Archive for the ‘Sacred Sites’ Category

Native American Landscapes at Lake Tahoe

In North American it is easy to forget how long mankind has been wandering around its sprawling landscape. History here seems to start post-conquest and often ignores the thousands upon thousands of years during which Native American groups initially crisscrossed the continent.

I myself was once guilty of this thinking. When I started my academic career I very pointedly steered myself towards classical Mediterranean subjects; explicitly ignoring the archaeology of my own American backyard. Older now, I recognize the error of my ways and the sublime interest and importance of all anthropological topics. I also recognize the primary reason why North American Indian topics are so easily overlooked by the education system and the media: lack of archaeological and anthropological evidence, and particularly lack of spectacular archaeological evidence. Alas, there will be no equivalent of Tut’s tomb in North America. But there is a rich and varied tapestry of ritual and mythology that belies this lack of archaeological evidence, perhaps making it all the more magickal for its mystery.

I recently had a chance to visit one of the most gorgeous natural wonders of North America, one which despite a loaded ancient past, is often ignored as a site of Native American importance: Lake Tahoe. Nestled in the Sierra Nevada mountains of northern California and Nevada, Lake Tahoe and its surrounding smaller lakes were created through a combination of fault line activity between the geological plates of the earth’s crust and the eruption of the nearby and now extinct Mount Pluto, which dammed up a large portion of the northern end of Lake Tahoe, resulting in the Lake’s particularly unique size and depth for the region. It is, in fact, the sixteenth deepest lake in the world, and the second deepest in North America.

Lake Tahoe is surrounded by ridiculously majestic mountains and strands upon strands of alpine trees. It is a place both of great beauty and abundant resources. It is no wonder that when mankind first migrated across the northern icy land bridges and into what is now the continental USA; many of them lingered by Lake Tahoe, refusing to follow their brethren farther south and east across the wider North American plains as indicated by the antiquity of the local dialect and its unique place within the linguistic branches of Native American culture. Classified in antiquity variously as the Martis complex and then the Kings Beach complex; when white settlers arrived in Lake Tahoe approximately 300 years ago, the local people called themselves the waashiw, which means ‘the people from here.’ A fitting term for a group who had indeed been ‘here’ as long as being there was humanly possible. Waashiw in turn was transliterated into the modern name for the group: the Washoe. The Washoe furthermore divided themselves up, not into tribes, for they did not consider themselves a tribe or to have smaller tribes within itself, but rather family units who associated themselves specifically with a particular side of the Lake. In my exploration of Lake Tahoe, I particularly explored the sacred sites round the south end of the Lake, the sites of the Washoe who called themselves Hanalelti.

Ritual Landscapes

The southern end of the lake encompasses both rocky cliffs dropping steeply into the freshwater below on its western side; narrow, boulder strewn beaches on its eastern, and gentle plains descending into the water between. It is a varied place. One minute you can be strolling through the forest with only trees ahead and the next you’re overlooking the lake in all its glory or below a pulsing waterfall. It is a place of natural wonder. And if it still conjures up images of a magickal landscape to modern eyes, one can be sure it did the same for ancient orbits. One of the widest trends in the majority of Native American mythology is its use of the local landscape to define itself. A tree is not simply a tree nor a mountain a mountain. They are ideas of a mythic place set in the mundane human world. They are portals into the Platonic realm of the otherworld where the divine shapes are kept. This tree is the tree of Ta-iw, the god of the sky; that rock is where the Star Wives fell to earth. Places were not simply places, they were a part of a cosmic mythos themselves.

Washoe rituals reflected this idea of space. The Washoe spent their summers up on the mountain slopes overlooking the lake, and their snowy winters and springs along the more congenial lake shore. This annual migration is reflected in what little is known of their rituals and where they were held. In September, when the pine-nuts, a Washoe staple food, were plentiful, they would hold the pine-nut dance, the Tlagum-las: a processional ceremony begun by the dance, culminated in the movement from the mountain slopes to the lake valleys as they harvested pine nuts along the way and ending again with the dance in their new encampment. They likewise had a similar acorn dance, the Mallun-las performed higher up the mountains at the elevations where the oak trees live and a Peleu-las, the jack-rabbit dance, performed in the forests to ensure a good hunt. As you can tell by the types of the festivals held, the Washoe were very interested in keeping their food supply bountiful, not surprising given the harshness their mountain winters.

