“The bones will meet you,” she said.
I was standing out behind Bear Mountain Lodge, where 57 crates of white ceramic bones had been delivered months earlier. The bones were to be part of an art installation founded by photographer and artist Naomi Natale, who was inspired to start the One Million Bones project in 2009, after reading Philip Gourevitch’s “We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families.” The non-fiction book recounts the 1994 Rwandan Genocide, when an estimated 1 million Tutsis and Hutus were killed. The story was also told in the 2004 movie “Hotel Rwanda.”
Natale had given a talk at Western New Mexico University last year and John Rohovec and Linda Brewer, who own Bear Mountain Lodge, were in the audience. After hearing Natale speak, they reached out to Faye McCalmont, who brought Natale to the university through her position as special assistant to the president for cultural affairs. The bones were in storage in Albuquerque after being in several temporary installations — the first in Albuquerque in 2011, then the following year in New Orleans, and in 2013, on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.
John and Linda were moved by Natale’s talk and said they had a location in mind for a permanent home for the installation — in a meadow high above the lodge.
Dozens of boxes of bones were stacked on pallets behind the lodge. Hundreds of bones had been hiked up the mountain and placed already. On Saturday, the lodge held a Community Day, inviting the public to put some bones in their pocket and make the trek up the mountain to lay them alongside the others in the meadow.
The afternoon was overcast and gray — fitting weather for such a somber experience. I stood over the boxes and examined the jumble of bones inside each one. I carefully selected three pieces, a slim, curved piece of a rib bone, a long, thin bone with knobby ends like a radius or femur, and a small piece of spine, with five vertebrae. I put them in my bag and headed down the path.
The hike starts out as a slow, meandering walk down a wide trail. A few bones dot the trail, several are hung from trees. It’s a stark reminder of why we are here. There is no sound but the wind lightly blowing through the trees. We head up the Windmill Loop Trail and the path gets narrower and steeper. More bones dot the trail. Some are placed in the “y” of trees, or hung on branches. I have never been to a holocaust museum but I imagine this is how it would feel. There is no sound but the wind, whispering in the trees, like souls crying. I actually feel nauseous, the effect so powerful. I think of Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen, and the Hutus and the Tutsis. The laughter I hear in the distance sounds out of place — vile actually. You whisper, if you speak at all. Casual conversation violates the solemnity of this experience.
We pass a couple on the trail, I smile brightly and say “Hello!” They look at me a little dazed. My warmth feels awkward. I say no more and let them pass. We haven’t even gotten to the meadow yet.
The trail gets steeper, zigzagging its way up the mountain. It is the Highway 152 of trails. I have to stop frequently to catch my breath. The hike is a strenuous one for me. I’m not exactly fit. But the views reward us at each turn. And still the bones. There are more now. A jawbone hangs from a tree limb. Pieces of spine and rib bones dot the landscape. Some are laid out in formations, shaped like a tree or in a spiral with a skull at the center. We are closer. I can feel it.
We round the bend and can see them in the distance. A sea of stark white against the dead, washed-out grass. The experience is jarring. It hits you like a punch to the gut. I suck my breath in sharply, pain stabbing me in the stomach. The meadow is a graveyard of bones. On either side of the path are hundreds of bones laid out in piles and formations. Some are stacked. Some are in little piles. Others are laid out like stick figures and skeletons. It is hard to take it all in. On the right side of the path, across from the big meadow, some spell out a name — Winchell. On the other side, in big letters “ALL MY RELATIONS” is spelled out in bones.
I step off the path out into the graveyard of bones. It is like stepping into a pool of agony and grief. The suffering washes over you. It feels suffocating. I feel like I’m drowning in it. I do yoga breaths to calm my anxiety as the immersiveness of the experience jars me more than I expected. I breathe in slowly and let it out just as slowly, to regulate my breathing.
I look around and take in this graveyard of souls. I look down at my feet, careful where I step, not wanting to feel the crunch of bone under them. I tread lightly among the bones.
I carefully dig in my bag and take out my first bone — a slim piece of rib. I place it along the edge of a giant heart. A heart made of bones. A giant heart made up of the bones of lost souls. It is meant to be healing in some way, this laying of bones. I have a thing for hearts and am always trying to heal mine. The laying of the bone along the edge of the heart symbolizes healing a hole in my own.
I take out the next bone — a long, skinny femur or radius bone. I lay it along a row with others that spread out in a circle from a small pile in the center.
I dig in my bag for the final bone and pull that out. It is the section of spine — five vertebrae, to be exact. I place it gingerly near the radius bone, alongside two small sections of spine with three vertebrae each.
I walk back to the path and take it to the end of the meadow. Through the trees around the bend, the bones keep going. There are small piles spread out on the hillside. I look ahead. There are several more in another meadow. A row of boxes full are stacked at the back of one meadow ahead.
I turn back. It’s getting late. The wind has picked up. We head back. As we leave the field of bones, a sense of relief washes over me. A more comforting atmosphere envelopes us. The rolling green hills surround us, closing us off from the graveyard behind us. We walk through the wilderness for a bit, the view around us only nature, untouched by man, until rooftops break into view in the distance, bringing us back to civilization.
John and Linda’s horses stand by the barn and the tan, adobe outline of the lodge peeks out from behind the piñon. The blue outline of Cook’s Peak pokes out of the skyline in the distance. The afternoon sky has remained overcast and gray. It looks like someone has pulled a silver/gray gauze over the sun and sky. We get to the end of the Windmill Loop Trail and back to the lodge grounds. I can’t say it was an enjoyable experience, but it certainly was an enlightening one. While the One Million Bones project is a stark reminder of something that is very wrong with the world, the hike up the mountain behind Bear Mountain Lodge to lay a bone in the symbolic mass grave is a worthwhile experience.
Rohovec said the boxes of bones will remain at the lodge to give guests and visitors an opportunity to experience being a part of the installation. Next month, which is Genocide Awareness and Prevention Month, there will be a dedication. At 1 p.m. on April 14, people will dress all in white and there will be a formal laying of bones, spreading them across the one-acre meadow, where they will stay permanently, becoming part of the earth.
WNMU students will have their own day to join in the installation. On Friday, March 23, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., students are invited to the lodge to bring bones to the meadow. Anyone interested in participating should bring water for the hike and a backpack or bag to carry the bones.