What's In a Name

First stop on my visit to spiritual sites in America was a unique mountain referred to by Native Americans by such names Bear Lodge and Rock Tree. European explorers made an effort to understand the story and name for the mountain, but mistranslated the name as "Bad God Tower", which soon became "Devil's Tower". Along the way someone printing the name dropped the apostrophe, so now most Americans refer to this site as Devils Tower.
The huge rock is a unique formation. Geologists have three theories to account for its creation, but no proof positive about what the rock looked like in its beginnings. The mountain formed somewhere in the vicinity of 40 million years past and is a remnant of a much larger phenomenon. What remains is called a Monolithic Igneous Intrusion, which means that sometime in the distant past an upswelling of magma within softer rock cooled to form the tower. Over time the surrounding softer rock has eroded away from the sculpting of wind and water.

Native Americans of various tribes tell a similar story to account for the spiritual meaning of the place. Assorted stories tell of people, usually young women, who were gathering food when attacked by a bear. The Great Spirit raised the mountain underneath the human beings, while the bear groped and scratched to reach them, accounting for the cracks and columns on the side of the mountain.

Bear Lodge, over the centuries, has remained a profound spiritual location for Native American tribes. Even today people come to the mountain to pray. Modern American use of the mountain for climbing and recreation is often in conflict with the sensibilities of those who worshiped here long before Europeans settled in the area. Climbing is particularly controversial.

During our visit we walked the 1.3 mile path around the mountain. We met excited climbers and saw Native Americans quietly meditating and hanging prayer cloths on trees off the path. I found the place to have a looming, ancient feeling. I feel agitated by the cultural competition around the site. Beneath the ages of human experience I contemplated the mystery of the rock's formation and it's vast age. This area holds some of the oldest exposed rock on the planet; we passed fields of granite 2-3 billion years old.

Bear Lodge/Devils Tower is crumbling and will, one day in the far distant future, be no more. I wonder what the rock would say if it could speak of it's own history, past, present, and future. But the rock is taciturn; there is a mystery about the place that is profoundly spiritual, and unexplainable -- Native American stories and tales of settlers recently arrived account for this but do not explain.

I stand on the boulder field looking up at the imposing wall. Birds cast shadows on the cracked columns. I cannot climb the mountain; I wait in its presence.