Changing Woman’s Light, part 1 by Sara Wright     

Born of Stone and Trees
Birthing a People
from a Mountain
of Light
I hold slivers of her body
touch numinous fragments
worked by Peoples
who honor and
live the Great Round
Pungent scent of
red pine and
spruce,
luminescent
lemony cottonwood
cobalt sky
steep gorges, sand
flakes of pink,  rust
a splash of bittersweet
translucent charcoal
flint
spiny cactus
juniper serpents
twisted into
fantastic shapes
a peak that pierces sky
flat topped
on one side
I belong to Her
and She to me
Mother of all
Creation.

I have written before about Changing Woman’s Mountain located near Abiquiu New Mexico. Most call this mountain Cerro Pedernales and an image of the flat side of this mountain, her mesa, was made famous by artist Georgia O’Keefe.

 Astonished by my first glimpse I climbed a long serpentine road that wound around steep gorges, rivulets of water, open meadows and unbroken stretches of lush fragrant green forests to reach the backside of this mountain.  I couldn’t get over the fact that one side was a mesa and other was a peak that pierced the sky like a sword.

 Walking through red pines to reach the band of chert that hugged the mountain I experienced a sense of power that has never let me go. I returned to that mountain again and again to wander, to look for wildflowers, to pick up worked and unworked pieces of chert chipped by the Original Peoples, to breathe in a scent that earthed and elevated me at the same time. Long needled evergreens whispered a story I could not name. My body loved this mountain that allowed me to become Wild Nature unpolluted by man. It would not be an exaggeration to say that my soul and spirit soared whenever my feet touched hallowed ground.

When I learned the Navajo Creation story of Changing Woman’s I wondered if someone in me already knew the tale because at least for the Navajo this was a holy mountain. The story describes how First Man and First Woman (Navajo gods) laid a turquoise figure on two pieces of buckskin that were spread on the flat top of a mountain in the East. Wind and Water Sprinkler were there. When the Holy People began to sing wind flowed under the blankets and a child appeared. The Holy People told First Man and Woman that her name was Changing Woman and instructed the two to take her and raise her as their daughter. On the thirteenth day, Changing Woman  became a young woman. There was a celebration, and the first Navajo Night Chant was sung (one of the most sacred/dangerous winter ceremonies still practiced by the Navajo).

 Soon after Changing Woman birthed the hero twins. The boys asked Changing Woman who their father was and when they were told they had no father the twins refused to believe her. “We must have a father, and we need to know who he is.” Changing Woman was irritated and said “your father is a round cactus then. Be still.” (!) The hero twins needed to leave their mother to find their father the Sun and eventually they succeeded.  To ‘prove’ that they were his children the Sun instructed them to save the people from monsters which they did. The Navajo Nation was born.

 Changing Woman eventually became so lonely that she went to one of the other three sacred mountains to sit under the late afternoon light. The Sun appeared and tried to embrace her, but she refused. He wanted her to come live with him. She told him that until the Sun promised to give her a house that shimmered on the water and animals and plants for company while the Sun was away on his daily journey across the sky, she would not go with him. Then Changing Woman said:

 “You are male, and I am female. You are of the sky, and I am of the earth. You are constant in your brightness, but I must change with the seasons. Remember that I willingly let you enter me and gave birth to your sons. As different as we are, we are of one spirit. Most important we are of equal worth. There must be solidarity between us. There can be no harmony in the universe unless there is harmony between us. If there is to be harmony, my request must matter to you. There is to be no more coming from me to you than there is from you to me.”

 The Sun balked at first but finally agreed that she was right and granted her requests for a House in the West that shimmered in the golden light that stretched over the waters at sunset when the Sun returned from his journey across the sky. In this place the two came to dwell in Harmony…

To be continued next week . . .