issue 10: To Walk in Beauty
It may evoke the image of a pleasant jaunt through a pastoral landscape though, in the traditional Diné (Navajo) teachings from where this expression comes to us, To Walk in Beauty is a commitment to personal integrity as one journeys through a vast terrain of lived experience both brutal and beautiful.
To Walk in Beauty, or Hózhó Naashá, is a concept central to the traditional worldview of the Diné. This worldview is spiritually-based though is not a religion but a holistic Science of Life within the Natural Order. The Beauty Way, or Yellow Corn Pollen Path, is accessed through the Path of the Rainbow which serves as the threshold to an initiatory journey. It represents one of two paths we can take in this life: one is a life-affirming path of truth, beauty and goodness based in personal integrity and oriented towards service to all; the other is a path of deception, delusion and wanton destruction oriented towards service to self. In the Beauty Way of the Yellow Corn Pollen Path, fundamental values are not subjective nor are the paths many. Should one go astray, it can be very difficult to return to the Beauty Way though, as that epic song goes, Yes, there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run, there's still time to change the road you're on. The way back to the path of integrity is through acknowledging where we went wrong and making our way back through a steadfast commitment to right action.
The Yellow Corn Pollen Path emphasizes the fertile, alive, regenerative and ever-evolving nature of life as represented by pollen. Pollen is absolutely everywhere in this world—the air, the water, the soil and in every living creature. As such, it represents an ever-present accessibility to an abundant aliveness within all things. In The Corn Pollen Prayer, a pinch of corn pollen is first sprinkled on the swirl of hair at the top of the head where the soul is said to enter the body reminding us that we are of another world, merely sojourners in this strange land. Then, placing a pinch on the tongue, we indicate our willingness to take in that fertile and regenerative aliveness all around us as nourishment. Sprinkling the last pinch before us to the east with the rising sun indicates our commitment to a new day dedicated to the good and right living way of The Yellow Corn Pollen Path.
Embarking on The Yellow Corn Pollen journey we will inevitably be met with great challenges that test our mettle and we will face difficult choices that test our discernment and commitment to truth. We can expect to encounter helpful friends and nasty foes, immense beauty and terrible ugliness. There will even be beneficent and maleficent “holy people” intervening on occasion to guide us toward or away from our right path. We may get confused along the way as to which direction will take us to where we ultimately wish to be. We may fall into a deep sleep as we draw nearer to our destination, be targeted by covetous witches and their flying monkeys or deceived by faux wizards…
I may have wandered just a bit from the corn pollen path, though this all sounds strangely familiar, does it not (even the part about arriving in this strange world via a spiraling vortex from above... )? As with all myths, the themes and characters represent archetypes that we live as and among in our own personal and shared myths of our lives. Whether we’re speaking of our journeys on the The Yellow Corn Pollen Path or the Yellow Brick Road or the Winding Road of the particular journey we find ourselves, these epic adventures all point to a process of personal and shared evolution. Like the Tin Man, we may be seeking the ability to give and receive more love and compassion… or like Scarecrow, greater discernment and mental aptitude for developing creative solutions… or, like the Cowardly Lion, we may huff and puff until we find ourselves in situations in which our true courage is called forth from within.
Of course, let us not forget our brilliant rainbow (pictured above) that comes to us as a blessing from the Holy People who are rooting for us from somewhere over that rainbow. They send us the rainbow as an open line of connection and a representation of all our hue-man colors joined together. It’s appearance in the east (as in The Corn Pollen Prayer) directs our attention towards a new journey based in the life-affirming Beauty Way to restore and maintain balance, harmony, order and beauty in all aspects of life both here and beyond.
The powerful symbolism of this brilliant full rainbow is a reminder that, even within the mundaneness and often harshness of this crazy trip we call life on earth, magic, awe and wonder abound. Hopefully we see also that our very willingness to travel the Beauty Way path can set us on the right course and our commitment to remain on that path as best we can, no matter how discouraging it may sometimes be, will ultimately bring us to that which we most long for, that which existed within us and was possible all along though had to be discovered and uncovered through our commitment to the right and honorable way of Beauty.
To Walk in Beauty is quite the epic adventure. It is fraught with challenges though the rewards are immense. Like Dorothy and friends, may we choose this path together, to lighten our shared burdens and lift one another up towards all our greater potentials along the way.
In Truth, Beauty and Goodness,
B. Monique
Find the full issue 10: To Walk in Beauty newsletter here.