Cave Rock: A Site of Shamanic Dreaming

The wisemen and women of the Washoe were likewise influenced by their landscapes. The Washoe believed that their shaman and herb-doctors (both of which, by the way, could traditionally be held by either a man or a woman: a delightful affirmative action rarity in the ancient world) earned their power and their sacred knowledge through dreams. And that dreams could be influenced by sleeping in certain sacred places within the landscape.

Cave Rock, on the southeastern shore of the lake is one such site. The Washoe believed that whilst sleeping in the caves there, their medicine men would be visited by the water sprites of the lake who would teach him or her about healing and potentially give them special medicinal powers. However, for all its magickal significance to the Washoe, Cave Rock, like much of the lake was sold to the US government by the Washoe between 1916-1924. And though a small national park hunkers just below it, much to my dismay, I learned on my trip that the actual caves themselves are now highway tunnels. To get round the eastern shore of the lake, one actually drives through these sacred caves on the main road just above Zephyr Cove. A very sad development indeed, and unfortunately just another in a long list of sites which have been regrettably misappropriated by the government or other agencies before their anthropological significance could be appreciated and the site thereby preserved.

The Mythic Origins of the Tahoe Landscape

But it was not just individual spots which held mythological and ritual significance to the Washoe. Local legend attributes the entire creation of the surrounding landscape to magick and myth. The following was recorded by local colonists attempting to document the fascinating anthropology and mythology of their Native American counterparts at the turn of the last century.

Legend has it that once upon a time, The Good Indian tried to cross the Sierra Nevada mountains. But he was being chased by an Evil Spirit who did not want him to reach his destination on the western side, so he beseeched the spirits of the earth and sky and a Good Spirit heard him and gave him a magickal branch. The Good Spirit informed the Good Indian that whenever he plucked a bit from the branch and dropped it on the earth, it would create a body of water behind him to slow the Evil Spirit down long enough for the Good Indian to get away. For the Evil Spirit could not cross water and would have to detour around it. The Good Indian continued along his way and when next the Evil Spirit caught up with him, the Good Indian attempted to use the magickal branch. But in his haste to use the magickal branch the first time; he snapped off a huge piece of it and tossed it to the ground, thus creating Lake Tahoe, Tahoe meaning ‘big water’ or ‘big lake’.

The Good Indian fled further south through the canyons but eventually the Evil Spirit caught up with him again, and so he tossed a second smaller bit of the magickal branch to the earth and it became ‘doolagoga’ aka Fallen Leaf Lake. The Evil Spirit was briefly detoured but kept at him, and the Good Indian kept right on making lakes behind him until finally he came out of the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas, thus reaching his destination and defeating the plan of the Evil Spirit to stop him. The Evil Spirit gave up and went away to torment another Good Indian and our Good Indian lived a long and happy life with the family he found in his new home.

My recent trip to Lake Tahoe and its sacred sites was, shall we say, otherworldly. And its brought home, literally, a very intriguing concept. There are statistically few places in the world that have not felt the instep of a human foot at one point or another. Look around at your own backyard. Who passed through it once upon a time? Even if there isn’t any archaeological evidence for anyone having been there doesn’t mean that it wasn’t once part of a greater mythic landscape which the modern world can but glimpse.

Bibliography

E. S. Curtis, 1907-1930. The North American Indian Courtesy Northwestern University Digital Library
G. W. James, 1917. The Lake of the Sky, Lake Tahoe, in the High Sierras of California.
Include link to Cave Rock website
Sacred Land Film Project: Cave Rock
Site Materials, assorted

My personal favorite types of archaeological sites are those that have been built up over the ages: used, reused, redefined by new times and adapted by new generations. Those in my class will recognize this as a vague version of my archaeological byword the “palimpsest.” These layered sites and landscapes are all the more exciting and intriguing when they involve ritual sites, particularly ones which are still in use in the modern world. It speaks of a strong continuation of belief and power. And even when the original tenets of primordial worship and elements of esoteric ceremony have been long forgotten, the use of the site as a ritual focus lingers on: imbuing the landscape with the collective power of human faith.


