The Navajo call themselves the Diné, the People. Their homeland, Dinétah, lies between four sacred mountains that mark the four directions. Their teachings come from the Holy People, who shaped the world and gave the Diné the ceremonies that heal and restore harmony.
At the heart of these teachings is Hózhó, a word that holds beauty, harmony, balance and wholeness all at once.
“In beauty 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 all around me I walk. It is finished in beauty.”
Night Chant prayer, as recorded by Washington Matthews, 1902 (adapted by Dan Dillman)
To the Diné, illness and trouble come when we fall out of balance with ourselves, our relatives and the natural world. Healing is the return to Hózhó. Walking in beauty is not a feeling we wait for. It is a way we choose to walk, every day, in every direction.
Reflect: Where in your life have you fallen out of balance, and what would walking in beauty look like there?
What do you think about this? On January 20, 1996, three young women in Varginha, Brazil, saw a four foot creature with oily skin and red eyes crouched by a wall. The army was in town that morning. A policeman said to have handled it died a month later. Cover story, or Brazil’s Roswell?
What do you think about this? In 1800 settlers at Conneaut, Ohio, opened a four acre burial ground in rows and reported skeletons over seven feet, jaws that fit over a man’s face, double rows of teeth. The graves were plowed under within a generation. Tall tale, or a people buried twice?
What do you think about this? The Iron Pillar of Delhi is six tons of forged iron from around 400 AD. It has stood outside through 1,600 years of monsoons and never rusted, thanks to a protective film from phosphorus rich iron nobody made again. Lucky recipe, or knowledge lost on purpose?
What do you think about this? North Sea trawlers pull up mammoth teeth, flint tools and a carved harpoon from 120 feet deep. Until 8,000 years ago that seabed was Doggerland, a forested land the size of Britain, drowned by rising seas and a tsunami. The lost land of every old story?
What do you think about this? In 1974 a Florida family found a polished 22 pound steel ball in burned brush. It hummed when a guitar played, rolled across rooms on its own and changed direction. Navy X rays showed objects inside, origin unknown. Valve ball, or something that landed?
What do you think about this? The Whaley House in San Diego was built in 1857 where a man was slowly hanged five years earlier. A baby and a daughter later died inside. Visitors report footsteps in empty rooms and a pressure on the throat where the gallows stood. Old house, or long memory?
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