There are many mysteries I grew up with that remain a mystery. I welcome that. As in the new world I am thrust into, the mysteries of technologies and beliefs in guidance from different gods. I welcome that. I do not know how cell phones and computers work from such a small format. Halloween and Santa Claus: mysteries. I do not know much of what is in nature, such as what keeps millions of tons of moisture above our heads in these fantastic summer thunderheads. How nature works and all that maintains life has always been explained to me through the creation stories and through the voices, songs and the antics of animal kin. My forebears passed those on as tenets of living life as Dineh’.
Some may call it taboo; some are explained as common and rational senses. We let the mysteries be. They spice up the experiences of our lives. It is the deep light in my grandfather’s eyes as he clears his throat to delve into how to treat and associate with those unknowns. Much of what we encounter as mysteries are our moments peeking into that other dimension. There is much more life and conscience in our world than what we credit. The land is alive. The water has a voice and the fire senses. Lightning is the most powerful entity that brings on fear and hope simultaneously. We tread very lightly and with reverence during its dance within the draping, dark rain clouds.
In the summer of 1989, it rained little and required us to haul water twice a week from Kayenta to our sheep camp in Shonto. This was the chore I knew much of. The drought parched the land and the throats of our livestock. We hauled water 25 miles on blacktop and then four more miles on a series of dirt roads to our sheep camp. Water is Life.
On that June day, my daughter, Enei, and I filled two 55-gallon barrels from our hose at the Public Health housing in K-town. It took both of us to scoot the barrels into place. She was 11 at the time. The truck bed was wet and slippery from all the spills. We secured the barrels and drove out that afternoon. We laughed and talked along the way—times with kids are always teachable opportunities.
We got off the highway at milepost 370 and started negotiating our way through rough and uneven road; past the skinny cows at the windmill and dust devils announcing their presence out on the clay field. We went through sagebrush flat and emerged at the first of several undulating sand dunes where you do not slow down or you get bogged down into that hot sand. There is a significant dip where the rainwater flows during rain seasons.
We crossed that dip and in doing so, the barrels tumbled over. I pulled off on harder ground, and we both got out to lift them back up. With all the strength we could muster, we nearly flipped the barrel over the cab of the truck. They were both empty. We shook them upside down and not a drop came out. Whoooa! What the … ? Not a sign of leakage, and the truck bed was dry as the sand dunes. We looked at one another and asked the same question: Did we not fill them?
We drove the rest of the way questioning the mystery. At the sheep camp, my mother and my father advised a N’dinii’, (hand-trembling ceremony)—a traditional means of diagnosing illnesses—to find out where the water went. With my parents, we consulted a medicine man on Black Mesa and he performed a vision ritual. Afterward, as we leaned in for an answer, the medicine man took his time, cleared his throat and looked deep into me. “You have taken something from Lightning some time ago, signs have been given you, my son.” I thought on that and realized I had hauled a load of firewood I suspected may have been touched by lightning, though I had given it an offering. I remembered also a few weeks back when in my kitchen, one afternoon I went to wash the dishes and as I touched the faucet, electricity coursed through me as it held me just for a moment, and then it threw me against the far wall hard enough to make an impression in the paneling of the government housing. I remember being confused and traumatized as the electrician and plumber inspected the incident and left shaking their heads. “It is not possible,” they concluded. No other answer came forth and I chalked it off to a mystery I will let remain as it slowly receded into the background of my memory.
“This disappearance of water is just a way of evening out what you took. There is no further contact with you. Hozho’ Na’haas dlii. (Harmony is restored),” said the medicine man.
My association with lightning has always been a powerful one, and therefore I never paint its image without thinking hard upon it. That incident, I always place in the forefront of all the mysteries I grew up with: from the alleged presence of Ye’naal dlooshi’ (Skinwalker sorcery) to the great powers of medicine men and women who stand guard for us.
Nighttimes are the time of greater mysteries as we journey into dreams. We petition the gods of twilight with corn pollen and words. “Yee’ya’ tse’heyaago’ la’” (Yikes! you are putting your bedding upside down, your head toward the tail), my grandmother would say from her corner of the hogan as we prepared to slumber on our sheepskin beddings. My dreams would be confused and rush into nightmare if I slept toward the head, I was told. I will let some mysteries be. Peace.
