Meditations with the Navajo by Gerald Hausman

Meditations with the Navajo by Gerald Hausman

A collection of stories, poems, and meditations that illuminate the spiritual world of the Navajo.

- Explores the Navajo's fundamental belief in the importance of harmony and balance in the world.

- Shares Navajo healing ways that have been handed down for generations.

- Includes meditations following each story or poem.

Navajo myths are among the most poetic in the world, full of dazzling word imagery. For the Navajo, who call themselves the Dine (literally, the People), the story of emergence--their creation myth--lies at the heart of their beliefs. In it, all the world is created together, both gods and human beings, embodying the idea that change comes from within rather than without. Poet and author Gerald Hausman collects this and other stories with meditations that together capture the essence of the Navajo people's way of life and their understanding of the world. Here are myths of the Holy People, of Changing Woman who teaches the People how to live, and of the trickster Coyote; stories of healings performed by stargazers and hand tremblers; and songs of love, marriage, homecoming, and growing old. These and the meditations that follow each story reveal a world--our world--that thrives only on harmony and balance and shares the Dine belief that the most important point on the circle that has no beginning or end is where we stand at the moment.

Hausman, Gerald: - GERALD HAUSMAN, the author of more than 70 books for children and adults spent much of his adult life in New Mexico during which time he translated Native origin stories with Navajo artist and friend, Jay DeGroat. Many of these were aired on Navajo Nation radio station KTNN and The Turquoise Horse was included in the Junior Great Books international reading program. It is used in classrooms throughout the U.S. and in the twenty years since its first publication has become a classic in cultural learning for elementary and middle school students. His folktales have also been aired on the History Channel, NPR, and Pacifica Broadcasting. In 2006 the University of Washington Graduate Film School, (supported by Myra and Bill Gates Foundation and Pixar) created an animated short from Gerald Hausman's book, The Boy with the Sun Tree Bow. It has been used as a textbook for environmental studies in South America. Twelve of Gerald's other books are translated in foreign languages and The New York Times praised the anthology Tunkashila: From the Birth of Turtle Island to the Blood of Wounded Knee calling it An eloquent tribute to the first great storytellers of America. Other honors for Gerald Hausman's work are from the American Folklore Society, the American Bookseller, Children's Protective Services, the Bank Street College of Education, the National Council of Social Studies, the International Reading Association, Parent's Choice, The Ministry of Education of Jamaica, The New York Public Library Best Books, and CCBC Choices/Best of the Year. Gerald and his wife Loretta have done a number of animal books together and with Alice Winston Carney they have led a summer workshop in memoir writing at The Plaza Hotel in Las Vegas, New Mexico, for the past nine years. Gerald and Loretta also founded Irie Books which publishes memoirs, children's books, poetry, biography and translations. Gerald's most recent book is Island Dreams: Selected Poems from 1964-2015. He has read his poetry at Harvard University, St John's College, the Kennedy Center, Fordham University, Queen's College and dozens of other universities nationwide.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781879181670
ISBN 10	1879181673
Title	Meditations with the Navajo
Author	Gerald Hausman
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Inner Traditions Bear and Company
Year published	2001-11-22
Number of pages	144
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.