Travel day. We moved from Durango to Monument Valley. We stayed at a campground called Gouldings. It was a regular town with lots of history about a couple of gringos who settled there and took interest in the Navajo…I admit, I have not spent much time on the history. Without belaboring a political or cultural subject, I believe that the culture of native/tribal people of the US has suffered dramatically – particularly their relationship to the earth, to nature.
On Culture Clash...
Many of the places that I visit feel very spiritual to me and yet they have become terribly over-touristed. There’s a clash of values that I experience that would require me to dive into this subject and I cannot muster the passion to do so in this moment. I will simply say that it saddens me that I cannot go into a slot canyon and meditate under a light tube or walk aimlessly in Mystery Valley and feel the majesty and spirit of the earth. I am fiercely angry that we care so little about the earth that we have to be monitored and counted when we go to magical places lest we destroy it by littering, vandalism, taking souvenirs, and carving our names on gorgeous natural rock arches…as if our legacy somehow has greater efficacy when we say “I was here”. I am forced to go like a herded cow in a truck or pushed through the slot canyon being hurried to get “the shot”. That is not who I am when I take photos. My best shots are when I feel the life of the thing I am shooting. I might as well buy the postcard…I’m newly learning this about myself and on this experience. I am at odds personally and with the state of humanity right now. And that is what’s best too…that I care enough and am self aware enough to take a look at it; to consider my contribution to it and what I can possibly do to turn it around. I do count…and so do you. Everything we think and do every day has impact that is unimaginable. What if we became aware of how individually powerful we truly are and we started acting courageously and lovingly on behalf of all creation? Just sayin’…
Day #7: What’s Best? ~ I am grateful for the earth and my relationship with her. A little “hidden arch” just outside the campground. A tourist willing to snap a picture of Dolce and I!
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