Santa Fe
First People Kachina
by Georgia O'Keeffe		 SANTA FE - From Cliff dwellers to Conquistadors to the present, Santa Fe has thrived through four centuries. The Indian, Hispanic and Anglo cultures interact where necessary, yet they remain distinct. This city is too resilient, rich in history and culture, to ever become ordinary.

The beautiful adobe architecture and the magnificent vistas of Santa Fe have drawn special people looking for something more holding the spiritual and artistic synthesis found in this very special place.

Nestled at 7000 feet in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, Santa Fe, New Mexico, the "City Different", is America's oldest city and claims a long history and rich cultural heritage. It had previously been home to the Anasazi, precursors of the Pueblo peoples, who reached the pinnacle of their civilization in 1000-1300 A.D.

Present day Santa Fe is internationally renowned for its contemporary, cosmopolitan sophistication. The city is celebrated by an unsurpassed quality: tasteful ambiance. In 2003 Santa Fe was voted #1 Best in the World as the "Healthy City" by Organic Style, and voted #10 Best in the World by Travel & Leisure magazine.

White Place
Plaza Blanca / The White Place		 ABIQUIU - THE WHITE PLACE - Artist Georgia O'Keeffe started coming to Abiquiu on painting trips in 1929. Following the death of her husband, New York gallery owner and photographer Alfred Stieglitz, O'Keeffe moved here in 1949 and lived here for thirty-five years, moving to Santa Fe shortly before her death at age 98. Her paintings reflect the beautiful and stunning landscape.

Given its unusual and spiritual landscape it's no wonder that THE WHITE PLACE (Plaza Blanca) is painted and photographed by countless artists every year including Georgia O'Keeffe. The White Place is a canyon, which winds on for miles between fantastically eroded walls and spires, chimney rocks and pinnacles of gypsum, all impossibly white.

The White Place was not used for habitation by the early American Indians but held to be a special spiritual place for all of the people from all pueblos to come together in peace to shamanically commune with other dimensions of being within the house of the Great Spirit.

Robin and Cody Johnson, founders of The Prophets Conference, consider The White Place to be their church where they often visited to be renewed and inspired. When they would visit they were always alone and experienced power animals and other amazing and powerful events.

Bandelier
Kiva at Bandelier		 BANDELIER - Best known for mesas, sheer-walled canyons, and the ancestral Pueblo dwellings found among them, Bandelier also includes over 23,000 acres of designated Wilderness.

Several thousand years ago, the Pajarito Plateau was used by mobile Paleo-Indian hunters, and later by Archaic hunter-gatherers, who wandered through the canyons seeking game and wild plants.

About 2,000 years ago, small family groups of Anasazi moved into the canyon occupying pit houses and cultivating corn, beans and squash. Pottery and architecture slowly evolved in this region as it did throughout other Anasazi locations in the Southwest, but people continued living in small scattered settlements of one or two families.

About 800 years ago, there appeared a sudden influx of people, perhaps migrating from dryer areas of the Four Corners. People began living together in much larger groups creating villages (pueblos) with as many as 40 rooms.

This increase in population marked a cultural explosion. The Anasazi here began employing crude tools to scoop out dwellings from the soft volcanic tuff walls of the Pajarito Plateau fronting cave-like with multistory masonry buildings supported by wooden beams. These villages can be seen today for more than a mile along the talus slopes of Frijoles Canyon.

In the 13th century, the Anasazi constructed Tyuonyi, the circular two-story Pueblo in the bottom of Frijoles Canyon, just behind the Monument's Visitor Center. This high-walled village boomed in the 15th century, hosing as many as 100 people.

About 1500, with the emergence of the Spanish into the Desert Southwest, the residents left the canyon, never to return. Their descendants probably lived in Cochiti and San lldefonso pueblos a few miles east on the Rio Grande River.


Your guides David and Greta Carson will be conducting sacred ceremony in magic of Bandelier.

Chaco Canyon
Great Kiva at Chaco, photo by Martin Gray		 CHACO CANYON - Chaco Culture National Historical Park preserves one of America's most significant and fascinating cultural and historic areas.

Chaco Canyon was a major center of ancestral Puebloan culture between AD 850 and 1250. It was a hub of ceremony, trade, and administration for the prehistoric Four Corners area - unlike anything before or since.

Chaco is remarkable for its monumental public and ceremonial buildings, and its distinctive architecture. To construct the buildings, along with the associated Chacoan roads, ramps, dams, and mounds, required a great deal of well organized and skillful planning, designing, resource gathering, and construction.

