The Mystery of Chaco Canyon: Meeting Again at the Centre of the World

Episode Transcript
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AJ (00:00):
G'day Anthony James here for The RegenNarration, your
independent, listener-supportedpodcast exploring how people are
regenerating the systems andstories we live by.
We're fresh out of the Old SaltFestival last week and, yes, it
was amazing.
I've sent an initial missiveand set of photos to paid
subscribers on Patreon andSubstack and we'll have more for
you all soon-ish.

(00:20):
Speaking of which, thanks somuch Jason Watts and Sarah
Ransom for being paidsubscribers for three years now.
I so appreciate it and, if youcan and feel like it, you can
join this brilliant community ofsupporting listeners to get
some exclusive stuff and helpkeep the show going, and I've
really been more grateful toyour supporting listeners for
that, as this episode was madeduring one of the most

(00:43):
extraordinary experiences of mylife.
It happened in a place that'sbeen called the most important
site in the world.
Lynn Kelly said that,co-author of Songlines and my
guest in the extremely popularEpisode 92.
She said it in a call withfilmmaker Anna Sofaer and I, a
little after this was recorded.
Anna has made a series ofextraordinary documentary films

(01:07):
about this place as founder ofthe Solstice Project.
The place is called ChacoCanyon, located in the heart of
New Mexico and at the center ofthe ancient Chacoan civilization
Want to go through the front?

Dana (01:21):
Wherever you like yeah, walk around, sit.
What are you thinking?

AJ (01:24):
I reckon let's start somewhere with some cover.

Dana (01:29):
All right, just hop in one of these keepers over here.

AJ (01:32):
Yeah, this World Heritage Site is still so little known,
and at a time when its mysteries, prophecies and conscious
transformations are so relevantto us today.
So this episode comes to youfrom the centrepiece of the
centrepiece, the greatest of thegreat houses Pueblo Bonito.
I'm joined there by Dana Scott,a great old mate from our time

(01:55):
in Guatemala a quarter of acentury ago, who's gone on to
become a highly accomplishededucator and counsellor and
newish subscriber to the podcasttoo.
Dana and I peeled off in goldentwilight one evening to share
some of our transformationalexperience of this place and
some of the often crazilyuncanny journey here.
It could even work.
What do you reckon?

(02:18):
Yeah, want to sit here.

Dana (02:22):
Let me see where they go to sit on.
Not much.

AJ (02:26):
This might give us more cover if we're down low.

Dana (02:29):
Yeah Well, I mean, you know what?
We've been camping for days, soI'm dusty as hell anyway, whoa.
Holy, you just collapsed thatpoor squirrel's own home.
All right, maybe that's not thespace, maybe that's not it.
There's these ground holes allover the damn place.
Here we go.
All right, I got a mound happy,try it.

AJ (02:51):
We'll start here.
Hey, it's nice and calm there.
He is heralding our arrival.
All by ourselves, I think.

Dana (03:03):
I think so.
I think I saw the last familyleave well, mate, good to be
with you here.
Yeah, thanks for speaking withme yeah, no, thanks for inviting
me and told you before I'mflattered I'm very glad to.

AJ (03:17):
I'm very glad to.
Yeah, why are we here?

Dana (03:20):
I mean, this has been a culmination of 25 years of
friendship and figuring kind ofI don't know, this is a landing
point for certainly a bucketlist item for I think both of us
and kind of where our I don'tknow, maybe a spiritual and gosh

(03:40):
, just life paths seem tointersect here.
Gosh, just life paths seem tointersect here.
It seems right to come here tobe with you and have our
families spend time together.

AJ (03:51):
Well, it's funny, isn't it?
Because we were with you inBaltimore, at your home, first
time seeing you in 21 years.
It's been a while With familiesthat then connected beautifully
, and then we resolved to meetup here on our way back west.
You've made the trip outparticularly to visit a couple
of places in the southwest and,summing to our experience here,

(04:12):
it's also interesting because, Imean, it was on arrival.
Well, I should go back a stepfurther.
So for decades I was enchantedby the ancient Pueblo cultures
and structures.
So when we came through on theway east, we visited a bunch,
including where descendants aretoday, like Chaus, for example.

(04:35):
They still live in the ancientone as well.
Obviously, descendants livearound where the ancient ones
did.
And, sure enough, I was justfascinated.
And it's so spectacularlybeautiful in an incredible
landscape and incredibleachievements, such
sophistication and suchrelevance to today, which we'll

(04:56):
obviously go on to here.
Yeah, but it was in doing thatthat I really came to see Chaco
in a bit clearer way.
As to the place of it, sure,but we didn't make it all the
same, just the way our journeywent.
It ended up Mesa Verde, there,where a lot of the people from
here apparently went after thiswas left, and it's incredible in

(05:17):
its own right Aztec on the waythere, incredible in its own
right.
And there's a whole bunch ofother structures, some of which
we visited south of here, but Iknew, you know, it was being
written about as the centre,yeah, and so it stuck in my mind
, but we didn't make it.
And then I thought, well,that's probably it for our
journey, and I'll just have tofeel into the story of Chaco

(05:38):
culture and.
Chaco Canyon, from there andthen to get to a point where
we're with you in baltimore atthe end of last year and then
connect on this, yeah, such thatwe end up doing it together,
yeah, and then it feels like areal moment, something special
100, I think it was.

Dana (05:58):
There's definitely like well, you guys, coming to
baltimore for us was a big shift, you know, similarly to when
you know our paths crossed forthe first time 20, whatever
years ago.
Was it 2002?
23 years ago, yeah, yeah, andyou put that first Noam Chomsky
book in my hand.

(06:18):
And how are you an American andyou've never heard of Noam
Chomsky?
You're a university educator.
I don't know.
I didn't even know to ask.
This is part of the profoundthing?

AJ (06:26):
Well, sure, yeah, and who's heard of this place?
Right, exactly, much less apoverty point or something.

Dana (06:30):
Well, all the things.
So there is a big shifthappening everywhere, as we've
discussed multiple times.
It feels like things arechanging and, yeah, you guys
coming in.
I think it sort of shook us upa little, in a way that we
needed to be shaken up, seeingabout the possibility of what

(06:51):
life can be like when you're notpinned down to the concerns of,
I mean very real concerns ofhealth insurance and, you know,
the pension and 403Bs and all ofthe things that, like Americans
, are forever worrying about andI am, you know, it's on my mind
always.
And then, kind of, there's this, almost this awakening to this

(07:15):
other sort of like.
Oh, maybe we don't have toworry about that, maybe there's
another path and I don't want tosound sanctimonious by saying
like a higher path, butsomething that just feels more
connected to the source, youknow, to what we're really
supposed to be here for and likeas humans, you know.

AJ (07:37):
Yeah, that's interesting.

Dana (07:39):
There's no.
Humans aren't meant to accrue,you know, revenue for our four
or three bees or whatever youknow, even though, like
retirement's great and I hope Idon't want to, you know, starve
when I'm older, but at the sametime, just this idea that in
connecting to the source and Iknow gosh, you've had prior

(08:03):
interviews with other people.
You know, jenny, whospecifically is who I'm thinking
of at Springhouse, who talksabout that?

AJ (08:10):
Yeah, at the school, yeah, at Springhouse School, at
Springhouse School, which we'llhave featured by the time this
goes out, by the time this goesout, yeah, sure.

Dana (08:18):
So when she talks about connecting to the source, you
know, and I see you, olivia, andYashi, so clearly living that
it awakens an old excitement anda spirit in me that I haven't
felt in a long time and itdeeply, I mean appreciative,

(08:38):
excited.
And I see that happening inBecca too.
My wife Something's awakening,something's awakening,
something's changing, Can't tellyou what.
Coming here, I think, for ourfamily, and you know, you
straddle the line always between, like, this is a deeply
spiritual place.
Right, this is a deeplyspiritual place and this has

(08:59):
been on my bucket list, ourbucket list, for years.
And, like bucket list doesn'tquite do it justice because it's
, it's been a call.
Yeah, yeah, a call.
Sure, that sounds right.
But neither of us are PuebloIndian.
I'm from a million miles away.
Yeah right.

AJ (09:18):
The call, the call to this culture from decades ago.

Dana (09:21):
And I think it's a call to .
I mean, I remember, gosh, Iremember after you left
Guatemala I got super into allthe the 2012 stuff and the Mayan
calendar stuff and at the time,because this is, 2003,.

AJ (09:36):
that would have been 2003.
Sure, sure.

Dana (09:38):
So it was still far enough in the future that we could
dream about it.
But, uh, you know, and it was.
It still seemed fantastical atthe time, this idea that the
Mayan calendar round would cometo a close, and I don't know if
your listeners know what I meanwhen I say that, but you know
the Mayan calendar works incycles, right, and so the
largest and gosh over thelargest arc of time, the cycle

(10:02):
concluded in December 21st, 2012.
And back in 2003, that seemedlike you know my gosh, the
world's going to end, you know,and it was an exciting.
It was an exciting and scaryand like what does this all mean
?
Kind of a thing.
But I remember at the time Ibegan collecting prophecies and
things, and I remember comingacross something on YouTube

(10:23):
about the anasazi's propheciesand we don't use the term
anasazi anymore, to be very,very clear, I'm using that to
date the experience, you knowand just to chime in there.

