The Procession Panel and Big Kachina Panel Revisited

Scale of the Procession Panel

It has taken Bill and Dori two months to gather their thoughts and now share their reflections after returning from seeing rock art in Utah and New Mexico. In New Mexico, they also visited the ruins of Chaco Canyon before attending the American Rock Art Research Association (ARARA) Conference in Las Cruces, New Mexico at the end of May. Bill returned to places he had researched and believed he would never visit again, while Dori was taken on an “expedition” like none she had ever been on before. They waited to share another story about their writing partnership until some new opportunity inspired them to integrate what they had learned at the conference with some the best rock art in the United States that they had just visited.  

The response to their rock art books from ARARA was very positive, so they decided to register for the Utah Rock Art Research Association (URARA) Conference that will be in Delta, Utah in late September. Bill suggested that they write a paper together to present at the conference. This means their writing has been dedicated to developing and defending a new perspective about the relationship of ritual to rock art using the imagery from two of the grand petroglyph panels they just visited along Butler Wash near Bluff, Utah: The Procession Panel (by hiking over land) and the Big Kachina Panel (by taking a raft trip down the San Juan River). They have been revisiting the past research and conclusions as well as developing new ideas of their own. 

The hike to the Procession Panel

The paper is called: “Ritual and Rock Art in Basketmaker Ceremonies: Butler Wash Revisited.” Bill and Dori are using this paper to expand on what they accomplished while writing Engaged: Rock Art Reflections in Photography and Poetry. Their current research involves layering Bill’s expertise in archaeology and political science with Dori’s expertise in cognition, communication and multidenominational divinity. This paper is also a continuation of an article Bill wrote (“Basketmaker Ceremonial Caves of Grand Gulch, Utah”), which was published in Rock Art and Cultural Processes in 2002.  There, Bill explored selected Basketmaker sites in Utah’s Grand Gulch through the lens of Roy A. Rappaport’s theory of ritual in defining what it means to be human.

Bill and Dori are not writing this paper with any set agenda, but as an exploration of what can evolve when academic writing that validates facts and theories are layered, or aligned, with free-form poetic interpretation within a subject that is mysterious: rock art. Bill, as the archaeologist, strives to better understand what the art communicated originally. Dori, as the speech language pathologist who is ordained in interfaith ministry, strives to better understand what it communicates to us now.

Close up of Procession Panel

Maybe, the most important thing they are discovering is the advantage of having a writing partner. They have come to understand that such a partnership raises the standards regarding what one writes and then even thinks about. The importance of being ready to support a new hypothesis or simple opinion with some supporting evidence becomes essential. It also evolves one’s ability to listen to differing opinions in a way that can expand the imagination for what exists even beyond compromise. This is an alignment and merger of ideas that expand on worthwhile possibilities for exploration while abandoning those that are not. 

Additional details of the Procession Panel

One exquisite panel of rock art that they recently visited, the Procession Panel, has been on both of their minds. This is not only because of the paper they are writing, but because of the current interpretations of the moods in America and even the world. Hostility seems to be the theme. Yet, regardless of one’s position, division has offered the opportunity to revisit the values that America is built upon.  And according to poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.” The Procession Panel, created around 700 AD, might just demonstrate what could happen when people become united through communal ritual. It definitely helps us imagine it.

Big Kachina Panel accessed by the San Juan River

This grand piece of art, called the Big Kachina Panel (created between 500 BCE and 500 AD), shows elaborate markings that differentiate each human depicted and may suggest movement. However, the humans in The Procession Panel are merely stick figures, yet they are clearly engaged in movement. While the headdresses may designate differences, the overall gestalt of the design can be imagined as an expression of unity, cooperation, and celebration because of something that they held in common.

Details of the Big Kachina Panel

As they continue working together on this paper, Bill is researching these panels to understand better what the indigenous peoples of our country were communicating over a thousand years ago. Dori is integrating their explorations with her training and experiences to speculate on what the rock art still holds for us today. They have come to understand this method of investigation as a form of alignment and a layering of their voices. They will be presenting this paper and retailing their  books at the URARA Conference. On this trip, Bill and Dori will be exploring additional rock art sites as part of the research for their next book.

