Our 'rituals' - Personal Adornment

Navajo elder in New Mexico
Photo by Venaya Yazzie 2015
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Everyone has a ritual. The choices we make on a daily basis have become so ingrained that many times we do not fully acknowledge the 'beauty' of our personal rituals.

As a college student in the late 1990s I attended a two-day Journalism workshop in Phoenix AZ at the Arizona State University campus. It was at this time that I met a Native journalist who spoke about our 'human rituals' and how they are the way we as humans created these 'survival' mechanisms as a way to life a fulfilled life. This conversation was powerful for me and I have kept it in my mind for many years, and I really feel it has thus led me to this point concerning 'INDIGENOUS ADORNMENT.'

As I have mentioned as previously, I was raised in the company of my Navajo matriarchs. As a small female child I watched them in their daily cultural 'rituals' whether it was in cooking the family meal, tending to the fire, maintaining the sheep corral, or spinning wool, my matriarchs unconsciously taught me about the ways of being a Navajo woman.

The memory of my great-grandmother Louise are still very strong in my mind. I can still see her smile and the way her almond shaped eyes curved on the outer edges. It is she who said we as Navajo women should never let our arms be 'bare of turquoise or silver' that we should always wear jewelry.

As an adult I now care for my maternal grandmother (pictured above) and I am blessed to have her in my life and see how she is perpetuating the Navajo 'beautyway' by making daily choices to 'adorn' herself with the beautiful blue stones of turquoise.

So, next time you look at your reflection, time travel to a place were you were a part of the human 'ritual' of adornment, or of a way of living that would prove a positive, blessed outcome.