Northern Mexico’s Tamtoc is one such site which has recently been propelled into the limelight by Archaeology magazine’s July/August 2010 article highlighting its recent finds and ongoing anthropological studies.

The earliest levels of Tamtoc are easily 2,500 years old and date to an early pre-Hispanic culture about which little is known. The people of this earliest layer of occupation, circa 400 BCE, lived in a tightly packed, small urban center; what Tamtoc’s lead archaeologist, Guillermoc Cordova, refers to as an “urban embryo,” centered round a group of springs just off a bend in the Tampaon River. “Tamtoc” means ‘Place of the Deep Black Water’ in the later local Teenek dialect. And as one might suspect, based on what we’ve covered so far, Tamtoc was rich in water cults.

Archaeological evidence suggests that the city’s early focus was on its collection of springs. One spring features evidence of a small temple or sweat lodge built on an elevated platform hovering over its water, while its periphery features more utilitarian platforms most likely utilized by the local populace to access the water in the springs for consumption. These more practical platforms are, however decorated with the swirls, hooks, and furrows which characterize the decorative themes of the period on the city’s monumental stones. A second spring features carved depictions of a pair of flamingoes and a pair of running legs.

The third spring, however, features the reputed crown jewel of the ancient Tamtoc cult: a 26 ton stone slab 23 feet long and 15 feet high, which is believed to be the centerpiece of an ancient ritual; and, since its rediscovery by archaeologists in the 1960s, it is back in use today by the local Teenek people as the focus of their Fall fertility ceremonies. The need for a ritual object of this size and durability must have been great, and the society that constructed it well organized. For the slab is a very heavy piece of sandstone from the distant Tanchipa Mountains, and would have had to have been dragged bodily through the jungle and potentially downriver in order to reach the springs at Tamtoc and its ritual resting place. Whether it was carved before or after transport is unknown.


The images carved in the slab are admittedly morbid, yet hauntingly meaningful: the central image is that of a skull-masked priestess presiding over the ritual decapitation of two other female figures. But despite their macabre appearance, they are meant to be symbolic of both female fertility and the ostensible circle of life. Note in particular the two birds that are transformed from the stylized jets of sacrificial blood and which hover around the waist of the priestess. The figures are also placed on the stone in a microcosmic representation of the realms of the living and the dead. The decapitated figures are sinking into the underworld, becoming the denizens of its shadowy depths and adopting its skeletal footwear while the priestess, on the other hand, is pulling herself up out of the underworld and back into the land of the living. The imagery of the slab is suggestive of the nature of the ancient ritual performed before the stone. It seems likely that the priestess and her victims may have ritually been in or under the water of the spring, emphasizing the water’s position as a place between living and death and as something that can both save people and kill them. Erase all the remnants of science and H20 from your mind and imagine yourself back in an ancient culture like that at Tamtoc. What would you think about water? You drink it to live, but if you drink too much, you drown. It helps you grow your crops but at the same time rains down from the heavens and floods them. Water, as seen through the eyes of most ancient cultures, is a tempestuous, mischievous character who must be handled with care and appeased at all costs. The next time you turn on your water facet or hop in your backyard pool, reflect on the seeming control you have over this most marvelous of elements and then remember the recent floods in Tennessee, the devastation of Hurricane Katriana and the 2004 tsunami and how tenuous mankind’s control over water really is. And just think too, that scientists are only beginning to understand what water is, where it comes from, and how it works. Its no wonder that ancient peoples like those at the Tamtoc created elaborate mythologies and occasionally gruesome rituals to try and appease the wily water gods.


The other ancient treasure of the site was found buried in a sturdy stone box in the mud just beneath the slab of sacrificial images. A filler of shells, pottery pieces, and green fluorite (a stone frequently linked with fertility and water veneration in the majority of Mesoamerican cultures) and four female figurines of a similar artistic style to the slab’s image, surrounded a graceful, life-style female torso. Made from the same sandstone as the slab, its artistic style is unprecedented at the site and more so resembles Old World Hellenic sculptures, thus earning the torso the nickname of ‘Venus.’ The torso was purposefully severed from its limbs (some sections of which also were included in the box) as part of what is presumed to be a ritual dismemberment prior to its burial/sacrifice next to the sacred spring. Its sheer remarkable presence is an anomaly in ancient Mesoamerican archaeology as it does not resemble the artefacts of contemporary Mesoamerican cultures of its contemporary 2500 years ago or since then. It most likely represents the religious expression of one artistic savant within their community or else unprecedented cultural interaction at the time of early Tamtoc.

