The feeling is a little surreal, walking between the great back wall and the cliff face. It feels a little like walking the streets of Manhattan, towering walls of the city on either side. It is surreal, because it’s about as far away from the big city as one can get. The light air is an olfactory treat, the smell of sagebrush not overwhelming, but…balanced. Juniper as well, although here it primarily exists as scattered bushes. If I want to experience a Juniper woodland, I’ll need to climb higher, where it’s found with its regular dance partner, Pinus edulis, the Pinon Pine.
At 6000’ the air is clear, cool, crisp; the horizons distant, the sky expansive. The morning sun is warm, but only that. I’ve an hour or so to walk over to the great house in order to sit on the noonday wall…experiencing that particular moment.
So many thoughts while taking this particular constitutional. The Land. The Peoples. The Hillermans, father and daughter (I like both of them). Specifically here: Anna Sofaer and the Solstice Project; the quarter century since the original work; the near-quarter century before that needed to test her extraordinary theory. The sun. The moon. The stars. Time. What patience looks like…
Between the sun and the moon the solar cycle was always a little less complicated. Great (and not-so-great) stone rings, some dating back as far as 7000 years ago can be found all over the world, the work of ancient astronomers. The four pillars of the solar year are defined with exactitude: The Vernal (Spring) Equinox, Summer Solstice (longest day of the year), Autumnal (Fall) Equinox and Winter Solstice (shortest day of the year). (The solstices occur on the same day but are reversed in duration between Earth’s two hemispheres). In the Spring, the Vernal Equinox starts the cycle over again (I know…it’s a circle, the starting point is arbitrary…).
The ancient astronomers figured this one out and built structures that mark the Vernal and Autumnal Equinox as well as both the Summer and Winter Solstice. In the northern hemisphere, at the summer solstice, the North Pole of the Earth is pointed directly at the sun; at the winter solstice it is pointed directly away. At each equinox, the sun is found “broadside” to both poles and the entire planet experiences equal length of day and night.
Pueblo Bonita is the great House of the Sun (there are others). The long front wall ( facing Chaco Wash) is perfectly aligned with the rising and setting of the sun at equinox. The bisecting N-S wall is essentially a sundial for the noon sun. Regardless of how high the sun is in the sky, as midday arrives the shade on the western side of the wall disappears…
It’s not far to Pueblo Bonita, I’ll make it in time. It gives me a little more time here along the back wall of Chetro Ketl…
Chetro Ketl. The Great Back Wall. The wall is not aligned E-W with the equinox like the front wall at Pueblo Bonita. The ancient astronomers built Pueblo Bonita with great skill; they knew exactly what they were doing. So what were they doing at Chetro Ketl?
The lunar cycle is something else again, in part because it is not a single cycle. We’re all familiar with the cycle of the full moon (taking approximately 29.5 days from a full moon to the next). However, there is another cycle in play, that of the change in the moon’s declination, or latitudinal position. The sun’s declination covers a grand total of 47 degrees of arc (23.5 degrees north of the equator to 23.5 degrees south of the equator) and takes approximately 365.25 days to return to its starting point – defining one calendar year.
The moon’s declination cycle takes far less time – about 27.25 days (the time it takes for the moon to circle the Earth). BUT… it takes the moon an additional two days (and change…) to return to its original position with respect to the Earth and the Sun (which we see as the next full moon).
Wait. There’s more…
This is where Chetro Ketl and the Sofaer hypothesis come into play. Although the lunar declination takes only 27.25 days, the amplitude cycle of the declination (how far north and south – or how high and low in the sky – the moon will travel in one lunar declination) takes longer. Much longer. The time needed to go from an amplitude maximum to an amplitude minimum? 9.3 years. The time needed to complete a full cycle: 18.6 years.
Anna Sofaer thought Chetro Ketl was a House of the Moon (again, there are others). Her work on the Chacoan “Rosetta Stone” at Fajada Butte in the late 1970’s launched the idea, but it would not be until December, 1997 that it could be tested at a Moon House. The penultimate years of the 20th Century. The great Back Wall of Chetro Ketl. 18.6 years…waiting. The moon once again rises and sets…in line with the great wall.
How many cycles did it take the ancient Puebloan astronomers to decide they had it right? How many cycles to build their Moon Houses?…
Time. A Thief of Time. This is my favorite of Tony’s novels. A thief of time is, of course, someone who steals artifacts from protected sites. My favorite (so far) among daughter Anne’s work? Cave of Bones. Ancestral burial sites…sleep meant to be undisturbed through endless time. Both take one on a trip deep into time and across vast spaces. Tony’s seems a little more immediate, since Chaco Canyon plays large in the story. Anne’s takes us a little further south into the Malpais. But…there’s time in both…
Taking a moment at the western end of the great wall; the elegant Casa Rinconada Kiva across the wash. Balanced on a needle, at this moment there’s only the moment.
At Chaco time is not just linear, it’s also circular. It has nodes, points when time stands still. There is a rhythm, an ordering, a centering to life. Day or night, illumination is possible. Pilgrimage to this place is not required, but it is life-affirming…
One last look down the great wall before striding toward the day’s center….
