Tag: Navajo Blessing

The conversation, Becoming (Blessing) occurred on December 13, 2020. Becoming (Blessing) centers our conversation as we enter into the final month of 2020, a year that has been delineated as Pre-COVID and COVID. A year in which, as Pat mentioned, “we are beckoned to step into the unknown of our own becoming.” Enter, Explore, Return, Listen – words from Pat’s cards we have shared in communion. Occupying this virtual space we become a blessing to each other.

Cristina began the conversation by reading a prayer of blessing from the Diné. The poem is called Walk in Beauty.

Walking in Beauty: Closing Prayer from the Navajo Way Blessing Ceremony
In beauty I walk
With beauty before me I walk
With beauty behind me I walk
With beauty above me I walk
With beauty around me I walk
It has become beauty again
Hózhóogo naasháa dooShitsijí’ hózhóogo naasháa dooShikéédéé hózhóogo naasháa dooShideigi hózhóogo naasháa dooT’áá altso shinaagóó hózhóogo naasháa dooHózhó náhásdlíí’Hózhó náhásdlíí’Hózhó náhásdlíí’Hózhó náhásdlíí’
Today I will walk out, today everything negative will leave me
I will be as I was before, I will have a cool breeze over my body.
I will have a light body, I will be happy forever, nothing will hinder me.
I walk with beauty before me. I walk with beauty behind me.
I walk with beauty below me. I walk with beauty above me.
I walk with beauty around me. My words will be beautiful.
In beauty all day long may I walk.
Through the returning seasons, may I walk.
On the trail marked with pollen may I walk.
With dew about my feet, may I walk.
With beauty before me may I walk.
With beauty behind me may I walk.
With beauty below me may I walk.
With beauty above me may I walk.
With beauty all around me may I walk.
In old age wandering on a trail of beauty, lively, may I walk.
In old age wandering on a trail of beauty, living again, may I walk.
My words will be beautiful…

Click to hear the prayer spoken in Navajo by  Wanye Wilson, a Navajo member.

Linguistic Note: The word “Hozho”  in  Dine’  (roughly translated) Concept of Balance and Beauty. Consideration of the nature of the universe, the world, and man, and the nature of time and space, creation, growth, motion, order, control, and the life cycle includes all these other Navajo concepts expressed in terms quite impossible to translate into English.   Some Navajos might prefer the term: “Nizhoni” meaning  ‘just beauty.”

Written by Robert S. Drake, for Tom Holm, PhD, University of Arizona American Indian Graduate Studies Program, Native American Religions and Spirituality.

During the conversation, Lynn shared a poem she wrote that interwove the stories and sharing from all those attending the previous month titled, “Nepantla” (which refers to the space where differing or divergent realities can merge and make sense of the world in mutually beneficial ways).

Pat focused her conversation about “Blessing” by sharing the story told in the movie “Collateral Beauty” and integrating her own insights into the discussion. We need to look around, particularly within the darkest, deepest periods of grief and observe the collateral beauty around us.