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Hozho and Ke
Our insightful Navajo Outreach Coordinator, Jinaabah Showa, has shared some important words based on her Navajo traditions:
We have teaching to turn to in times of need. First, we have hozho -- being in balance, being in beauty with all the things around and inside of us. On the other hand, we have ke -- our relations, the relationships that we have with each other and how we relate to each other. Both of these ideas are the foundation of Navajo wellbeing.
Today, when we have the pandemic disrupting and influencing our lives and communities, it is evident that things are not hozho. When we are lacking in hozho, we must turn to our other teaching to center us and bring us back to hozho. We must turn to ke, to our relations, the people we love, and our communities to find healing and care. In a phone call to a distant relative in another state, in a short email to a teacher, in a card game with your home-isolation relatives, we can strengthen ourselves and make resilient our ties with each other. There we will find hope, grounding, and, with luck, new jokes.
These teachings are not new, we are just remembering that our Navajo teachings contain the wisdom we need to carry us through uncertain times.
--Jinaabah Showa
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