AJ (10:33):
So that was the term that was used in the films that I saw
, sure like sure, diana scatziand those sorts of films back
then.
But it actually means ancientenemy, I think.
Ancient enemy in navajo, innavajo, right, and uh tells you
something about the, the history, but but uh, yes, it's an
ancestral or ancestral ancestralpueblo.
Yeah, it's hard isn't itbecause all names spanish around

(10:57):
here.
Right ancestral pueblo peopleright.

Dana (10:59):
But talking about their prophecies, and god, I'll be
honest, I've definitely gottenoff the end of the world
prophecy.
Kick that I was on back then.

AJ (11:07):
Well, this is the thing we learned too, how, being down
there and connecting with Mayanculture, that it's the end of
the world, in that understandingof a cycle, sure, and I mean,
plenty is transforming.
So maybe there'd be people whopeg it to that day.
Still, I don't know, but weknow plenty is transforming.

Dana (11:24):
Well, but also like what I love about the Mayan calendar
and I think what you, what weget from a lot of I mean geez, I
I've been reading a lotrecently just from indigenous
authors and things, and justtrying to have a better
understanding of what we mightconsider an indigenous worldview
.
And by indigenous I want tolike not necessarily one

(11:46):
particular indigenous cultureper se, but when we talk about
indigenous, maybe using thedefinition that Robin Wall
Kimmerer uses, of likeacknowledging that I live here,
I'm born here, I will die here,my ancestors are from here, my
people will, you know, we willdrink the water, we will eat the
food and the land is part of us.
So in that sense, time is notlinear, it's more of a cyclical

(12:09):
experience.
And so you know, at the time,in 2003, still very much
grafting, I think, a lot ofWestern ideas of time onto a
Mayan prophecy or a Mayan systemit caused maybe a little bit

(12:29):
more hysteria than it needed to,because you know time is
cyclical.
So we ended a cycle, we'rebeginning a new one, and you
know that doesn't need to havecataclysms, although maybe it
does, because cataclysms happenbut also time keeps going.
You know the world keepsturning and just sitting with
that and you know, we don't needto build bunkers, maybe to

(12:49):
prepare.
We just need to maybeacknowledge and that's a moment
to reflect on your soul and justbe like I'm part of the earth,
I'm part of the cycle, I'm partof this.
Whatever the great process is,I'm, I'm, I'm processing with it
well, that's it.

AJ (13:03):
It's, uh, more an opening than a bunkering.
Come back up to the, to thesource, as you said before.
I want to come back to some ofthis later on, sure, because
it's relevant to to how we didcome to be here together.
There's more layers to thatguatemala story that that
longer-term listeners of thepodcast have heard increasing
amounts of and will continue to,because we visited there, so

(13:25):
there'll be stories from thereyeah, still coming or maybe
they're out by now, but I'mthinking what to do with the
ones that are actually inspanish.
But we'll come back to that, butit's time for us to really
bring listeners into where sureyeah, we should, we should.

Dana (13:38):
So this this place.

AJ (13:39):
We've referred to chaco canyon and chaco and culture and
the particular great house, asit's called, that we're seated
in a room that's sort of nowopen to the, to what was the
plaza, but a lot of theperimeter is still sort of
intact.
So we've come to the interiorbut we're sort of semi-sheltered
in one of the rooms, one of theold rooms, because the wind's

(14:02):
blowing from the west and itgives us a vantage point where
we look across to beautifullyilluminated cliff faces and and
old structures in thisincredible place as the sun gets
low on the horizon.
It's a quarter to six in theevening here.
So this great house PuebloBonito it's called I can't help,

(14:24):
I have to say it somewhat.
As for spanish accent, we'regoing to talk spanish.
No, yeah, you can't help itright, pueblo bonito, it's the
beautiful town, right, right,essentially.
But because the spanish calledthe people here pueblo, people,
because they lived in towns 800sand existed, or the

(14:51):
civilization that flourishedhere, flourished here for a few
centuries, actually centuriesprior to right.
There was a build-up to it and Iwant to come back to that too,
but.
But what we are amongst is thepeak of that civilization that
then was left, the people leftin the 1200s, it seems, but that

(15:11):
started in the 1100s, but afterextraordinary achievement.
So let's delve a bit, dana,into what we've been walking
around these last couple of daysand the impact it's had, and we
can just start with what we'veseen in the canyon.
Basically, you've got 150 ofthese great houses in the region

(15:36):
that this civilisation builtand there are a number of them
in and around this particularcanyon, but they extend up to
southern Colorado.
We're in sort of northwest NewMexico now, some across into
Arizona and some south.
So we'll start by bringing youinto the physicality, I think,
and then we can talk about someof the extraordinary story that

(15:58):
is this place.
Yeah, and we can walk to dothat, haven't?

Dana (16:00):
we, yeah, we can do that.

AJ (16:02):
Let's take foot and.

Dana (16:03):
Yeah, let's see if the wind has other plans for us this
has certainly been a friendly.
A friendly shelter, yes, whichwe can come back to if we need
one thing while we're getting upour 45 and 50 year old selves
off the dirt floor I think whenyou said the peak of the culture

(16:24):
, I, I think I want to sit withthat for a minute Because I or
the civilization, I think, iswhat you said I think I would
characterize it as maybe thepeak of the material
civilization, or it's tough tosay right, because this is a
civilization that predatedEuropean contact and we can only

(16:44):
look at it through Western eyesand we see a great structure
and it's beautiful andimpressive and I think as we
walk around we should talk aboutit.
But it's also important to notethat this civilization is still
happening, it's stillcivilization, and that this
civilization made a choice towalk away from this.
And so when we talk about apeak, you know I'm thinking of

(17:07):
that.
That feels like a linear word,but this is a civil, as the
civilization made a decision tomothball this place or to, to,
to leave it, you know, to leaveit as is, and I think that's
worth noting it is worth noting.

AJ (17:18):
Yeah, let's come back to it.
Yeah, because it's it'sclimactic in a sense, but, as
you say, really with ongoingrelevance to all cultures on the
planet today what we're livingright now Bang yeah, Okay
that'll be where we come backaround For sure.
So we're on the west side of it,yep, and we came in the
entrance to the plaza that we'regoing to move out into and

(17:39):
there might be a little bit ofwind, but wow, wow, what a sight
.
So this was four stories highand there are some of those
walls at the cliff edge thatstill stand that high and a
whole bunch of others stand tovarying degrees two, three
stories, and I guess, first ofall, to say it's in this

(18:00):
extraordinary, I mean this isregarded as, hands down, the
finest architectural achievementon this continent well,
certainly pre-columbian handsdown and the, and the biggest
structures for a thousand years,at least till the 19th or 20th
century on this continent, andthis is in a deformation, yeah,

(18:22):
as some others of the the greathouses are.
Yeah, not all, they're alldifferent in some way.
Yeah, and the cliff side inthis instance is the curved side
right, and the canyon side isthe straight wall.
Yeah, and within, as we'relooking at it, there's this
plaza, and there are really twoparts of this plaza now, because
they ended up, over the 300years of construction, putting a

(18:45):
wall in the middle.
Yeah, which will come to thedirection yeah, you can pick it
up.
I know that's what I'm excitedto talk about and uh, and we're
looking at a whole bunch of.
Well, it had 650 rooms, and Isay had only because the cliff
wall fell on some of it and tooksome out.
Um, what was?
that in the 40s, yeah, 42 43something, and we're looking at

(19:06):
a bunch of keevers that arebuilt into the structures and
some particularly enormous onesin the plaza, and they were I'll
just use a little loosely thethe churches as we might
understand them that the temples, prayer centers maybe, yeah,
ceremonial sure ritual centersbuilt into the ground and I'll

(19:29):
obviously have photos of thesethat that I can share.
They are spectacularly beautifulin themselves and and if we
just walk to one, if we canventure to the one, yeah, with
the, with the opening, yeah,they had my body we're going to
venture into the wind andhopefully it holds up.
But when I walked over to thiswest, western half of the plaza

(19:51):
now, so we've just come throughthat wall that they built later
on, when we come to the entranceincredible entrance down into,
yeah, this kiva, which I thinkis the Great Kiva of Pueblo
Bonito A quick intercession onthis I was reminded on our
return to Albuquerque that infact, the Great Kiva has been

(20:12):
left filled in, as the ChuckOwens had meticulously done
before they left those centuriesago.
Filled in, closed up, rightnext to where we were walking
and talking as we approached theopen Kiva.
This is part of what Dana wasalluding to earlier about
indications of their consciousdeparture.
We delve into that story furtherlater on and, just as a side

(20:34):
note, we were reminded of thisback in ABQ because, would you
believe, the documentary we'dmost recently watched about
Chaco, a few months earlier,happened to be replayed on PBS
New Mexico the very night of ourreturn, which I knew because I
got on the email list of theSolstice Project founded by
filmmaker Anna Sofair, links tothis extraordinary project and

(20:56):
production in the show notes.
Okay, on we go.
It's certainly one of the bigtwo and when I stood here I just
I almost shook is the word.
There was certainly some kindof nerve tremor thing that I
experienced standing at thispoint the other day when we came
here for the first.

