Arizona Triptych

Recently visiting Arizona, and despite warnings that the rattlers were ‘on the move’ with the 90+ heat, I was determined to go in search of petroglyphs. Hiking alone, and perhaps ill-advisedly, I followed an arid, rock-strewn trail at daybreak, deep into the Superstition Mountains, flute in hand.

I was reminded of a friend back in Toronto, recently quoted in the media as saying ‘that the work we cartoonists (!) do is physically, mentally and emotionally strenuous, and even occasionally somewhat dangerous.’ Wondering if a rattlesnake could bite through denim, my pant legs tucked into my socks and my wooden flute extended in front of me to ward off the any startled serpents, the ’somewhat dangerous’ part of that quote kept reverberating in my imagination like an unshakeable refrain.

However, with the success of having repaired the ‘toggle’ on my flute the day before, and having given it a test run, I decided to carry on.

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The path narrowed and descended slightly into the shadowed folds of the mountain.

I resorted to picking up small handfuls of rocks and tossing them ahead one at a time to scare away the over-sized serpents as I walked, a technique I had read about that is used by people who explore the desert in search of undiscovered caves!

I discovered a large boulder with distinctive indentations, what I knew to be a gathering place for grinding food.

And then climbing once again, the path opened into a dried up river gully, and as I tried to navigate large boulders, I gradually realized I wouldn’t really know when I had ‘arrived’. With this in mind, I played a few notes to test the acoustics, and as I sounded my flute, my eyes fell upon the first of many petroglyphs.

As I played and recorded in the rock-walled gulch, the evidence of the site as a centuries-old gathering place revealed itself: weathered, indelible images appeared one by one as I gazed around, walked on the smooth rock and improvised on my Native North American flute.

A yellow swallowtail butterfly silently materialized and gently circled a nearby pool of water, my notes dancing to the movement of it’s wings, or maybe the other way around, it was hard to tell…

After I had taken a few photos, and played a bit more, hikers from Iowa and Idaho soon arrived in loose twos and threes, clambering over the rocks with their walking sticks and a friendly greeting - it turns out they had heard some of the flute as they approached, and commented on how evocative it had sounded, before heading further up the canyon.

I never did find an image of Kokopelli - the ancient, mystical flute-playing figurehead of the Hopi - but there was a sense that the rocks themselves had been listening.