Despite the rich level of religious evidence found, the early level of Tamtoc was only occupied for a handful of generations before being abandoned for unknown reasons. Poetically, the slab of sacrificial imagery fell into the mud of the spring sometime prior to or during the city’s desertion; thus preserving it and the box below it for archaeologists to find in the 20th century. The city slept for over a millennia before being rediscovered between 500 and 900 AD, either by a secondary mystery culture or potentially by the descendents of the modern inhabitants of the region, a branch of the Mayan linguistic family known as the Teenek. This second rebirth of the city saw the creation of raised circular and rectangular platforms topped with houses and temples, and a new city center, away from the ancient springs. Several of these mounds are believed to have been used specifically for watching the night sky. Excavations of this new city center in the 1960s yielded caches of skeletons and artefacts which were ritually buried beneath the central plaza and its mounds: perhaps as a form of ancestor worship or sacrifice.

However, this new focus did not entirely abandon the ancient springs. Two small ovens of this second phase have been found and are believed to have been used to bake ceremonial foods. The burial of a high status female of advanced age for her society (she was 45 when most people probably wouldn’t see 35) was also found beneath a new structure which had been built near the springs during this period. The woman notably was tall and large boned in comparison to her contemporaries whose skeletons were small and slim, supporting the idea that the rulers of Tamtoc were often not from the same ethnic group as its general population.


By 900 AD Tamtoc was abandoned by its second wave of settlers and lay waiting for its third rebirth: which would occur a mere two centuries later as the Mayan cities of the region collapsed and populations spread outwards, seeking new homes. If the Teenek were not part of the second wave to Tamtoc, they were definitely part of the third wave; along with members of the Nahuas and Otomi tribal groups; and together they are collectively identified as the Huastecs during this time. However, with chaos reigning in the region, the fertility cults and water worship of previous generations of Tamtoc-dwellers gave way to a more militant foci. Most notably in the form of a large stone warrior, standing with his very large and elaborately decorated penis erect, guarding the city’s ceremonial plaza. Recent re-evaluation of the evidence and artefacts collected at the site over the past several decades is indicating more and more that the Huastecs of the third phase and potentially the second phase inhabitants of Tamtoc as well, were in contact with the Southeastern North American cultures like the Late Woodland and Mississippian cultures, best known as the mound-builders of sites like Cahokia. Archaeologists have long been theorizing trade connections and potential migrations between these mysterious and richly religious early Native American peoples and Mesoamerican cultures.

The past aside, Tamtoc is still, today, a vibrant ritual center utilized by the local Teenek Indians. The Teenek feel that performing their rituals at Tamtoc, despite gaps in the continuity of their culture and the sites’, is the best way in which they can honor both their own ancestors and those walked the site before them. Their rituals, they say, have been passed down orally, generation to generation; preserving what they can of the old ways. When Archaeology’s Tom Gidwitz caught up with them last November, they were celebrating Xantolo: the day when the spirits who came to earth on the Day of the Dead at the beginning of the month are sent back to where they came from. The Teenek mount a sunset ceremonial procession, winding through the streets of Tamtoc, decked out in ritual garb (the elders in white and pink, the rest of the men in pink, and the women in black and red), carrying offerings made from cempasuchiles marigolds (known as the Flowers of the Dead) and swinging censors of incense. It culminates in a nighttime dance in the fields just beyond Tamtoc. A modern ritual for an ancient city.

Further Reading

Check out the Archaeology article that inspired this one: Cities upon Cities by Tom Gidwitz
And further articles at the Instituto Nacional de Anthropologia e Historia (INAH) which has several devoted to the specifics of Tamtoc.