Dana (21:13):
Well, and this is what we've been talking about, right,
the echoes.
I don't know, at the risk ofsounding sanctimonious again,
maybe if you, if you tune yourantenna to those kind of
spiritual frequencies, you can,you can walk into a place and
feel it, and I think everyonemaybe feels it, maybe
differently, in their body.
I'm wondering if you feel it inshaking.
For me it was tears In a coupleof other spots, oh yeah, well,

(21:37):
just I mean coming up, I meanone, the anticipation of, you
know, 25 years of wanting toknow about this space and, you
know, wanting to hear more aboutit and see it and be with it,
be in it, but just the tears.
For me that's what came up.
It felt like I was reunitingwith an old friend or you know

(21:59):
somebody.
It's just something cherished.
You know, that's interesting.

AJ (22:04):
That comment you just said, then, too, connecting to
something.
It's probably a good enoughpoint, then, for you to take us
on some of the story of theorientations.

Dana (22:14):
Sure, well, gosh and I don't even pretend to be an
expert your listeners, if anyoneis interested in Chaco Canyon,
and this is the first they'rehearing of it, do the dive.
It is so fascinating and soworth learning about.
But I think the thing that gotme maybe the most excited about
this was the alignments to theuh, which I guess the field is

(22:35):
archaeoastronomy.
So when you look at the, if youimagine the d shape, uh, with
the long wall of the d, the longline of the D, the long line of
the D being oriented towardsthe east and west axis of Earth,
what they know about this placeis that the east and west walls
are aligned perfectly tosunrise and sunset on the winter

(22:58):
and summer solstice, and thatimagine a sort of a wall
bisecting that D that isperfectly aligned to the
north-south axis, so perfectlyaligned to cardinal directions.
On those dates, yeah, on thosedates.
But I think I mean we're inPueblo Bonito, which is a
remarkable, unbelievable,powerful structure, but it is

(23:20):
not the only thing in thiscanyon by any stretch.
Not the only thing in thiscanyon by any stretch.
And you know, when you talkabout Chacoan culture, when you
talk about Chacoan, just sort ofhistory.
We talk about this place as asystem, I think you know, or
that's how I've heard itreferred to anyway.
And so to our west is Pueblo deArroyo, to our east is the

(23:42):
Chetro K and uh, these are twostructures that are aligned
perfectly with the east west,kind of great main wall of
pueblo bonito, and both of themalign perfectly to the solstices
, both winter and summer andthen they further align with
chimney rocky in southerncolorado.
well, sure, so that's the thing.

(24:04):
And, like I said, yourlisteners should absolutely do
the deep dive, watch the podcast.
I don't know if you can linkthings in your notes, but you
should.
Yeah, totally, I mean, it's thealignments of Pueblo Bonito, at
the middle, at the center ofthis complex extend for miles
and don't just extend to thesolstice alignments, they extend

(24:29):
to lunar alignments as well.
So the, the moon has a kind ofan 18 and a half year cycle, and
so and I'm getting a little bitbeyond my full understanding of
astronomy here, but you know,my understanding is that some,
many of the great houses thatare placed throughout this
canyon, that were constructedthroughout this canyon, are
aligned to those southern andnorthern maximums of those lunar

(24:53):
cycles as well.

AJ (24:55):
One last interruption.
This phenomenon is called themaximum lunar standstill, and
would you believe it?
It occurs this year in December, which we learned on our visit
to Chimney Rock in Colorado,another extraordinary place
we'll share more about soon.

Dana (25:10):
For now, on with the show and I think that's what I
remember reading about thatamong the Puebloan belief,
systems like the sun and themoon are just as important and
so.
But when you're building astructure like this, if you're
going to put the time and effortinto it, it's not just the sun
that's honored, it's all of theabove.
But I mean what's been blowingme away is as we hike around

(25:34):
through these structures.
I mean, so many alignments showup.
That's almost been like fun forlack of a better word is as you
come up to a new structure,sort of you.
You know where were weyesterday?
At la rinconada, yeah, andacross the other side of the
canyon, across the other side ofthe canyon, across the, the
wash, I guess, uh, chaco wash,or arroyo, arroyo, arroyo, right

(25:56):
, arroyo.
So on the other side, the greatkiva, which is the greatest,
the largest kiva, I believe.

AJ (26:03):
Yeah, it's hundreds of people, hundreds, hundreds of
people.
Each pylon was over 1,000pounds, and the four of them, I
believe, and then timbers on topwhich they had to haul in from
over 50 miles away, about aquarter of a million timbers for
the roofs of these kivas,without using beasts of burden
or the wheel.
They organized and there was amaster plan.

(26:26):
They knew what they were doinga long way out, yeah, yeah, a
long way out from when theyactually burst into this action.
It's extraordinary.
Anyway, so back to La Riconada,which is the biggest kiva
across the other side of thecanyon, yeah, which actually is
sort of a focal point betweenPueblo.
Bonito and Chicharro.
Quetel is the two biggest greathouses here, because there's

(26:47):
sort of an amphitheaterstructure on the cliff face
between the two and it sort ofzeroes across to that.
And just finally, there wassort of what they call small
houses, but not that they werethat small, they're just not the
the great ones.
they weren't great right, it'sall relative where people are
shacked up at times when they'rein here, but we'll come to more
on that too.
Around there, as there werearound here, but yeah, go on

(27:09):
then.

Dana (27:10):
No, I just, I mean it was a lot of background to say, like
, as we were exploring LaRinconada, la Casa Rinconada, la
Rinconada had this odd littleculvert in the middle of the
Kiva sticking out in an odddirection and we spent, you know
, I mean you know, 10 minutessort of talking about, wonder
why it goes that way.
That, you know, doesn't seemaligned to any of the other

(27:30):
things in the Kiva, this is ouramateur analysis.
Yeah, I mean we are notarchaeologists, we're certainly
not archaeoastronomers, but itstood out, but it stood out.
So we sat there and looked, andyou, when you stand at the back
of it, it does seem to bisectthat amphitheater structure on
the other side of the canyondirectly to the midpoint between

(27:53):
Chetra Kettle and Pueblo Bonito, whereas the entrances and
there were two, which seemsdifferent were aligned
north-south, north-south right,exactly which?

AJ (28:01):
this is here too, the Kiva.
We're standing at the one bigentrance.
Yeah, follows the wallthat's're standing at the one
big entrance.
Yeah, follows the wall that'snext to yeah.
Straight south For sure.

Dana (28:10):
Let's wander over to the other side of the structure,
yeah no, and some of theselittle rooms and things are just
so magical.

AJ (28:16):
So the east side is particularly intact and this is
where we're allowed to go intosome of the rooms.
So let's do that, yeah, whilealso.
But don into some of the room.
So let's do that, yeah, whilealso don't touch the walls while
also drawing it like commentinga little bit on the other
extraordinary aspects of thephysical manifestation, before
we go back to the astronomy andstuff, I reckon is the fact that

(28:36):
it had it had agriculture, so alittle bit of farming, a little
bit of water, a little bit offarming of maize.
Indeed, it was the, the maizefarming, that broadly built up
the culture to to thisparticular material height,
let's say, and that started justat about 100 bce, as I
understand it.
And what fascinates me as muchis that and this would be of

(29:00):
real interest to people who'velistened to this podcast and
been interested in regenerativeagriculture- and holistic
management and some of thatterminology.

Dana (29:07):
Yeah.

AJ (29:07):
Because the people who preceded this big stuff were
living in here for periods oftime like 20, 30 years and then
they were moving on to otherpatches for that period of time,
so sort of semi-mobile for thatperiod of time.
So it's sort of semi-mobile.
And I say it relates to thatsort of holistic management idea

(29:28):
, because the whole idea of thatis moving animals in that way
where you then give the landrest so you're all in one spot
and you're all in another spotand so it can come back.
It's fascinating to me equallythat that was sort of happening
through the 700s and then it ledto this explosion in the 800s.
And let's keep walking so weget out of the wind, hay For

(29:50):
sure We'll get to our entrypoint.
So we're passing through theeastern half of the big plaza.

Dana (29:56):
Now We've crossed the.
This is the wall here, right.

AJ (29:58):
Climbing up through a maze of keevers.
I mean just extraordinary.
Which touches, then, on whatappears to have been the main
function of this entire complex.
The entire chaco canyon andthose other great houses beyond

(30:18):
were apparently not to live inright.
There's scant evidence ofburials.
There's scant evidence ofrefuse.

Dana (30:28):
Right.
So there's a handful of burialsfrom kind of the research that
I think you and I have beendoing right and they have found
some, I guess, genetic.
The skeletons they have foundwere genetically related.
They have found weregenetically related but really
for the size of this structurethere's almost no one living

(30:51):
here.
Yeah.

AJ (30:53):
We've had low bridge.
Yeah, now we're into the rooms.
Now we might keep going and getsome of the end?

Dana (30:59):
Yeah, keep moving.

AJ (31:00):
So we're really stooping through some of these entrances,
and this is particularly narrowtoo, this one.

Dana (31:05):
So right, this is the eastern side side of it, and we
came all through here yesterdaywith the kids.
They had a just an amazing timerunning through and they fit
right through these little doorswe have to.

