On Solitude and Intimacy with Feeling, Part II

December 10. Day 30, Valley of Fires, New Mexico, BLM Campground. I found my way to this Valley of Fires at the recommendation of a park ranger with whom I spoke at Quarai, another of the Pueblo Mission Ruins I visited after Abó. According to the Bureau of Land Management, Little Black Peak erupted some 5,000 years ago and spewed lava that now covers 125 square miles of this area of southwest New Mexico. It is thought to be one of the youngest lava flows in the continental United States. Everywhere the eye can see is jet-black molten rock, which, for a city dweller, looks like mounds of asphalt shoved aside by a large man-made machine. Junipers rise above the desert grasses. Everywhere apparent is the fact that life wants life.

Quarai is Tiwa for “place of the bear.” The ruins are close to a grove of cottonwood trees and a gorge filled with slow-moving water. Life is abundant in this grove.