Along with welcoming in the heat of summer after a very long and dramatic winter, we have much to hope for and celebrate.
An event that holds the greatest hope for us is the graduation of our youths. I wish you all the best as you enter the “real” world, the world where you are the captain of your own ship. As you venture forth, just know whatever the outcome, it is mostly in your very capable hands.
I never experienced that cap-and-gown walk with my fellow graduating class of ’74. I quietly earned a GED later that year, so I did not hear those words of wisdom delivered. I got out of school in this manner because being a smart kid in a conventional school didn’t work for me. I remember being asked to leave each year a month before school let out. Maybe it was the chip on my shoulder that weighed me down, perhaps it was a short attention span. In hindsight, I realize there are things I should have been more focused on and better prioritized. I guess I just began my summer break a month or so earlier than everyone else.
But my English and art teachers at Monument Valley High School saw something special in me. So with little effort on my part, they helped me enter the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, N.M. This was one of those choices and transitions that I am grateful for to this day. I was willing to settle for any job, be it pumping gas, working for the BIA school in some lower capacity, or if I was lucky, a job with Peabody Coal Mine. That was the extent of my dream. I am thankful to Mr. Belone and Ms. Freeman whose insights led me to find a path. Listening to that inner voice as well as the audible caring ones was essential. I now know that had I not listened to that tiny voice, I might have settled for a job that would have destroyed me and the land.
My father’s advice to me was to stay strong through my connection with the earth and always know where my umbilical cord is buried. When I go home today, even before I settle in, I am asked if I have seen the sheep on my way in. Most times I do not. In a way this is the question that guided me. Where is your responsibility today and how are you tendering it? It is the wisest and strongest sheepherder that sees his flock grow from a few heads to a healthy pen full. We were always sent out into the world expected to honor and protect our community, our family and, of course, our hearth. This is why the elders often refer to the earned diplomas as “presentation of sheepskin.” I have found that honing my social skills and a command of the language earns respect coupled with compassion.
My few words for you are these: Journey these paths with full consciousness, calculating risks and taking leaps of faith. Always work to connect communities. See the world and its inhabitants as your extended family. The energy that you release into the universe is what you get back. But throw fear into your path and that is what is reciprocated. Know you are armored with faith in your fellow travelers as they are in you. Wear your heart on your sleeve, while always cherishing and protecting it.
To my Navajo graduates, I urge you to travel out beyond the four sacred mountains and look back in on your own people and culture. Hold your heads high, and never let anyone or anything put you down. Yet stay humble. Keep dusting off your wings and flying again. Know the Hero Twins stories. They will take you far. In all honesty, you are indeed our very special hope.
Congratulations to all, to my niece Marietta, to my young friend and charge Christopher. Go and journey far towards your dreams … and especially Zeno, the world’s child. Bring on your light.
