Winds of the Navajo
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Hi, I'm Dave Thurlow and this is The Weather Notebook. The wind has clearly shaped the landscape of the American southwest, so much so that it shapes the people who live there. Commentator Jan DeBlieu tells us today about the Navajo, and their Holy Wind.

Jan DeBlieu

"Deep in the red-rock, breeze-chiseled country of the American Southwest live a people whose religion may be more steeped in wind than any other in the world. The Navajo believe humans are brought to life by the Holy Wind that leaves whorls on the tips of our fingers and toes, whispers words of advice in our ears, and dictates the number of days we spend on earth.

The Navajo teach that a holy breeze known as Little Wind or Wind's Child gives people breath and helps them stand erect. A person's posture, balance, and ability all are gifts of the winds dwelling within him. When a child is conceived, it takes a wind from its mother and another from its father. At birth, with its first breath, the child receives yet another wind, sent from the Holy Ones to guide his or her life. Each individual's temperament turns not on upbringing or on any misfirings within his neurological circuitry, but on which winds-the good or the evil-he allows to guide him as he moves through life. This ties individuals strongly to the natural world, for a person's thoughts and actions-indeed, his very mind-belong not to him but to the holy air. "The wind within us stands from our mouths downward," a Navajo elder once said. "We breathe by it. We live by it. It moves all parts, even our hearts."

Jan DeBlieu is a writer from Manteo, North Carolina. To order her new book, titled Wind: How the Flow of Air has Shaped Life, Myth and the Land, visit our website at www.weathernotebook.org.

The Weather Notebook is underwritten by Subaru, the beauty of all wheel drive, with major funding provided by the National Science Foundation.