Yá'át'ééh

I’ve read about the Navajo survivors

of the great invasion, I’ve listened

carefully to the cadence of their

speech and think we have much

to learn, and wonder what we would

become if their language was ours.

Have you ever heard the Navajo

talk? It is as though each word

is a gift to be savored like slow

melting chocolate until just one

thought has matured, is complete.

     Where do words come from to

     paint a moment forever with the

     color of beauty or truth, or joy,

     alive for this moment only?

Have you rested side by side in the

quiet of indigo, deep in the big empty,

listened for the sounds of night or sat

cross legged under stars and the

silhouette of mountains? Have you

touched her wrist to gift the aroma

of a dream watered in the blue

of silence when you knew for

certain her smile would forever

travel inside your eyes?

Did she wait in the velvet air before

she turned so you could see yourself

mirrored in the violet iris of her eyes,

where distant lightening dances to the

sound of your different drummer?

Author's Note

"Perplexity" says...
Yá'át'ééh is a common Navajo greeting that is often translated as "hello," but its meaning is deeper and more nuanced within Navajo culture. Literally, yá'át'ééh means "it is good" or "it is well". When used as a greeting, it conveys a sense of wishing goodness or well-being upon the person being addressed, reflecting harmony and positivity in one's life and surroundings.

While "hello" is the most common English equivalent, the phrase carries a broader sentiment. In traditional Navajo teachings, saying yá'át'ééh is a way of expressing that everything on the surface of Mother Earth and in one's life is good. It is a greeting that acknowledges well-being and balance, which are central concepts in Navajo philosophy

Reviews

[Lorry]

In reply to your authors note Vol, us Scots do that too but fae less eloquently.
Ask a Scot how they are and you'll probably hear the reply "braw", meaning brilliant or really good, despite us really wanting to say "well to be honest I'd be a lot better if I was somewhere hot but all in all can't grumble!"
It doesn't quite trip off the tongue as well so we just say braw, while muttering our gratitude to our ancestors for picking somewhere colder and wetter than Ireland to settle and start bringing up a family.
They say (quite incorrectly) that Eskimos have more than fifty words for snow. They do not because some of those are just two or more words strapped together, like cold snow or wet snow. Well, in a world exclusive I can tell you the breaking news that Scotland has way more than fifty words for "oh for f*ck sake!" 😃
And news just in folks, after a quite "no' bad" atart to spring, we are all being urged to stock up on emergency supplies and stop walking about like clothes have went out of fashion, as in some places (which ironically means me places) it will dip ever so slightly to minus one overnight!
Now please don't tell me what the temp is there, or you might be woken up one day by a wee sunburnt scottish guy asking to be let in! 😃

[Vol]

Lorry,
Often the cultures foreign to our own sound a lot better than our own... Except New York, of course, where a polite hello might get a "Who wants to know? Who the f**k are you?” I kind of miss the more civil society when I was younger... In America we lost all semblance of decent behavior with the advent of Jerry Springer, quickly followed by all the other daytime a******s. I got in trouble gor not holding my fork right... I can barely eat out without getting sick to my stomach watching people talk with their mouths full, much too loudly, and giving dirty looks to everyone they see...
Vol

[Lorry]

Ah, New York... the only place in the world I've ever been homesick in, where pedestrians are super aggressive and accuse you of ruining their day, if not their life for the crime of not being made of something that disappears when people whose eyes are glued to their phone try to walk through you.
The only thing I liked about the whole place was a diner I frequented because they kept making me laugh by insulting their customers and then ripping them a new one when they didn't tip enough. And I'm sure they liked me before I tipped them by doubling what the meal cost... I told them it was for the entertainment value and may very well be ground zero for my distaste of hipsters! 😃

[Vol]

Hipsters shitsers! Doing all the things "cool" requires this week...

[Lorry]

Why is it they are in every coffee shop, manspreading their limbs like a starfish begging for attention but pretending they're too cool to notice?
One things for sure, if war breaks out and we have to rely on hipsters and snowflakes, we'll be speaking Russian in no time!
😃

[Lara]

I like to think "hello" derives and denotes "halo" - but I know it isn't true. (I think it means to shout, rather).

Then there's "namaste" - something akin to "the divine in me bows to the divine in you" ??

Yet this piece, vol, shares a remarkable world of majesty encapsulated in the Navojo "Yá'át'ééh".
Really quite splendid.

Thank you for sharing this.

[John the Baptist]

Your last two verses here are stunningly beautiful.

[Vol]

John,
I've played with words my whole life, and am amazed every day by what they do... "A turn of phrase" Like a pirouetting dancer: or like an airplane's spiral down." I wonder what will happen to our language over the next hundred years... the amount of time between Chaucer and Shakespeare... All my professors said their shift was due to society-wide laziness... With all our communication done on keyboards, I don't think any of it will be intelligible... and it will be ugly, too.
Vol

[MCS]

This is a beautiful read that brought tears to my eyes. I’ve never heard the Navajo language, but I spent summers growing up near the Ojibwa reserve and spent many hours among them. Their elders have a way of being that I find very intriguing. I developed my love of nature with these people, and we would do well to learn from them.

Vol, I really enjoy your writing and your gift of inviting the reader in. Thank you, Mary

[Vol]

Oh my goodness, Mary! You know, I've never been mean or selfish, I've never taken advantage of people, I've always tried to help when I can. Nevertheless, I carry a great weight of guilt when I think of the native Americans.
Vol

[MCS]

Vol, I share that sense of guilt as well. I left my church as a result of their inaction in taking responsibility for the crimes they perpetrated against these people. And my country is guilty of this very sin when it comes to this sad chapter. In 2021, I wrote “A National Crime” about this very issue.

[Vol]

Mary,
I remember finding out that America had broken every treaty ever agreed upon with the Indians. WI think t was 1967 when we, by treaty, were supposed to give Alcatraz back to them. I thought, we've grown, we aren't like that anymore. Of course, we reneged... It is who we are.
Vol

[MCS]

We are guilty of the same up here in Canada.

[Vol]

Mary,
WE know so little of Eastern history... what kings, what empires, what cultures passed through the last two thousand years? I have a friend who is a noted Russian Artist, he frequently posts photos of famous Russian artists and their work... Such beauty, such genius! And I have never run across even one of them in my life, despite the arth history classes I took. Westedrn culture is like a artistic genius cannibal... We have eaten every culture we have ever touched.
Vol

[Ms claws]

As always, Vol Lindsey, your words vibrate in every tissue of my being.
Thank you for that.
I even love reading your reviews that always set me in a dreamlike world I can see clearly.
I see the Navajo relating in extreme gestures and will always watch for that now.
We miss so much joy out of life.