This past week a group of Israeli archaeologists uncovered a particularly stunning and intriguing group of ancient ritual vessels dating to approximately 3,500 years ago. The objects were found at a site whose name and location have not officially been released in order to avoid looters, which is reportedly just south of Haifa on Jordan’s coast. Based on the vague structural patterns discerned so far, namely a step or potentially a series of steps leading into a natural hollow in the landscape, it either represents a small rustic temple or the merely the ceremonial resting place of the ritual vessels associated with a presumably nearby undiscovered temple: only further excavation will reveal which. The cache of remarkable and intact objects features, among a variety of other things: a cultic incense burner, a particularly beautiful cultic cup featuring the face of a woman (pictured), storage vessels for sacred oils, and a series of flatware, presumably for feasts. All of these vessels were deliberately, and carefully, buried; which has left them particularly intact, a rarity among pottery from this tumultuous time period (trust me on that one, I once excavated a piece of Iron Age cultic incense burner of a similar make from a nearby site and am entirely jealous that they’ve found a complete one). The archaeologists attached to the site, Uzi Ad and Dr. Edwin van den Brink, speculate that these ritual vessels were most likely entombed as such for one of two reasons. Either the local Iron Age chaos of the region threatened the objects, and potentially their temple; and they were subsequently hidden and no one ever came back for them. Or the cult or temple they were associated with fell out of favor, and the items were ritualistically buried as a sort of funerary sacrament for the defunct religion. Overall, it’s an exceptional and exciting find and one which has prompted me to explore the origin and nature of the ritual vessel in more depth.

The Psychology & Origin of the Idea of a “Cup”

Imagine yourself back in the good ole hunter-gatherer days. You sleep in caves and outdoors, you subsist off the land entirely, you move around a lot. You have few worldly possessions, and what you do have you use to hunt with. But what do you store your food and water in? Think about it. You kneel down at a nice lil’ gurgling creek and scoop out water with your hands, but you don’t get very much water. You try using leaves. But while the big leaves are useful for carrying those pesky berries you’ve been collecting for dinner, the water spills out when you travel over long distances and you can’t set it down to drink it later. You need something more substantial. And thus the cup was inevitably born. Cups and bowls carved from rock and wood, made from animal bladders and bone, and molded from clay and metal would have revolutionized the business of eating, living, and yes, praying, for the ancient man (and woman).

It seems like such a simple idea to the modern world. We’ve grown up with the idea of containment: with cardboard boxes, plastic bags, and the convenience of rolling suitcases. You’ve had bottles, sippy cups, wine goblets, champagne flutes, soup bowls, mixing bowls, and all sorts of useful containers around since infancy. But in a world just evolving and creating these things, consider the importance of that initial cup or bowl. The magick it must have held for its creators. You put something in it and it stays. It captures things inside and doesn’t let it out. It is as if you have made a permanent new set of hands, separate from yourself, which can hold the water you were trying to drink from that rambling stream much better than you can. And on top of that, there is simply the act of creation itself. Where once there was nothing, you have made something. You have given birth to this tiny little creature made from mud that can do your bidding and hold your water, grapes, seeds, and what have you. It’s quite a novel concept. Often it is the first creation of fire that is seen as the dawn of civilization, I suggest that it was the first cup instead.

It is difficult to pinpoint the evolution of the idea of the cup and other similar vessels and match them up with the human timeline; but it seems likely that its widespread use was a hunter-gatherer, homo sapien sapien phenomenon. Vessels, especially tiny oil lamps, begin appearing in the archaeological record alongside the infamous cave paintings of continental Europe. In order to light their way around the darkened caves to paint their lovely animals, bird-men, and hunting scenes, these early men and women took little bowls of lit oil in there with them. Archaeologically speaking, where the negative items in the record often are more significant than those we have evidence from, if such bowls were being used to such novel usage then and are accidentally preserved as such, it is likely that by this time the vessel was in much more mainstream usage and that few of these everyday cups and bowls remain for archaeologists to find.

With the advent of pottery about 18,000 years ago, bowls, cups, and other vessels appear more regularly in the archaeological record. From then on much of the archaeological record itself is actually determined entirely by the styles and types of pottery being created. When a man is found with a handled cup with a wide lip archaeologists can estimate he lived circa X thousand years ago, whereas when a man is found with a shallow bottomed bowl with a rippled top edge, scholars can say that he was approximately from Y thousand years ago. It’s a system called typology and it’s been a boon to archaeologists for the past two centuries, one which admittedly is being reevaluated and expanded with the advent of technologies like radiocarbon dating which can test the dating sequences in real time.

