“Yet if who I am is geography as well as blood, if living where I do matters, then this place too is blood and home*  The Anasazi abandoned their homeland about a thousand years agoanother extended drought but this timea painful journey of pottery shards markingthe trail of no return Imagine spending a lifetime in Grand Gulch tending plots of corn, squash, and beansan existence centered on kiva time chanting prayers that rains would come on a timely basis  Leaving everything behindhomes once set near a reliable streambut now not enough water for the crops Fleeing from being desperate enough to eat grassinfants dying at birth often with momwandering clans raiding food with brutal violence  Not everyone left I would have stayed Not too long ago canyon country was at best an abstractionno first hand experience for an experiential learner a land destined to shape my lifered rock country is natural beauty with human historymixed in spectacular ways An exciting experience in my first slot canyon a late rising full moon the prior night enchanted the landscapein the morning sobering to see a log forty feet above wedged in the rock from the power of a flash flood Months later my first visit to Anasazi ruinsin a canyon that provided all of life’s essentials so much to learn Mystifying petroglyphs depleting hunting scenes, handprints and strange concentric circlesleaving empty modern language’s ability to express as wordsno remaining off ramps in my journey The grit of sandstone in my veinsnot something to take lightlycontentment offset by today’s climate realities At times the thought of abandonment overwhelms * from a most insightful but unknown individual