We are everywhere, all the time(s)

Editing note: I wrote this post during the solstice, but was then hit with a mixture of writer’s block, maladjustment to Day Light Savings Time and darker days.  

What follows is an edited version, but I didn’t change it much for prosperity I suppose. 

The solstice is upon us and I see frozen snow on the ground pocked with tracks made by critters still gathering what they can.  

This time of year I like to cozy up with a story.  I’m revisiting stories related to Diné Bahané’ our Emergence Story.  And phew, nádleehí folks are everywhere in the story/stories.  EVERYWHERE.  

We are there at the very beginnings of the human, or earth-surface people.  The stories put us at the center of important decisionmaking.  Decisions that would ultimately help Diné as a people to survive into perpetuity.  I donʼt know about you, but there’s something about nádleehí taking care of their people and their future. Future-thinking nádleehí for the win, eh?  Yes.  Everytime for all time, you best believe.  We’ve been doing it and we will do it. 

I share these vignettes with you for a reason: teaching yes, but most importantly I want us to practice remembering who the heck we (and by we I mean 2SLGBTQIA Diné) are…And I come to the stories with questions, I come to the stories to find meaning in them, teachings and instructions for the ʼhow-toʼ of world-building.  And itʼs just so darn nice to know people like me (dilbaa/nádleehí) have been participating in Diné life for all time.  I can count myself and many other Diné dilbaa/nádleehí baddies who existed and paved the way for me and others like me today.  Thatʼs cool given that we were not supposed to survive the apocalypse of colonization.  And survival was not easy, still isnʼt.  

Why is this important…that is a question.  One I am still considering now, it’s important for many reasons, one being proof.  Proof our ability and capacity to build something different from a world we are currently experiencing where we cannot carry on our lives free from oppression.  To live out who we are supposed to be in our communities.  This is also why I am understanding more and more that ceremony remains an important knowledge to have, that’s how we heal.  How we rebuild.  Ceremonies are intricate in their execution and in the stories and lessons and songs and poetry contained in them–they are how I learned about dilbaa/nádleehí.  Without even trying, ceremonies rebuild and connect with us when they need us.  Whatʼs more powerful than that?   

This all connects, remember when I posted about Hastiin Klah the nádleehí medicine “man”, well, not only did Klah learn a whole slew of ceremonies (learning and memorizing even one ceremony requires proficiency in ceremonial language and a photographic memory, were they even real?) was just like me.  Klah shows us a way we can be, we can pick up right where he left off.  We all can’t be medicine “men” like Klah, but we can learn the lessons embedded in ceremonial stories by learning the ceremony via Klah while we learn about ways to be nádleehí today and into the future. 

Learning, of course, is a long process (if you’re not Hastiin Klah) so I will journey forth into learning the stories.  And of course, manifesting does not stop, that keeps up as we learn more and more.  Thank you again and again for your readership!  Please comment and/or post any questions you have, I’d love to engage with you all!