The River is Constant.

During this season I am in awe of the change that is happening on the land of the desert southwest. The Dine' term 'adornment' is set into constant motion in these frigid cold mornings and ice blue, clear skies. The desert is so very alive in the season of winter.

As an avid outdoor enthusiast I frequent the two rivers that flow through the town in which I dwell and make my home. I have been quoted as say I would like to return in a next life as a river. The river holds so many metaphors for life, but for me the river is female. The river is constant and perpetually in motion, everyday flowing for the desert to stay alive and nourished. I often sit at the banks of the Animas and San Juan River and breathe in the water, the moisture fills my lungs and I am made new again, and in a way healed again.

My Dine' people hold great reverance for these two rivers that flow through their ancestral homeland in the San Juan Valley of northwestern New Mexico. My Dine' people have used these two water resources for personal and ceremonial use, they have songs made for occasions such as these.
So you could say the rivers are the souls of my people: constant. The rivers here are a reminder of the great past of my nomadic, desert people.

I had the blessing of visiting the San Juan River near the Four Corners area of the U.S. this month. What I found was a river alive with sacred sounds of ice clinking against the frozen banks of desert snow and sand. The river there was strong and was singing her witner song. I stood in awe visually of the beauty as the white ice contrasted against the deep red of the canyon walls, and I was silenced by the deep songs of the river as if flowed strong to the Pacific waters.  The river that days humbled me and calmed my spirit and aided in healing my heart.

As you move from space to space this season stop and pay reverance to the rivers of your homelands for they are the life blood of our world. Like Langston Hughes said, "..the rivers run deep like my soul." You will surely  be blessed.

Blessings.