May 19, 2012
Waking up in a hotel parking lot in the Moenkopi Village at Hopi Land felt surreal. I always felt like I was home when I visited Hopi. The first time I visited Hopi was in April 2008. The second time I visited Hopi was in July 2011, on my 50th birthday, the end of the 72 Days of God journey.
This was my third visit.
Amazingly, I had discovered something exciting the night before about a connection between Chaco Canyon and the new Hopi villages:
- The Anasazi culture built its capital city at Chaco Canyon in New Mexico.
- About 800 years ago, the economy began to collapse. The land had been overworked, and when a drought set in, the leaders at Chaco Canyon became more tyrannical.
- To add to the woes of the Anasazi, there was evidence of bands of roaming Toltec outlaws invading their small communities, terrorizing the people, and then murdering them.
- Rather than fighting back, the Anasazi people responded with a mass exodus. Over just a few years, around 1350, they just walked away. They abandoned their ancestral lands and migrated south, eventually building a new culture and religion that we know as the Hopi.
When I discovered this information, I began to understand why my internal navigation system had me leave Chaco Canyon so abruptly and drive six hours to Tuba City. It was a calling for me to connect old Hopi with new Hopi.
During my six-hour drive from Chaco Canyon to Tuba City, I received several text messages from an acquaintance inviting me to join her at Hopi to help plant their corn. Betsy, a friend of a friend, asked if I would be willing to help several weeks earlier, but I never committed myself because I didn’t know where my journey would take me. I could have easily encountered vehicle trouble, gotten sick, or experienced some other type of delay, but as fate would have it, everything worked out.
After I published my journal from the previous day, I gassed up my van, texted Betsy, and told her I would be at Second Mesa by 9:00 a.m. As I was driving through Hopi Land, I couldn’t help but notice that beautiful white and blue flowers lined the highway. An hour and fifteen minutes later, I pulled into the parking lot of the Hopi Cultural Center.
I texted Betsy, who asked me to meet her and her Hopi friends at mile marker 386. I arrived 5 minutes later. After a quick introduction, we headed into the middle of the high desert to a field next to a large wash.
I was no longer on the 36th Parallel, but that did not matter. As a positive sign that I had decided to join Betsy and her friends, I reconnected with the hawk as we drove onto the field. I had not seen the hawk in five days.
After putting on lots of sunscreen, we created a small sitting area with four plastic crates and buckets and said a prayer over the seeds. Although the entire village had performed their sacred ceremony a few months earlier, back in February, this prayer was for added measures. Once the prayer was complete, we gathered the seeds and our digging tools and headed into the field.
To be respectful, I changed their names and blurred out their faces to protect their privacy. I knew that Hopi people were extremely private.
Chris and Tuwa
Ahote and Chris
We then spent the next three hours planting corn, melons, and squash in the bright sun. At one point, while taking a break, a whirlwind stirred up out of nowhere several feet away and completely enveloped the four of us in its whirling cloud of dust. For me, this was a very spiritual experience. For the wind to draw energy from Mother Earth and then surround us with that energy, I suddenly felt connected with these people and this land in an exceptional way.
After the break, we continued planting the seeds, and about an hour later, the sun and high elevation got the best of me. I became very dizzy and lightheaded, which I’m sure was brought on by the intense sun and the fact that I was famished. We decided to call it a day.
Our Hopi friends invited Betsy and me to their Second Mesa home. After putting away the seeds and our digging tools, we drove to their home on the Second Mesa and looked at photographs from previous harvests. I kept thinking about my father and how impressed he would have been with these crops, primarily since they were harvested in the middle of the desert, otherwise known as “dry planting.”
Aside from that, I felt honored and humbled to be in an actual Hopi home. I knew that the Hopi were very private people, and they didn’t allow just anyone to help plant their corn or visit their homes. I had to pinch myself several times while sitting in their main room surrounded by Kachina Dolls, taxidermied deer, buffalo, badger, and the most beautiful hawk. I was so grateful to be in this place with these lovely people, surrounded by simple tokens of love and life.
After about an hour of complete bliss, Betsy and I returned to the Cultural Center; Betsy returned to her hotel room to nap while I worked on my journal in the public dining room.
Once the sun set in the sky, I walked to the wooded area behind the Cultural Center to perform the “Building Bridges” invocation.
Once the meditation was over, I looked directly overhead and took a photograph: nothing but clear, blue skies.
I then placed an olive leaf on the ground as a peace offering and thanked God and the Creator for once again bringing me to this magical place and allowing me to build such a beautiful bridge with such special people.
Shortly afterward, I met Betsy, Ahote, and Tuwa at the Cultural Center for dinner. During dinner, Ahote shared many interesting stories about the Hopi culture. “Hopi Angels,” aliens or extraterrestrials, were a huge part of their beliefs. Ahote was very open and honest about his faith.
He had witnessed many sightings on Hopi Land. He said these angels picked up most of the people from Chaco Canyon before others migrated to their current location.
After dinner and many more amazing stories, we said goodnight to one another; Ahote and Tuwa returned to their home on the Second Mesa, Betsy retreated to her hotel room, and I went to bed in the back of my van.
I went to sleep at 9:00 PM, a changed man.