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Chanting the Landscape (Mythology Synchroblog)

Before the creation of the Navajo people (dine), Holy People (diyin dine’e), journeyed toward the present upper world through a series of horizontally layered underground worlds. These underground worlds were the epitome of chaos, the result of the diyin dine’e living in a state of disharmony with the surrounding world. Despite these conditions diyin dine’e eventually emerged into the upper world in the centre of Navajoland. Holy Wind taught two Holy People, First Man and First Woman the powerful chants (ceremonies) needed to transformed the world. They took soil from the underworld and fashioned Four Sacred Mountains, corresponding with the four supporting poles (and the cardinal directions) that form the outer structure of the hogan, the traditional dwelling of the Navajo people. Through chant, these four mountains that surround the world, received their inner forms. Everything has both an outer physical form as well as an inner form, that eludes the physical senses. Even the sacred chants have both an inner (thought, which is also the outer form of knowledge) and outer (speech) form, and it is through the power of the Navajo language (itself dominated by verbs) that the world is set in motion. It is said that when the Primal Pair had finished animating all things, they pulled a feather from a bald eagle, and blowing upon it, set it in motion. Everything in creation, like the eagle feather, is in constant motion, and depends upon Holy Air for its existence. Without Air nothing would be possible. As language animates the landscape through speech, so also speech is animated through the invisible and all surrounding power of Air.

Upon another Sacred Mountain situated near the centre of the world, First Man heard the sound of a new born crying. He and First Woman took care of the infant, a baby girl, and after four days she had already grown to adulthood. This is Changing Woman, the most important of the Diyin Dine’e. She is the inner form of Earth and embodies the cyclic seasons of the year: Spring (when she is reborn as child), Summer (young woman), Autumn (adult), and Winter (Old Woman when she dies). From First Man, Changing Woman received the medicine bundle containing the seeds of life, and so the power to create became her responsibly. It was Changing Woman who created the first people (the Navajo), by rubbing a mixture of corn and earth into her body. Changing Woman also gave birth to Twins, named Monster Slayer and Born-For-Water, who were also the children of Sun. It was from their father that they received their weapons to slay the illegitimate children of Sun. These children were monsters, embodiments of darker times in the worlds of chaos (hochq) below. As long as these beings existed there would be little in the way of beauty (hozhq), which is the harmonious balance of both the inner and outer forms of existence. Chaning woman, unlike other Holy People, is purely good, and is the embodiment of hozhq.

It is at the place of emergence where all oppocites meet (Harmony and chaos, male and female, life and death, etc). All things, both above and below, inside and out, have their oppocites, and further still, everything contains within itself an opposite, subdividing reality into first two and then four; the sacred number of creation. From the center of the cosmic hogan it is said that hozhq radiates outward in every direction toward the Four Sacred Mountains enclosing the cosmos. Likewise the ceremonial sand paintings are also created, within the ritual hogans, beginning at the centre. The sand paintings depict the inner forms of creation, which are the diyin dine’e themselves. After the work of creation was completed by Changing Woman, all the Holy People left the physical outer world, but remained as the inner forms of the landscapes and all natural phenomena.

It cannot be said that the Holy People left without leaving their mark. Throughout the sacred landscape are the remnants of their activities. High upon Star Mountain fell part of a giants body, who dared stand in the way of the Hero-Twins. They cut a crystalline shard from its body which fell upon the mountain. In recent times the crystal was taken, but the stories of the Navajo keep its memory alive. Elsewhere lies the stone head of a giant decapitated by the twins, it’s congealed blood a lava flow. when the monsters were all destroyed, Sun, after much persuasion, convinced Changing Woman to abide in the West. During the journey to her new home, Changing Woman stopped to eat. After the meal she formed a spring with her planting stick and the crumbs from her meal became a large rock. Hundreds of such special places map out the sacred landscape, powerful reminders of interconnecting forces that reside within every rock, or cloud, or animal and plant. The landscape is more than just a physical presence. It is also comprised of movement. Everything in the world reacts with everything else. Nothing is alone, everything is connected. When a sacred place is stripped of its power, ravaged by the greed of mankind, it is not only that place which suffers. Everything suffers.

That said, the path of hozhq/beauty is difficult for all to follow. The teeming multiplicity of creation, with every twist and turn, is perpetually subject to hochq/disorder. It is by learning the hidden knowledge of the Diyin Dine’e that harmony is restored. It is through the sacred chants, set in motion by the breath and carried upon the wind that the landscape and everything, including the Navajo themselves, can be transformed in beauty. It was Changing Woman herself that gave the First People the ceremony called the Blessingway, which is the backbone, or corn plant, that branches outwards into all other ceremonies. In the mythic age, heroes set out and travelled to (and beyond) the sacred boundaries of the world. Along the way they transgressed, their actions giving birth to hochq. In their suffering, the Holy People appeared and taught them the sacred chants, restoring them to health. Upon their return, the heroes shared this knowledge with all the people, before returning to dwell with the holy ones forever. It is with this knowledge that all things can be shaped and changed. It is true that the one who learns such knowledge becomes more like the diyin dine’e, and for this purpose the Navajo live, ever travelling the beautiful path of life from birth to death.

Who else is Participating in the Mythology Synchroblog

This post is one of many synchronous posts of the theme of mytholgy and landcape. Check them out…

• The Aquila ka Hecate (King and the Land are One)
• A. Venefica’s Weblog (Symbolic Landscapes of the Norse Mythology)
• Between Old and New Moons (Chanting the Landscape)
• Paleothea - Sing, Goddess… (Ge, Gaia, Gaie: Earth)
• Mythphile (Atlantis: Myth and Legend)
• Quaker Pagan Reflections (Gone Away)
• Pitch313 (Transcendental Experience Out Of Doors Opens The Gateway To Magic )
• the dance of the elements (landscape and mythology)
• Executive Pagan (Nature and Me)
• Druid’s Apprentice (Landscape Synchroblogging)
• Manzanita, Redwoods and Laurel (The Importance of Local Landscapes)
• Druid Journal (Merry Meetings: Guest Post on the Meet a Guide Meditation)

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