Hozho – Lisa Z. Lindahl

Hozho of the Navajo:

A definitively beauty-centric culture is that of the Navajo, or the Diné (meaning “the people” as they refer to themselves). It is guided by a fundamental principle of “hozho,” which embodies a pervasive philosophy of integrated balance, order, harmony and well-being.

Difficult to fully translate into English, hozho is at the core of the Navajo essence. It is a sense of elemental rightness that is central to their way of living. Hozho is a multilayered concept; meaning a state of harmony and beauty, truth and balance. I believe that the state of being Hozho is to be at one with all in the universe.

Soni Pitts puts it well in her ezine:

“To be in hozho is to be at one with and a part of your environment and the world around you in such a way that the notes of your life complement and resonate with the symphony of life all around you. You neither pitch above nor below the thrumming chords of the Universe, but yet at the same time your melody stands on its own merits and is heard with utter clarity – pure in tone and pitch and strength, singular yet subsumed in the whole. (Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/3603)

Then, in his book, Six Names of Beauty, Crispin Sartwell names “hozho” the most comprehensive concept of Beauty:

“It [hozho] refers above all to the world when it is flourishing; it refers to the community, flourishing in the world; it refers to things we make, which flourish and play a role in the flourishing of other things; and it refers to ourselves, flourishing as makers, as people inhabiting a community that inhabits a world. It is a word for the oneness of all things when they are joined together in a wholesome state.”

OK, one more quote — as this is my most favorite…In this culture of hozho a person’s wealth was measured by what he or she created, specifically the number of songs created, according to one source. The arts, their practice and sharing are integral to every aspect of Navajo culture. So Sartwell goes on — and here is my favorite:

“…this integration of values and activities is simply an expression of the universal fact that human beings are connected to environments and to each other: it makes explicit an integrated system no one can evade. That is, hozho is a Navajo concept, but a cross-cultural truth…. Hozho has many things to teach, but it teaches first that beauty is one thing: everything.”

Now that is exactly so: True Beauty is “one thing: everything.” And with an ethos like that… sounds like a civilization I would be most happy to live in!

I do not know if the Diné acknowledge a specific consciousness state of Hozho, but when I was a small child, maybe four?, I had an intense experience of what I now imagine achieving such a state might feel like; it is a consciousness of being one with and of the universe. I was standing outside on a second-story balcony looking at tree leaves moving in the breeze. A blue jay was calling. A plane droned above. The morning sun was shining. All at once I felt no “I”. For clarity’s sake I will say: “I” was all and all was me. I was at one with the universe around me. The moment I became aware of this phenomenon it began to end.

And it occurred again, around the same age. This time I was standing outside on the ground and holding my father’s hand. We were in a field, perhaps a cemetary, or something that had scattered monuments. There were no other people around. Again it was sunny and the sky was very blue. On a distant pole a flag whipped in a strong breeze. It was quiet. I think another plane might have gone by overhead. The universe and “I” melded together.

These were two of the most powerful and influential life experiences I’ve had so far…

And truly, this concept of Hozho is the kernel of The Way of Beauty. It is the seed from the heritage plant for the new cultural paradigm I am touting, one that we must plant in the compost of our decaying culture in order to reap the sustainable true beauty of justice, harmony and balance of continual creation.

Joseph Campbell, a great voice for the mythic in humankind, reminds us repeatedly in his various lectures that our Judeo-Christian culture is one of the few that has separated itself so thoroughly from Nature, its beauty, and its wisdom. We would do well, as our culture moves forward, to take a page (or twenty) from the ancient Tea Masters of Japan and the Diné of North America.

Here is the ending portion of the Diné’s “Night Prayer”:

Happily may I walk.
Happily, with abundant dark clouds, may I walk.
Happily, with abundant showers, may I walk.
Happily, with abundant plants, may I walk.
Happily, on a trail of pollen, may I walk.
Happily may I walk.

Being as it used to be long ago, may I walk.
May it be beautiful before me.
May it be beautiful behind me.
May it be beautiful below me.
May it be beautiful above me.
May it be beautiful all around me.

In beauty it is finished.

Photo by Lisa Z. Lindahl — Clamshells in the sky

I wish I could say that this notion of Beauty as an applied philosophy and daily practice was my brainchild. I can’t. True Beauty as the central tenet of a society is not new, just ancient and mostly forgotten now. I am ringing the bell. What The Way of Beauty as I put it forth is doing is remembering and urging action. Saying — no screaming — that True Beauty must be reclaimed now. And you and I can do it ourselves, so easily really.

It will save us, and our earth. True Beauty is what keeps the universe in sync. In harmony. In balance. Expanding.

True Beauty is the raison d’être of the Universe.

I am not exaggerating. It is our prejudices and preconceived notions of what “beauty” can be, can mean, might be capable of that make us scoff at the notion of True Beauty as a power. As the reason our Universe exists and continues to expand. When I first was struck with this notion it was one part intuition and 3 parts instinctual certainty. But I thought I might be a little mad. Courting hubris. So one day I told Brian Swimme (author and cosmologist) that I believed that True Beauty was the raison d’être of the Universe. His response? “Well, of course!” as if I were stating something obvious to all.

I was heartened.

As I said above, other civilizations have embraced True Beauty as their society’s guiding principle. The Navajo (or Dine as they refer to themselves) come to mind. I love that the Dine might measure a man’s worth to their community by the number and quality of songs that he contributed to it. Their culture of Hozho valued beauty, harmony, balance and health.

And there were the Greeks, of course. Our sense of aesthetics come from their incredible research and works. But we’ve gotten stuck there. As a civilization the West has been merely replicating and doing versions of that which has come before. We have adopted the Greco-Roman standards of beauty and not dared move on. True Beauty is not static. It is always changing, surprising, refreshing. Think of dawns, sunsets, laughter, the sound of rain on a roof, sunlight ‘prism-ing’ through a raindrop on a leaf; crystals growing in the earth; that feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment after completing a challenging task; sunlight interacting with plants, almost anywhere. The lively twinkle in someone’s eye. A sweet voice raised loudly in song. No two of any of the above ever the same; all of True Beauty.

If I were a scientist as well as an artist I could give you all the “proofs” and “evidences” that support the claims regarding the importance and integral nature of True Beauty. But I am not. One of my fav fantasies is to pull together a panel of folks from different disciplines to articulate, from their area of expertise, their understanding of True Beauty’s nature and importance. I’d have a physicist, a mathematician a couple of visual artists, a couple of writers, a philosopher or two, and of course, a theologian of sorts. What fun!

In the end what we would do is create a proper “white paper,” serviceable for the general public, publications and today’s “influencers” to state with an impressive degree of well-rounded authority what the Navajo already knew: What we call Beauty (true Beauty and not cheap “glamour”) is the raison d’être of our Universe. My fantasy white paper would stir the social marketing gurus to do for the Glamour vs. True Beauty confusion and our western civ’s value system what was done to tobacco and the smoking habit: change the general population’s understanding and values around the issue. Raise awareness about True, Deep Beauty — and banish mere glamour back to the magician’s realm.

Tuning into True Beauty and nurturing it in our everyday lives through these Beauty Practices will raise the vibration of not only (you/me) the practitioner, but of the earth itself and all the creatures upon it. At this bleak point in our species’ history what could possibly be more important? More joyful? Easier? It needn’t be stressful and difficult to help tip the balance back to the light.

Turn off the TV news and experience your geranium growing.

Tag: Hozho

Other Perceptions of the Truly Beautiful – II, Hozho

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