The Chacoan people combined pre-planned architectural designs, astronomical alignments, geometry, landscaping, and engineering to create an ancient urban center of spectacular public architecture - one that still amazes and inspires us a thousand years later.

The Chacoan cultural sites are fragile and irreplaceable and represent a significant part of America's cultural heritage. The sites are part of the sacred homeland of Pueblo Indian peoples of New Mexico, the Hopi Indians of Arizona, and the Navajo Indians of the Southwest, all of whom continue to respect and honor them.

Chaco Canyon contains 15 large archeological sites spread over a wide area in a desolate part of New Mexico. Chaco was a spiritual site for the Anasazi between 850 and 1250 AD. The site is widely lauded for its alignment with both lunar and solar cycles.

It is believed that Anasazi Indians traveled up to 200 miles to come to the Chaco sites at various times of the year that may have coincided with the lunar and solar cycles. Although huge in size, many believe that very few, if any, Indians lived here.

The main complex at Pueblo Bonita, which is three stories high, contains 15 kivas and thousands of rooms.

Corn Mother
Corn Mother Katsina		 HOPILAND - The Hopi emerged from the Third World into this current Fourth World. This life is therefore referred to as the Fourth Way of Life for the Hopi. Hopi knew that life in this fourth world would be difficult and that we must learn a way of life from the corn plant.

Cultivating corn has therefore been a profound experience for them and has shaped their lifeway, which is based on humility, cooperation, respect and earth stewardship.

Hopi guide Bertram Tsavadawa having permission from the elders will take us to sacred Hopi places and share their amazing stories and the Hopi Prophecy that have much relevance for us today.

There may be over two hundred fifty Katsinas known to the Hopi Indians, they appear on the Hopi Mesas on seasonal basis, starting from December through July. On Third Mesa, Qoqole’s first arrive in December to "open" up the kivas for more Katsinas to come, they bring with them their comical behavior and crops from the past harvest. Soon after, night dances are followed, starting from January through March. Katsina day dances are held from March through July, ending with the Home dance. The Katsinas are then returned back to their homes, at the San Francisco Peaks, Kisiau and Waynemai.

Katsinas are supernatural beings to the Hopis, they are manifested as messengers from the spiritual world. They are friends and visitors to the Hopi people, they bring gifts and food. Upon returning to their homes they are prayed to for prosperous life, bountiful harvest, rain and good health. They are believed to be supernatural beings in spirits of good people who have once lived a good life and have returned in various Katsina manifestations.

They represent various beings, from animals to clouds and are believed to be in some form of hierarchy, a form of kingdom. There are chief Katsinas, Eototo and Ahola, He-e-e is the female leader to the Warrior Maiden Katsina, in these warrior Katsinas there are also colonels that lead them, Ewizro is one of them. Ewizro only appear in Katsina day dances, a ritual to clowns, along with other warrior Katsinas. Some Katsinas bring messages, such as cooperating, behaviors of individuals and the consequences of their behaviors.

Canyon de Chelly
Our Navajo guide		 CANYON DE CHELLY - Initial impressions of Canyon de Chelly National Monument are usually related to its breathtaking beauty and spectacular geology followed by feelings of solitude and peace. It does not take long, however, for you to hear the stories and see the signs of a human history of the region that is poignant, mysterious and spiritual.

As with other canyons in the Four Corners region of the American Southwest, Canyon de Chelly is home to many Anasazi sites. The Anasazi "Ancient Ones" lived in the canyon for more than a thousand years and left around 1300 A.D. Their homes were impressively engineered using timbers and adobe-style bricks.

Most of the homes were built into the canyon walls and faced south to take advantage of the winter sun. Some contained multiple levels that housed as many as 30 to 40 families. The most impressive structures are large cliff houses, built between 1100 and 1300, in the Pueblo period.

The reason for the Anasazi's disappearance is debated with the most popular yet questionable theory being that a prolonged drought forced them out. The people of Canyon de Chelly and other nearby Pueblo centers left their homes and moved to other parts of the Southwest. Some of the present-day Pueblo Indians of Arizona and New Mexico are descendants of these pre-Columbian people.

The Hopi and Pueblo Indians are believed to be the most closely related to the Anasazi. The Hopi lived in Canyon de Chelly at some time between 1300 and 1700. The Navajo, related culturally and linguistically to the various Apache Indians in the Southwest, moved from northern New Mexico into the area around 1700. In the 1700s and 1800s they recorded the arrival of the Spaniards and the introduction of cows, horses and sheep into the area.