AJ (31:20):
I have to crouch.
I don't fit through the littledoors and so we look out on an
open sky.
I mean there's three stories asI look up here, as we get
towards the back wall, towardsthe back wall still not quite
there, and three stories thatthey had again suspended by all
these timbers, and at the timethey were largely enclosed, so

(31:41):
again they were very.
There's 650 rooms here, letalone everywhere else.
There were never more,apparently, than a couple of
thousand people around thesestructures at any time.
So they found some were used forstorage, like one very small
room I think it was room 33, had50,000 pieces of turquoise.
Yeah, there was a whole otherbunch, yeah, a whole other set
of materials that were stored inthat way, that were stored in

(32:06):
that way.
But it really highlights thefact that this, I mean this, was
talked of as the centre of theculture, the centre of the world
for all intents and purposes.
Certainly, what we've beenreading, this particular one and
then the other ones wererelated to it in this broad area
.
So people would come in to behere and to add sort of layers
to the mystery and thecomplexities.
There's no sign of war ordefences.

(32:27):
So there was, like thisconfluence of people from, I
think, up to 200 miles around Imean, we're talking an area of
around 60,000 square miles thatwas active, with this as the
centre that they would come inperiodically and seemingly for
these observation events, bringmaterials with them from those

(32:50):
distances and build in referenceand reverence to the cycles and
to the very nature of comingtogether.

Dana (33:00):
What it sounds.
I mean, some of the podcastswe're listening to related to
Chacoan culture.
It was related to the buildingcycles as being timed with lunar
cycles as well, so you had,like the lunar maximum, the
18-year cycles.
That would kind of welcome anew burst of construction.

(33:23):
And the theory from thatpodcaster, Ed, I think I can say
his name.

AJ (33:29):
Yeah, totally yeah, ed Barnhart.
We'll come back to Ed becausethat's part of the layers to how
we come to be here at all.
But Ed Barnhart on the ArcheoEd podcast does an episode on
Chaco.
It's well worth a listen and Ithink I've referenced him before
, if only in the sub stackpieces I've written on.
Uh, on copan, yeah, he cut histeeth a bit too sure, and that

(33:49):
was related, bizarrely, to ourvisit to philadelphia, but
that's a whole other issue I,yeah.

Dana (33:56):
so I mean, we listened to ed's podcast just driving down
here on the dirt roads as bestwe could, over the rumble of the
roads and everything, with thekids screaming in the back,
screaming with excitement.
Yeah well, they were so excitedto connect to ancient cultures
and also play cards.
But yeah, he talks about thebuilding being the activity.

(34:19):
That's the working theory.
That's his theory.
Yeah, but I'm quite partial toit.
Well, I'll tell you what.
If it's right or wrong, I loveit, you know, like I mean.
Ed's also not, you know.
And Puebloan, none of us are.

AJ (34:34):
No, and so we're left with.
And his focus is Mayan cultureprincipally.

Dana (34:37):
Yeah, as sort of the Western sort of you know, people
living on Turtle Island rightnow can can can learn from these
things is, if we're going tokeep living here, we have to
learn how to live with the land,we have to learn how to what
worked here and this is clearlysomething that worked and it

(35:02):
worked for a long time, but fora long time.

AJ (35:05):
And something that worked.
And it worked for a long time.
But for a long time and um,because if you take, if you take
the stretch, yeah, of the 300,400 years that this particular
center, yeah, was functioning inin that live way, I mean they
still say it's a reference point, a sacred spot, sure, but yeah,
you know what I mean, just walkin, you feel, yeah exactly.
And then there were thepreceding centuries.

(35:26):
It's a broader civilizationthat puts our industrial one in
the shade still, and so does,for that matter, where we've
come.

Dana (35:36):
another story through Poverty Point the mound
structures, yeah, theMississippian cultures, the
Hopewell cultures and whatpreceded them yeah, huge
structures, hundreds andhundreds and hundreds of years,
each one right.

AJ (35:49):
So we visited Poverty Point that dates back 3,500 years to
be pyramid mounds, earthenpyramids, effectively that
scaled like the Egyptianpyramids.
And again, hardly anybody knows.
But I only know this thanks to,again, ed.
Shout out ed.
Yeah, he's getting a lot of lovetoday 600 years spanned that

(36:12):
particular culture at povertypoint as well, yeah, puts this
culture we're in right now inthe shade and we're sort of
we're facing our threats, asthey did too, but amongst their
conscious decisions werecertainly droughts and whatever.
So it's fascinating to.
I get a big dose of humility,mm 100%, yeah, a big dose of
admiration, a big dose of thebeauty of people on the planet,

(36:37):
the possibility of beauty, andto think so many people centred
here in such a way, largelywithout conflict, without
evidence of conflict and withoutwant, like they didn't have to
live here.
This was seemingly a ceremonialpoint.
It wasn't.
We've built it.
Now I shall sit on top and ruleRight, right.

(36:59):
I mean, we don't know what thestructures of organization were.

Dana (37:02):
Maybe they were very hierarchical, but that didn't
manifest like that, which is aNot in the way we would conceive
of hierarchy Typically, I thinkthe way I don't know if you
listen to other archaeologypodcasts and do reading, you
know it does seem like when youhave those hierarchical
structures they tend to be morekind of bellicose, you know, and
sort of keeping the workers inline and that sort of thing.

AJ (37:21):
It's part of the Mayan story , it in line, and that sort of
thing.
It's part of the Mayan story.
It's part of the Inca story.
Sure, I think it's fair to sayyeah, yeah, yeah, for sure, and
perhaps the European one wecould talk.

Dana (37:29):
Yeah, yeah, right For sure .

AJ (37:36):
But yeah, when I say European, you are Western,
western, sure, let's agree onthat term we are.
We should also say we arestanding at a what?

Dana (37:42):
how would you describe it?
Yeah, I mean, this looks to melike a millstone, so, or like a
gosh, what do you call it?
The corn grind, they grind thecorn on it is what I'm assuming.
So a large stone gosh, maybeabout two feet by a foot and a
half.
You'll have to do the metricconversions there.
My brain doesn't work that way,I'm giving up, yeah okay, with
a large white.
you know harder stone, so youknow the harder stone.

(38:02):
So this is the base stone.
Seems like the sandstone thatwe have around us everywhere in
this gosh I don't know, I'm nota geologist, but harder like a
quartz or something to grind thecorn and like it stands out in
these little rooms becausereally these rooms are pretty
barren.
You know, there's nothing elsein these rooms and in any of the

(38:23):
structures we visited.
This is the only piece of goshfurniture, if you will, although
many walls, apparently, wereplastered and painted, decorated
in some form.
Sure sure.

AJ (38:36):
So it was certainly a I mean the sketches of what it might
have looked like, the closest wecould I mean?
It's a bona fide.
You could use terms like palace, couldn't you?
No yeah, extraordinaryCathedral, right, and to imagine
the colour and the hub ofactivity, and then, similar to

(38:57):
Poverty, point that the trade,so tons of materials coming in
from the Pacific down to macawsand cacao, from.

Dana (39:03):
Mesoamerica yeah, the macaws, right exactly.

AJ (39:05):
And from up north too, stuff from up north, but it wasn't
considered a trading post.
It was like stuff came ineither in tribute or whatever it
was.
Yeah, but it was largely oneway, and that happened in
Poverty Point centuries earlieris a really interesting thing.
Since learning about this stuff, I'm considering so whatever

(39:26):
that?
Again, the functional purposesseem light on the ground, but
the ceremonial ones are, likereally apparent.
Is that Raven again?
Yeah, it's kept us company.
Yeah, let's walk a littlefurther on.

Dana (39:39):
Yeah, for sure.

AJ (39:39):
Yeah, yeah.
The room that's almost theoriginal one.
The closest to how things mighthave been is through here too.

Dana (39:49):
And then just each door we walk through, I mean just for
your listeners, gosh, maybe fourfeet, metre and a half, you
know yeah.
And you really have to.

AJ (39:58):
And like a foot and a half wide.
Yeah, crouch down low.
This is an interesting time ofday to come, actually, because
through the windows becausewe're not, we don't have a
ceiling above our heads you getthe window.
That, in this case, was on thesecond floor, where the sun's
streaming through andilluminating part of the
opposite wall in a quitebeautiful way, and above that
they actually had, well, let'ssay, windows, but through like a

(40:20):
two-metre long wall structure.
Yeah, I mean through this twometer long.
Yeah, I mean through the wallstructure unbelievably thick
wall unbelievable.

Dana (40:29):
And on a diagonal, yeah, it's fascinating.
I mean, you can only wonderwhat's lying to and you know
I'll tell you.
This is what I was talkingabout yesterday those charred,
oh yeah blackened, blackened butthose only because you look at
the window right next to it.

AJ (40:41):
It doesn't have it not charred when the fact that these
timber beams are still hard andholding this thing up is
amazing in itself too.
All right, we're stoopingthrough an even smaller one.
There we go, and possibly Imean now we're looking at the
four stories here, which is, Imean, I'm looking straight up

(41:04):
and you can see the curve of theD, so it looks like we've
gotten to the.

Dana (41:07):
I think that's what that is right.
No, you're right.
No, no, never mind.

AJ (41:10):
Yeah, not even the outside wall.

Dana (41:11):
No, not even the outside wall, it's just a bow in the
structure.

