Archaeologist who was awarded a Fellowship to explore this world and what these communications mean to modern native Americans. Blog two was written by a Native American about what it means to him and his sensitivity to modern day “cultural appropriation” by non-native people who reside in the desert Southwest or further abroad. For Links see my article "Honoring Ancient Regional Cultures + Their Petroglyphs” in the Nature tab.

I learned that it is disrespectful to call petroglyphs “wall art”. These creations were put there as a communication tool around powerful concepts: sharing information on what animals travel there, or energetically storing information of a more shamanic nature, or in some cases recording the life story of the creator. Photographs and reproductions by non-native peoples are also disruptive - that means using the symbols on t-shirts, mugs or even Instagram feeds perhaps? I decided to delete my post about finding petroglyphs and an ancient housing site, allowing the discovery to remain my own and respectful of the rich past to be told only by the people who have connection to it.

Leads me to ponder - how must it feel to have these ancient receptacles of energy and information now on public lands, exposed to all. And I began to think over all about any creativity I bring to my life here in Northern New Mexico that I want to be very sensitive to cultural appropriation. I have updated the logo design to be sure it references the global icon for mountains only. And that although our jewelry utilizes New Mexico supplies as much as possible to support local business, that the designs don’t encroach on ideas already put out by the many Pueblos here. We are referencing southwest colors but aren’t copying any creators past or present that share their art form with locals and visitors.

Two additional contemplations from this point for me - 1) How do I create here in a way that reflects my experience while navigating this place and respecting all of the influences found in it’s rich history and 2) What does it mean to me to then lean in to my own spirituality and culture of my family and lineage, in this place where I have no genetic connection - how can I feel tethered as an outsider, observer who is physically residing here?

My intuitions tell me that for Question #1, I will continue to lean in to my walks in nature and time in meditation. And yet many of the ideas I like to explore also come from elsewhere. Transcendentalism ties back to 4,000 year old Asian philosophies like Hinduism. So does Yoga. And modern day Theosophy finds its roots in this psychology as well. My own upbringing in Protestant thinking has not brought solace or answers to the challenges I have faced as an adult.

And from that line of thinking I begin to imagine the wagon trains coming through here with new settlers finding bravery through their Bibles and faith. What courage it must have taken to move to a new home that they knew nothing of. And this opens up a deeper shame about how this country was founded demolishing the sustainably living, spiritual tribes existing for centuries here. I also recognize that they had warfare between themselves and with tribes from what is now modern Mexico. Another words, Native Americans also have lived the human experience of survival - conflict etc, even before European settlers arrived to create their own conflict, condemn existing cultures while promoting Catholicism etc.

And what do I have to draw from for iconography if I walk away from Protestanism? Quite ironically my 80+ year old father decided recently to send me a hand crafted birth announcement that I opened this morning. He found it in old papers. It is designed in Pennsylvania Dutch folk art style. My Mom leaned into this from her upbringing, in our Germanic roots of the Woods family. Folk art was found in the homes of this family. And I admire the universal stories told in outsider art and needlepoint - about birth, death, illness, marriage. The passages of life and the emotions of these experiences.

My experience of spirituality has been the most authentic to what my intellect knows to be true, through a combination of understanding quantum physics and universal energy and sourcing articles written by Yoga gurus about meditation and connection to Universal source energy. And now the James Webb telescope is bringing in so much information to be sorted through and used to further understand cosmological philosophies. I read an article last month about now proving that an energy thread runs throughout the Universe.

These thoughts followed me in to sleep after a day of making art yesterday influenced by the New Mexico Transcendental Movement which drew ideas from Theosophy. And I contemplated how to move through the Native American experience here with openness and respect.

I awoke this morning from a dream where I was sitting down with a group of Native American women discussing this. They shared with me that they appreciated my sensitivity and yes that they carry sorrow about modern disconnection to the cultural dominance that once existed here. And that this sorrow is “felt in their bones”. And I shared that as an Energy Healer I sensed their emotions and can empathize with them although their story is very different than mine.

And what is my story as a European settler that arrived on this continent about 7 generations ago?

Disorientation without an ancestral home …. Is this the root of modern day worship of capitalism as a religion? Filing the need for greater connection to the land, to our community history and presence now versus the rugged individualism of American culture and consumption-based ambition?

And with global warming looming and democratic freedoms and respects for differing cultures both native to this land and immigrants, disenfranchised globally, currently being removed from our modern American paradigm, we are a country that is made up of defensive anger and isolation, individualism cherished over community. I myself don’t have an ancestral home or lineage rooting with symbols or physical things. And I don’t live near family or have emotional support from an ancestral tribe.

And maybe now I just bring all of this forward with an open receptive mind and sensitivity. We as Americans live currently in an unrooted world. We enter the second quarter of this technological century, inundated with information, moving at a fast speed and just trying to survive.

But, I believe, humans will never stop hoping to finding understanding along the way. And when this comes through quiet time in nature, or a meaningful conversation, with a like minded soul, a recognition of this feeling and thinking often brings with it appreciation.

And can all of this be brought in by the artist as a type of communication recording of the sociology of our times?

Artists are observers, feelers, truth tellers.

And they notice - or through contemplation discover - patterns existing around them, in turn allowing creative intuitive leaps of understanding.

I like to think that when the Artist approaches their work from this place of authenticity that ultimately an energetic concept is passed along in to the heart of the viewer. Perhaps acting like a petroglyph perhaps.