Around the turn of the 20th century, a trading post was constructed at the mouth of the canyon and is now the legendary Thunderbird Lodge where the Prophets Conference Expedition will be lodging. The trading post emphasized the protection of the canyon and its artifacts and was the main starting point for those exploring the canyon. Today, some 80 families still live in the canyon where they farm and raise animals. You can see the working farms and the traditional Navajo houses six- or eight-sided hogans with the doors facing east to greet the Father Sun every morning.

Sedona
Kachina Peak, Sedona - photo by Martin Gray		 SEDONA - The natural beauty and splendor of Sedona is extraordinary from any perspective, but the closer you get, the physical landscape can transport you through the heart of the wild. The spirits of the land speak to you as they have to the large New Thought community drawn to the spiritual connection abundantly experienced in this powerful and magnetic setting.

Located in Arizona's high desert under the towering southwestern rim of the vast Colorado Plateau, Sedona , strategically situated at the mouth of spectacular Oak Creek Canyon, is a unique place that is characterized by massive red-rock formations, as well as the contrasting riparian areas of Oak Creek Canyon.

"Sedona's telegenic canyons, wind-shaped buttes and dramatic sandstone towers embody the rugged character of the West -- and the central place that character holds in our national identity. There's a timelessness about these ancient rocks that fires the imagination of all who encounter them. Some 11,000 years before film cameras discovered Sedona, American Indians settled the area. Homesteaders, artists and, most recently, New Age spiritualists have followed. Many cultures and agendas abound, but there's really only one attraction: the sheer, exuberant beauty of the place. People come for inspiration and renewal, tawny cliffs rising from the buff desert floor, wind singing through box canyons, and sunsets that seem to cause the ancient buttes and spires to glow from within. We hear the canyon's call and cannot resist." - from USA WEEKEND's Annual Travel Report: The 10 Most Beautiful Places in America

Grand Canyon GRAND CANYON - Humans have been living at Grand Canyon for at least 4,000 years. Split twig figurines are the oldest evidence of their presence. These animal figurines are a few inches in height, made primarily from twigs of willow or cottonwood. They are found in caves below the rim. Split twig figurines were fashioned by the people of the Desert Culture. The ancestral Puebloan people of the southwestern United States made their home in this region. Ruins of adobe houses in the Grand Canyon shows that Pueblo Indians lived in this area, probably as early as the 1200's. The ancestral Puebloan people are believed to be the ancestors of the Hopi people, who inhabit a region east of Grand Canyon. The Hopi name for these ancestors is Hisatsinom (hee-SOT-sin-ahm). The Hopi people believe they emerged from the canyon and that their spirits rest here.

The Havasupai people inhabit the inner canyon in a region west of Grand Canyon Village. In this remote and beautiful corner of the canyon sits the village of Supai and the descendants of a people who have lived within the canyon for several hundred years. The village remains accessible only by foot, pack animal or from the river.

The Zuni Indians view the canyon as their place of origin, though today they live in New Mexico.

Other tribes who have lived in the Grand Canyon include the Navajo people, one of the largest tribes in North America, who live throughout the region and on the Navajo Reservation, which borders the park to the east. Relative newcomers to this region, the Navajo are the descendants of Athabascan peoples who migrated into the southwest from the north in the 15th Century. The Hualapai Reservation borders the canyon to the south. The Hualapai are descendants of the Cerbat people and have been in the area since AD 1300. The Southern Paiute Indians occupy land north of the Colorado River in what is known as the Arizona Strip. They have traditionally used the canyon for hundreds of years.

The Grand Canyon is a very colorful, steep-sided gorge, carved by the Colorado River, in the U.S. state of Arizona. It is largely contained within the Grand Canyon National Park — one of the first national parks in the United States. President Theodore Roosevelt was a major proponent of the Grand Canyon area, visiting on numerous occasions to hunt mountain lions and enjoy the scenery.

The canyon, created by the Colorado River cutting a channel over millions of years, is about 277 miles (446 km) long, ranges in width from 0.25 to 15 miles (0.4 to 24 kilometers) and attains a depth of more than a mile (1,600 m). Nearly two billion years of the Earth's history has been exposed as the Colorado River and its tributaries cut through layer after layer of sediment as the Colorado Plateaus have uplifted.

The first recorded sighting of the Grand Canyon by a European was in 1540, García López de Cárdenas from Spain. The first scientific expedition to the canyon was led by U.S. Major John Wesley Powell in the late 1860s. Powell referred to the sedimentary rock units exposed in the canyon as "leaves in a great story book." Long before that, the area was inhabited by Native Americans who built settlements within the canyon walls.