AJ (41:14):
Yeah, yeah, let's come through here.
And what's also of note in thephysical structure we haven't
mentioned is the road systems.
Yeah, like 400 miles of roadsystems around this canyon and

(41:35):
again, some of them barely used,it seems.
Yet we're talking engineeringprecision, of modern highways 30
foot wide or beyond and somesort of appear to go nowhere.
They go for a period and end upin a ravine.

Dana (41:51):
I mean, that's the thing it's like when you start doing a
deep dive on what we know aboutChaco Canyon.
I think it's like what we don'tknow.
There's so much more that wedon't know about this system
than what we do, at least fromwhat I've been able to read.
But yeah, roads, we think ofroads as going somewhere and as

(42:14):
being used for commerce andbeing used for these very sort
of quotidian.
You know, like I use the roadbecause, or I build the road
because it makes my life easierto achieve the purpose of me
getting, you know, my groceriesor whatever.
These massive roads just extendalmost like a, I mean, if you
imagine, like throwing a rock inthe glass, and Pueblo Bonito's

(42:36):
at the middle, and it's just thestriations that extend out.
Yeah, well said, for I meanwhat hundreds of miles here I
mean?

AJ (42:43):
yeah, and then that I mean this is the thing like some of
the alignments over hundreds ofmiles here.
I mean yeah, and then that Imean this is the thing like some
of the alignments over thosehundreds of miles to these
structures here.
So the level of master planning,if you will, it's yeah, it
blows the mind and to think Imean so.
This relates to where we wenttoday, which I mean particularly
, perhaps, those people who knowthis place, but those who may

(43:05):
delve a little further.
We went up to a place calledPueblo Alto.
It's a high town, yeah.
It's up on the cliff top, onthe plateau, yeah, and as you
come to that, you look out likeit's a thin, relatively thin
plateau.
So you look out on the otherside of sweeping views and
that's where a lot of the roadscontinued on and right up to

(43:26):
that, just out into the horizon,beyond vision, where you know
yeah, that was another pointtoday, so I've ended up with
three points where body wasshifting and exactly that was
one at puerto valdez as much,because we were finding ancient
pottery shards with exquisitepainting.

Dana (43:42):
Just everywhere it was.
It's hard not to be moved um bywhat you're finding up there
when we or anywhere around here.
But yeah, those pottery shards.

AJ (43:54):
It's breathtaking, it really is it really is, and you know,
to see the kids enlivened bythat.
Yeah well, it's more than wewere.
It's just that's interestingtoo well, I'll tell you.

Dana (44:04):
So one thing they do a really nice job of at this park
anyway is, you know, remindingyou that the shards, the rocks,
the vegetation, the birds,everything this is all part of a
living sacred site, sacredsystem.
And you know the shards.
It would be extremely easy topick up a shard and put it in

(44:27):
your pocket, and I imagine somefolks have done that over time.
But they do a nice job, I think, at the park of reminding us
that these are sacred items.
The folks who lived herecenturies ago, those pottery
shards weren't just left, theywere intentionally broken at the

(44:47):
end of their life because, youknow, they were whatever
qualities they had, to honor thelife of that pot, return to
where it came from, return towhere it came from right and
allow that process to occur andso being able to point to those
signs.
You know, when the kids wererunning around who were so
excited about the shards andunderstandably wanted to take

(45:09):
them home.
Hey, but this is not.
This isn't that kind of a place.
They got it yeah they got it.

AJ (45:16):
It was cool.
So there's two things I want tobring up before we go into this
would-be original conditionedroom and then circle back to the
astronomy, because this isrelated.
Right, we are standing in aroom here, that's we can't see
the outside wall from this one,because the doorway is filled in
, yeah, with more rock andmortar.

(45:37):
Yeah, this is a critical pointthat the great Kiva, even in
this great house, pueblo Bonito,was filled in as they left, so
they closed the portal.
If you will, and I want to giveanother shout-out then at this
point.

(45:58):
And then I want to reference towhere this all came from.
Some more of the backdrop thatgoes back to our Guatemala time.
I think this is the time to doit.
So a filmmaker called AnnaSofair has made a few films on
this place, the most recentbeing Written in the Landscape.
And that closes I think more orless closes, with some elders

(46:19):
descendants talking about thisfeature that they sealed it up.
It wasn't abandoned, it wasconsciously sealed up and left.
You can see it in a lot of thedoors and windows, and I don't
know if that means not all weredone.
Particular ones were done,maybe the other ones have fallen
out, I don't know, but thegreat Kiva was filled in and a

(46:43):
number of these were filled inand in the film it's presented
as it was a conscious closing ofthe portal of the spiritual
material.
Like all connected up power,they were accessing that.
They perhaps, one elder says,perhaps found that accessing
that power was actually actually.

(47:05):
I've got his words.
I want to come to this.

Dana (47:06):
I want to come to this.

AJ (47:07):
I want to use his words.
So it was an elder called, if Ipronounce this right, petush
Gilbert of Acoma Pueblo today,telling the story of Indigenous
and white sisters having partedways, but they were now back
together as prophesied.
This is here today.

(47:29):
This ended that documentary andnow is our choice as to where
we go from here.
Mmm, this was after having saidthat the power in this place
ended up constituting a storyand this is just one view but
ended up constituting a story ofarrogance and domination and

(47:49):
they decided to leave that powerof mastery over nature, for it
succumbs to evil, which wasactually a similar story.
I've said a couple of differentangles in there, but let's sort
of delve into them.
It's a similar story out ofAboriginal Australia, at least
in the Kimberley region, and Ithink films are being made of.
Delve into them.
It's a similar story out ofAboriginal Australia, at least
in the Kimberley region, and Ithink films are being made of

(48:10):
that right now.
It was a podcast guest way back, so I don't know where the
films have come to.
It was a pretty epicundertaking but where Aboriginal
culture, going back you know,the tens of thousands of years
in this case had a similarmoment where apparently there
were lots more representationsof humans on the walls and so
forth but they encountered thesame sort of insights and it

(48:31):
went back to depictions ofconnecting to cycles and what's
around, and kin.
Yeah, so there was that lessonlearned of the folly of
arrogance and superiority tothink that they might have
consciously come, andsuperiority to think that they
might have consciously come tothat decision here and left it
for the well-being of all things.

Dana (48:53):
I mean not just left it, packed it up.
Packed it up, yeah.
Turned off the switch.
Yeah, as I'm hearing you talk,I'm just reminded of an
opportunity I had a few weeksago actually to attend through
my daughter's Hebrew school.
We attended a burial of the,you know, just religious texts,

(49:15):
and this is, you know, part ofthe Jewish tradition where, you
know, we don't just throw booksaway.
You know, books that are usedfor a holy purpose, for a sacred
purpose, are buried, interred,and we say, you know, gosh and
I'm not Jewish, so I don't wantto say the wrong words, but you
know there's prayers offered.

AJ (49:34):
Yeah, just quickly.
This is your wife's journey asher heritage Sure Coming back to
it, and while you're on sort ofthis journey, I really admire
you both and how it's connectingas a family.

Dana (49:47):
Well, yeah, and it's this idea of connecting to
spirituality in a way that feelsmeaningful and feels right and
feels genuine, and for her it'sconnecting a story that was
turned off and she's trying tothrow the switch back on.

(50:09):
Let's put it that way, haven'tmany?

AJ (50:13):
cultures experienced it, including the descendants of
where we stand, absolutely soit's a shared story in many
respects.

Dana (50:22):
But what I was saying we were able to.
You know, I was really touchedby this ceremony of burying
these religious texts as sacredand walking around through here
and seeing the windows sealed up, any claims for cultures that I

(50:44):
don't identify as my ownculture, but they felt very
similar, like a reverence thatthis wasn't just packed away
like oh crap, we've gone too far.
This was very carefully put toseal off and I can imagine the
reverence of building astructure as magnificent as this

(51:07):
, a same level of reverence inthe sealing it off and
understanding of why we're doingit.
And it's a mystery and it'ssomething that our Western minds
have a really hard time Like.
When you build a cool thing,you keep rocking with it, you
know.

AJ (51:25):
Well, that's what one of the elders said in the film that's
presented here hey, that thelevel of security in the people
to have yes, to have just saidthis is amazing.
We put so much into.
I mean, how did they do it?
Yeah, and we're going to leaveit now and it's describing that
point.
It's just they've never stopped.
Like the cloud, she said.

Dana (51:44):
You just move to the next thing, move on to the next thing
Like the main calendar, thewisdom in that, the deep yeah
the security, the peace, thefaith, you know, similar to when
we're working in a job where wefeel so buried and tied to our

(52:08):
salaries and our 401ks and ourhealth care plan right exactly
when you see that path is notaligning to the person.
You want to be to the world, youwant to live in the world.
You want to build.
The courage it takes to walkaway from that is massive right.

(52:31):
So I'm seeing this here like.
This is such an amazingmonument to the achievements and
the capacity to move on.
And the capacity to say and nowit's done, yeah, now it's done,
you know, and this part is over.

