Coming across zero humidity hot dry desert, two days after seeing snow in a land known to have less than 10 inches of rain a year, I was abruptly standing in a sheltered area with permanent water. The cenote is still of undetermined depth and water source. Montezuma's Well in Arizona - an oasis named by a bunch of white guys who knew good and well that there was no evidence that Montezuma ever visited the area.
Year round, the water is 74 degrees. In the 115 degree summer heat, the pool is 74 degrees. When the area is freezing, the pool is 74 degrees. Natural warmth during below freezing days, natural cooling during the summer's heat.
There is a cliff of about 40 feet surrounding the water, with many limestone overhangs that let the people coming there build walls and doorways to close the home in. Agriculture is possible as the pool is constantly putting out a large enough volume of water to fill hand dug canals all around the area. Many plants of known food value or medicinal value are all growing around the area including walnut trees and prickly pear cactus.
Where the well's outlet comes out, there is a deep shaded area with sycamore trees, including one that is the largest in Arizona. The pale white and green bark with it's huge canopy less than 30 paces from a virtual moonscape had an other worldly appearance that brought back memories of Cameron's Avatar and the Elven forests of Rivendell. How could such a tree in such a place not be sacred to someone? Strikingly beautifully a thousand times taller than most of the nearby vegetation, so out of place while providing such rare welcome shade
Indeed, the Montezuma's Well National Park service notes the area has religious significance for several tribes and is part of several tribal origin stories. Not to discount the native religion, but guaranteed temperature control, shelter, food, and water in a desert with some impressively medicinal and nutritive greenery in such an isolated patch alone has many obvious important concrete advantages over the surrounding area. The area is blessed with an abundance in stark contrast to the surrounding...starkness.
Did religious significance overshadow the reality of arsenic in the water, or that the CO2 count in the water is so high that fish do not live in this water, or that blood sucking leaches are very plentiful? The people who lived here still left abruptly, with ceremonies still happening on occasion.
Dad and I had been discussing what makes a site sacred, and I came back to thinking about what made a practice sacred - that's what I know several people tell me their Aikido practice is for them. The Guidelines for Practice say that Aikido should be martially effective, intelligent and strategic, endlessly creative, introspective, and life affirming while improving an individual's body and character. That's a lot right there! Many of these areas, I am somewhat comfortable taking and giving criticism on. I am uncomfortable judging the sacred-ness of practice, or assisting a student to find the sacred. I have my beliefs, but as a teacher maybe I'm just the guy who sees water in the desert and thinks, "I'm thirsty."
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