THE NAVAJO NATION: NIZHÓNÍGO AŁHÉÉHOSIILZĮĮD

The Grandma driving across Navajo Nation

The Beans are in New Mexico. They're visiting the Navajo Nation and they're going to visit Arizona and Utah, too. 

They arrived last night after they had flown from San Diego. The family is excited because they're going to discover on of the most ancient and incredible cultures: the Native American. They arrived to Alburquerque with a lot of luggage because they had bought lots of souvenirs in San Diego. The Grandma was a little sad because she had said goodbye to Maverick, her handsome friend and the family decided to go to the hotel quickly because they had had a tired flight and they wanted to rest a little and review some English grammar, especially, the Past Simple Passive and the Past Perfect. 

The Grandma was also talking about earthquakes and volcanoes, two things that she adores and admires like incredible natural forces. She has also talked about classic films which she also loves.

More information: Passive Voice (Past Simple)

Today, The Beans are travelling to the Navajo Nation across the Route 40 by their Harley-Davidson, the last presents that The Grandma has bought for her lovely family. They are going to sleep in Navajo tents because the Navajo Community has invited them to share and know its incredible culture. 

More information: Past Perfect

Tomorrow, the family is going to discover the importance of this community during the WWII and one of their most amazing ceremonies: The Blessing Way.

More information: Past Perfect vs. Past Simple

We must not forget the Navajo customs and traditions which are unwritten.  Long before the Europeans arrived as newcomers, the Navajo people were living according to the laws, the rules, and the prayers taught to them by the Holy People, laws that brought order, beauty, peace, and harmony to the People and their world.

Nelson Gorman, Jr., Preface of the Navajo Code

The Blessing Way or hozhooji is a ceremony to awaken one to natural order, hozho; choosing constructive and life-affirming choices; healing from intentions and decisions that destroy oneself and others. 

Cristina Bean arriving to a Navajo home

To explain the blessing way, spiritual-cultural concepts are translated from the Dineh language into appropriate English descriptions to convey universal health and healing concepts from Dineh oral tradition.  

Navajo ceremonies do not require a conversion process of taking away the precious child within the natural order, and replacing this spiritual SELF-identity with a deficient self-image that has to be re-mediated to some desired end state of progress. Once awakened to the natural order, we begin living the loving way, hozhooji: literal translation of the blessing way ceremony as translated by my paternal aunt. It is a way of living in reverent revolution, of making decisions that are constructive and life affirming.

The four phases of the blessing way ceremony is a healing process that leads to curing. These two main ceremonies offer protection from contaminants like the maladaptive emotions of hate, jealousy, anger, guilt, fear and toxins from the environment.

More information:  Navajo Nation Government

Five major ceremonies: As five-fingered people, this corresponds to five major ceremonies that every child in the world could benefit by.

-Blessing Way: the blessing way honors the divine feminine as a nurturer.

-Protection Way: divine masculine as a protector-provider.

-Purification and cleansing: numerous with specific names for specific purposes.
 

-Spiritual renewal: a nine-day ceremony for spiritual renewal.

-Journey to spirit world: the ceremony for a person on their journey to the spirit world.

The Beans visiting the Navajo Nation

A blessings way Ceremonial Change Process teaches why and how to make life-affirming choices, rather than death-producing choices.   

We can understand a Dineh ceremonial change process within the context of Indigenous Science.  The strategy is to set up the optimal conditions for remembering and awakening to the oneness of creator. In healing ceremonies we affirm our holiness and wholeness. Dineh spirituality is the science of light-love-life-nature in one integrated concept.  The will-to-love, peace, beauty and joy within our Affirmative thinking system and within the universe is called hozho.

More information: Discover Navajo

The Navajo creation story speaks about the people traveling through four worlds into the current world from the place of emergence within the four sacred mountains.  This represents the concept that there is one mother of us all because our body is composed of earth.

The word for mountain is the same word for spiritual strength.  Every child is born through the water and through the birth canal.  The element of fire is our temperature and we inhale and exhale with the creator’s holy breath.  This air originates from the physical sun and radiates to the trees where we inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide.

The miracle of life that we call photosynthesis is what Navajos call the creator’s holy breath.  We are instructed to use this holy breath for speaking living words that heal.  This is why our medicine people are called singers.  They sing a person back to balance, harmony with creator, themselves and others within the natural order.

The journey through the four worlds was required to restore balance and harmony from misusing life energy for destructive and death-producing choices.  There is a consequence in violating the natural order.  This is not punishment, condemnation or judgment, just consequence and a message to correct the out-of-balance life condition.

More information: History

I grew up knowing it's wrong to have more than you need. 
It means you're not taking care of your people.

Native American Navajo Proverb