davidaolson

[davidaolson]

What Poverty of Spirit?

Conservation is getting nowhere because it is incompatible with our Abrahamic concept of land. We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.~Aldo Leopold What tragedy (poverty?) of spirit drove early humans to abandon intimacy with the land beneath their feet and replace it with…

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Bark Without Sound

On the opposite side of the canyon from the holey cliff, there flowed a small stream ensuring life giving water was within easy reach for drinking and crops. Along the stream were a good many trees. I doubt these particular specimens existed during the reign of the Bandelierians because that ended nearly 500 years previous and none of the trees had 500 year girth.

[davidaolson]

Holes for the Sake of Holes?

None of the holes in this picture look livable so it is left to my imagination to decipher their intent. It’s a significant amount of work to carve voids in a rock wall so I doubt they were holes for the sake of holes. My guess is they are places to insert cross beams to create a roof and/or floor for a second story.

[davidaolson]

Rock Art

Aside from the etching that reminded me of a mountain range pictured in the central panel, there wasn’t much as far as rock art still remaining at Bandelier. Not sure if the ancients never created any or the weather erased their offerings to the gods.

[davidaolson]

Room With A View

I enjoy crawling into the cave dwellings crafted by the ancients. It gives me a glimpse into viewing the world from their perspective. I only wish I could decipher the ancient whispers bouncing around inside their dwelling spaces.

[davidaolson]

Free Salvation For All

Salvation can be found in the natural world.~John Muir Salvation is a word bandied about in society with particular emphasis in the religious context of the Abrahamic cults. It is said to be ‘earned’ through faith in Jesus, faith in Allah, faith in Yahweh, and is typically associated with the magic necessary to ‘win’ a place in a paradisical afterlife, itself a mythical place divorced from…

[davidaolson]

Ancient Access

The ladder was designed to look ancient but the fasteners were modern materials. Still, it is a nice replica with enough of the ancient flavor to fool most modern visitors. It was the easiest way to access the caves. If I was still a nimble goat, as I was in my youth, I could have simply climbed the rocks to enter the caves. So, I wonder, how was this setup any safer than lower access to keep…

[davidaolson]

Interesting Rock

The intricate design is, I believe, a natural formation rather than an Ancient Pueblo creation. But, who really knows? They were master craftsman as well as accomplished artists so they may have had a hand in its formation or modification.

[davidaolson]

Kiva

The Kiva, much smaller than the massive Kivas in Chaco, was a place for religious ceremonies, a practice still in vogue with the modern-day Hopi. This indicates that either the people of Mesa Verde, Chaco, and Bandelier were either related or that the religion practice permeated multiple societies.

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We Have Assumed Control

Be curious, not judgmental.~Ted Lasso The opening quote, often mistakenly attributed to Uncle Walt Whitman, never appears in anything he wrote nor is there evidence he uttered this exact phrase. It is true, his iconic book, “Leaves of Grass”, advocated for open minds, a sentiment captured succinctly in these four words. They have a close parallel to the Biblical admonishment to “Judge not lest…

[davidaolson]

Stone Homes

Bandelier is best known for the homes of the ancients carved into the walls and the dwellings lower in the valley. The valley dwellings were less protected than the cliff homes making them more susceptible to marauders. I’m guessing the elite lived in the cliff dwellings and the “lesser” people lived on the periphery as a first line of defense. Can’t let those bureaucrats come to any harm.

[davidaolson]

An Old Snag

Seeing the advanced state of decay, I could not help but empathize with this tree in its final life stages. My body is not the agile beast it was in its prime.

[davidaolson]

Bandelier - The Approach

Bandelier National Monument is a lesser known gem in Northern New Mexico not too far from Los Alamos, home to the the atomic bomb, the antithesis of nature. This is the approach road in the National Monument

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Mildred B. Cooper Chapel Portal

Doors are magical. I see them as portals into the unknown. In my imagination, the more ornate the door, the more mystical the experience will be upon passage.

[davidaolson]

There Was No Extra

When we pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.~John Muir Being, as I was, a slate with a predisposition to take delight in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) fields, I am intimately familiar with the practice of breaking down an entity into constituent parts as a method to understand the whole. However, this ignores the simple fact that, if…

[davidaolson]

Mildred B. Cooper Chapel Interior

Where Thorncrown Chapel had vertical and horizontal infrastructure, the Mildred B. Cooper Chapel used graceful curved lines. The grounds were beautifully peaceful which threw my mind into a quandry. I associate Christianity with violence and mayhem. In my mind, the two churches felt more Buddhist.

[davidaolson]

Mildred B. Cooper Chapel Exterior

Where Thorncrown Chapel had vertical and horizontal infrastructure, the Mildred B. Cooper Chapel used graceful curved lines. The grounds were beautifully peaceful which threw my mind into a quandry. I associate Christianity with violence and mayhem. In my mind, the two churches felt more Buddhist.