violence

Canyon de Chelley–Part Two: Driving into The Bottom

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Canyon de Chelley was named by the Spanish who could not quite pronounce the Diné (Navaho) word for it and hence this name which is pronounced like de shay. It is more than 30 miles long and has a river running through it at least a substantial part of the year. In summer native people live there with sheep, horses, etc. even though fewer and fewer of the younger generation choose to do so. To enter the bottom of the canyon, you must acquire a permit and hire a Navaho driver. This is to protect it from the vandalism that occurred in the past. Canyon de Chelley is jointly managed by the National Park Service and the Navaho Nation.

Canyon de Chelley begins at the edge of Chinle, AZ, near the Holiday Inn which, by the way, serves traditional food such as mutton stew and blue corn fry bread. Yes, I ate both. This photo shows the beginning.

It was quite a trip; I sat between two women in the back of a Jeep with a perfect view of everything right in front of me. Oscar, the driver, knew exactly how to traverse the water, the wash (what they call this stream), run up and down the banks.

Driving right up the middle of the wash.

Petroglyphs can be seen in so many places we stopped that I lost count. Oscar said they are nearly endless and can be found throughout the canyon walls.

A few days previous to our arrival it had snowed so everything was green and lush from snow melt.

In addition to petroglyphs, there are etchings in the rock walls.

In this case an etching/rock carving of horses.

Yes, we drove under this overhanging tree limb.

Sometimes the wash was narrower and deeper and we drove up and down steep banks and through deeper water.

Ancient pueblo people lived here for centuries, some more than 5,000 years ago. This is one of the largest pueblo structures in the canyon (The White House–due to a white washed wall which you cannot see from this vantage point). The fence was built to protect it from vandals. We saw many smaller dwelling places and Oscar said there are hundreds in the canyon.

Headed back down the wash. This was a half day trip so only saw less than half of the canyon. You can hire for an all day trip complete with picnic lunch and go all the way to some of the famous formations that can be seen from the road at the edge of the top. There is also a side canyon called Muerto–due to a massacre of the natives that occurred after the Navaho forced long march.

The Jeep needs a bath after this trip.

Note: With a permit and guides, there is camping and horseback riding trips up the canyon in addition to this type of tour.

Poems

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I started out thinking I would write a poem per day for National Poetry Month. Well, I’m a bit behind on that, but here are two of several I have written so far.

Spring

The mockingbird awakens me with his song.

A hummingbird, dressed in green with an iridescent

orange collar, flits by my head then sips nectar

from a scarlet bougainvillea blossom.

The neighborhood barn owl hoots at dawn and dusk.

A black and red/orange bird I’ve never seen before

lights on a palo verde limb.

A Western Bluebird dips its beak repeatedly in

the talavera birdbath.

Remember

In this world steeped in senseless violence remember

each day to find a piece of beauty:

-rosebuds opening

-the scent of jasmine

-a friend’s smile

-a bit of birdsong

In this world ravaged by wars remember

each day to find the jewels of joy:

-listen to a child’s laughter

-dance to a favorite song

-walk in the morning sunshine

-tell someone you love them

Red Roses

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He’s very good at wooing:

gifts–chocolate cherries,

red roses, delicate lingerie,

I love you.

He wears his mask well,

keeps calm, a handsome spider,

weaving a silken web.

She laughs, tells her friends

just how very special she’s

sure he is.

He wears this mask for months,

finds them the perfect apartment,

swimming pool, gym, marble,

granite, luxury appliances.

She’s sure he loves her:

the gifts, the perfect apartment,

fancy restaurants, luxury weekends.

She’s late, heavy traffic, an

emergency at work. He

screams, wants to know

why; no explanation matters.

He hits her for the first time, her

torso, knocks her down.

Tomorrow 24 red roses

arrive at work. He begs

forgiveness. She’s sure

he’s sorry; it won’t happen

again.

