A Daughter's Gift:
An Opportunity for Reflection upon Rock Art from Red Rock Canyon
Our daughter, Elise, and her family joined us in February for a week’s vacation in Palm Desert, CA, and she and her husband got to go on
a side trip. It was their first mini vacation alone since becoming parents, and
they choose Las Vegas for their three-day respite. They went hiking in Red Rock Canyon, and sent
brief text messages with images of themselves sitting high on a bluff
overlooking Vegas and of the steep rocky “trail” that they had climbed to get
there.
About five years ago, Chuck and I drove the scenic loop and
only got out of our car to take pictures. I remember the spots on the rocky cliffs where
boulders merge into shapes of giant beings. The majestic shapes and colors trigger that sense often identified as
awe. I was delighted that they had gone on an adventurous hike. Yet, another surprise soon followed when images of rock art began coming in.
I remembered Bill telling me a couple of years ago that
there was rock art in Red Rock Canyon.
Chuck and I were spending a week in Las Vegas. Bill and I had gotten
through introductions the month before, and we had just begun exploring each
other’s backgrounds and interests in greater depth. I may have mentioned
something to him about being interested in rock art, but at the time we were
more focused on becoming reacquainted and sending each other photos of our
families. I do remember sending him some poems I’d create from symbols while
playing slot machines. “You can do that?” was his reply.
Now twenty-four months after Bill and I
reconnected, Elise and my son-in-law went off looking for rock art for the first
time. I wondered if they would have searched out rock art in Red Rock Canyon if
Bill and I had not published Engaged:
Rock Art Reflections in Photography and Poetry. While I hold fast to the belief that it
always the parents’ lifelong responsibility to congratulate and praise the
child’s accomplishments, I must confess that I did wonder what my daughter
thought of the finalized work. While it
is not the child’s responsibility or role to compliment parents’ on their
endeavors, Elise did the redesign this blog, so I knew she was very supportive. I was now struck by how these rock art images that she
offered me provided a much more powerful answer than any words formed into a
reply.
I asked her what she thought about the images when she and her husband returned from their trip. She said that the hands painted upon the rock are her favorite. Part of me wanted to ask how the hands made her feel and whether she had any sensations of that place being some kind of sanctum. Yet, a different question formed in my mind: “Do I even know what a sanctum is?” Suddenly, I remembered a disappointing experience.
More than a decade ago, I met an American Native woman at a
conference. I attempted to engage her in
conversation by sharing that I grew up on a “sacred” piece of land where people
of the Castanoan tribe had sculpted oak trees and created mortars in the
sandstone bedrock. Frowning deeply, she stepped back and replied, “We consider
all land sacred.” And then she turned
away. It took me until now to realize
that I had not really attempted to engage her, but to trigger some kind of
connection through perceived commonality.
Now I wonder where she grew up; I had not asked before jumping in. I sent the images to Bill along with my thoughts and a question: What is a sanctum?
When Dori shared these thoughts with me, we began to reflect
on our reasoning behind identifying rock art as a sanctum for reflection. For us, a sanctum is a place where a person can
experience a sense of freedom from everyday demands and mental restrictions, and it is identified
as a sacred space. If all land and the rock art upon it is sacred (something highly valued and deserving
great respect),
We both feel that the last two years of pairing poetry to
photography of rock art took us on a journey that required radical openness to
new ways of engaging the images created by ancient artists. We experienced a
new attitude of mind and heart, a kind of fluidity of mind connection and an
openness to whatever might come forth in feelings and written word.
We let go of reasoning and explore photography of rock art
and poetic prose with a new sense of freedom. In this way, we released some
kind of need for control and learned to become more comfortable with the
unpredictable. We discovered an amazing
energy within a cooperative meditative-like practice by engaging this art. We learned how this energy could be cultivated to experience a
greater presence with emotions and creative thinking, and we share this through photography, story and poetry.