AJ (52:47):
Yeah, it's heavy, and it's meaningful and emotional all
right, it's so much so I want toweave back.
There's a few threads alive,isn't there?
We've got that room beckoning.
Yeah, I said the thing aboutthis moment of choice, which I
want to come back to as wellwhat do we do from here?
But relevant to this story, andit's really what's it done, it's

(53:12):
been incredibly moving andpossibly bemusing how a lot of
these threads have come togetherthrough this journey of ours,
since we've been on thiscontinent for almost a year now,
and that is that I came acrossEd's podcast, archeoed, through
a listener to the podcast backin Australia who I knew when I

(53:33):
was a touring rock musician inthe 90s, back in Melbourne,
based in Melbourne, australia,and we didn't have contact for a
long time after that too.
I mean, I came over to Guatiaand then back home to Perth, so
that relationship has comearound.
He ends up he's a big listenerand supporter of the podcast,
messages me while we're overhere and says, hey, I found a
good one, here you go.

(53:54):
I was like, as a lot of thisjourney's been so full of just
what we're encountering, youknow what drew us in the first
place, in a conscious manner,like what we were hitting up
first, yeah, and then goingthrough the Pueblo centres and I
mean full amazed and trying tostill produce and put podcasts
out and whatever.

(54:15):
So it was like, okay, as I dowith most things, I take note, I
never throw anything away thereit's at.
And then one night I actuallytook the time to look through
thoroughly and amongst all theepisodes I mean I look ent
thoroughly and and amongst allthe episodes I mean look
enticing enough.
But all the episodes I'mlooking at I see a name and it
was moises morales and I didn'tremember fully who that was.

(54:37):
Yeah, but it triggeredsomething, yeah.
And then I thought, jeez, I'mpretty sure that's the old guy
who took us in when I wastraveling with my partner at the
time, another podcast listenerand supporter these days.
Irene, who I've also reconnectedwith because she now lives in
New Mexico.

Dana (54:56):
I mean I could go on with the latest, but I gotta write a
book or something, but anyway sowe're.

AJ (55:02):
We're heading to this idea, uh, of where's going to be a
home, potentially and again,listeners over the journey will
have heard a bit about thisalready but palenque, mexico
still mayan territory andculture, sure, but across that
mexican border was where weended up at what was effectively
a sort of a second stop, and wedid stay there a while because

(55:25):
we were invited out the back ofthis place, alpanchan, where
people stayed sure to join inthe community that was out the
back, full of archaeologists andanthropologists and whatever,
and stay in moises like in adownstairs room.
Yeah, I love that not even thisbig where we are right now and
like absolutely sure, thank you.
So we took that on and then inthe end, after two, two and a

(55:47):
half months, it was like no,it's not quite for them or for
us.
So so it's sort of we, we movedon and guatemala became
guatemala.
But, interestingly, as I tunedinto this podcast, then it was
affirmed that's the, that's theguy, that's the guy.
And ed said yes, he had apenchant for inviting pretty
young travelers in, so thatwasn't me no, you're the one.

(56:07):
Yeah, you're a beautiful man,but maybe not Moises' type I
don't know, but we did meetbeautiful people around there,
and amongst those people wereAlonso and Susan, and these will
lead to other stories becauseI've just reconnected with
Alonzo and Susan.

(56:28):
Oh lovely.
They live in New Mexico now andhe appeared in that documentary
written in the landscape.
Yeah yeah, they are goodfriends from those times of Ed.
Oh great, so the layers werecoming in.
Yeah, for sure no yeah, and I'mgoing, okay, I've got to keep
following this.
And then I listened to Ed'spalenka stories and he was there

(56:50):
making a big name for himself,in fact, uh, just before we
arrived.
So it was very contemporaneous,yeah, our experiences.
And so I'm writing ed and I'mtrying to find at that stage,
I'm trying to reconnect withalonzo and susan, but an old
email address wasn't working andand I'd almost given up.
But Ed said oh, you want tohave a look at the Solstice

(57:12):
Project?
Because I got in touch with Ed,yeah, have a look at the
Solstice Project.
Yeah, alonzo's involved.
Yeah, and I've looked that up.
Yeah, and that's what AnnaSofair, the maker of these, set
up.
Yes, we'll come a bit more towhy, but she set that up and so
I've looked at thesedocumentaries and stuff and
through that I find alonso, butI wasn't able to find.

(57:34):
Through google searches orwhatever, or kosher searches or
or through the old email ledgersand eventually find them and
through all that, thedocumentary she made about this
place.
Yeah, and that's the time wherewe've reconnected and we start
talking full circle back to thestart of this conversation and
going well, fire out, let's go,let's do it, let's do it, let's

(57:56):
do it.
Yep, and we tried to actuallybecause the Solstice Project
runs camps here and there wasgoing to be one next month but
it's just recently been calledoff.
So I won't get to join them incompany here, which would have
been something else.
But I will visit alonzo.
I believe anna lives in neartown or santa fe as well, so
maybe we'll get to visit her too, or she might be doing the next
documentary which is going tobring together international

(58:18):
threads around this stuff, andshe's in her 80s and going
strong.
But suffice to say how doesthat trip as a 20-something year
old come back to life throughthis call?
I didn't even really understandto come here to the States
right now, but just trusted andwent.
It all comes back to life andit's still obviously in motion.

(58:39):
It's just by virtue of turningup and then one thing sort of
prompted another and it's justsort of bouncing around and
firing off.

Dana (58:48):
I mean, that's when you're close to the source, man,
that's when that happens rightin these connections.
It's just you have to have your, you have to be tuned in, you
know to know when the universeis calling, when the spirit,
when the source of life issaying to you.
Just trust, you know, go,follow this, follow this.
And I'm going to shout out myfriend, Angele, who you know,

(59:11):
says follow the feathers.
That was something I picked upfrom her and, Angele, if you're
listening, I stole this from youand I'm using it because it's
such a good thing.
But I mean, the feathers arethat feather in your pathway is
an acknowledgement that you'reon the right track.
Put those feathers.
It's a metaphor for thatfeeling.
You get Like, ooh, this isspecial, Ooh, there's something

(59:31):
here, Follow it, See what'saround that corner.

AJ (59:34):
Okay, yeah, so Anna's journey, we've got to bring this
up, yeah, it's so relevant.
So the story behind thesedocumentaries, the core of it,
anna's an artist in 1977.
She's, and as an artist in 1977, she's here as a volunteer to
draw up some of what they'reobserving and uncovering and
they go out to a place calledthe Fajada Butte which is like a

(59:56):
big well.
It's essentially old cliff facebut it's eroded and now it's a
pylon.

Dana (01:00:00):
So Australians don't know this word.

AJ (01:00:02):
We thought it said butt.

Dana (01:00:03):
Well, I'll tell you what the East Coast people don't know
what a butte is either.
I had no idea either I was likeoh, it's a big pile of rocks,
Okay cool, it's a giantImpressive.
But I didn't know either.

AJ (01:00:15):
That's right.

Dana (01:00:15):
It's like a tower of rock that used to be obviously
adjoined to these cliffs and nowit stands alone as a hell of a
centerpiece to this canyon oh,it seems like I mean when you
think of the canyon as havingkind of an entryway, or almost
as maybe a sentinel, for lack ofa better word, but the fahada
stands right there, preeminentum as as is the entryway to the

(01:00:36):
canyon.

AJ (01:00:36):
I like that word actually sentinel and she goes up to draw
this area at the top of top offahada butte and sees a shaft of
light happened to come throughonto a spiral petroglyph up
there and got curious and thenwent back and the short story is
, went back and tested it to seeif it aligned with solar cycles

(01:00:56):
and so on, and she found thatit extraordinarily did.
She had stumbled on the threerock panels at the top of this
butte that would then shine adagger of light in different
parts across this or orbordering this spiral, at the
equinoxes and solstices.
And then she thought, well,does that apply to the great

(01:01:18):
houses?
And it wasn't quite workinguntil the descendants pointed
her in the direction of thelunar cycles that you were
talking about before and thatunlocked everything that you
were talking about before andthat unlocked everything that
you were talking about beforeand beyond that we're just
touching the sides of.
So this becomes her life fromthat point.
Now it's this world heritagearea, obviously not just because
of her work.
But what an extraordinarycontribution.

(01:01:39):
And she's gone on to do thestuff that somehow you and I
have ended up wound into.

Dana (01:01:44):
Yeah, yeah, sure, and I mean it's amazing that it was a
story whose time had come totell.
We're entering, you know, we'retalking about the different
cross, you know indigenouscultures and things, and so you
know, as we're talking aboutthis, I'm thinking of the

(01:02:05):
Anishinaabe prophecy of theseven fires, right, and this has
been sitting with me a lotlately, and you know, and I Was
that since you read Biting SweetGhosts, yeah, yeah.
Well, I actually stumbled uponthat.
That's a funny story too right?
I came upon that prophecy storywhile vacationing with my

(01:02:25):
wife's family in Michigan andthe cottage we'd been staying in
the river level had risen andwe weren't able to use the
septic system.
So we decided to take a day ortrip up to the thumb of Michigan
to just wait the water level togo down and we see this sign
for a petroglyph and we think,oh, what's petroglyphs?

(01:02:47):
I didn't never even thoughtabout that, right, I mean, you
know, we live in a verycolonized Western mindset and
you it's not that you areunaware that there was previous
civilizations here, but itreally is.
It's not in your day to dayuntil you sort of begin to
connect to it, which issomething isn't it.

