Meditations with the Navajo: Prayers, Songs, and Stories of Healing and Harmony

by Gerald Hausman, Richard Erdoes (Foreword)

A collection of stories, poems, and meditations that illuminate the spiritual world of the Navajo.

• Explores the Navajo's fundamental belief in the importance of harmony and balance in the world.

• Shares Navajo healing ways that have been handed down for generations.

• Includes meditations following each story or poem.

Navajo myths are among the most poetic in the world, full of dazzling word imagery. For the Navajo, who call themselves the Dine (literally, "the People"), the story of emergence--their creation myth--lies at the heart of their beliefs. In it, all the world is created together, both gods and human beings, embodying the idea that change comes from within rather than without. Poet and author Gerald Hausman collects this and other stories with meditations that together capture the essence of the Navajo people's way of life and their understanding of the world. Here are myths of the Holy People, of Changing Woman who teaches the People how to live, and of the trickster Coyote; stories of healings performed by stargazers and hand tremblers; and songs of love, marriage, homecoming, and growing old. These and the meditations that follow each story reveal a world--our world--that thrives only on harmony and balance and shares the Dine belief that the most important point on the circle that has no beginning or end is where we stand at the moment.

Genres: Spirituality

144 pages, Paperback

First published December 12, 1987

About the author

Gerald Andrews Hausman is a storyteller and award-winning author of books about Native America, animals, mythology, and West Indian culture. Hausman comes from a long line of storytellers and educators, and has published over seventy books for both children and adults.

Reviews

[Cuchillo Lope · Rating 2 out of 5]

When you’re Native people will make a lot of assumptions about you and sometimes give you odd gifts. This book is one of those assumptive gifts. A woman I worked with long ago gave it to me because it was a Navajo book and hey, I am Navajo! Match made! I finally got around to reading it and it makes sense why she had it.
This is such a “white persons” book about Navajos. It really leans into the mystical side of Native Americans and the author is definitely a guy who has just hung out with Navajos and decided to write not very good book on us.
While there is some interesting little tidbits. It’s hard not to see how this guy really tries to come off as some expert just because he spent some time on the Rez. It’s a bit annoying and found myself rolling my eyes quite a few times.
This is definitely a book you find in a new age shop that you would get for the person in your life who smudges and uses crystals.

[Chelsea Pretz · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not sure what I think of this book for story stories. I feel like this will be a book that I will listen to several times to get soak in the mediations. There are several, not every straight forward stories, but some every beautiful stories that paint old traditions into the present-day world. This is something I might update after more time and thought.