Fran Dancing Feather

Montezuma Well

When cornmeal was offered at the aqueduct at Montezuma Well, something magical happened. There is an opening in the rock about fifty five feet beneath the surface of the water, at the bottom of a shady pathway that spirals downward from the top of the mesa. The cornmeal scattered in the swirling water. The yellow powder landed on the perfect webs left by some unseen tiny spiders, creating the allusion of another world. The weavers of an ancient language had spoken. We had to know more!

Montezuma Well is a sinkhole formed by a collapsed underground limestone cavern filled with water. More than a million gallons of water a day flow continuously, providing an oasis in the midst of the high desert Mesquite grasslands. The well is 368 feet across and at an elevation of 3,618 feet in Rimrock, Arizona. The source of the well’s water has baffled scientists. Tests using gas and dye have been performed, but so far, no connection has been established between the well’s water and any other water source!

The well is a unique ecosystem with a number of plants and animals found nowhere else on earth. There are leeches, amphipods, water scorpions and turtles that live in this extraordinary habitat. This unusual phenomenon is caused by the receiving and the discharging of large quantities of warm water entering through underground springs, keeping the closed ecosystem within the well very stable.

Due to a very high concentration of dissolved carbon dioxide, unique conditions exist for scientific studies of plant and animal interactions not found anywhere else on the planet. This rich supply of dissolved CO2 and resulting lack of oxygen, has prevented many aquatic animals from living in the water. There are no fish!

Plant life around the well includes a number of native medicines used for centuries by American Indians. They include juniper, Arizona Sycamore, Arizona Walnut, Acacia, Velvet Mesquite, Velvet Ash, Cliff-rose, Brittlebush, Salt Bush, Creosote Bush, Desert Broom, Spanish Dagger and the exotic Joint-fir, Ephedra (Mormon tea). As children we were taught by the clan mother, that within a two mile range on any mountain slope, every medicine to cure every illness known to humanity, can be found! We discovered that we had reached another sacred mountain and that discovery has not failed to bless our family in hundreds of ways, many of which have yet to reveal themselves to us. How had we come upon this extraordinary sacred place?

We were hundreds of miles from our familiar mountain environment, in the midst of an unfamiliar desert wilderness. We were foreigners among the Yavapai/Apache but everyone we met was gentle kind and welcoming. We wondered how we could ever fit here where the earth was formed with limestone and red rocks. How would we grow our food and raise our chickens?

We were told by local Tribal members, that several of the Indians around here saw Montezuma Well as the Creation place, where their people emerged from the watery depths and built their homes. They were removed by a heartless Federal Government and relocated to southern Arizona but have since returned to their homeland. They are strong courageous and gentle. They dance on the land and pray to the same Creator and are happy to share the secrets of the soil and some laughter and stories with us. And so it is the same everywhere we have traveled. It is the indigenous people who are the keepers of the earth.

We were welcomed also by the smooth bark of the giant sycamore and the cry of coyote and the whispers of the wind and songs of the river. In the three years since our coming here we have been given the understanding that we, without knowing how or why, have arrived and settled in the Holy Land of Beaver Creek.

A generous supply of herbs and wildflowers include Globemallow, Indian Paintbrush, Gray Thistle, Penstemon, Pale Evening-primrose, Prickle Poppy, Jimson Weed (Sacred Datura), Milkvetch, Yellow Columbine, Hedgehog, Englemann’s Prickly Pear and Maidenhair Spleenwort. In the wintertime, the well is part of the migration route for American Wigeons, Coots, Mallards, Ruddy ducks, Cinnamon Teal, Gadwalls, and even an occasional Canada Goose. Springtime and summer bring other birds including the American Robin, Roadrunner, Red-tailed Hawk, American Kestrel, Common Raven, Belted Kingfisher, Black Phoebe, Canyon Wren, cardinal, Gambel’s Quail, Gila Woodpecker, Great Blue Heron, Lesser Goldfinch, Mourning Dove, Red-Shafted Flicker and Great Horned Owl, who is a year-round resident that lives in the well’s inner walls. Wildlife include the Arizona Grey Fox, porcupine, beaver, chipmunk, cottontail rabbit, Javelina, skunk and White-Tailed Deer. Snakes inhabiting the area are the rattlesnake, bull snake and gopher snake. Lizards such as the Collared Lizard are always around.

