monument valley and antelope canyon

we visited monument valley and antelope canyon, both very shortly but they were two of the most amazing and beautiful places i have ever experienced in my life.  to me stones are alive and they relay messages and energy to us if we are open to receive it.  i was filled with feelings of respect and love for this planet that i call home.  mother earth is so amazingly beautiful, wise and loving.  i am so thankful to be able to experience such beauty, strength and power.

monumental are

these wise

majestic

huge

strong

spires 

of mother earth beauty

antelope canyon was found by a navajo grandmother, who is now 91 years old, when she was a young girl of 7 herding her sheep across the hot desert.  she would seek out the shade and coolness of the canyon during the intense midday sun.  the canyon is on the land that her family has lived on for many many years.  before they realized how popular antelope canyon would be the family sold part of the rights to the canyon, to a tourist company from the nearby town of page, arizona.  now the canyon is over run with tour groups which is quite unfortunate, but because of the breath taking beauty of the canyon it didn't matter that there were hundreds of people moving through while we were there.  the only way to get to antelope canyon is to book a guided tour with a navajo guide.  it was well worth it.  the play of sunlight on the smooth sandstone walls, through the narrow crack at the top of the ''slot'' canyon is something most amazing to see. 

arriving

going inside and

the play begins

light and shadow

matter and air

movement and stillness

 and so many people

but up there is

peaceful silence

flash flood remembrance

and i stand 

with my mother 

inside our mother's

sacred womb

where light penetrates the darkness and sand and sky and sometimes water move through the still air shaft of beauty and i am aware of the oneness of everything, every grain of sand, every atom of air. the mix of the sound of hundreds of feet crunching the sand softly beneath them. a baby crying and the mournful melody of the native flute singing a wishing song for silence to fall once again inside this crevice that is more then anything like the vagina of my mother earth from which i can be born again into the light of day and the darkness of night, the endless cycle of living and dying, of knowing and not knowing, of holding on and letting go and breathing into the flow

flow

flow