Even on crowded popular Kahalu’u, a busy and touristy Hawai’i Island beach, I can hear quiet while staring at a turtle. She is wide and floppy with those fins at rest basking in sunshine on a volcanic lava slab. Designs on her back shell are symmetry that roll a square, not square precise pattern throughout. A spatial intrigue that is perfection and who makes these beauties up? Her eyes are plaintive, a word often for sound yet can a stare sound just a twinge proud, perhaps wisdom acoustics? Strongly direct is her gaze. I see you. Always this is what a she sea-turtle sound-stares at me.

When I called the campground at Canyon de Chelly in northeast Arizona the woman answering turtle-snapped at me. This kind of brevity I value.

“Bring $20 cash. We always have space,” she said and ended the call after a few sentences.

That was in March 2025.

A few months later we schlepped one hour in a car from a humble Kapaau abode to the Kona, Big Island Hawai’i airport. Airplane flying for five hours until reaching the tarmac at San Jose, California. Boarding a shuttle-van and being driven for two hours while on the trip to Monterey where be our family house. A few days later, driving in a Nissan Versa car, I went cruising nearly one thousand miles to arrive. And there she stood on the campground this turtle-snapper.

When I rolled onto the Cottonwood Campground June 15 she laughed when I flipped her $20 cash in the morning on her rounds. Off her belt buckle hung an ornate turtle in a turquoise, silver, obsidian symmetry that gave my entire day a jewelry-beauty win.

“You told me in March to bring $20,” I said. “Here is $40 cash because two adventure days are in the works.”

Warmth and respect in her stare also had sparkle this early morning. When I called from Hawai’i I was still new to learning that the campground was on Dene or Navajo Nation lands. Enervating turtle energy the lands were—slow, truthful, ancient, and purposeful. And I didn’t know why yet.

What I did know is what Robin Wall Kimmerer taught me in her book Braiding Sweetgrass—Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants. Native Peoples origin story describes how earth came to be when Skywoman starts a freefall from Skyworld above. A crew of animals strive to brace her crash. To no avail. Until scrappy Muskrat dived into earth’s water to retrieve a handful of mud, enough land to soften Skywoman’s plummeting.

And so earth began when “Skywoman bent and spread the mud with her hands across the shell of the turtle. Moved by the extraordinary gifts of the animals, she sang in thanksgiving and then began to dance, her feet caressing the earth. The land grew and grew as she danced her thanks, from the dab of mud on Turtle’s back until the whole earth was made. Not by Skywoman alone, but from the alchemy of all the animals’ gifts coupled with her deep gratitude. Together they formed what we know today as Turtle Island, our home.” Sacred earth.

This was the new-to-me Native Peoples’ mythology that had a felt sense presence on the campground. Planted everywhere are cotton wood trees. Drifting from each tree’s high up branches to the soft soil underfoot are thousands of translucent cotton petals. Turning your face upward and hands outstretched you can catch these soft floatings in midair flight. A summer’s warm day, the greeting all around. Was kind of like standing inside a painting’s frame while the work was being created.

On the afternoon I had set up camp, next was exploring the canyon perimeter through an easygoing vehicle cruise speed of 20 miles which gave the chance to stare directly at cliffs striating deep history colors blended together—burnt orange, cinnamon brown, faded black, mahogany brown, and reddish pink. Places to stop, park, and absorb viewing Canyon de Chelly (pronounced shay) are organized well. At one an ancient woman easily in her 80s sold jewelry.

For $7 I bought a bracelet. When I chose the turtle design, she insisted snapping the bracelet on. For good luck she encouraged and I accepted. She tossed as a conversation aside that hiking into the canyon was possible. My next morning was set. And I was on my walking path to learning what I did not know.

We had dry blasting 90 degrees heat these two days. Setting the alarm for 5 : 30 a.m. made sense. The canyon walking descent would be hundreds of feet. I would need early morning cooler temperatures. On vacation, I slept until 6 : 30 anyway. Around my coffee cup I wrapped my hands mumbling to myself that I was on my way to see the ancients. As can often be the case, I was not clear on what I was saying. Simply that my intuition—a spirit guide energy, a divine feminine, who I trust implicitly—gave me the words and so I listened. Making sense always follows my trusting the initial not knowing. I began at 7 a.m.

Walking the path had focus against steep walls very well-maintained and, also, quite steeply steep. Remaining so until the valley began and more cotton wood trees grew along the river’s banks. Dene Nation people live here today and a hiking path to a specific location was clearly marked so as not to intrude. An hour after I began the hike, I stared into the canyon walls, reached into my backpack for breakfast which I skipped earlier to make good time and asked permission: “Mind if I have breakfast here with you, dear ancients?”

Photo taken while standing in the valley looking upward where I had walked just not this vertical slab.

The wind was warm and bright sun was clearing, enough welcome for me. High up in the canyon Native Peoples had built a home aligning earth rocks so precisely that the exacting beauty is a sacred symmetry that resembles strongly how a turtle’s back appears. A few days later I learned that the word Anasazi means the ancients. Oh, I laughed, those Turtle Island folks already gave me a warm welcome to one of their earthly dwellings when I had breakfast near their home. I had the amazing chance to visit briefly.