Ear of the Wind
“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.” Diné Saying
It’s the smaller, less visited scenes that really interest me as a photographer. When you’re in Monument Valley, you must photograph the grand landscape featuring the Mittens and Merrick Butte. But everyone has seen and photographed this icon of the West.
That’s why Ear of the Wind arch appealed to me. It’s off the beaten path on the self-guided loop drive through the Valley. Visiting this arch requires a Navajo guide. And Ear of the Wind is just one of several beautiful arches accessible only on a guided tour.
If you are wondering about the name, just look at the image a while longer.
This 121-foot-tall arch was formed by erosion of the brownish red DeChelly sandstone. DeChelly sandstone is a geologic rock layer up to 585 feet thick. It’s composed of multiple cross-bedded wedges with steeply dipping angles greater than 30 degrees. About 230 to 250 million years ago, these wedges were sand dunes.
The Shot
We were blessed with snow the day before. It helped simplify the scene by covering the busy foreground in a smooth blanket of white. And it helped define the branches of the old cedar tree.
The red sandstone contrasted nicely with the dead tree framing the arch. And the clearing storm contributed some needed clouds to add interest to the otherwise blue sky.
As I admired this beautiful scene, I wondered about the ancestral peoples who looked and listened to the sights and sounds of the desert through the Ear of the Wind over the millennia. What stories could they tell us?
I left hoping that we can all be stewards of the special places like this that we merely “borrow…from our children.”
I’ll be out in the field next week taking photographs, so the next Friday Photo will be in two weeks.
Thanks for looking,
Chuck Derus