There is a place in the Southwest where the ancient ones used to live. It was a large city by the standards of those times and it was central to all the people in the area for a great distance around it, and they made pilgrimages to it for trade, culture and knowledge. It was the center of their society and as such it provided many things that were more than mere trade goods and socialization. It was called Chaco, then and now, and it was a powerful place.

Those people were similar to us in that they had many questions about life and other interesting things. They must have had wise people that provided answers to their questions. We know they worshipped because they built great kivas in the earth and gathered there for ceremonies that we people today know nothing about. They must have attempted to teach and pass what wisdom they had on to the newer generations so that they had some guide lines on how to navigate this life. And like the churches of today they used their architecture to provide a visual reference to how life worked.

In the image above you have three rooms that are located deep inside one of the largest buildings in the city. When you enter them there is an immediate feeling that this is an important place. You can imagine one of the elders leading a group of young people into the first room, explaining its purpose, saying, this is your childhood place. It is the largest, most open room, filled with all the joy and wonder that being young brings. You will stay in this room briefly. That is a sad lesson that you will not learn for many years. Enjoy your time here for it is very fleeting.

The next room is the room in which you will spend your middle years. You will marry, raise a family, provide for them and work very hard. You will not pass back into the first room again. These years will be filled with hardship, toil, and also a certain amount of happiness. You will watch your children grow and leave, there will be sadness, yet peace as you know you have tried to prepare them as best you could for their future. Friends will come and go. You will see that you are aging. There are benches on either side of the doorway leading into the last room. Those benches are there so that you can sit and think about entering the next room. You will need those benches and you will think hard.

The last room is the smallest. It is small because you will not need much there. There will not be much to do. It is where you stay until your time passes. For some of you, if you make it to that last room, it will be a comfortable time. It is warm there and you have your memories to keep you busy. For others it may be place of infinite sadness and you will wish every moment that you could go back to the first room. But this is not possible. How you spend your time in the last room will depend on how you spent your time in the first two rooms. We can only advise you to use your time well.

But you ask, What is that doorway in the last room? Why is it so dark? Where does it lead? We can only tell you that we do not know. None of us here have ever entered it and returned. Some enter that doorway willingly and happily, others do not. No one who has entered it has ever sent word back. Perhaps it will be clearer when you spend your time there.  We can only hope it is a good place and we say ‘Live your life as well as you can and it may make that passage easy for you’. Now that is enough for today. Leave and enjoy yourselves. We will speak again later.