Scale of the Big Kachina Panel

HOW to Enhance Critical Thinking through Creative Contemplation with Rock Art

 

                             The Necklace at Grand Gulch, Utah

In their last post, Bill and Dori shared their discoveries and ideas about using rock art to engage in creative contemplation in a way that enhances critical thinking. The goal is to build self-efficacy (recognizing the level of one's ability to use challenges as an opportunity to overcome difficulties and succeed). One challenge that Bill and Dori have in common is the loss of loved ones.

 Dori began developing a process for merging feelings, emotional awareness, and logic while journaling during the short illness and then loss of her fourteen-old daughter, Cj, in January 2000. Cj's medical staff encouraged Dori to share her writings, which model tapping into our integral wisdom for creative solutions when grieving. Therefore, she published her journal in 2002 as The Healing Room: Discovering Joy through the Journal.

The public’s positive response to her workshops in bookstores inspired her to pursue a doctoral education in resolving loss. Dori’s dissertation succeeded in specifying steps for integrating feelings and emotional regulation (EQ) with intellectual analysis (IQ) in a way that promotes optimum problem solving. Co-writing Engaged offered both Dori and Bill opportunities to explore and expand upon this process into artful ways for re-engaging the imagination by blending images of rock art with poetry and even recreating one’s story. 

 For decades, Dori has used line drawings as part of speech therapy—from comprehending and expressing simple concrete facts to deciphering and communicating complex ideas. Bill has used line drawings of rock art to document, preserve, and study these ancient designs. They both recognized that using line drawings with rock art offers an additional element to mental processing – dream work. While there are images that we recognize, many others can produce quandary due to unfamiliarity. And, since the ancient artists did not leave explanations about their art, we have the opportunity to blend facts with impressions and engage in speculation.  

Rock art, when viewed in relationship to one’s own life, becomes a sacred exercise of creative contemplation that can enhance critical thinking skills. This process stimulates the imagination for optimum brainstorming and offers an alternative way of responding to challenges instead of reacting to situations. This is essential for developing self-efficacy, which also includes assessing one’s level of skill and making recommendations for improvement while keeping one’s strengths and limitations in mind.

 One important step in this process is the separation of the physical sensation of feelings from words of emotion that attempt to interpret these feelings. There is no better way to experience a process than to do it yourself. Using the line drawing above of the Necklace Panel, write down your answers to the following questions.

 1. What is going on?

Study the line drawing of The Necklace above. Ask yourself: “If this is a dream, what do I see going on?”  Allow yourself to answer quickly without making any judgements. Write out what could be a theme, who/what might be the characters, what actions might be going on, what kinds of interactions are happening, where it might be happening, when it might be happening, and anything else that comes to mind.

2. How does this make you feel?

 What sensations do you feel? Use vocabulary of physical sensation (tingly, light, stifled, heavy, hot, cold, sweaty, dry, expansive, constricted). “If this was really happening, I would feel ____.”

3. What is your perception of emotion?

Attach adjectives of emotions that you perceive go with your feelings. Begin with the simplest such as happy, sad, angry, confused, excited, fearful, anxious, enthused. “This physical sensation makes me feel _____.”

4. Releasing Feelings

Take a moment to focus on these sensations, and release them while breathing for five cycles.

5. Reimagine the Story

How might you change the scene to improve on the story? What line drawings could you add to the scene? If you felt very positive about the story, what could you add to make it negative, and vice versa. Does it relate to anything that has happened or is happening in your real life? If so, what can you do differently in order to change how you are responding to the situation?

6. Evaluating the Outcome 

How does changing the story make you feel about self-efficacy (your ability to use challenges as an opportunity to overcome difficulties and succeed as well as being aware of limitations)? 

Now that you have experienced this process using rock art, use it the next time something happens that bothers you. Make a drawing of the situation using simple lines. Then go through the same steps. Once you become comfortable with this process, you can begin experimenting with using it to write your own poetry and create your own drawings in response to life events.