Don't know who she is, but she sounds awfully busy.
[LAUGHTER]
It's always a pleasure to be around people
who are so gifted with words, so I'm
looking forward to this evening, as all of us are.
Normally it's the custom--
or customary-- for these session to begin with a prayer
or with a song a sacred song.
Since I'm neither a poet, and my voice
is something that is probably better not heard,
I am doing a different thing.
I want to dedicate and honor the voices
of some of our ancestors.
In our many cultures, the songs, the chants, and the prayers
are very poetic.
They bring you along with the chanter on the dream vision
as you walk with them, and they open these doors for you
in these things.
My grandfather was a student of Hosteen Klah.
Hosteen Klah was a very well known medicine man--
a Navajo medicine man--
who contribute a lot of the songs and materials
to a museum which still exists in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
In one of these particular project,
he really focused on the creation songs.
And I'd like to, sort of, honor our guests
by going through and talking about the last song
of the dawn.
This is the ending of the creation stories
that usually follow through a whole series of healing
ceremonies.
I am walking among them.
I am walking among them, towards a place under the east.
I am walking among them, the dawn people surround me.
I am walking.
The white corn surrounds me.
I am walking.
[SPEAKING DINÉ BIZAAD] surrounds me.
I am walking.
I am [SPEAKING DINÉ BIZAAD],, I am walking.
Before me, it is beautiful.
I am walking.
Behind me, it is beautiful.
I am walking.
I am walking among them.
Towards the place under the south,
I am walking towards them.
The sun people surround me.
I am walking.
The blue corn surrounds me.
I am walking.
[SPEAKING DINÉ BIZAAD] surrounds me, I am walking.
Behind me, it's beautiful, I am walking.
Before me, it's beautiful, I am walking.
I am walking among them.
To the place under the west, I'm walking among them.
The people of the yellow afterglow surround me.
I am walking.
The yellow corn surrounds me.
I am walking.
[SPEAKING DINÉ BIZAAD] surrounds me, I am walking.
Before me it is beautiful.
I am walking.
Behind me it is beautiful.
I am walking.
I am walking among them.
To the place under the North, I am walking among them.
The people of the north surround me.
I am walking.
All sort of corn surrounds me.
I am walking.
[SPEAKING DINÉ BIZAAD] surrounds me, I am walking.
Behind me, it is beautiful.
I am walking.
Before me, it is beautiful.
I am walking, I am walking among them.
I am walking among them.
This is the kind of healing journey
that takes you to the place of power where you can get healed,
gives you an empowerment to heal yourself,
and it allows you to walk among the deities
with these kinds of power that they're
willing to share with you.
And so I want to remember them, these ancestral
voices that read words of healing.
Thank you and welcome.
[APPLAUSE]