Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Geology of Sacred Sites

Every Sacred Site on earth can be specifically located with its GPS coordinates. The site may be an earth formation or a human creation either placed on the earth surface or some sort of human created inscription on the rock surface. Earth and meaning giving are entwined.

Jeffers Petroglyphs site is an example. It is on the crest of a ridge of sandstone known as Red Rock Ridge. The name given to the rock is Sioux Quartzite. The rock was originally deposited as red sand and mud during the Proterozoic Period. It is sandstone cemented with silicon dioxide and re-crystalized by heat, pressure and chemical solutions.

The site also has wave marks from ancient Proterozoic shorelines nearly 500,000,000 years ago. There are also scratches (striations) from the Des Moines ice lobe of the Wisconsin Glacier some 12 to 14 thousand years ago. The glacial ice was about a mile thick at the time.

The Little Cottonwood River is about 300 yards to the southeast. Remains of a true tall grass prairie are nearby. The site is located 5 miles east and 3 miles north of the town of Jeffers in north-central Cottonwood County of Minnesota, USA.

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

The Rising Up of Bear Butte as a Sacred Site

Bear Butte, just east of the Black Hills of South Dakota, USA, rises from the prairie and dominates the horizon. From the peak one can view the hills and the prairie. As a sacred site of the Native American heritage Bear Butte is known as sacred because it figures large in the culture of a people. On Bear Butte prayer flags decorate the trail leading up, around and to the top. One ascends into a unique realm of sky, earth, east, west, north, south uninterrupted. Centuries of experience have given an atmosphere of mystery and grandeur to a natural place. So we call it a Sacred Site.

Jeffers Petroglyphs are on the flat landscape. No grand views. They too rise up as a Sacred Site. Glyphs are created by people to give meaning to life and to communicate with future peoples. Getting in touch with what is being transmitted is one purpose of this study of sacred time and places in the 21st century.

Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Cottonwood County, Minnesota, USA

The Jeffers Petroglyph's are located in what is now called Cottonwood County, Minnesota. Records show that the county was first surveyed in the late 1850s. The County was organized July 29, 1870. Three county commissioners were appointed by Governor Austin. The commissioners first met a private home. They designated districts and agreed on officials. The first formal election was in the fall of 1870. The first property deed was filed January 10, 1870 and first taxes paid in 1871. The Petroglyph's are located in Section 9 of Delton Township near the Little Cottonwood River.

What was the location called when the Petroglyph's were created? No one knows just which group of early nomadic people created the symbols now found engraved in Quartzite. There is speculation that in the Prairie Archaic Tradition (5,500 to 3,000 BCE) the region was covered with grassland and that hunting bands camped at various favored localities providing wood, water, and food resources.

In the Modern Period (1650 -1850 CE) the site was likely occupied by the Dakota but it is known that Arapaho, Cheyenne, Foxes, Iowa, Missouri, Ojibwe, Omaha, Oto, Ottawa, Ponca, Sauk, Winnebago, and Wyandot were present in Minnesota at this time.

Whatever the area has been named over the centuries and millenia, the Petroglyph's continue to define a people who were given to finding meaning in their time and to communicating that meaning with succeeding peoples.

Information sources include: http://co.cottonwood.mn.us/aboutus.html
http://www.thudscave.com/petroglyphs/arch-peop.htm and references to "The Jeffers Petroglyph Site: A Survey and Analysis of the Carvings" by Gordon Lothson 1976.

Friday, November 30, 2007

Looking Through Petroglyphs

Looking at a petroglyph is much like being at an art gallery or museum. We humans stand or kneel down and fix our gaze at markings as curious carriers of a message. "We" are the observer. "They" are the original creators.

Consider thinking of the petroglyph as a port hole for looking in on another time and place. It could be an opening into another frame of meaning. One can learn to set aside the apparent one dimensional habit of viewing and get into the mindset of seeing through a symbol to the meaning that was present in the mind of the creator at another time and place.

Icons have a long history of communicating religions meaning without the use of words. Orthodox Christians have developed this method into a central feature of communication. The icon itself brings unique meaning to a human person in the midst of a religious experience. It is a window that opens on religious meaning.


The contemporary web page way of communicating meaning involves the use of color, shape, texture, words, images, movement and sound. One sees through the web page to the meaning or message being projected. The purpose can be to inform, convince the watcher to make purchase, entertain, keep watching, or respond in some other way.

It has been suggested that a petroglyph can be understood as a warning symbol much like a traffic sign or a toxic substance notice. It could mean that a wonderful view is just around the corner or over the top of a hill. The symbol cautions the observer to be aware that she/he is in the presence of a great danger or a very good thing. Be aware! Be ready!

The petroglyph can be understood as an icon, a frozen in time web page, a window, a small viewing aperture, a warning, a message to be ready for wonder.

Monday, November 26, 2007

Connect with Artists of Petroglyphs

On the night of November 24, 2007, a full moon night, I was out in the central Minnesota forest, near the St. Croix River, living in a tent and preparing food over an open fire with the temperature at 24 degrees above zero. There was a light covering of snow on the ground.

My mind went to the scene some 5000 years ago when the ancestors were under the same full moon. They were led to create a message for the future humans who would come along. And so here we are in 2007 pondering the messages of those glyphs on the silica based quartzite of the Red Rock ridge. This is being written on technology once again using silica but this time in computer chips. Our present writing appears to be ephemeral in comparison to the long lasting glyphs. Perhaps we are overlooking some perspectives as we assume the powers of an electronic communications era. In all events, we share the same time frame as the glyph creators.

The experience of living out doors in northern hemisphere winter time is one way to reduce ourselves to the elemental necessities of being alive. The research continues.

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Red Rock Ridge - some early history

A prominent ridge of red quartzite lies next to the Little Cottonwood River in north central Cottonwood County, Minnesota. In 1875 J.B. Churchill carved his name and date into the rock. In 1880 Warren Upham visited the ridge and made some notes about the petroglyphs. In 1885 a small group of men from New Ulm traveled up the Cottonwood River from Sleepy Eye to reach what was known as the Dells at Red Rock Falls and proceeded southwest to the Petroglyph site. Their report is found in the New Ulm Review of August 12, 1885. They viewed "peculiar inscriptions, [hewn] into the hard red-black rock". In 1889 the Red Rock Ridge was visited by surveyor Theodore Lewis and civil engineer Alfred J. Hill. They were in the process of doing an archaeological survey of Minnesota and the surrounding states from 1881-1895. This information is based in part on Gordon Lothsons 1976 book, "The Jeffers Petroglyphs Site: A Survey and Analysis of the Carvings" Information is at web site http://www.thudscave.com/petroglyps/arch-site.htm

Monday, November 19, 2007

Jeffers Petroglyph Technology

This photo of the Turtle icon was taken in 2000. The technology used to preserve the image for access now leads one to admire and be curious about the people who were the artists and spiritual workers 5000 years in the past. Why did they take the time and effort to send on the symbols of their thought system? What do the petroglyph's tell us about the sense of meaning in life in that era? How can we today enter the world of that time? What can we learn about communicating our ideas to future occupants of planet earth? Questions such as these are the foundations for this blog.

Sunday, November 18, 2007

Basic information

The story line begins with a 5000 year old petroglyph scene in Minnesota. Located in Delton township of Cottonwood County, Minnesota, USA, this most effective communications method will inform the approach taken in this ephemeral information transfer method of the 21st Century. The same silica that is in the rock where the petroglyphs are inscribed is involved in this technology of now. From this November 18, 2007 starting point I go forward with curiosity.