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~ Blessingway Origins ~

The story of the creation of the Navajo people and their emergence onto their sacred homeland is recounted in a ceremony known as the Blessingway, which is the foundation of the Navajo way of life. Blessingway focuses on the story of Changing Woman, who is the inner form of the Earth through its seasonal transformations. She is the major deity for the Navajo.

The Navajo are instructed that in the beginning, First Man and First Woman emerged onto this world near Huerfano Mountain in New Mexico. One day, First Man found a baby on a nearby mountain. The baby matured in four days and became Changing Woman. Changing Woman created the four original Navajo clans from her body. Her sons rid the land between the four sacred mountains of dangerous monsters and made it safe for the clans to inhabit. The Blessingway recounts in detail the instructions Changing Woman gave to the Navajo people she created. These teachings concern history and major religious practices, such as girl's puberty rite and the consecration of a family's hogan. When performed in its entirety, the Blessingway is a two-day ceremony whose purpose is to obtain peace, harmony, protection, and to help realize the goal of a long happy life.

~ Modern Blessingway Definition ~

In our culture there are so few ways to honor the mother to be. We make an attempt during baby showers, but for the most part this turns into a simple showering of gifts for the baby and does nothing for the mother in terms of the rite of passage she is about to go through. This sacred time in the mother's life deserves more than gifts of car seats and baby wipes.

While baby showers can be more commercial in focus, the Blessingway serves up a refreshingly sharp contrast. There's no booty of pink and blue gifts. The Blessingway is about the woman we know best - our friend and sister, the mother-to-be.

And while society seems eager to chuck aside the mother in favor of holding a cherubic gurgling baby, a Blessingway provides the mother with memories of a true show of support from her Loved ones.

That lasts much longer than those newborn sleepers.