Ascend the Hill for Further Instructions

Signal Hill

Behind my house, located in Saguaro National Monument Park, just a couple of miles as the crow flies, there is a small hill. It is called Signal Hill. Native American’s of former years have engraved petroglyphs upon the rocks located here. This is how the town where I live got its name, Picture Rocks. On the south side of the rocks high upon the face of this rocky outcropping, is a spiral along with many other pictures. Many have observed the spiral symbol in other places, too, and they think that it is a sign of the universe or some other such thing. Richard Hill the Park Ranger told me, “There are as many ideas about what a given symbol means as there are people studying it.” He continues, “I’ve studied them for years and have to conclude that we will never know their original meaning.” I suspect that the people of the world have thought the same thing about Isaiah’s words and other prophets in the bible.

This spiral on Signal Hill is located in a hard place to reach on this steep rocky slope, where it would be difficult to stand for any length of time to peck a complicated symbol. It would have to be important information to communicate, not just a doodle, for someone to take the time to peck out a hard to draw spiral carefully etched in this rock. The symbol is not obvious until you are really close to the hill.

I asked the ranger if he knew why the symbols were located there, because it wasn’t a very high hill and it was not easily seen from any of the roads nearby. He shrugged and said he didn’t know why. So I went and looked again at the hill and discovered something very interesting. It had a companion hill just to the northeast of it that was rounded and almost as high. They were just yards apart. What was the difference? The Signal Hill was formed by wonderful darkened volcanic rock thrust up from the earth’s interior. The other was just gently rounded and smooth, no rocks, just dirt with some cactus growing on it.  It was easy to climb.

A light went on in my understanding. If you want to write something, you must first have a suitable surface. Rocks darkened by volcanic action on the surface and with lighter matter underneath in the core would make a great “piece of paper” for writing upon. Ancient people would recognize this when they saw such rocks, and would straightway walk over to them to see if anyone had written some important directions to share with travelers. Indeed it would become a Signal Hill. I looked around and did not see any other suitable hills  or rocks except some really high inaccessible cliffs several miles away and too hard to climb for a person just passing through.

I will share a little known interpretation of the spiral symbol with you, one that most people do not know. The spiral symbol tells the traveler to ascend and find more petroglyphs that have either warnings or directions located on the top of the hill. They are written with orientation to the surrounding landscape and have to be interpreted right where they are located to have meaning. For instance, if written near a crack, the crack might indicated a river or divide; or the shape of the rock might be the exact same shape as a mountain nearby where a pass is located.

In the case of Signal Hill the writing on the southern face of the hill tells the traveler to go to the top of the hill for a better perspective and further instructions.

This hillside is a powerful symbol of us and our scriptures, or Scripture Hill. Hmmm, maybe, I have stumbled upon something. Just carrying them or having them on a shelf nearby does not let you see what is inside. That’s the easy thing. You have to open them. You have to be diligent and search or study them in order to find the true meanings therein.  

You must ascend to the top of the hill for further instructions.