Learning through silence: a day in Monument Valley

I had postponed this trip more than once. There was always a reason : timing, distance, something else coming up. When I finally booked it, almost without realizing, it ended up falling exactly on Indigenous Peoples’ Day.

Maybe just a coincidence, but it felt right.

I don’t know much about Native American culture, and that’s precisely why I wanted to go. Not to explain, but to listen. Not to take, but to learn. So I joined a Navajo-guided tour through Monument Valley, ready to see this iconic place with new eyes and hopefully, with more understanding.

Sacred land of stone and sky

Straddling the border between Arizona and Utah, Monument Valley is one of the most photographed landscapes in the American Southwest and for good reason. Those towering sandstone buttes, rising hundreds of meters from the desert floor, seem almost unreal, like sculptures carved by time and wind.

But Monument Valley is not just a landscape. It’s Tsé Biiʼ Ndzisgaii — the Valley of the Rocks — and it lies within the Navajo Nation, the largest Indigenous territory in the United States. It’s not a national park; it’s a Tribal Park, managed and protected by the Navajo people.

To visitors, it might feel like the ultimate desert postcard. To the Navajo, it’s a living, sacred place, tied to stories, songs, and prayers that have been passed down for generations. Every formation has a name and meaning (The Mittens, Totem Pole, Three Sisters) each connected to myths and teachings about balance, family, and respect for nature.

The best way to experience the valley is with a local Navajo guide.

They know the roads, of course — the 17-mile scenic drive winds past all the iconic viewpoints — but more importantly, they know the stories. As we stopped along the route, our guide spoke of Hózhó, a Navajo concept that loosely translates to “beauty” or “balance,” but truly means living in harmony with everything around you: the land, the people, the sky.

It’s not something you understand in a few hours. But when you stand there, surrounded by silence and red sand, it starts to make sense.

Learning through food

Culture is also found on the plate, and on Navajo land, food carries deep meaning.

Our guide told us about frybread, a simple, beloved dish made from flour, salt, and oil, ingredients given to the Navajo during the Long Walk in the 1860s, when they were forced from their homelands. Born out of hardship, it has become a symbol of survival and resilience.

Then there are the Three Sisters — corn, beans, and squash — cultivated together for centuries across Indigenous communities of the Southwest. Each plant supports the others: corn provides a structure for beans to climb, beans enrich the soil, and squash shades the ground to preserve moisture.

It’s a farming method, yes, but also a philosophy, a reflection of how balance and cooperation sustain life.

Until we meet again

As the sun began to set, the desert turned copper and gold. Shadows stretched across the sand giving us one of the most amazing sunsets I have ever witnessed, and the silence felt almost comforting.

In Navajo, and in many Indigenous languages, there isn’t an exact word that marks a final farewell. Instead, the idea of parting carries a sense of continuity: every meeting, every story, every journey is part of a longer circle. It’s not about endings, but about pauses and spaces where connection simply rests until paths cross again.

That concept feels so different from the way we often think about goodbyes. In Western cultures, “goodbye” can sound definite, closed. Here, it’s open, a quiet acknowledgment that relationships, evolve but never truly end.

Driving away from Monument Valley, I carried that thought with me. I had more questions than answers, but perhaps that’s the point: to learn without rushing to conclude, to listen without needing to define.

And so I left the valley not with a goodbye, but with a promise: until we meet again.