Tag: #Navajo

Posted on

A Senior Citizen Returns to Navajoland

The author in her youth, sitting in the shade in Canyon de Chelly, Navajoland
Me, age 20 something, resting in the shade in Canyon de Chelly, Navajoland, 1980

After graduating from Vassar College in 1975 with a degree in Sociology, I moved to a village on the Navajo Nation outside of Gallup, New Mexico to teach at an elementary school. After leaving the village, I moved around New Mexico and Arizona, always remaining within day-trip distance from Navajoland and its sacred spaces, for several years more.

During my itinerant time in the Southwest, I was an editor at a regional press, a contributor to a curriculum project led by Gloria Emerson for Navajo Nation elementary schools, and an employee of a marginally dubious publishing brainchild of Forrest Fenn (of recent “Fenn Treasure” fame).

I reluctantly but abruptly left the region in 1982 to head back East. But Navajoland, and the Navajo people who’ve called it home for over 1000 years, have remained my muses to this day. I’ve written about the region (published a “Santa Fe” novel back in the day), but in my elder years, I find myself focussing on Navajoland and its people, who first inspired me to take pen to paper.

Nearing the age of 65 in the spring of 2018,  I travelled to Navajoland to reconnect with old Navajo friends and old feelings about what I have come to understand is as this Jewish American girl’s Jerusalem. It is in this parched yet glorious part of the United States where I am touched by an eternal landscape that breathes its ancient power, where I am touched by the Navajo people who  continue to live up to its challenge and strive to reflect its holiness.

Petroglyphs on a sunlit rock in Canyon de Chelly, Navajoland
The rocks tell their stories

A confession:  I am a privileged visitor who can bask in the sacred spaces of Navajoland,  physically and psychically, at my pleasure.  But Diné, the Navajo people, struggle to maintain balance, harmony, and beauty, the Navajo ideal of sa’ah naaghai bik’eh hozho (long life happiness) in their parched homeland.

The Navajo are plagued with diseases relatively new to them, like cancer and diabetes, from their uranium mining past and the drastic lifestyle changes of today. There is little for their livestock to eat, little opportunity to see beyond a day to day struggle. 

I write now in prayer and love and hope that the beautiful and indeed holy Navajo people can dwell in sa’ah naaghai bik’eh hozho far into the future.

The author on horseback today, in Monument Valley, Navajoland
In Monument Valley, 2018, reconnecting . . .
Posted on

Cortez, CO: A Town Blossoms with No Trees on Main Street

Main Street in Cortez, CO
Cortez, CO, where food and company make up for missing trees

We were sitting on worn leather benches at Gustavos, the best Mexican restaurant in Cortez, Colorado. Sonja Horoshko–artist, activist and journalist–was explaining why the Cortez city council was cutting down the trees along the sidewalks of the town’s two blocks of business district on Main Street.

“One tree caused stress on a building as the roots grew under the sidewalk, so the city cuts down all the trees on the block. But there has to be another solution besides cutting down the trees, right?” she said, nearly pleading, over dinner.

Later, while Sonja and my friend and Sonja’s partner, Ed Singer–artist and activist and onetime Navajo political figure–feasted with us on Gustavo’s great dishes, the conversation turned to the topic of a wind farm that had once been in development in Gray Mountain near Cameron on the Navajo Reservation in Arizona.

About ten years ago, when Ed was president of the Cameron Chapter (governing body of his home community), he had gone into head-to-head battle with Joseph Kennedy II. A wind farm project approved by the community that had elected Ed Singer to lead them was well on its way to fruition. But then young Joe Kennedy, armed with a big check from which Ed’s people in Cameron would gain a pittance, landed in Window Rock (the Navajo Nation capital) to work a separate deal with the Navajo central government.

I’d read the articles that covered the ensuing scandal, which was ugly, and which revealed Kennedy as something of a spoiled brat. Kennedy, who’d played up to Joe Shirley (President of the Navajo Nation at the time),  flew to Cameron in his private plane. He fed the Cameron community helpings of stew and fry bread. Then, in the course of trying to convince the gathered audience that his Citizen’s Energy Corporation was better than the company they themselves had chosen to build their wind farm, Kennedy degenerated into chastising his listeners for questioning his good will.

That was back in 2008. The wind farm project was stymied by the dispute. As of now, there is still no wind farm in Gray Mountain.

Ed Singer moved to Cortez, where he now lives with Sonja and paints.

Bare and bleak on the surface, Cortez, gateway to Mesa Verde, hosts artists like Ed and Sonja, who gather in restaurants that serve great food suggesting that something delicious is happening behind closed doors of a town that can be missed in the blink of an eye. One restaurant, Once Upon a Sandwich, does double duty as Ed Singer’s gallery. The owner opened for us early so we could have a showing before we hit the road.

The works that sparkle from the restaurant walls are filled with humor, vibrancy and metaphor. Ed’s latest work, not yet shown, has turned a bit angrier in step with the mood in the country overall.

Painting of Navajo cowboy by Navajo artist Ed Singer
“French Postcard” by Ed Singer at Once Upon a Sandwich in Cortez, CO

Ed and Sonja hosted us for Easter dinner, which was delightfully informal, with folks coming and going, a small, cheerful home filled to the brim with animated conversation and laughter. An archaeologist from Zuni Pueblo, a contractor and overall right hand to one and all from Princeton, New Jersey, Sonja and Ed, and all of us, had many tales to tell.

Main Street in Cortez may be losing its trees, but, weeks away from the start of tourist season, the pulse at its core is alive and well.

The author and Navajo artist Ed Singer
Saying goodbye to Ed Singer and Cortez