I Will Walk in Beauty Before Me

The message board at the trailhead for the Inner Basin Trail outside of Flagstaff, Arizona had the normal notes about packing out garbage and fire safety instructions, but a Navajo blessing added in the bottom corner caught my eye:

I will walk in beauty before me.

I will walk with beauty behind me.           

I will walk with beauty below me.

I will walk with beauty above me.           

I will walk with beauty around me.

Walk in beauty is a Navajo phrase tied to a traditional prayer. Hózhó.

According to Danielle Geller in the November 2018 Arizona Highways magazine, "It is impossible to translate hózhó directly into English, to understand the full weight of beauty. Beauty is health and happiness, balance and harmony, but this feels like an oversimplification. Beauty is a way of moving through the world."

An early snowfall had blanketed the trail lined with old-growth forest: ponderosas, limber pines and southwestern white pines. A light breeze sent collected snowflakes tumbling from tree limbs as birds chorused above us. Golden aspen leaves polka-dotted the icy-white expanse on the forest floor, a melding of autumn and winter in a breathless display.

Ascending into the Inner Basin, a biting wind forced us to pull out our beanies from the bottom of our packs. The incoming storm veiled the surrounding San Francisco Peaks as the snowflakes turned to tiny globules of ice in the higher elevation. Hastily downing a granola bar, I took sips from my hydration pack, the water in the hose a match for the air’s dropping temperatures.

A group of three older women huddled in a wooden structure nearby. I had not understood the necessity of the building when we last hiked this trail in July, but now the shelter made perfect sense in the winter conditions. The women pulled out cheap ponchos, the flimsy plastic billowing like sails, as they added a layer for wind protection before heading down the slope.

“Do we wait out the storm?” I asked. We had wanted to get photos of the peaks in autumn. “Our footprints are filling in.”

“Let’s give it a few more minutes.”

“Could you find your way back down the mountain?”

“The trail is well marked.”

I put my hands in my pockets to warm them and pulled out six aspen leaves I had collected on the ascent in a variety of colors: green, yellow, gold, ginger, and brown. I had planned to take them home, but suddenly had a different idea.

I raised the leaves over my head and released them to the wind.

They swirled in a cacophony of color against the white landscape. We followed them back down the mountain, back to our responsibilities and deadlines. As the wind and snow erased our footprints, I whispered a prayer:

Beauty before. Beauty behind. Beauty below. Beauty above. Beauty around. I will walk in beauty.

This post recently appeared in the Ahwatukee Foothills News, The SanTan Sun News, and the East Valley Tribune.

******

ABOUT LYNNE HARTKE I share stories of courage, beauty, and belonging--belonging to family, to community, and to a loving God.  I am author of Under a Desert Sky: Redefining Hope, Beauty, and Faith in the Hardest Places. I teach an online writing workshop: Reclaim Your Scattered Story: A 6-week Online Writing Workshop for Those Touched by Cancer.  Registration will open at the end of December for the January session. Each month, I also teach in-person at Ironwood Cancer and Research Center in Chandler, AZ and at Cancer Support Community Arizona  in Phoenix.