A memorable day

By Eleanora Jaroszynska

Cebolla Canyon

September 4, 2015

The night before I had made the decision to climb the hill behind to the ridge where there were ancient ruins that were amazingly intact with many pottery shards. Joanna came also and we met Paula who joined us too. We made our way up to the top of the ridge by following a dry streambed like a sandy pathway, which led us all the way up. I was ahead; and I came around a bend and saw in the middle of the dry stream embedded half in the sand, a large boulder with a very large fossil. I had never found a fossil that large! We were all very excited about it and gathered around it for quite a while. I loved it so much I decided to carry it with me. I placed it in my backpack and it was so heavy that I could not lift it with one hand. I was very tired by the time we reached the top and they helped me come to the decision that it was time to leave the boulder.

The clouds were low and there was a light drizzle and some fairly strong wind so we moved on quite soon after a quick lunch. We walked along the ridge and soon came to the ruins. I came across only a few pottery shards but Paula, who was in front, kept coming back quite a few amazing ones. I didn’t know where she was finding them!

I hadn’t been long up in the ruins when I came across a little dwelling that had been constructed from three large boulders. I took shelter in the entrance from the wind and rain. And there I found some lovely pottery shards: red ones with black designs, white with black design and some with a ribbed texture. I was sitting with Paula looking at these shards and arranging them into different patterns, when my hand chanced on an almost perfectly formed arrowhead of a blue/green stone. We were very excited by this find and added it to the mosaic. Something else had caught my eye in the corner of the shelter just at arm’s reach from me. In my mind I had a conversation with whatever it was – “will I reach out and see what it is?” After a while I decided to investigate. It looked like a rounded whitish stone with an indent on the top. I brushed the sand from it and pulled it out of the sand. It kept coming and coming! It was about the length of my hand and much more that a whitish stone! I couldn’t believe that the object that I had found in the sand was the top half of an almost a thousand year old ceramic flute. The indent was the mouth hole and there were two finger holes. It was absolutely beautiful. My mind was racing; I just could not believe what I was holding! To think of the last person who played the flute and the music that they had played. The energy in the place was very intense and I could hardly wrap my head around it all and yet it all felt so close and real.