To Walk In Beauty

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One of my pursuits in living here in New Mexico has entailed learning more about the Diné (Navajo) culture.
I came across this blessing today which from my understanding is often traditionally sung during the process of weaving, in reference to Spider Woman, who is said to have first woven the universe and taught the Diné to spread the “Beauty Way” by creating beauty in their own life and thus encompassing the balance of mind, body and soul.

It is also a part of the story that when Spider Woman discovered her abilities and after showing Spider Man, he created tools for her with which to weave out of the Juniper tree (read more here).

A fact that seems even more meaningful to me due to my own fascination and interest in Juniper trees that primarily began sometime last year.

(I don’t fully know why this feels meaningful exactly, other than the fact that I always take note when more than one interest seem to intersect with another…)

The more I learn about this beautiful culture, the more I feel it has to teach us in so many ways.
I thought I would share the blessing here with you today. I got chills reading it and cannot imagine how beautiful it must be in it’s original native tongue.

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Goodnight House

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i feel at home within the stillness of a house at night

i rarely waver in the dark or quiet spaces of a slightly unknown place

for there is a lightness there

it is inside these spaces that i find my place

amongst tired floors and resting furniture

it is me and the small-slow creeping things

(unsure as i am if the dark impressions of motion are on the floor or inside of my mind—there is even comfort to be found in that too)

the creaks and groans are the tones of hidden hellos specific to these walls

the things heard are of my own creation or that of the inherent nature of the frame i’m inside of

it is on and under these sloped sleeping lines that i am able to recenter and remember my sense of self that is now and at once a mirrored home: the inner home of me

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Across The Sky

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The days begin with the slow saturation of the suns rays kissing and caressing the landscape gently awake, like you would your lover who’s still asleep next to you, deep under the warm darkness of sleep.

The sun always arises before the land. 

Dutiful in its routine. 

In the way that you too are always the first to awake before the form in bed next to you. 

A morning person. 

I wonder if the sun ever gets weary in its lonely trek across the sky, day after day, fated to a pre-planned path of journeying. Only able to have temporary, though distant relationship with the land and the things upon it. 

Too far to ever have much of a chance to get to know the moving things down below, though it’s impression in turn upon them is lasting.

But, I suppose it does have the moon, if only for a brief moment, to play for a time with at dusk on some days. When both the moon and the sun are parallel in the sky from one another. 

The moon is in fact the only one who knows a little of what it’s like to be the sun. 

More so than any earthbound thing. 

Two celestial friends. 

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To Live Again

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To Live Again

I am sitting cross legged on the earthen floor, thick patterned blankets between me and the dirt. It is dark inside the dome, which is made of 16 willow saplings tied together with cloth and string and covered in worn blankets and I am centered on the doorway, a square of piercing light that frames the fire a half dozen yards away where the fire keepers are excavating the lava stones, Grandfather, from the molten embers. 


“Mitakuye Oyasin,”


I am inside of a sweat lodge, the ceremony, Inipi which means “To Live Again” is to purify and place ourselves in a position of openness to send prayers for ourselves and those we love who are suffering.


“Nothing will hurt you here”

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