The Specialization of the Ritual Vessel

But then, like any priceless item, the value of cups and bowls become distinctly overlooked once there are many of them. Anthropologically, psychologically, and even economically speaking, when we start having plates and windows and cars made out of diamonds, we’ll stop valuing them as highly as we do. And the same thing happened to the once special “cup”. If everyone has something that can hold water, oil, or food it stops being a special invention. It stops being a magickal object of supernatural power and just becomes an everyday item. Or so it seems.

Humans, however, are keen on the specialization of things; and when applied to a civilization’s seemingly uninteresting cups and bowls, this penchant for specializing and using certain items for specific uses makes for quite a more interesting story. Just as we now have the dinner plate versus the side plate, the wine glass versus the coffee mug, so too the early civilizations had a variety of types of vessels. And to some of them, they ascribed that earlier wonder they once felt for this ‘idea of the cup,’ and these became the ritual vessels of the title.

The cups, bowls, and plates for offerings became imbued with the power of the offering, they too were part of the ceremony, part of the power between the supplicant and the god and/or goddess. In richer communities where there were many containment vessels, specific vessels were made ONLY for ritual use: be this holding sacred oil for temple fires, perfumes to anoint statues of the gods with, or carrying the special bits of sacrificial meat up to your nearby temple in. Often these ritual vessels have particularly ornate decoration carved or painted on them. These decorations range from simple designs to more complicated imagery, including the occasional image of the vessel being used in rituals on the vessel itself or an inscription describing the ritual or spell the vessel was intended to partake in. Ritual vessels are often more decorated than was typical for everyday rough and ready vessels which were far more likely to break through constant usage and handling. Ritual vessels on the other hand, were set apart from other objects and used only in special circumstances and therefore in a certain sense “lived” longer. They could be passed down through generations as well, imbuing them with further oomph via associations with ancestors and their worship, a huge part of early ritual and one which has persisted in various forms into the modern world.

So, the next time you bust out your grandmother’s china for Thanksgiving dinner, raise a glass in a toast, or just simply take a sip from your coffee cup: take a second to realize the remarkable meaning and journey of the vessel you’re using and the power it once, and could still, wield.

For more on the Israeli discovery, click here.

And don’t forget to check out the ritual vessels on offer in the Sacred Mists Shoppe: chalices, potion bottles, offering bowls, and more!

Petra is one of those places that has to be seen to be believed. Sure, it looks mega fabulous in films and documentaries, but it’s nothing like the pop culture simulacra the media has invented for it. The real place is so magnificent, so eye-popping and jaw dropping, it can only be defined as nothing less than an awe-inspiring, and truly religious experience.

An iconic site, Petra sits nestled in the Shara Mountains in southern Jordan. The Shara are sacred peaks, associated with the cult center of the Nabataean god Dhushara, lord of the mountains and son of all fates. But Petra isn’t just that one gorgeous building from Indiana Jones and the last Crusade (which is actually called al-Khazneh or the Treasury) nor is it just the Tomb of the Primes featured so prominently in last year’s Transformers 2 (which is typically actually called the al-Deir Monastery): it’s a vast cosmopolitan complex of sandstone wonder carved into a series of canyons and mountain tops over a series of approximately 36 square miles. You need days and days and oodles of energy to cover at least a partial hike of all the various sections of Petra proper (not to mention Little Petra several miles away from the more tourist-y central area). But it’s worth it, and if you ever get the chance to visit: do it. Just don’t forget comfortable shoes and a water bottle.

