We were awaiting the arrival of Ravis Henry, a Navajo storyteller and knowledge holder. Belonging to the Towering House Clan, born for the Coyote Pass Jemez Clan, he would be sharing with us a slice of the traditional knowledge of his people. Ravis had traveled that afternoon from his home in the Canyon de Chelly region of northeastern Arizona, and the length of his journey and the need to set up camp before darkness descended had delayed the program's start time.
At least that's the way it looked on the clockface. However, I can think of no better introduction for a talk on the indigenous view of the interconnectedness of life than to sit still and be surrounded by and immersed within that life. I was likely not the only one who felt this. Most of the two dozen or so people in attendance waited in silence. There was no delay, it seems. Steeping in the beauty of All That Is was the start of the presentation itself.
And yet, though it seemed impossible to top the opening the natural world had provided, Ravis chose a dazzling way to begin his talk. For the first few minutes, he spoke exclusively in the wildly beautiful and evocative language of his people. While it was, of course, important that Ravis then went back to translate his words into English, either verbatim or in a rough approximation, having those sounds flow about us in that setting provided an experiential teaching of its own.
Neuroscientists tell us that much of our communication occurs on levels beyond the rational. Perhaps that is why, unable to make literal sense of his words, I was instead pulled by them more deeply into a profoundly palpable and numinous space. I'm not sure. What I do know is that I was moved. And it didn't end there.
Thinking back on it now, what stands out most strongly for me from that point on was the way Ravis translated the first Navajo word he spoke. "Yá'át'ééh," he told us, "is usually translated as hello in English, but to our people it is so much bigger than that."
He explained that Yá refers to all that exists above the Earth. It is the air that moves with the breeze and buoys the birds that fly there, the Sun that lights our world, and the untold number of stars that draw us into deep space. One small syllable to encapsulate all that. "Yá," Ravis said, " is Father Sky." It is, though, just one half of the traditional greeting.
"The rest of the greeting," Ravis explains, "is át'ééh, which means Mother Earth and includes all the beings that live upon her." The innumerable species of flora and fauna, from the grandest to the most tiny, are all held in át'ééh. "And so every time we greet one another," Ravis concluded, "all of this we honor by saying yá'át'ééh."
He then, though, made a gesture that again added something special to the words just spoken. Ravis held one hand, the Father Sky hand, cupped above, palm facing down, and the Mother Earth hand curved below, palm facing up. He then brought them gently together as he repeated Yá'át'ééh. "And it is in the space between Yá and át'ééh that we live," he said, "We are known as the five-fingered spiritual beings," a term he later told me referred both to the Navajo people and, by extension, to all humans.
I sit now at my keyboard visualizing the space between the cupped hands of this Navajo teacher. It is one of those strong images that are worth many words, the meeting place of Father Sky and Mother Earth. It is the space in which we live and have our being, held not apart from All That Is, but thoroughly entwined within it and held by it. And I feel myself there now. And you are with me.
And I think how helpful it would be for us to always greet one another in such a way, a way that reminds us of our place within the beauty of the whole. And I go on a quick google expedition to see if, perhaps, our own "hello" might suffice. Unfortunately, my initial guess was in error. I had thought that hello might share the same root as the word hallow, which means "to make holy" or "to sanctify." Alas, it is not so. But no matter. I have decided that it shall be that for me from now on.
Similar to the Sanskrit word namasté, when I say hello to another, I will let it hallow the interactional space we both inhabit. Or rather, I will let it remind me that that space is already hallowed, the meeting place of Father Sky and Mother Earth.
You are there with me now. Yá'át'ééh, my five-fingered spiritual friend. Yá'át'ééh.
Leia
If you would like to contact Ravis for any reason, including about his work as a Park Ranger for Canyon de Chelly National Monument or for information on his traditional and quite beautiful jewelry (he is a skilled silversmith as well!), he can be reached at Ravis.Henry@gmail.com.
