From the Mesa: A Reflection on Language, Poetics, and Personhood

hane’ náás yit’ih
iiná yił náás yit’ih
sodizin yił náás yit’ih
sin yił náás yit’ih
t’ahdii náás yit’ih

stories span through time
alongside life, stories extend
with prayers, stories extend
with songs, stories extend
the stories are still moving

Stories gather on the mesa. As winter transitions into spring, áhí settles across the land, shrouding piñon and juniper trees in its breath and transforming the short trees into buffalos. Looking toward T’iis Sikaad, a place named for a small plateau at the mesa’s base where the trees are spread out, the trees become roaming buffalos. Their sturdy bodies move careful and slow; their breaths clouding into the cool air; their power emanating from their heft and proximity to the ground. Áhí continues to spread, ascending the mesa until its crown disappears, and the mesa is no longer just a mesa but a place of possibility, a place of growth. Within the fog’s grayed mist body, Diyin Dine’é carry baskets filled with seeds. There are many seeds, too many to count. The Holy People sing their songs and plant these seeds. With songs, prayers, stories, and voice, seeds of many colors and varieties will grow, and the people will live, and live, and live. Forever.

The mesa has always been a place of possibility. From atop the mesa, I can see the whole land—to the southeast, Tsoodził kneels massive and snow-covered, and sunlight streams through the clouds, and the mountain glows. When I hear dził biyiin, this image of the mountain topped with brilliant white snow shining in the light comes to mind. The rest of the land is textured with mesas and fields; family homes are clustered throughout; cattle and horses move slowly about; and people speed along the dirt roads with dust trailing behind them. From this vantage point, I am reminded that iiná is composed of movement. Although we may not pay close attention, we exist in Earth’s continuous rotation. Clouds make their way from the ocean toward Diné Bikeyah. Plants shake their leaves in the wind, their inner water asking for the rain. The sun and moon take their daily journeys. Beyond the turquoise sky, constellations move around Nahookós Bikǫ’, the North Star and the fireplace of the celestial hooghan. My heart moves in my chest and my breath moves throughout my body. And the stories move.

This movement is pervasive. Not only is it present in a physical sense, but it also exists in the movement of language—literal movement of breath and tongue, and metaphysical movement of energy and spirit. Within Diné language, including developments in Diné poetics and storytelling, movement reflected in natural kinships lends itself to saad. In Diné thought, saad can be understood as sound, voice, language, words, and expression. There are many stories, songs, and prayers that mention saad. Saad exists in the movement of this biosphere—how we might think about the tandem movement of the earth body, water body, sky body, universe body. It exists in the cycle of seasons, in the rotation of constellations in the night sky, in the spiraling momentum of creation stories, in the growth of plants reaching for the sky. Saad is this movement. Not only is saad alive in the spaces and forces we can observe outside of our bodies, but saad also lives and moves in the body. Saad is animation. Saad is vitality. Saad is life force.

At an outdoor reading a few years ago, a dear friend and poet said something like, “the trees are happy to hear what they gave breath to.” This poetic sentiment has stayed with me ever since. The idea is that saad has a physical aspect through the human breath, which essentially feeds plant life through the emission of carbon dioxide. In turn, surrounding plant life provides oxygen that humans need to breathe and to speak. There exists a reciprocal relationship between humans and the plant people. As breath, saad literally settles into the spaces in which we share language and shapes our surroundings. Ancestral Diné teachings have reflected this knowledge for hundreds of years. Prior to Euro-centered knowledge systems, Diné medicine people shared their views on the metaphysics of this world and how speech/intention could shape realities. In many songs and prayers, the speaker will utilize repetition as a means of manifestation and to reshape reality. This is enacted not to exert dominion or force on lived realities but to restore the listener to the natural movement and for balance. It is important to note that this repetition isn’t merely repeated phrases and ideas word for word, but rather a repeated idea or image that is continuously added to and shifted with other elements. Sometimes the shift is slight and other times the shift is more noticeable. If we listen and pay close attention, we notice the shift in the pattern, and in that shift, perhaps we can attune ourselves to the underlying possibility present in our use of language. Saad is breath. Saad is reciprocity. Saad is manifestation. Saad is possibility.

