Cabezón, one of the sacred mountains.
Earth and Sky
Tag Archives: Cabezón
Until You Know
Scores of stone circles. I’ve written about them before. Too small to be hogan or tipi rings, wrong shape/size/place to be hunting blinds. (Though we did come upon a blind that overlooked a draw: U-shaped, right for one man to lie on his belly.)
The circles are very old. No idea what they can be if not for so-called “vision quests,” in the nature of “go out there and fast until you know your true name.” Who can tell? There was not one that didn’t have a view of Cabezón, the Ladrones, or the Sandias. All those peaks are sacred.
Shirtsleeve warm, and a restless, intermittent wind.
Visions
From the western ridge of the syncline a pass looks out over Cabezón, shadowy and shadow-washed. Many ancient, rudimentary stone circles scatter their boulders on high points. Each may be the site of a vision quest; we can think of no other explanation. Below lie mineral springs. One is raised on its deposits, a breast whose nipple is a pool, perfectly round, green as an old penny.
As we walked back along the ridge, some small creature far down among the split rocks screamed at us: Squee! Squee! Squee! An ear-splitting insult that never stopped until we went away.
Unforced
Penistaja Mesa, tohellandgone west of Cuba. Cabezón dim and blue on the horizon. Tertiary strata, sometimes black with almost-coal. Everywhere petrified wood: enormous whole logs weathering into chips, as though we walked through slash left by a mad stone woodcutter.
Penistaja is probably a corruption of the Navajo binishdaahi’, “I forced him to sit.” So we sat.
WORLD-BUILDING and WILDERNESS: 