Moon phase: First quarter
Weather: Warm
Phenology: Red buds are blooming

These are from a recent trip to the National Museum of the American Indian. I love the architecture.

Instead of just laying out rows of projectile points, they arranged them into beautiful swirling patterns.

Hundreds of Indian languages, projected onto a black wall.

A labyrinth from the Southwest (don't remember which tribe). When I was working at the National Cathedral this past holiday season, I read most of a book on the history and spirituality of labyrinths, which have showed up in many cultures all over the world, from Europe to Asia to America. While today they are mostly used by Christians, they predate Christianity by quite a bit. Labyrinths are not to be confused with mazes; mazes have many dead ends and are designed to confuse you, while labyrinths have a single path that is followed to the center. The author of the book speculated that the labyrinth is an archetype; that it appears again and again in different cultures because it represents the inward journey of the self. It's a spiritual quest where you descend to the inner depths of your subconscious, and when you reach the center of the labyrinth, you slay a monster or are given new wisdom. Then you follow the same path to the surface again.

On a trip to France as a teenager, I walked the labyrinth in Chartres Cathedral, which is one of the most famous. I had never heard of labyrinths before (except in the sense of a simple maze), and I fell in love with the idea. But I mostly forgot about it until I picked up this book to read about them; now I want to learn more.