In understanding saad as words or language, the foundation of saad connotes communication. In a poem titled “Saad,” written by shicheii Rex Lee Jim from his collection Saad Lá Tah Hózhóón (2019), which is a reprint of his 1998 collection Duchas Taa Koo Diné: A trilingual poetry collection in Navajo, Gaelic, and English, he writes about saad as a living entity that gifted itself to humanity and the variety of ways saad exists in the world. He writes:

         ................................................................................

This poem acts as a type of ars poetica but instead of defining poetry, saad is defined as a sentient entity. According to the speaker of the poem, which is saad itself, people are able to think, act, pray, sing, and speak because of saad. The stanza begins with the line “shee nitsáhákees,” meaning “people think with me,” and positions the beginning essence of saad to be thought. Rather than existing as separate processes and embodiments, saad enables nitsáhákees (thought) and nitsáhákees is an extension of saad. This would mean that saad isn’t just language or words but also thought. Saad begins as thought and through the mechanism of voice becomes words or language, which then becomes action. Much like oxygen, saad contributes to the vitality of people and enables movement. Saad éí hiiná. Saad is movement. Saad is action. Saad is alive.

A while ago, I called shicheii Rex to ask him about saad. He thought about it for a moment before responding. What he said was that the word są́’, or old age, is present at the beginning of the word saad. In American society, old age is often portrayed as something to avoid or something undesirable. There is much fear about stepping into old age. This fear spurs Western medicine to experiment with different drugs and treatments to reach for the unattainable, a turning back of the clock toward youth. Within ideas of the nuclear family, there is also a perception that the family is composed of a mother and a father and children. In my conversations with non-Native people, rarely are grandparents mentioned as living with the nuclear family and being actively involved. Instead, elders are seen as out of touch and live on their own or in nursing homes away from the nuclear family. This is surprising considering the importance of elders within Diné culture. In my own family, shimásání had lived next door and, most nights, she slept at shimá’s house. After dinner, I enjoyed time with shimásání drinking tea and listening to her stories about her childhood and about our community. Although shimásání had limited schooling in a Western sense, her life experience and knowledge were vast. Through her stories, me and my siblings learned what it meant to live a good life and to attain są́’. I miss my grandmother each day. For the word saad to also contain the essence of the word są́’ is to position saad as a means by which to attain są́’. Whenever shimásání or shimá told a story, it wasn’t just for entertainment or to pass the time. Shimá likes to say that stories come into a person’s life for a reason. The act of storytelling is intimate in that the storyteller must know their audience in a way that allows them to adjust their story for what the listener needs. In this way, stories, which are composed of saad, serve as teachings on how to live a long and happy life. If we follow what our elders say and what the stories say, then we can step into old age and go the distance necessary to reach 102 years of age. Through saad, we gain the knowledge and willpower to face and overcome adversity to be healthy and joyful. Saad éí są́’ bił yiit’ih. Saad is intertwined with old age. Saad is progression. Saad is longevity. Saad is a movement toward healthy and joyful living.

