Chaco Canyon is an archaeological site in the southwest US that was discovered in the late 1800s by ranchers. It is a magical site of ruins of structures created by ancient Pueblo people. In 1977 Anna Sofaer, an archeologist, made a great discovery at Chaco and has been studying the area ever since. She uncovered a petroglyph, a carving in the stone, behind 3 huge slabs of sandstone, very close to noon, a week before Solstice. At that time, a slice of sunlight, a sun dagger as it is called, bisects the petroglyph. If she had found the petroglyph 3 minutes earlier or 3 minutes later, she never would have witnessed the sun dagger. After more study, Chaco Canyon has now been found to be a sacred site that marks and celebrates both the cycles of the Sun and the Moon with the precise positions of its buildings and with petroglyphs. In fact, the ancient people at Chaco knew about and marked the longest cycle of the Moon, its 18 year cycle. Some of the buildings at Chaco were 4 stories tall and there is no evidence that anyone used any of the hundreds of rooms at the site to live in. Scholars speculate that the entire compound was used strictly for rituals and celebrations. There is a huge complex of nearly straight, 30 feet wide roads, even though the people at Chaco did not use the wheel. After 250 years of meticulous, sacred building, the people of Chaco left the canyon. Their departure was not spur of the moment. They carefully sealed all the entrances to their sacred rooms and burned the kivas, the circular temples built underground. Why Chaco Canyon was deserted remains a mystery. The Hopi Indians in the area tell a story about the people of Chaco. They were said to be an advanced race of people, with great mastery over the elements. The legend says that the Chacoans changed things in their environment that should not have been changed and were forced to leave to let the land heal itself.
Anna Sofaer's experience at Chaco is a lesson about the practicality of a quiet mind. When the mind is quiet, Divine guidance is heard, and we are delivered to the perfect place at the perfect time. The Yogic texts also tell us of the outcome of sustained concentration on anything. When we are able to focus on anything we choose with a quiet mind, we learn all the secrets of our chosen object. A quiet mind is the mind of a brilliant scientist, a genius and of a gifted artist.
