How do you let go?

 

My husband and I were ready to go. We were moving house and home from Santa Fe, New Mexico to Brisbane, Australia. We’d sold the house, dispatched or stored our possessions, and said goodbye to everyone. But there was one thing left to take care of. Actually eighteen things. I still had a large basket of ceremonial fire lighters, beautifully carved pieces of wood which had been used in every Native American Church ceremony I’d sponsored since I began this Navajo journey over thirty years ago.

They were important to me. These lighters were used in the first Full Moon ceremony I conducted as a nahalahi, (medicine woman), and in seventeen other ceremonies where I’d prayed for a good marriage, a good birth, protection for my family, my hopes and dreams for the future. These lighters represented my own personal ceremonies, and that’s why I had kept them. They had lit the prayer smokes of every single person in those ceremonies, all those people who had prayed with me, for me, and also for their own lives. Those eighteen pieces of wood were infused with their prayers, hundreds of them, which had given me strength throughout the years. They also held my memories, and it was bittersweet to let them go.

But what do I do with them? I can’t take them to Australia. Don’t want to lock them up in storage, or heaven forbid, throw them in the trash. I considered burning them in our fireplace on our final night in Santa Fe, a fitting close to our seven years in that special place. But that didn’t feel quite right either. So I conferred with my Navajo relatives and we all agreed. Those lighters came from ceremony, so they must be returned to the earth in ceremony.

After phone calls and arrangements were made, our first stop driving west out of Santa Fe, New Mexico was to the Navajo Reservation where a respected Navajo medicine man did a private prayer for us at his home in Dilkon, Arizona. Three diné relatives joined us in support as the fire lighters burned, their ashes returned to the earth with prayers of thanksgiving for all they had contributed.

The medicine man blessed us with sacred stories and prayers of protection for our long journey ahead. He prayed for the changes in air, light, moisture, and elevation we would encounter as we made our way across the mountains and desert to the bitter waters of the Pacific Ocean in the west. I received a new fire lighter, made with care for our new home in Australia, something from this land to symbolically light our way and help us begin again in our new homeland. Throughout the process of unravelling my life here, I have felt so emotional leaving my beloved Navajo relatives and sacred lands behind, wondering if I would be able to maintain my connection to it all on the other side of the world. And I would also be leaving my maternal relatives in Arizona, Texas, Arkansas, and Virginia, and Tom’s relatives scattered across the country.

When the last ashes were cooling and the ceremony was complete, we shook the hands of the medicine man and his wife and thanked him for their prayers and stories. It was a beautiful experience and just what I needed. We hugged our relatives one more time at the curb before we all climbed into our vehicles. And as we drove away, my husband and I heading west into our new lives, I felt relieved, deeply reconnected to ceremony, complete with the past, and very blessed. I can go on now, taking those new prayers with us to wherever our path may lead. Thank you to all my Navajo relatives who continue to show kindness and love, and who gave us such a beautiful send-off.

Hózhó nahasdlii.  It is in Beauty.

 

Alfred Yazzie, Dianna John, Vircynthia “Cia” Yazzie, Emerson John, Dennis Manuelito, Brenda Beck, with Thomas Wohlmut behind the camera.

 

 

 

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