(01:03:07):
Sure that we've so marginalized.

AJ (01:03:09):
So much of our shared human extraordinary experience.

Dana (01:03:13):
Well, that's, yeah, I mean and I don't want to like talk
negative energy in thisbeautiful space, but yeah, I
mean, it feels like anintentional erasure in a lot of
ways.
And you know, you've got towonder, like what was going on
with those people, ourdescendants, when they landed on
our respective continents?
Well, and what?

AJ (01:03:29):
they were disconnected from in turn.
That's where it comes around.

Dana (01:03:33):
Well, it's such a crazy, sad, tragic, awful, shameful
story, but to the point, youknow.
So we find these petroglyphs upon the thumb and the tour guide
who was just kind of talking usthrough each of the petroglyphs
it's a stone, maybe about gosh,12 feet, um, around, maybe in

(01:03:53):
diameter, maybe a little bigger,and I honestly I think if you
were walking right past it inthe woods you wouldn't even
notice that it was there.
It just looks like a big rock.
But when you, you know, whenyou really look into it, you see
the petroglyphs, you're like oh, oh, this is something, this
was here, this is a thing, andthat story is fascinating,
connected to gosh big fires thatuncovered the rock and kind of

(01:04:16):
opened up the story andeverything.

AJ (01:04:18):
But that's a whole other story.
That's quite common right.
There's places like this inAustralia where erosion from
overgrazing of colonistsoriginally exposed even human
remains, right that have led to,and the Aboriginal people of
that era I'm talking Mungo inthis case, for those who know
just inside New South Wales,from Victoria, and they will
talk about it like the peopledidn't.
A geologist actually foundthese remains that had been

(01:04:40):
exposed.
They say, and this is inherentin the worldview, isn't it that
agencies invested in kin ofvarious description that they
came to tell us something, thatthey came to be found.

Dana (01:04:53):
Well, that's the thing I mean, and I feel like so much of
an ancient world, of a humanhistory, is kind of revealing
itself at this time.
I don't know if it's alwaysbeen that way, but it feels like
an acceleration now, at leastin my life.
But what I'll say is you know,with that petroglyph, that was

(01:05:14):
the first time I heard of thestory of the seven fires
prophecy, right, right,anishinaabe so far from here,
far from this land, but it talksabout seven prophets who
visited the Anishinaabe inancient times.
The fifth prophecy is thearrival of the white man and
talking about some will offer ahand in friendship, but beware
the false hand of friendship.

(01:05:35):
The sixth is talking about thetribe itself moving away from
the elders and the teaching ofthe elders.
And then the seventh fireprophecy, which is where we are
now, talks about your choice andgets back to what we were
talking about earlier.
We have a choice to make and wecan follow a path that leads us

(01:05:56):
into the rhythms of the earthand connecting our souls and our
spirit and our communities tothe landscapes we live on, or we
can follow the mechanized pathand we can follow the path of
Domination.
Domination, right and clearly,according to the prophecy, as I
understand it, the path ofmechanization leads to

(01:06:17):
destruction of humanity, thepath towards indigenous, you
know, the kind of indigenousways of knowing natural wisdom,
connecting to the earth thatleads to the longevity of our
species.
And so, yeah, so that was myfirst understanding of it.
And then, for sure, goshreading braiding sweetgrass by
robin alkimer, life-changingbook, and um mentions it there,

(01:06:40):
and it keeps coming up and thetheme of choice keeps coming up,
keeps coming up and up.
And I think you know, you and Iare here in this space, neither
of us identifying as Pueblo orconnected in a genetic sense to
this land, but the power youfeel here is undeniable and the

(01:07:05):
choice to connect to thishistory, I think is a moving
experience.
And I think what's calling tome about this space in
particular too, the way that itexists, with the landscape so
different from our Western waysof kind of moving into a space

(01:07:28):
and bending the landscape to ourwill, everything here works and
there's still manipulation.

AJ (01:07:33):
They brought in timbers from 50 miles away.
Well, but it's a synchronicity,it's different because you're
living with.

Dana (01:07:39):
It's aligned.
It's aligned to the stars andthe moon and the sun and it is
built in with the caves andusing the geology of this area
to align, using the peaks of themountains in the distance.
When we were on that hike today, and just the shot, I got a

(01:07:59):
picture of it.
But just looking, I meanthere's the two kind of cliff
faces coming together, there's agap in the southern pass and I
guess that's where the southernGreat Road led, and then there's
this massive peak in thedistance.
Right, I'm not going to pretendto know what it is, but just
like seeing the alignment of.
How are you seeing thealignment of I guess that's

(01:08:23):
Pueblo Arroyo to that southernpass, to that peak in the
distance?
It's built, it's all in there.
It's all in there, it's allcoded in.

AJ (01:08:32):
So what's interesting to me in that sense, they still well,
potentially, felt the power had,you know, got out of hand,
wrong kind of power, shut theportal, as we described.
And I'm also conscious thatthese stories are coming to
light, right, even theovergrazing or the beautiful
archaeological work here.
It's through our culture thatfor its you know, disconnections

(01:08:55):
and and follies, let's say,developed the, the power to
examine these stories and beable to share them.
And here here, I am right nowmoved to do this.
I hope, as ever, that it's theright thing to do and it serves
a purpose contribute somethingthrough a podcast around the
world, having been able to getto the other side of the world,

(01:09:17):
et cetera, et cetera.
So it's interesting that ourculture, us in our culture, is
at this moment where the powerfor all the destruction is also
generating all this beauty.
Yeah, and the choice.
Then come back to your prophecy, what you're talking about, the
prophecy here.

Dana (01:09:35):
It's not my prophecy.
Yeah, the prophecy you'retalking about.

AJ (01:09:37):
Yeah, and how it marries up with the one here that was told
on Anna's film.
Anyway, of choice this time, ofchoice, of choice, this time of
choice.
So there's, there's a timewhere, in other words, all these
ancient cultural stories aresurfacing and being understood
to some degree, at a time whenour culture is also confronted

(01:09:58):
with similar dynamics thatplayed a part in the
transformation let's say notending of these ancient cultures
, why they're not still here, orstill in poverty point, or
whatever.
So what is it for our culturethen?
To listen to that call and beup for a transformation of that

(01:10:20):
kind, not see it as a collapse,even.
Is this something I'm reallycoming onto at?
the moment Well right, rightLike, get out of that, just get
out of that mindset.
Even, I think the collapsenarrative I mean you can
understand it and many peoplelisten to this.
Probably I've explored it and Ithought maybe we should, maybe
that's what we should face.
But the more I look into it andyou know, the more I have

(01:10:41):
guests on that show meextraordinary instances of
regeneration from the ruins, inmany cases, literally, and
everything I'm feeling here,even and you're feeling of just
uplift and reconnection and Idon't know, a bit more
emboldened to follow the whatwas it Follow?

Dana (01:11:01):
the feathers.

AJ (01:11:03):
All that.
I don't take that as accident,but I give credit to my culture
and what it developed forbringing that to the surface to
be available to us.
To giving us the choice andeven the fact you listened to
Robin Wall Kimmerer on an audiobook in your car.

Dana (01:11:20):
Yeah, no, that's true.

AJ (01:11:22):
That brought it to you, that now brings it to others.
So if we just take that as thesum of this moment, where
there's an unparalleledconvergence Because these guys
here didn't have, oh, I'm notimagining such a convergence I
mean, they had an enormousconvergence, 60,000 miles of
convergence, yeah, and etherealor spiritual, whatever you want

(01:11:43):
to call it, and maybe that'severything.
Maybe there's no difference inthat sense.
But we've obviously got aliterally a global convergence
of stories everywhere.
And here we are in australiaand american having it, having a
chat about those.
But it does make me wonder,feel a sense of I don't know,
all is okay.
Is that too much?
Too much Like all is okay?

(01:12:04):
Open up, listen, learn, yeah,feel it, reconnect.
Let's explore the choices.

Dana (01:12:12):
Well, I think that it's understandable that folks would
feel a frustration with thedestruction that I think Western
culture has brought.
But I think also you've got towonder what's the end road of
that path of anger andacknowledging that I'm a white

(01:12:36):
man, right in America.

AJ (01:12:37):
Well, exactly so it is.
I mean I should say yeah, goahead, our own traumatised past.

Dana (01:12:43):
Sure which we could elaborate on Sure, sure, sure.

AJ (01:12:45):
Because the colonists didn't win much.

Dana (01:12:47):
No, Well, and gosh, I mean , what did we?
I'm just thinking of like theslick back hair white man in the
50s, you know, like these guyswere miserable.
There's nothing to it.
No, no, there was.
No, I wouldn't trade placeswith them.
They might have had all themoney and all the things.
But gosh, I mean, you know, Imean loveless marriages and
alcoholism.

(01:13:08):
I mean, I never watched Mad Men, but I'm imagining that kind of
a you know lifestyle, notsomething that I definitely that
I would choose.

