ROOTED AND ROAMING: TOWARD THE WINGED ROCK

One of our favorite rituals begins with a simple sentence.

"Let's go exploring!"

Into the car we go, just the two of us, music curated by Michael, and the camera in my hands. No itinerary. No checklist. Just the road unspooling into this incredible Northern New Mexico landscape and the shared understanding that something is waiting to be seen.

You can be rooted and still roam. Rooted in the stories that shaped us. Rooted in the long memory of place. Rooted in the art of noticing. And still roam toward whatever horizon is glowing on any given day.

Our latest roaming carried us north to Shiprock, where the land rises suddenly into mystery and myth. It rises from the land, a sentence carved into the sky.

Yes, there is beauty, stunning beauty in this place. But also something watchful and ancient.

Sometimes I think about my camera less like a tool and more like a special listening device that captures the conversation between wind, stone, distance, and time.

Shiprock is known within the Navajo Nation as Tsé Bitʼaʼí, the Winged Rock. In the Navajo tradition it is a sacred place. A place of that remembers.

You get the feeling when you stand on this land that the land is older than explanation and it has no desire to be explained.

There is mystery here, and it does not belong to us. It belongs to the stories rooted to the land itself and the Diné.

These are a few of the moments that we captured on our roam. They are not conclusions just fragments of our encounter. Small attempts to honor what can be seen and leaving what cannot.