Essay reflecting on storytelling as a part of the analog astronaut experience at the Mars Desert Research Station in Utah. Fantastical stories—our myths, tall tales, and legends—are surprisingly useful, especially for advancing science. Stories serve as the foundation of our identity, reflecting our past, present, and future selves. They also possess a certain fluidity, ebbing and flowing through time, vacillating between realms of fact and fantasy.

Excerpt from an introductory essay intended to contextualize a collection of my photographs and “Yoolthgai Awee: Beadwhite Baby Girl,” a Diné origin story shared by Sunny Dooley. A version of this essay and related photographs were first published in Chamisa: A Journal of Literary, Performance, and Visual Arts of the Greater Southwest, Volume 2. Produced by the University of New Mexcio, Chamisa is a peer-reviewed, open access journal that showcases cultural production in the Southwest.