AJ (01:13:18):
Well, this is something it also makes me think of.
This is something it also makesme think of that I'm really
enjoying the perspective ofDenae woman, lila June Johnson,
who's talking not only to herNavajo Denae heritage but her
European heritage and theIndigenous traumas suffered
there.
Well, that's the thing, andwe're on the colonist side here

(01:13:41):
over in Australia but with thosefamily dynamics and literally
I'll share it irish catholic andalcoholism and you know, not
all.
It's not absolute.
There's beauty in there too,but there were those things yep
and absent fathers at best, andas much because of the system,
not all on them, you know it'sright, right, right right.
So there's compassion, all thatthe compassion in there, but
just acknowledging thosecontexts that we're frankly

(01:14:03):
seeking to change the patternsof, yeah, so for all our
privilege, geez, I don't know.
I mean I can say, just made itthrough, just made it through at
a certain age.

Dana (01:14:16):
I mean the point is that we all have the choice.
This is the thing.
Yeah, we all have the choiceand we all have to make a choice
.
And you can choose.
I guess to the point I wasmaking earlier, the frustration
makes sense and you also have todecide.
There's the angry path orthere's the love path, and you

(01:14:38):
have to make a choice in yourlife about moving towards.
What do I love?
What is life affirming?
What is the source of life?
Back to the source, yeah,exactly, and that's where you
have to move, and that has allkinds of historical and cultural
context to it, depending on thetime and place that you're born
, but I think it's the essentialchoice that all humans of all

(01:15:02):
time have had to make.
You know about connecting.
What path do I walk?

AJ (01:15:07):
Well, this is it.
That's where I feel like I wantto say, having explored our
stories a bit, shared.
Some of the impacts of thisplace on us is we're not special
in that sense.
It's the human experience.
We're part of the cycle, Partof the cycle.

Dana (01:15:24):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but we do have to.
We are unique, I think, andthat we have to make that choice
to continue to engage with thecycle?
Um, yeah, right on and seewhere that leads yeah you know
and have faith that it leadssomewhere or we can choose the
other path.
You know, know.

AJ (01:15:42):
Yeah, keep moving like the clouds.

Dana (01:15:45):
Right, exactly.

AJ (01:15:45):
Well, right now, I think it's actually a good time, the
way this has worked out, toproceed to that room, because
this was the room that's thewould-be example of closest to
original condition in this wholecomplex.

Dana (01:15:58):
So this is the original structure that was built like in
their first phase.
I don't think it was the firstphase.

AJ (01:16:04):
I think that was built like in the first phase.
I don't think it was the firstphase.
I think that was the other side, actually OK, which might
explain why these walls standhigher today.
So this was newer.
I don't know.
I was just thinking about thattoday, but it's the room that's
still got cover.
Remember that.
Yes, yes, so we're comingthrough to a room that is more
or less as it was and it's beentouched up a bit.
Uh, I think they replasted somebits, mainly to preserve the

(01:16:25):
plaster underneath, I believe.
But when I got to this room andI read the little sign out
front that was explaining thatwell, I felt it all over again
and frankly, I'm feeling itagain now and it's a.
It's a very low entrance.
This would be all of maybe ametre high.

Dana (01:16:48):
Can I hold some of that?
Stuff You're going to creakyour old bones through that
window thing, but I think I cando it.

AJ (01:16:53):
I think I can do it.
I'm so moved here and in asense Dana filled with I don't
know fuel's almost a clumsymetaphor for everything we've
just been talking about to goabout that journey just by
feeling the essence of this.

(01:17:14):
So this is that enclosed feel.
I get all my photos of all thisand perhaps write it up on
Substack too.

Dana (01:17:21):
But yeah, so you've got the wood pylons above and near
the plaster on the wall well,and above the pylons even, you
can see a sub floor or theceiling of, yeah, the next floor
, the next floor, yeah, above ofsome you know, thinner cuts of
wood, yeah, above it.
Yeah, plastered in and thenplastered all around the walls.

(01:17:43):
It looks, and when and when youlook at this part that's
chipped away here.
Honestly, the home I live inBaltimore was built in 49.
This looks I mean, it's stone,but for all intents and purposes
this is lathing with plasterbuilt in, so very similar
technology to what we were usingright up until not too long ago

(01:18:04):
.

AJ (01:18:04):
That's the thing Not that special?
Yeah, In that sense it's.
And that's the other thingthat's occurred to me as I
clambered back out theextraordinary achievements of
humans and to think this was,you know, had the other layers
of no wars and stuff.

Dana (01:18:22):
How am I going to get out of here?

AJ (01:18:24):
Okay, Okay, to save us clear , let's venture out back out to
the southern straight wall, asmuch as the wind will blow on us
again.

Dana (01:18:36):
The east-west wall you're talking about, right.

AJ (01:18:38):
Yeah, that's right, exactly, southern facing east-west
aligned.
But hey, mate, as we move onand we get back towards the car,
look at this light over thebuilding as we go along the
east-west wall.

Dana (01:18:50):
I mean, this is what we were going for yesterday, right?
Oh my God, I'm pretty excitedto drive up on the Fajada.

AJ (01:18:55):
Butte, right now Exactly, we're going to come to the sun.
The Fajada Butte will have thewestern sun on the western side
right, which we don't see fromour campground when the sun's
setting and we so we actuallyhaven't seen this golden light
on the butte at the end of theday, and it is perfectly clear
over that horizon right now.
Oh my gosh, so that will be awonder, but yeah, data let's.

(01:19:18):
I mean we might flick theswitch back on for that.
But while we're here, yeah, aswe now pass the end of the wall,
yeah I mean, we know that therewere structures all the way
along this cliff.
Sure, right at the kettle, yeah,the second biggest great house
within our well within line ofsight, as they were set up to be
.
Yeah, there's communicationacross these lines of sight,
within these great houses.

(01:19:39):
But as we do that, let's wrapup the core of this conversation
with them, as always.
You know I close talking abouta piece of music.
Hey, yeah, is there a piece ofmusic that you reckon weaves
into the conversation we've hadthat's been significant for you,
or come with you on the journey?

Dana (01:19:57):
I knew you were going to ask me this, because I've
listened to your podcast enoughand I should be prepared.
I'm thinking of two.
They're both Spanish, silvioRodriguez.
Oh, oh, you're talking mylanguage yeah, yeah, yeah, he
has a b piece and I'll tell youon my, in my mp3 list, that I
downloaded in 2000, you knowwhatever.
It's just track one, track two,track three so I couldn't even

(01:20:19):
tell you the name of the song.
I suppose I could google it, butI haven't done that because I
just listened to it.
But he has a song where he sayslove it.
So that's.
I am happy.

(01:20:39):
I'm a happy man and I hope thatyou can forgive me for the was
it the dead people today?
This for this day, the deathand my happiness, or something
you know, and it's just thesense to me it calls to.
There is tragedy around us andwe have to acknowledge it and we

(01:21:00):
have to keep going.
You know and we have to, and Ibelieve that the path to solving
this, the path to therevolution or whatever you want
to call it, leads through joy,leads through happiness.
Yeah, beautiful.

AJ (01:21:17):
You sure you want to say the other one?
That was pretty good.

Dana (01:21:19):
But that was pretty good.
Well, you know, and I'mthinking of the Mercedes Sosa
song.

AJ (01:21:22):
Not the Campesino.

Dana (01:21:25):
That's the Campesino.
Que la guerra?
No me sea indiferente.
You know, that's the Capesinoone too.

AJ (01:21:29):
It's the Capesino one.
Yeah, because we've heard thislive version from what was it?
It was Managua, no.

Dana (01:21:34):
Yeah, abril en Managua.
After the Sandinistas had won,they had this huge concert and
all the like lefties from theyou know Latin American elite
came and gave a beautifulconcert.
So your listeners shouldtotally download that album
because it's life changing.

AJ (01:21:50):
Yeah, and there's a chant.
I won't spoil it for you.
Yeah, there's a chant in themiddle of that song in the live
version from that concert.
That just shakes your bones.

Dana (01:21:58):
But yeah, but that line I just sang was what always really
sings to me, is that I, I askGod that, uh, war not be
indifferent to me.
You know that I not beindifferent to war and you know
I with what's coming here inthis country.

(01:22:20):
I don't know what's coming, butthings are changing and there
are policies that are coming outthat are, feel, if, in
violation to all the things thatwe've been talking about.
You know, in terms of, you knowjust the silencing of the work
that we've been doing to to liftup the voices of minoritized

(01:22:42):
populations, yeah, and I hopethat we never become indifferent
to that, that we see that forthe difficulty that it's causing
and the pain that it's causing.

AJ (01:22:51):
We'll explore more of that on this podcast, what's behind
that and, of course, the choicesto be made.
Yeah, mate, yeah, thank you, itwas fun.

Dana (01:22:59):
Thanks for having me on Incredible to reconnect with you
.

AJ (01:23:02):
It was beautiful, frankly, yeah, and to be able to do that
in there.

Dana (01:23:07):
Beautiful, all right.
All right, let's do it.
Back to camp, yeah.

AJ (01:23:19):
That was Dana Scott.
Some pics and links on thewebsite, and there's always more
for you generous paidsubscribers soon, with great
thanks for making all thispossible.
We'd love you to join us, ifyou can, by heading to the
website or the show notes andfollowing the prompts.
I'll have a bonus episode outfrom Chaco Canyon next week that
I hope you also enjoy.
For now, the music you'rehearing is Regeneration by

(01:23:42):
Amelia Barden.
My name's Anthony James.
Thanks so much for listening.
Thank you you.

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