Reflections

Tufted evening Primrose.

The perfect blossom.  Tufted evening primrose.  Banks of the showy white flowers lined the path as we headed for the information center to check in for our 10 AM hike to the spectacular Sinagua ruins at Palatki, near Sedona, AZ.  Three hours later after we climbed to the cliff dwellings, visited the Grotto and marveled at its amazing rock art, we return to the van for lunch. The primroses were gone. All that remained were bloomed out wisps of bright pink that had once been pristine white petals, now tattered and folded in on themselves. The night of their flowering was over.

Life is an ephemeral business. Like the flowers of the field, we fade, the ancient texts say.  That pretty much sums it up. Unlike the primrose, the ancient rock art at Palatki survived as mysterious evidence of native cultures going back 5000 years. Once white painted images (pictographs) of wild game roamed across the cliff face, blackened now by generations of fires from agave roasting pits. 

The native peoples who lived here learned from their attempts to tame the landscape. When walls fell, they improved the mortar and construction.  Centuries later, their handiwork stands as a tribute to the creativity and resilience of the human spirit. And for those of us who come after?  There's so much to experience and so little time.

Life like an ever moving stream bears all its sons away. The primrose may have disappeared in the twinkling of an eye, but those ancient walls and paintings endure: a reminder of life's fragility and a quiet challenge to leave behind the best of what we create.


At left:  Pictographs of animals along the Grotto Rock Art trail, blackened by fires from agave roasting pits; (left, below) Palatki's stunning two-story cliff houses.  Above right: The Grotto lined with amazing rock art.