Two months later, she’s

late again. Real reasons he

does not want to hear. He

screams, he hits, he knocks

her down.

She dreads red roses.

Note: This is part of my writing a poem per day for National Poetry Month. Regarding this poem, 34% of female homicides are women who have been killed by intimate male partners. Often when women kill a man attacking them, they are convicted of murder even when trying to defend themselves.

Ovid

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This is poem two for National Poetry Month. A friend wrote a poem following the prompt to write a poem about a book the writer has not read for a long time. She wrote about The Scarlet Letter. My poem is about the book, An Imaginary Life.

The Roman Emperor Augustus saw Ovid’s poetry as subversive,

a power threat. He exiled Ovid to a remote corner of the Empire,

somewhere over by the Black Sea, the Carpathian Mountains,

among the destitute, the superstitious, people who did even know

how to read or write. They believed in witches, feared ghosts, saw

evil in everything and everyone different. Different equaled

death.

Paid to host Ovid, the village leader teaches him to ride horses

bareback, hunt, become stronger. Ovid transforms from a weak

revolutionary who hates this place to one who sees the barren

beauty, wanders in the forests, plants a wildflower garden,

survives.

While hunting, they see barefoot tracks in snow, tracks

of a feral child, a boy. Ovid fears for him, finds him,

rescues him. An accident occurs. The villagers blame

the boy, want to kill him. He and Ovid escape,

wander far into the northern wilds, into

infinity.

Book 14 for 2024: “The Invisible Hour”, Alice Hoffman

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This is a book for those who believe in the power of books to transform life, who are fans of Alice Hoffman, and who like time travel. It also about how a charismatic man can ruin the lives of many, especially women, by controlling everything around him through fear and coercion. In his Community books and contact with the rest of the world are banned. Mia is a young woman who sneaks into a local library and finds Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter”. She realizes the life she is living in the Community is like the lives in the book. Through this book she manages to attain the courage to escape such a man, the man who destroyed her mother, Ivy. She makes her way back in time to the period in the book, has a love affair with Hawthorne, and finally escapes the horrible man who tracks her everywhere she goes.

Book 13 for 2024: “The Blueprint”, Rae Giana Rashad

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In this dystopian novel white men in Texas run everything and carry guns, have taken over what was the US, eliminated The Constitution, and now use a Blueprint one of the main characters created. There is no choice for much of anything especially if you are a Black woman. An algorithm determines your occupation, spouse, residence, well, everything. Black men have a bit of choice, mainly to be in the military and die young. You can raise to a high rank, have some power, and be honored for your bravery. Sometimes young Black girls around 15 are assigned by this algorithm to be the concubines of powerful white men. This is how the main character, Solenne, ends up living with the most powerful man, becomes his lover. Unlike other circumstances where later she might have a choice, he becomes so obsessed with her that he never wants to let her go. To keep sane she writes about her enslaved ancestor, Henriette, the concubine of a powerful white planter in the 1800s. Women have a tracker implanted in their thumbs so men can see where they are and what they are doing. The only place to escape to is Louisiana, a free state, but even there greed and power can entrap you and force you to return to Texas. The prevailing attitude is this:

“The Councilmen said a nation was only as strong as its hold on its women. They had to squeeze the life out of the women’s liberation movements, give it no air…It begins at home with the wives.”

Book 12 for 2024: “Quiet in Her Bones”, Nalini Singh

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If you like murder mysteries, this is a book for you. I do not normally read them, found the blurb intriguing and started it. Once I started, I did want to know what happened. I learned a lot about New Zealand, the diversity of wealthy people who live there, and the lush climate in some places. A wealthy South Indian woman suddenly disappears along with 250,000 in cash. Ten years later no one still knows what happened to her and then suddenly someone finds her Jaguar hidden in dense woods with her skeleton in it. Her devoted son has believed all this time she ran away from a horrible marriage (he cannot stand his mean dad) and is still alive. Now the son is a famous, wealthy writer and determined to find out who killed her. This is the story of her life, a horrible marriage, a wealthy neighborhood where nothing seems as it really is, and the son’s quest to find who killed his mother.

