Monument Valley: Original Temples of the West

Monument Valley, Navajo Nation, Arizona

Sandstone cliffs thrust upward, towering over the flat, unremarkable desert floor like gods guarding a sacred treasure. Both eternal and ephemeral, the rock stands resolute during a human life but succumbs gradually, giving up its loose sands to the winds and rains—both its grandeur and decay reminding us of our own insignificance and mortality. On first sight there is no mistaking: Monument Valley is a holy place, even demanding a sacrifice of water to look upon it, the high sun burning away all equivocating, half-hearted worshippers. All living creatures are cast out—only the Spiny Lizard and Canyon Wren dare show their face in daylight, when these gods might be watching. One day, men arrived in the north and built a temple of their own, declaring, “This is the place,” in part because for them God has always dwelt in the mountains. But these buttes arose on their own eons before Moses and catalyze the same inner existential stirrings.