Hudson Valley Astrologer

I was part of a small entourage invited to witness a sacred ceremony that pays homage to Naatsis’áán (Navajo Mountain, “Head of the Earth Mother”). Although not one of the four sacred mountains which mark the boundaries of the Navajo homeland, in the four directions, the Navajo still holds special reverence for the mountain given its role in creation, healing, and bringing rain.

The Enemy Way Ceremony is held over a three day period during the summer. The “Squaw Dance” which is the part of the ceremony I was fortunate enough to witness, left me wondering ever since about the more sacred rituals outside of the public eye and part of the core healing rites performed by a medicine man, conducting prayers, and reenactments of mythological stories. The “Squaw Dance” itself is a significant healing and social event, and traditionally performed to purify individuals who have come in contact with negative and dangerous influences, persons afflicted by illness or warriors returning from battle.

The sacred elements not open to the public are meant to preserve spiritual integrity and reserve specific rituals for the medicine man to practice in the company of the afflicted and close family.

Today people go into therapy, and there is still too much taboo against needing therapy in the first place, versus these ancient ways of dealing with the vicissitudes of life, ways that seemed to know better. But we all need good medicine to counteract the harmful effects of disunity and disharmony running rampant in the world. I think a significant part of the intervention in the ancient way, which made it therapeutic, was its communal aspect. In addition to the “axial alignment” and “stable point” mentioned by Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet (see previous post, and the opening quote), we need community connection, social gatherings and unity to affect healing.

I was 15 when I witnessed the Enemy Way Ceremony and wish I told my younger self to pay attention. What I saw was a spectacle of brightly colored costumes and magnificent vigor in dance and song. The drum beats and hypnotic chant penetrated deep within me, stirring my core, unsettled by a Uranus transit across my Midheaven immediately following the first opposition of Saturn opposed my natal Jupiter-Saturn conjunction. There was healing to be had, but it all seemed so foreign standing on the peripheral, far away and yet at the same time it all seemed so familiar. There would be more healing required ahead, necessary healing as a consequence of my unfolding and an axial misalignment within; “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold,” Yeats called it as he viewed the chaos outside himself in 1919 and throughout the world. Patrizia suggested the healing, the alignment and stability that creates harmony and unity, starts within. I would have told my younger self to try and track down that medicine man, just to meet him. To look into his eyes and ask him for a favor. “Teach me to dance and sing like that,” I would have asked.

HVA

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