We may walk where They walked, but not in their shoes

As I hiked solo around the Pecos National Monument with a digital camera in hand, I experienced an overwhelming feeling of not being alone. But there were no other tourists that summer day; my only companion was a small, whip-tailed lizard which skittered along the rocks, trailing me.

Respectfully, I passed through the ruins of the 15th century Pecos Pueblo and imagined each abandoned and decaying wall as though revitalized, with long-gone Pecos inhabitants grinding corn, herding animals, carrying water, and firing new pottery. At one point, there were approximately 2,000 Pecos* living here, and the pueblo building had 660 rooms, surrounded by a defensive wall, with irrigated fields outside.

When Coronado visited Pecos, he noted in his journal: "It is feared throughout the land."

By 1620, Franciscan monks had established a church and a convent here. By 1838, the last surviving twenty Pecos left this place to join their relatives in the Jemez Pueblo.

Around a bend in the trail, the 17th century ruins of La Misión de Nuestra Señora de Los Angeles de Porciuncularose rose from a high meadow, and I paused to take a photo of the once-grandest church north of Mexico City. The sky was alive, and it looked like rain. The digital camera became a strange, new relic in my hands.

In the churchyard, I discovered a kiva (an underground ritual center) built after a famous revolt which only temporarily evicted the Spanish settlers.

Climbing down the steep ladder into the earth-covered kiva, I felt the centuries drift, and my soul seemed to float.

I sat there in silence, at the bottom of the ladder, for a very long time.


*See comment dated 12/10/05.