At the end of this last winter, I had two wonderful days out of my dig schedule to tour. The first I spent simply wandering through the ultra-tourist-y sections of the site. Petra, especially during high season in the fall, is exceptionally crowded. But as it’s an exceptionally big place, there’s always room for everyone to have their turn and pose for photos next to all the essential spots. And there truly never will be another moment in my life quite like walking up the long processional Siq and coming to its end and seeing al-Khazneh for the first time. It’s very Indiana Jones (and yes, my fellow archaeologists and I even had the theme song playing in the background off an I-pod to reinforce that notion) and it is a not-to-be-missed moment for anyone who has ever dreamed of seeing the world. However as impressive as it is now, imagine how amazing and magickal it would have been centuries ago as a culminating point for sacred parades. Hundreds would have trekked through the winding canyons to reach the space in front of al-Khazneh. Perhaps by torch light or by day light, the festive parishioners would have carried offerings; leaving some at the tiny altars carved into the walls they passed, and reserving others for the final destination. Sacred songs or chants, perhaps even dances would have been performed, but alas little is known of the ritual minutiae associated with this marvelous ritual landscape. However, participants would have come not necessarily to see al-Khazneh, but to have born witness to what was going on above it. For the cliffs above “the Treasury” rise ultimately to the High Place of Sacrifice, which for centuries, perhaps even pre-dating the more famous architecture below, a large basalt rectangle on a wind-swept plateau served as the ultimate offering place to the gods.

The High Place of Sacrifice, a two hour hike up and around the mountains is not often on the general tour. Typically a visit of Petra proper consists of a wander through the famous tombs, a stroll, or as in my latest visit, a camel ride across the Roman center of the city (which features the only remaining standing building, a later temple to the goddess al-Uzza), and a hike up a particularly treacherous mountain to see both the al-Deir Monastery and a panoramic of the site below.
The tombs stand out as the most prominent remaining feature, and many assume it was simple a necropolis. But what most people don’t realize about Petra is that it was a city of the living AND a city of the dead. Tombs and homes alike were carved into the mountain or else homes were built freestanding just beyond the ancestral tombs. And the living did not just live among the dead, they interacted with them on a frequent basis, often leaving feasts for the dead in the tombs and having celebratory feasts of their own. Later tombs, like the Tomb of the Obelisk just outside the Siq, even incorporated this element into their design and feature a special central room encircled with stone benches for the living to sit on as they enjoy their macabre meal. The close family ties this type of ritual communion implies and the respect of ancestors must have been a particularly satisfactory form of worship, because many of the Romans that were stationed in Nabataea, particularly the higher up commanders converted: living, dying, and being entombed according to local customs.

On the second day of my recent visit, in an effort to see some more of the quieter, less well known bits of Petra, I hiked even further off the beaten tourist path. Veering off just before the Siq a winding sandstone canyon, worn silky smooth by years of flood run-off, leads
up to an area of Petra called Moghar al-Nasara: a section of Petra you are virtually guaranteed to have to yourself on any given day. The canyon, a processional route, like most canyons round Petra, is dotted with carved altar niches to the various local gods. Some are topped with their totem symbols, and others, worn smooth by the wind, sand, and reverent hand, are mysteries even to the contemporary Bedouin tribe who work among the ruins. Several of the niches even contained recent offerings of stacked stones and small change. Upon encountering a particularly well worn niche which featured an intact and simple crescent moon above it (the symbol of the goddess al-Uzza), I too left a small offering of coins. I’m not sure how much of the goddess’ favor I can curry with 35 piastres, but I do really believe that it’s the thought that counts.

Towards the far end of the long and winding canyon, the niches take on a more decidedly Roman flavor with inscribed columns, more pronounced pediments, and a drastic increase in size. One along the way was more than 600 times the size of the regular 15×9-ish niches and more resembled a doorway. This change in style is not surprising however, considering that the canyon ultimately ends in another canyon, perpendicular to the first and parallel to the Siq farther south. This canyon is haphazardly lined with dozens upon dozens of purportedly later tombs, the nucleus of the later Roman enclave of Petra as the center of the region moved farther and farther away from the previous center below the High Place of Sacrifice and more towards the water sources farther southeast. The later Islamic period township is likewise even farther removed and the modern town of Wadi-Musa is even farther beyond that.

Seriously though, if you can go to Petra. Don’t leave it on your bucket list until it’s too late. Not only will it be a pain in the you know what unless you can get an ass to ride you round it; but carved as it was into the local sandstone: Petra is eroding away. Older tombs are already soft washed and blend into the background of the canyons, leaving only the odd opening shapes or occasional pediment to temporarily mark their passing. Petra is melting away into the desert cliff faces, blending in with the Gaudi-like landscape that the ancient Nabataeans changed to suit their religious and urban aspirations over two millennia ago.

