Listening to the Sounds of Nothing
~ Approx. 4–5 min read
Monument Valley
Monument Valley National Park spans the corners of Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, and Colorado, and rests within the Navajo Nation. I’d never been, but something about that red earth called to me. I wasn’t interested in the usual dirt drive tourists take. I needed more. I needed connection.
My husband and I hired a Navajo (Diné) guide and climbed into his jeep. He took us to parts of the valley off the beaten path. About two-thirds through our tour, nearly axle-deep in rich orange sand, he stopped the engine.
“What do you hear?” he asked.
“Nothing,” I said. I had never heard nothing before. My heart beat faster.
“Exactly.”
He grinned, turned the key, and we continued through the quiet, swerving toward a towering sandstone alcove. Once parked, he motioned for us to follow.
Inside the alcove, the temperature dropped twenty degrees. He told us to lean against the stone wall, and we did. The rock was smooth, cool, grounding. I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to leave.
Again, he asked, “What do you hear?”
This time, I heard our breathing echoing in the stillness. Then he began to sing. Words I didn’t understand in a rhythm that seeped deep into my bones. His voice reverberated across the alcove in a way that felt like a secret between the rock and my soul.
He stopped. “Isn’t that something?”
I couldn’t answer. My body felt full and hollow at the same time. He nodded, understanding.
“We have to go back,” he said.
I didn’t want to. This encounter changed me, inspired me, and saddened me as well. What did it mean?
The Gift
Later,we detoured to a cliffside overlook where you can view ancient dwellings carved into the stone. As I walked the path, an elderly Native woman and a teenage girl approached me. The woman held a necklace—glass beads and juniper berries with a wire dreamcatcher pendant.
She said something I didn’t understand. The girl smiled. “It’s a gift,” she said. “From my grandmother.”
I hesitated. Was this a tourist trap? A silent exchange of expectation?
Maybe I looked wary because they grew more insistent. So, I took the necklace and said thank you. They both smiled, then disappeared up the path.
After taking my photos, I returned to find a tin can on a folded blanket with a few bills and coins inside. I dropped in a twenty, unsure if I’d just honored or violated something sacred.
And that’s the word that felt right–sacred. I felt at one with the universe, hearing something most people will never hear—nothing. And it was powerful.
The necklace hangs on my wall, a quiet reminder that in stillness, we touch the sacred.
Deborah Sickle Hill 