The well empties into Beaver Creek. The unpredictable weather conditions may have contributed to the appearance and disappearance of two distinct cultures, the Hohokam and the Sinagua. Both Tribes irrigated their crops with the waters of Montezuma Well. Native peoples started living in the area about 2000 years ago. The Tribes arrived, lived and flourished and then after several hundred years, vanished! They left their dwellings in the same condition as they had inhabited them. Today it is possible to examine the past and get a sense of what life was like a thousand years ago. The people lived in one-room houses made of poles, sticks and mud. These structures are not found among other indigenous peoples of the southwest. They irrigated their crops of corn, beans and squash from cracks in limestone which carried water from Beaver Creek and Montezuma Well through a remarkable aqueduct system that still exists to this day.

The Sinagua were village dwellers, who arrived about 900 AD. The well supported a community of over 200 people until 1400 AD. They were primarily farmers and were a peaceful people. They were also hunters and gatherers. The Beaver Creek area was abundant with water, fertile bottom lands and plenty of wild game, including deer, antelope, rabbit, bear, muskrat, turtle and duck. Corn was a mainstay for the people. They were also gifted craftsmen, who made tools like as axes, knives, hammers, and manos and metates for grinding corn. They formed bone into awls and needles and wove wonderful clothing made of cotton and created jewelry from sea shells, turquoise, and stone. The Western Apache were the last native people to inhabit Montezuma Well after 1800. A tiny portion of the Yavapai/Apache Indian Reservation currently exists not far from Montezuma Well in Rimrock. People there can recall the enormous changes in history over the last few generations.

Guardians of the Holy Land

Any native person can tell us that sacred sites have always been difficult to protect from evasion by outsiders. Here in Beaver Creek the Creator himself, has provided protection. Scorpions and snakes are living and patrolling guardians who remind us not to move too recklessly through the land. We think twice before just haphazardly moving rocks or fallen trees. Cacti are everywhere and do not always visually appear on our path before we encounter them in painful ways. Many American Indians are taught to pray barefoot as a mindful act of surrender to the Greatness of all things.

If we have watched some elders offer respect by making themselves barefoot, we have also noticed the care with which they move. Indigenous people are supernaturally familiar with their homeland as they interact with the natural and mystical environment. Reckless use of the land under our feet is not a native way. Awareness of the four directions of the wind, the earth beneath, and sky above and the centered-ness of the heart are ways of worship.

The Shadowland

Lizards are everywhere. There were also hundreds of them where we had come from in the mountains. Lizards are the keepers of the Shadowland. They use the shady places of the desert and mountains as a form of camouflage, where they wait silently without moving a muscle. It’s hard to know how long a lizard can sit perfectly still yet completely awake and aware, waiting for the unsuspecting small insect to arrive and provide a tasty meal. After working hard in the heat of summer we sought the shady place to rest ourselves and catch our breath. There nearby, was the ever-present Lizard, reminding us not to waste the shade, but rather to use it constructively. Contemplate the supernatural events within the natural world!

When one passes on horseback, from the unforgiving summer sun into the shadows of the mesas, the temperature can drop as much as 10 or 15 degrees! The pupils of the eyes adapt to the shadows but there are a few short moments when accurate vision is unsure. Perhaps it is in those precious moments of rapid change, that we spot a place normally unfamiliar, along the continuum of the spectrum of light. Are we able to catch just a small glimpse of another place or dimension in our Creator’s extraordinary world? This momentary place is called the doorway to the Shadowland. Mystics all throughout Christian history, Hindu, Buddhist and other religions as well, have sought entry into the mystical realms through fervent prayer and sacrifice to God as they understood him. From ancient times and still today, we find humans whose lives are formed around an ideal of unification with the Master of us all. Seeking the truest nature of Creation they may spend days, weeks or months alone in the wilderness in complete silence and mortification, just for a momentary glimpse of the supernatural aspects of what the Serrano Indians call, “The Greatness of All Things” Here in Beaver Creek the Shadowland exists and comes to life at the base of Montezuma Well, where the water flows generously into the ancient aqueduct. Here is one of the most profound areas of healing, great dreams and visions of the sacred Faraway.

Powerful Elements

The sun, moon, wind, stars, earth , water and the seasons are the great forces of nature that are in no small supply along the shores of Beaver Creek. The strength with which these elements interact with us, never fails to demand our attention and draw us to a greater awareness of the natural world. These elements are further testimony of the holy land.

The scorching and relentless heat of summer and freezing cold of winter force us to reconcile with the fact of our own humble powerlessness over the extraordinary strength of Creation. The ferocity of the monsoon and the great silence of the ancient mesas are forces of profound truth and a unique history, legacy and culture.

