The Blessingway
by Patricia Anne Davis
To explain the blessing way, spiritual-cultural concepts are translated from the Dineh language into appropriate English descriptions to convey universal health and healing concepts from Dineh oral tradition.
Blessingway—hozhooji: a ceremony to awaken one to natural order (hozho); choosing constructive and life-affirming choices; healing from intentions and decisions that destroy oneself and others.
Navajo ceremonies do not require a conversion process of taking away the precious child within the natural order, and replacing this spiritual SELF-identity with a deficient self-image that has to be re-mediated to some desired end state of progress.
Once awakened to the natural order, we begin living the loving way—hozhooji: literal translation of the blessingway ceremony as translated by my paternal aunt. It is a way of living in reverent revolution, of making decisions that are constructive and life affirming.
Two main ceremonies: Protectionway and Blessingway
These two main ceremonies offer protection from contaminants like the maladaptive emotions of hate, jealousy, anger, guilt, fear, etc. and toxins from the environment.
Five major ceremonies: As five-fingered people, this corresponds to five major ceremonies that every child in the world could benefit by.
- Blessingway: the blessing way honors the divine feminine as a nurturer.
- Protectionway: divine masculine as a protector-provider.
- Purification and cleansing: numerous with specific names for specific purposes.
- Spiritual renewal: a nine-day ceremony for spiritual renewal.
- Journey to spirit world: the ceremony for a person on their journey to the spirit world.
The Journey Through the Four Worlds
The Navajo creation story speaks about the people traveling through four worlds into the current world from the place of emergence within the four sacred mountains. This represents the concept that there is one mother of us all because our body is composed of earth.
The word for mountain is the same word for spiritual strength. Every child is born through the water and through the birth canal. The element of fire is our temperature and we inhale and exhale with the creator’s holy breath. This air originates from the physical sun and radiates to the trees where we inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide.
The miracle of life that we call photosynthesis is what Navajos call the creator’s holy breath. We are instructed to use this holy breath for speaking living words that heal. This is why our medicine people are called “singers”. They sing a person back to balance, harmony with creator, themselves and others within the natural order.
The journey through the four worlds was required to restore balance and harmony from misusing life energy for destructive and death-producing choices. There is a consequence in violating the natural order. This is not punishment, condemnation or judgment, just consequence and a message to correct the out-of-balance life condition.
Dis-ease/Disease- *Wellbeing Continuum
Inverse Thinking System *Affirmative Thinking System
Deficient self image *Sacred-SELF intellect
Allopathic *Holographic holistic thinking
Abyss – Co-opt – Coping – *Healing Process – Curing –
All my work is translated from the Navajo/Dineh language and those italicized words notate that. The meaning and vibration is my way of keeping track of information in English while I exist, speak and write in the Dineh Affirmative thinking system. For an explanation of the terms above, please visit the glossary
Native American Concepts 