“Nen is mindfulness, attention to the present with a quality of vibrant awareness, as if this present moment were one’s last.”
– Peter Matthiessen, The Snow Leopard
Prologue: Somewhere near the famed Monument Valley tribal park, a little piece of Mars masquerades as a pilgrimage for photographers. Images shared by past pilgrims have simultaneously warned and espoused my curiosity to experience this place with my own senses. I was keenly aware that the journey to this place is as rough as it gets, but the destination is what the eye craves and the brain disbelieves – a citadel of magnanimous mythical beauty that – as Matthiessen said – one truly sees by not trying to see. Researching the route and the tour initially, I morosely accepted that this trip was not meant for our dad-son duo – one, the ride seemed too challenging for my eight year old, and two, ogres are not supposed to be near such beautiful places.
Ah yes. But, thoughts change. After some deliberation and consultation with some of you here on flickr (thank you!), the mind was now ready –– Hey you, here we come!
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The Journey: After cannonading through sand, boulders, washes and hills for an hour, the revving 4X4 vehicle came to a brief stop like a bleeding bull from a Spanish bullfight. In front was a four-five feet high almost vertical slick-rock wall that seemed more like the end of a blind alley rather than the way forward. As if hissing off its painful banderillas, the 4X4 bull revved louder. It was about to climb up that vertical wall! The driver softly said, 'hold on!' and pressed the gas. Instinctively, I reached over from the back to Rishabh in the front passenger seat and held his head tightly as a makeshift helmet. I was certain, in its attempt to climb the wall, the 4X4 would certainly turn over into the deep ravine.
It didn’t.
However, after such gravity-defying climbs, the air thickly percolated with smell of burnt rubber. The driver-guide said, this vehicle requires new tires quite often, sometime every other month during tourist season.
But this was ‘off-season’, when everything was cold. Bitterly cold. After a sunny morning, cold clouds had moved in with their nefarious gloom.
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The Mesa: Hunt’s mesa is privately owned tribal land where the owner has approved only three Navajo tour operators to commercially operate within his property at the rate of $10 per visitor. While restricted permission is good for the frail ecology of this high-desert land, however, such limited supply to an ever increasing tourism demand has inflated tour prices; I have flown cross-country for a few dollars less than what this trip costed us. But pecuniary thoughts were the last thing on my mind when we reached the ‘camp’ on the mesa top. Weak sunbeams permeating through thick clouds were playing hide and seek with the vista and my mind. To tell you the truth, I was simultaneously exulted and humbled. The incoming snowstorm, that would later deposit a foot of snow overnight, forced us to abandon our plans of staying late. But we still had an hour or two to remain in the Nen, which was by then masquerading as the Zen.
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Epilogue: I stood at the edge of a protruding sandstone slab and tried to feel the silence of the above scene consciously. Interweaved with the wind’s occasional chortle, I could hear my deep relaxed inhalations. They say, ethereal beauty palliates mortal hearts and minds of their sufferings. I say, it liberates them too.
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The much-misunderstood Friedrich Nietzsche once said, “The higher we soar the smaller we appear to those who cannot fly.”
But don’t those who can’t fly appear equally small to those who fly and soar?
Or, am I misunderstanding the German philosopher again? In saying, 'those who cannot fly', is he not referring to the wingless but instead to those stubborn idiots who refuse to fly despite having wings?
Tags: Firewave Sandstone ValleyOfFire ValleyOfFireStatePark Dusk Rocks Thoughts NevadaStatePark Nevada Ramen Saha
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According to Kootenei Indian fables from Montana, gods have designated a special place for all people to dance. This place is secluded – much alike their genealogically isolated Ktunaxa language – and remains hidden to many, including those who stumble right upon it. Kootenei people say, it takes a special state of mind to see this place. Unless you are ready to quit the comfort of your cavern, you won’t see it. Unless you are ready to dance, you won’t see it. Kootenei Indians call it Ya.kiⱡ Haqwiⱡnamki – the place where they dance.
I did not know or care about a dancing place that other day when rain had soaked me silly and I was ready to reel into my cavern. The drive from Great Falls to that place was littered in clouds. The torrent came and went but the dampness stayed. On such cloudy days, as the inside gets gloomy, it is an inherent nature of thoughts to convene quietly – like stars at dusk – and tangle up into a mystified dimension. Trying to vie away from such wet and uncomfortable thoughts, I focused on the scene in front of me. Hanging low over the reflective lake were shadows of two mountains – Sinopah and Rising Wolf – that were likely lovers long ago but turned to stone waiting for the other to relent. Behind them were other mountains conversing loudly with the taciturn sky veiled in cold clouds. Suddenly, breaking the gloom, a shaft of stormy light sneaked into the scene and faintly illuminated Sinopah's peak and my mood. Those tangled thoughts metamorphosed into truth of a newer order where one is acutely aware of – but, is in peace with – disorders within. Now, all felt well and I wanted to… dance!
You see, I had found my Ya.kiⱡ Haqwiⱡnamki and I really wanted to dance!
Tags: TwoMedicineLake GlacierNationalPark NationalPark Lake Water Reflection Reflections Montana SinopahMountain RisingWolfMountain Sunset Stormy day Ramen Saha Ya.kiⱡHaqwiⱡnamki
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In geological realms, the Monument valley is an epic saga of ancient sandstone, siltstone and shale that was uplifted along with rest of the Colorado plateau. Now, in ultimate phases of erosion, it displays stunning buttes and towers – last remnants of the sedimentary rock layers that once covered the entire region. In realms of human history, this area has been inhabited by many: ice-age Paleo-Indians, Archaic hunter gatherers, Anasazi farmers, San Juan Band Paiutes, and more recently, the Navajo and Hollywood fantasies. Depending on who you ask among onlookers, this land evokes disgust and delight in equal measure. The first U.S. soldiers to explore the area, war torn as they were, described it as ‘desolate and repulsive’, whereas John Wayne, the yesteryear Hollywood hunk who featured in several Westerns filmed in the valley, proclaimed, “This is where God put the West.” An American quintessential icon in every sense, this valley has been awe-inspiring on the silver screen for more than three quarters of a century. It is even better in person, as I found out recently.
After a five hour drive from the nearest metropolis, we reached the valley about an hour before sunset. Under a ferocious left-handed wind that howled across Dinetah, the chilly afternoon barely inspired exploration. However, the view from the View hotel parking lot was truly tranquil and warmly welcoming, its invitation personified in the form of a narrow unpaved road that meandered into the valley lazily. The ride on this valley road was… hmmm… let’s say, quite queasy interesting! Emphasizing the treacherous nature of this unpaved and ill-maintained 'Billygoat' highway, our AWD bounced around in certain places like an unruly kid. As the sun dipped down, mesmerizing monoliths in front of us mimicked chameleons; their colors shifted from orange to salmon to red to crimson to dark-purple before fading away into tar of the night. We watched this show from a roadside pullout that overlooked a turn in the road where vehicles slowed down to almost a halt to maneuver the pothole-filled sharp hairpin turn. Rishabh, my eight year old in-house critic, did not like car light trails in the image; he thought they distracted from the grandeur. I agreed, but to his utter dismay, ignored the sage advice and included those trails (from other longer exposures) in the final cut. Why? After that wild ride, that’s my hat doffing to untamed spirit of the wild West.
Tags: MonumentValley NavajoNations NavajoTribalPark Mittens MerricksButte EastMittenButte WestMittenButte Arizona Utah Ramen Saha Not-HDR
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Amidst little deaths,
songs remain unsung
Dreary is my soul, as
colors come unstrung
Nerdy detail: Strung from eleven vertical shots.
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