Glowing shafts of sunlight cause powerful photosynthesis with the inner walls of the well that nurtures the unique growth at the water’s edge and beneath. That growth has settled, ever-evolving throughout the nooks and crannies of hundreds of thousands of tiny cave-like formations in the limestone for over 20 centuries back in time. It’s as though history rises like steam from the watery pit and settles over the entire land for miles around.

Time passes with the cycles of the well-defined seasons. We see and feel the timeless and undeniable drama of our world in just the same way as the Sinagua who carved their homes out of limestone caves. A stillness prevails over us who live out here and there is nowhere to go to outrun the stirrings of the human soul. And so we face ourselves and our human brokenness is whisk away like crumbling sandstone. The song of Hawk and the rushing waters of Beaver Creek serenade us in the languages of the ancestors. It is a quiet place, a restful place. We are left alone or all one with the alternative of becoming one with nature and dancing in the sunlight of the Spirit of our Creator and our eternity. The surrounding hills and mesas whisper more loudly then the silence.

Coyote

Coyote has long been known to many, as the sacred trickster. He is the playful puppy of Springtime and a liar, cheat and a thief as well. While he steals your heart, he may also be stealing your chickens. Beware the trickster! Coyote does not only trick the observer. He tricks himself at times too. They say that when Coyote begins to believe his own lies, they always come back to haunt him.

In the precious silence and profound darkness of the nights at Beaver Creek, Coyote can be heard on many a summer evening. Something about his unique hollow cry speaks to the innermost dwellings of the human spirit. As he stands over his kill, it’s difficult to discern whether he mourns the necessity of murder or rejoices over the spoils of a victorious hunt. Is he crying or laughing or both? Is he confused? Some say he is a “shape shifter”, an evil definition for many, while sacred to others. Sometimes he dresses up as a ruddy cowboy with a sidearm and sometimes as a lovely Indian maiden. Other times he makes us think of broken down old trailer houses or of humbly beautiful country homes. He is the radiant flower among the cactus or a torrential rainstorm in hundred degree heat in July. He is not easily understood or captured and he is powerful medicine along the shores of the local creek.

Out in the holy land we must be stout hearted and ready for anything. We must be able to laugh at ourselves and cry from the heart. In the deep of the night we must be ready to face our Creator on his own passionate terms. We will not be mocked by Coyote, lest we trick ourselves into being deceived by fragile falsehoods or denial.

Coyote reminds us to remember where we live and who we are. He reminds us to frolic and be playful without compromising integrity—a tall order. He reminds us to love with all our heart and dance with all our might and give thanks to a generous and forgiving Creator. His antics suggest we not take ourselves too seriously and like the wise often say, to wear our lives like a loose garment. The Holy Land of Beaver Creek is filled with challenges and secrets older then time as we understand it and we find we are profoundly powerless before the laws of the planet.

Haudenosaunee

Haudenosaunee means “people building a longhouse”, an Iroquois home that houses an entire clan. The women are the ones responsible for passing the stories and ceremonies from Grandmother to Daughter and Granddaughter. It is the way of the longhouse to offer a prayer of Thanksgiving at every event.

Creator, we are grateful to you for everything you give us, beginning with those things underground. We honor our ancestors who are buried in the earth, for preserving our native culture in ceremony, story, dance and song. We honor the roots that we eat and use for herbal remedies. We honor the recycling of every organic material that forms the fertile soils for planting. We honor the stones who rise from the earth and all the grasses, plants and trees that give fuel, building materials, food and herbs for healing. We honor the little and large animals and reptiles and birds and insects who help provide nourishment for us and work the land, keeping the soil new and strong and ever changing.

We honor the humans who cross our path and teach us things both good and bad about ourselves. We honor the ancients, who fashioned the petroglyph’s; the pictures on rock that tell us about the planting seasons, animals and suggest the mystical connection we share with all of Creation throughout all time. We honor the supernatural events at Montezuma Well and all throughout the holy land of Beaver Creek.

We are grateful to our God for the winds of change and the warm sun and for each phase of the Grandmother moon. We are thankful for the stars and constellations marking the summer and winter skies and proving the existence of the Great Faraway. We honor the rain and the stillness of the afternoon and the Shadowland of our hopes and dreams. We give thanks for the love and lessons of family and friends. We honor our instincts to live and procreate and love. And we honor the Spirit of You who dwells within us, providing the promptings of human spirituality and gratitude. We thank the Great Spirit and the Greatness of all things. Ho!