Tag: Hózhó

ground

.Reading time 1 minute.

i want to break open
my heart
at dawn, and
at dusk
with the flight of a thousand birds
rising
wind streaming over my body—skin bare, like bones,
i feel the shadows trailing wingtips
of ravens
and their silent caress across the bleached stones below

i want to dissolve
the day
into these rushing waves as they run
up onto this sandy shore
kissing my toes and
pulling earth from underneath my feet
i fall into their sea
sinking and drowning
all the heaviness of my heart

and in the glimmering darkness of night
i want to dance
here in the secret garden of wild roses
together
with my love
with sweetness and with honey, and with
a belly full of dreams
i want to plant each one in this soil
in this soft sacred ground
growing worlds

of beauty

Matriarch

.Reading time 3 minutes.
four generations, and counting
they come and they go
but they always return, home
to this place of beauty

a door to the east opens with dawn
and she feeds all the hungry children
the cats and dogs, the sheep, cows, horses and chickens
and on the stove, boiling tea and fry bread
for the strays who visit
hungry for stories, ritual, medicine, and ceremony

she laughs easily and cries easily
sharing her heartful with tenderness and pain
the stories of the people
the land and the ancient ones
her memories strong in the bright arch of blue day

and into the quiet glow of dusk
all the busy sandpink footprints are swept
and the table cleared
while her shy, slightly awkward, and more or less vegetarian daughter
prepares salad, fried vegetables, and rice
her daughter
from that small floating island country far to the west
smiles softly for shimá

in the dark nighttime of dreams
and in the firelight of a winter ceremony
her daughter was called home
to heal and be healed, together
long centuries of a battered land
scarred and broken under the crushing weight of greed
and the submerged continent of the massacred

but she stands firmly
on the ground of her mothers
and her mothers' mothers
with offerings of pollen and song
a door to the east opens with dawn
and she feeds all the hungry children

who like me
return
again and time again
to shimá


In trying to write about the background and inspiration for the poem above, I found that it cannot really be done. It would be to contain the ocean in a tea cup, or to capture the sky in a butterfly net. There is no encyclopedic text which could adequately describe or explain the entirety of what shimá, a Navajo word translated as “my mother” means… and what shimá means to me. But I can tell you that I am eternally grateful to the woman who I am standing next to in the photo above, who is shimá. And although shimá “walked on” a couple years ago, she guides me still—in my heart and in all that I have become. It is for her and because of her, that I wrote Matriarch.

As I was struggling to write about Matriarch, however, another poetic passage emerged. Apropos, Matriarch birthed a new poem! I wonder how this one, like a little child, will still grow?

On this land, we walk the path of beauty. 
The sacred breathes through our bodies, and breathes throughout all that there is. 
We are beings of fire and coral sand, of summer rain storms and the unfurling green... 
we fly on the wings of song and through endless skies of blue light. 
We dance. 
We are diamonds in the night. 
And together with the land, we are hózhó. 
We are home.

beauty

.Reading time 2 minutes.
if today i die
may beauty be my only
footprints in the sand

Ikigai, raison d’être, purpose, legacy… What is it, ultimately, that propels you forward in life? That keeps your fires burning at night and wakens you from your morning slumber? That enables you to rise again and once again, after each and every stumble or fall? That heals your grieving heart after loss? That brings you to your feet when life has brought you to your knees? That causes you to smile, once again?

Now and then life brings these questions to me, and inevitably, in one way or the other, I always come back to hózhó. Hózhó is the Navajo word for “beauty,” however, it is not limited to notions of aesthetic beauty but encapsulates a profound paradigmatic lens of beauty as composite expression of harmony, peace, balance, and reciprocity. Hózhó is my north star and my raison d’être.

And what is yours?

They say that each of us has come here for a reason, to fulfill some particular longing of the soul. Perhaps it is to experience joy, or love. Perhaps it is to be joy, or love, or beauty. Perhaps it is to learn how to rise again and smile, against all odds. Perhaps it is to acquire a soft heart after hardship. Or to discover light at the end of the tunnel, or to become that light. And it could simply be to discover whatever it actually is—that, that seemingly eternal chimera.

Whatever yours is, may it propel you ever forward on your path. May you walk in beauty. May you journey well. May your dreams be fulfilled.

embodied

.Reading time 1 minute.
have you ever felt that?
Earth—in your body,
breathing...
a sweet sigh, and then a swift intake
what song does she sing
passing through your skin
your surface 
soft, light, and open 
dancing here
under this boundless sky?
to whom
or to what absolute and singular love
does she serenade?

The above “photo-poem” was made when I was still placing print on top of photos and unfortunately, I don’t have the original photo now. I also haven’t been able to recapture the same feeling—the same ineffable sensation of breathing—in another photo. But perhaps on some mysterious, sweet, and softly lit day, I will again find the perfect set of trees and sky, breathing.

Have you experienced something similar? A discovery of the world breathing through your body? Or your body breathing through the extended world around you? In this physically embodied realization of connection, we discover that we ourselves are love. Love itself. Nothing other than love. We discover oneness and totality, beauty and grace. Hózhó. An absolute and singular love.

philocalist

.Reading time 2 minutes.

philocalist: a person who loves beauty; one who sees and appreciates beauty in all things.

What is beauty? Like love, beauty is some kind of nameable uncontainable, some kind of innate and immediate and intrinsic nature of our humanness. And like love, beauty eludes definition the way sunlight escapes boxes and the shadows. We cannot live without the light. We cannot live without love and we cannot live without beauty.

Beauty might be a rose, or a stranger who comes to our rescue. It could be that smooth shiny surface of wooden floor boards worn step after step after step after step—a million times over. Or sparkles dancing on water. Dew in the morning light. A friendly smile. Honey. And sweetness.

In one way or the other, beauty is everything that is good. Like a natural point of rest, beauty is the default setting for our most essential selves. The Navajo word for it is Hózhó. Harmony balance reciprocity peace.

So in your moments of darkness, of hurt or of despair, look into the mirror and remember that not only are you beautiful—but that you are beauty itself… beauty reflecting beauty. Say not “I am beautiful”, but declare “I Am Beauty”. And everything else in this tumultuous life shall fall into place—step after step after step after step—you shall Walk in Beauty. Hózhó.

philocalist: a person who knows themself as beauty; one who walks in beauty.