He wondered what his sorrow was and could not remember. - N. Scott Momaday

Riding is an exercise of the mind. I dreamed a good deal on the back of my horse, going out into the hills alone.

The night the old man Dragonfly came to my
grandfather’s house the moon was full. It rose like a
great red planet above the black trees on the crooked
creek. Then there came a flood of pewter light on
the plain, and I could see the light ebb toward me
like water, and I thought of rivers I had never seen,
rising like ribbons of rain. And in the morning
Dragonfly came from the house, his hair in braids
and his face painted. He stood on a little mound of
earth and faced east. Then he raised his arms and
began to pray. His voice seemed to reach beyond
itself, a long way on the land, and he prayed the sun
up. The grasses glistened with dew, and a bird sang
from the dawn. This happened a long time ago. I was
not there. My father was there when he was a boy.
He told me of it. And I was there.

A Witness to Creation

If you could have that one day back, the one that
you have kept a secret in your soul, what day would it be?
What? One among the many? Well, let me make you this offering:

It would be the day on which I stood on the rim of Monument Valley and beheld
those ineffable monoliths for the first time. I was young, you see, like a fledgling
who leaves the nest and flies out over the earth. I saw beyond time, into
timelessness. It was the first and holiest of all days. On such a day — on that original day — did the First Man behold the First World. It filled
him with wonder and humility. Then and there, looking for one enchanted
moment into eternity, I was the First Man. I was present at Creationl