Life is a journey. And it is important that in life, we take journeys; that we experience the world actively rather than passively. That we connect with the energies of places near and far in order to draw them in and make them part of our own.

Whether you call it a journey, a pilgrimage, or a quest, it need not be long or perilous: it need only be fulfilling and leave you with a sense of accomplishment.  Set out to see the sights of the world and you will see them: you just need to get out there.  Go take a walk around the block or through a city park. Go to the nearest beach, river, or meadow. Chances are the spirits of these places have been imbued with power or worshiped in the past, and if they have not, then your active energies may just perk up the local nature gods and bring them to your aid. One of the biggest rewards of these jaunts is to commune with nature, to connect with the positive energy of the landscape and incorporate it into yourself.

The focus of this first edition of Sacred Pilgrimages is something I like to call ‘water communion’.  Flowing water, like a river, any river, be it a big famous one, or your local meandering creek, is a great philosophical symbol for the life journey you are traveling. The river meanders, it grows, it takes unexpected twists and turns and faces rock-hard obstacles before finally freeing itself into a wider source of water ~ symbolic of us finding a wider understanding of the universe in life and death. Rivers, streams, and creeks are also active purifiers which can help you wash away negative energies.  Your assignment: Go visit a local water spot. Revel in its beauty and bring home part of its spirit.

I recently found myself on one of the oldest popular pilgrimages to water known to modern man:  I visited the River Jordan and Dead Sea in the Middle East. For millennia it has been a site of worship and devotion, pagan and monotheistic alike: all mankind has recognized the power of this lively river flowing through the desert landscape. Revered from its spring (most notably by the cult of Pan at Baniyas), downstream (think John the Baptist or the later Crusaders), to its endpoint in the Dead Sea, the Jordan River is a potent symbol of life which flows through the dead landscape into the underworld. For me, it was a personal family quest: one of my ancestral names is Giordano ~ Italian for ‘Of the Jordan River’ ~ a name taken by Italian Crusaders who had been baptized in the river during their misguided quests in the Middle Ages. And while living in the Middle East it seemed most fitting to take a day and revel in the ancient landscape.

My journey to the river was two-fold. First I went above the river, to Mount Nebo in Jordan, (incidentally another sacred site of Christendom) to view the river from the heights and witness its endpoint in the sea. Then I went down the mountain and went swimming in the Dead Sea. And my-oh-my, what a bizarre otherworldly experience! The buoyancy from the high salt content defies common sense and you can literally walk on water for a bit.  The salt leaves everything a bit sticky when you come out but at the same time I felt entirely purified and highly recommend the benefits of Dead Sea Salt in your baths at home. And if, on your own local journeys, you can swim in your local river or at your local beach  ~do so. Or at least put your feet in the water or let it flow through your hands. But whatever you do, be aware that while beautiful, nature is also dangerous, and mind the local safety rules and regulations.

I did a bit of meditation in the Dead Sea, with the sun setting and the crescent moon rising. I left an accidental offering to the spirits of the place: the bone necklace I had purchased at the local gift shop fell off and into the water while I was floating. I bought a new one from the same shoppe, but consider that first one a toll paid to the water gods for the offering I rightly should have made them during my visit.  And I collected a sample of the water to take home with me. A keepsake yes; but more importantly, a powerful ingredient to be used later in rituals or simply placed on my household altar as an amplifying focus. I used a plastic water bottle to fill up and tote it through customs and back to the states, but have since transferred it into a series of much more dignified potion bottles.

Pilgrimages, journeys, quests, water communion, whatever you like to call your experience,  it need not be as extreme as this distant trip of mine. Just as interesting as it is to see faraway places,  it is even more important to be familiar with, and be a part of, your local landscape. There is much beauty and glamor all around you if you choose to see it. So go.

Go this weekend, go on your next day off. Find a quiet little space near the local creek or along the lake shore, a spot on the river beach or by a pool and take a few moments and really breathe. Look. Experience. Touch it if you can. And bring a little bit of it back home with you.