Monument Valley - Part II

Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park includes a visitor center and then a bumpy loop road that is best down with a higher clearance vehicle. The road meanders through rock formations that have been named: Western Mitten Butte, Eastern Mitten Butte, Elephant Butte, Camel Butte, Three Sisters, Totem Pole. The mind tends to leap to familiar forms when looking at the rocks against the sky….and we want to name what we are seeing. I always wonder if naming a rock formation after a familiar form reduces our perception of the details of the formation just as a stereotype about a group of people reduces our perception of the specifics about an individual. So - I decided to just include an unlabeled slideshow from Monument Valley in this post.

Around our (Maryland) Yard in January 2013

The temperature was in the 20s on the morning I walked around our yard this month. There was still frost on the ground - coating the hardest of weeds that are green (lower left). The cairn of rock and shells (upper right) has been knocked over by foraging deer; I left the toppled pieces for another day. Most of the seeds from the onion have scattered (upper left) and the seed casings are tattered. Surprisingly the tulip poplar (middle left) seems full of the dried remnants of flowers and seeds from last spring. The trunk of our oak tree (bottom right) has smooth areas from its younger self.

Winter is the starkest of seasons. Every color that breaks the monotony of browns is appreciated: the blue of the sky, the green of a weed, the white of an old shell. Now, as I write this post, I am looking at the maple from my window and noticing a little movement of the branches from a breeze and am glad I am in the warmth of the indoors.