In thinking about saad, I am called back to the mesa. From our house, a field stretches toward a mesa called Tsé Achįįh (Nose Rock). Throughout my life, I’ve ventured up that mesa with my brothers, my nephew, my uncles, and even my late father. The most recent time was to scout for suitable firewood and to show shiye’ Jaiden the spots we used to camp and hike. It was a sunny day, and the sky was a clear blue. In the field leading up to the mesa, there are various kinds of grasses and desert brush. The most prominent is tłoh nástásí (blue grama). The sunlight felt good on my skin, so I sat on a boulder overlooking the field, closed my eyes, and tilted my face up toward the sun. Something about warm sunlight, like the warmth from shimásání’s fireplace, alleviates tension and clears the tumultuous thoughts that crash against the interior of my mind. I listened to the movement around me. Gáag, gáag, gáag sounded from somewhere farther out. Gáagii (crows) were hopping about in the trees at the mesa’s base before taking flight, their dark bodies like beads in the sky and against the backdrop of sandstone. Dólii (bluebird) was chirping its bright song from a twisted juniper limb, tilting its head side to side. In the background, not so discernible, a gentle wind blew down from higher up the mesa, through the trees, and rustled the grasses. Hwooooooosh, it sounded. I watched the tłoh nástásí move with the wind, and the wind’s path became more apparent. It was a dance, and as cliché as that expression is, that’s what the wind was doing, dancing through the grasses. In that moment, I felt peaceful and joyful, like the stress of writing hadn’t been weighing down on me in the weeks before. I was thankful for my home, for the place I was fortunate enough to reside in. It was a moment that would come to mean so much. Seemingly ordinary, this moment would spark more thoughts about saad. In gratitude for the moment, and to help me make sense of my thoughts and emotions, I hummed a song one of my cheiis taught me. It was a song that listed various natural elements, which offered a blessing to the singer as they journeyed. As I hummed, first soft and then a little louder as I settled into the tune, I thought about saad and what else it could mean. What came to me was sound. Just like words in the form of poetry and storytelling were saad, so were the sounds that I heard while enjoying the sunlight. Shicheii Rex speaks about the qualities of certain sounds that aren’t translatable from Diné bizaad to English, and the same idea applies to natural sounds. All the things in that field on that sunny day were making a sound. Together, they were communicating and voicing their thoughts and desires in their own kind of saad. In the poem “Saad,” it is important to note that the repetition of people extends beyond the human to include our more-than-human relatives like the Nanise’ Dine’é (Plant People), Niłchih Dine’é (Wind People), So’ Dine’é (Star People), and many more groups of people. In Diné thought, the world is seen as Nihimá Nahasdzáán (Our Mother, Earth Woman) and all of creation has a personhood. Thinking about saad as sound, words, language, and voice posits that all of creation can utilize saad and all of creation has its own unique sound or language. This means natural elements like wind, water, sunlight, and earth possess the capability to communicate because they have their own saad, which have influenced the development of Diné bizaad. The most available example is the word tó (water). If repeated several times, the sound of water dripping can be heard from the word tó. If we listen hard enough, perhaps we can hear the ways our more-than-human relatives communicate and understand each other better. Saad is sound. Saad is communication by all people. Saad is empathy. Saad is the world in motion.

Translation is a difficult process. Each time I’ve attempted to translate a poem from Diné bizaad into English, in many ways the translation falls short. In one poem, I thought about a moment where áhí had covered the mesa and the pristine snow that quieted the land:

zas hazlį́ į́ ’
nizhónígo hazlį́ į́ ’
bee honeezk’ází
bee hózhónii
shighandi hodéezyéél

I think the English translation would be:

snow has formed
with beauty, it has formed
cold has spread
beauty and harmony all around
my home has calmed

This is another translation that falls short. What is untranslatable here is sound, movement, and context. One of my favorite words in this poem is “honeezk’ází” because there is so much movement and joy. Thinking in syllables, “ho” could be environment or an expansive/holistic area, “neez” references something stretching either in height or distance, and “k’ází” is the cold aspect. In my mind, this word evokes a feeling of cold that spreads out from a source until it has permeated everything. The cold is a presence that can shift and stretch. It has a body. In saying the word “honeezk’ází” I can feel the cold, but it isn’t necessarily an unwelcomed cold. There is relief in the word, a respite from hotter days. There is also an image of a high desert landscape that has mesas and fields where the cold can move freely. With so much movement, feeling, and story in this word, my rough translation—“cold has spread”—falls flat. I think that is the nature of translation though—limitation. In a way, the limits of translation offer solace, a bit of mystery, and protection. With the long history of anthropologists and spiritual salvation seekers coveting and appropriating Diné culture and world-views, there is comfort in knowing that the full experience and meaning of Diné words won’t be easily available to non-Diné audiences. Diné words contain whole landscapes, stories, ancestral memory, and a worldview that Diné readers can fully appreciate and experience. As a storyteller working with Diné language and stories, it isn’t my role to make these concepts and contexts easily available to non-Diné readers. I can offer a glimpse, but the beauty and the personhood and the relationality is for us, for Nihokáá Dine’é.

How can we return to Diné-specific ways of thinking about language? When we pause and listen closely, we come to realize a fuller personhood that relates to place, to our more-than-human relatives, and to a bit of mystery present in all things. When we slow down and think critically about our proximity to our language, then we realize that saad is literally a part of who we are and the spaces in which we exist. Saad connects us. We aren’t alone in our pursuit of saad and understanding. We rely on our relatives, mentors, the land, stories, and each other. Together, we climb the mesa, resting as we go, telling stories as we go, making observations as we go, and from the top, there is much to witness. From the top, we can see everything. Áhaalánee’