Tag Archives: Navajo and Hopi Nations

Sheets of Water and A Praying Angel

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Community, impediments, Inspiration, Matters of Faith, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Spiritual, Striving, Travel

August 7, 2024- The line of cars on the side of the road started on I-17, a half-mile before the exit ramp. It continued along the exit ramp, then stretched for about three-quarters of a mile on Highway 169. The rain was that intense.

I briefly pulled off and joined them, using the time to check my phone messages. after ten minutes, the rain let up enough so that several of us could see ahead and so continued our drives towards Prescott. In the sky, at the junction of Highways 69 and 169, we could see a cloud that resembled a praying angel, superimposed on the sheet of nimbostratus that stretched ten miles westward and off to the south.

Several people on social media have covered cloud art very well. I like to think that there is something spiritual about how clouds can be seen as reflecting phenomena, or emotions. I have yet to see a heart-shaped cloud, but others have seen them. This is the first time I’ve seen what appears to be a supernatural being. I also spotted a heart-shaped drop of coffee, on the table at breakfast, this morning, but I probably put it there.

Still, these phenomena, especially the hearts, indicate to me that the day will pass in a safe and interesting manner. All I have to do is…. everything else: Pay attention to my surroundings, treat people well and respond in an effective, measured way to those who don’t, and tend to my responsibilities. The praying angel appeared just as the rain was letting up, and I drove the rest of the way back to Home Base I, before the westward moving cloud caught up with me.

It was a decent little visit to the Reservations, though I saw few of those who I had wanted to see, but it’s a workday, and it is gratifying that people have jobs to tend to. When I lived up there, many more were unemployed than now. I placed flower vases on two grave sites, just not the ones I had originally intended. The right thing always happens, though, when life is approached with unconditional love.

Fierce

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Posted by on in Assistance, children, collaborating, Community, distraction issues, Family, impediments, Inspiration, Matters of Faith, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Spiritual, Striving, Travel

August 6, 2024, Holbrook, AZ- The little girl peeked out, from behind the screen door, as I was speaking with her grandmother, on the family’s porch. She quickly figured I was no threat and came outside smiling, with a hint of mischief on her face. Her t-shirt said “Fierce”, and that is how I remember her mother, who is away on personal business, when she was a child. The present child began to emulate a tiger kitten and paw at the air, with a mini-hiss. In time, and with her family’s continued guidance, she will be fierce-in a good way, the way her mother, at her best, has been.

This was a day spent under a sometimes ferocious sun, looking for gravesites that were not catalogued or mapped-and dependent only on the memory of a mutual friend to me and the decedents. In the end, I did not find either resting place, leaving one flower vase at the lonely, unattended grave of a combat veteran (Afghanistan, 2015) and keeping the other for placement tomorrow, at the tomb of a friend who died nearly forty years ago. It was hot and dusty, at both cemeteries, and I noted both well-kept, love-saturated gravesites and untended, often unmarked, plots, often next to one another. Wind and wild animals have taken their tolls.

I see ferocity as something that is rising, in the life of the world-both good (self-affirmation and love for others) and ill (self-aggrandizement and disdain for those who are different). I see once good-hearted and loving people turn sour and hateful, and I wonder what happened in their lives to make bitterness so appealing. My own life has had its share of trouble an disappointment- but much of that came from my own doing, and the part that wasn’t my fault was shared with a good many other people. I am fortunate to have been raised by sensible and loving parents, in a large extended family and in a close-knot neighbourhood, where any given child was “raised by the village”.

I drove across the Navajo and Hopi Reservations, as the ferocious sun was supplanted by monsoon rain. It was raining, as I left the second cemetery, stopped by the house mentioned above and while I stopped for dinner, at Keams Canyon Cafe, where I had many a meal during my residence in the area, in the mid and late ’90s. It was raining again, when I got here to the Motel 6, chosen after I noted that Keams Canyon Motel had been razed, since I was there last.

The world is fierce, in nature and in everyday life. Let us be equal in ferocity, in the best sense of that word.

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The Road to 65, Mile 270: Esperanza

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Posted by on in Assistance, Personal goals, Social

August 25, 2015, Chino Valley- This part of August has often hung heavy on me, both weather-wise and emotionally.  This year, things are a tad different.  I have taken sage advice, from three of the people I trust the most in this world, and have set aside my own apprehension about one of the two most important people in my life.  She will be fine.

Today was the second of four days, working with a varied and somewhat troubled group of youth.  Time was, when I thought I had NO IDEA how to reach out to adolescents, and hung back, accordingly.  The time I spent as a counselor, on the Navajo and Hopi Nations, helped mightily in that regard.  Both the bonds I developed, and the criticism I got from others, worked to help my sense of proactivity, in helping all young folks.  Then, too, raising a child through turbulence smoothed many of my own rough edges.

The past two days have gone well enough, for me, and a fair amount of meaningful work has been accomplished.  Towards the end of the day, a student came in, sat down, and wept, in as private a manner as possible.  This is the human face of the whole immigration imbroglio.  It is too easy for those who “have theirs” to demand:  The Fence; the Military Force; No Dream; No Daylight.  There are those who are struggling, among the people who were born and raised among a long line of “True Americans”.  They are, quite often, being duped by the puppetmasters, who call for whatever it is they sense the public wants.  Demagogues have done this, across the globe and down the centuries, and so it goes.

The Fence will not end the struggles of those who look like me.  The young person who was surrounded by love in our classroom, this afternoon, has more than just immigration with which to contend.  There are the normal day-to-day matters of adolescence, which know no frontiers.  There are the hopes, the trust, and, yes, the dreams, which short-sighted people would squash.  Make no mistake:  This nation is not alone, in keeping up an “Us vs. Them” mentality.  The very nations, from which many new arrivals come, are themselves keepers of a draconian mindset, when it comes to “The Other”.  It is wrong, no matter where it is promulgated.

The young person left class today with some hope, esperanza.  I wish the same for any child or teen, anywhere.  There is so much to be done.