Book 10 for 2024: “The Furies: Women, Vengeance, and Justice”, Elizabeth Flock

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This book raises these questions: Can women gain true safety and equality without violence? Can we end misogyny without fighting back?

The book details the stories of three women, one from Alabama, a woman from northern India, and a Kurdish fighter in northern Syria. All use a form of violence to overcome abuse and mistreatment they have experienced and see other women experiencing. The author personally interviewed all of these women and others close to them and visited them repeatedly.

The first is Brittany Smith, who shot the man who had raped her and was trying to kill her brother. Her story details how Stand Your Ground laws work for men, but often fail for women, especially in areas of the US South where men are protected by their beliefs in a male Code of Honor.

The second is the story of Angoori Dahariya, a Dalit woman, from Uttar Pradesh, India. Fed up, she creates a group called the Green Gang (they wear green saris) dedicated to defending poor, under caste, female victims of abuse. Note: Dalit refers to the lowest caste.

The third is the story of Cicek Mustafa Zibo, a Kurdish fighter in the female militia that fought ISIS in northern Syria. She and many others follow the teachings of Ocalan, a Kurdish leader imprisoned by the Turks for leading the Kurdish militia who for years have fought the Turks for independence. He teaches equality between men and women and women’s rights, which is anti the general cultural beliefs in this area of the world. Note: Ocalan is labeled a terrorist by many.

Book Seven for 2024: “After Eden, A Short History of the World”, John Charles Chasteen

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Want to learn a lot in less than 400 pages? Read this book. Published this year, it is the most recent book by a prominent Latin American scholar and historian. After humans learned agriculture and built cities, most of the population of the world became increasingly patriarchal and warlike. The divide between rich and poor increased. Egalitarian foragers and wandering hunters existed only in more remote areas. A few still exist in those remote and less modern corners of the world, often places where few others want to even go. This quote says a lot about the current state of affairs:

“Our civilization has thousands of years practice making war. We have almost NO practice making global peace, but without it we are doomed. Today’s pervasive nationalism and rearmament is unlikely to help us make global peace.”

And a page later:

“Only a true unanimous global effort has any chance to preserve our common home.”

He notes that saving Earth will take huge social transformations, including curbing the excessive consumer capitalism that currently pervades plus overcoming a world wide history where half of humanity mistreated the other half, a practice that still continues.

Book Two of 2024: “Jezebel”, Megan Barnard

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As a woman whose view of most women in the Bible remains nuanced, I could not resist a purchase when I saw this on the shelf at a bookstore. For centuries, she’s been vilified as a harlot, a temptress, both descriptors seen as negative by many societies even in these freer, modern times.

This novel by Megan Barnard is first person Jezebel, beginning with what she has been told about her birth and family. Then she describes her luxurious upbringing in Tyre, her forced marriage to Ahab while Ahab’s father is still alive and king of Israel. She begs her father not to force her to marry Ahab. Her father wants an alliance with Israel, which at that time was considerably less wealthy, quite backward, and more warlike than Tyre. She and Ahab have never even met when she arrives as a teenager to be his wife. To make it more difficult initially Ahab mostly ignores her, preferring other women in the harem. One issue is their differences in religion, she being a follower of Astarte while he and Israel are followers of Yaweh. She is used to religious tolerance, thinks people should be free to follow whatever religion works for them. The Israelis go to war over religion, demand adherence to their god.

Throughout she laments the plight of women, their lack of power and self determination. She notes that only prominent men are remembered, written about, not women regardless of their status, intellect, and influence. She remains steadfast in her determination to be remembered, to be written about even to the point where she engages in devious and sometimes cruel behavior to accomplish her goals. I find it noteworthy how effective this turned out to be; she is remembered, immortal, whereas kinder, gentler women are mostly forgotten.