But she was beginning to learn that no one knew what everything in the painted caves meant. It was likely that no one actually knew what anything meant, except the person who put it there, and perhaps not even then. If something painted on the walls of a cave made you feel something, then whatever you felt was what it meant. It might depend on your state of mind, which could be altered, or how receptive you were. Ayla thought about what the Seventh said when she asked him about the rows of large dots. He put it in very personal terms and told her what the dots meant to him. The caves were Sacred Sites, but she was beginning to think it was a personal, individual sacredness. Maybe that's what she was supposed to be learning on this trip.