{"id":277,"date":"2017-04-04T05:46:36","date_gmt":"2017-04-04T05:46:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/storygirlontheroad.com\/?p=277"},"modified":"2018-05-09T00:03:03","modified_gmt":"2018-05-09T00:03:03","slug":"my-hogan-heroes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/storygirlontheroad.com\/index.php\/2017\/04\/04\/my-hogan-heroes\/","title":{"rendered":"MY HOGAN HEROES"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I planned my itinerary, I was most concerned with drive times and whether or not I would be able to do everything\u00a0I wanted to do in the 5 months I gave myself. I thought briefly about weather, but since I was starting out in mid-March, I figured I was in for a long hot spring and summer since I would get to Texas and the Gulf Coast by Easter. So\u00a0weather never really came up on my radar as something to plan for or around. Then I drove from Sedona to Monument Valley.<\/p>\n

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Hail to snow to sun to snow\u00a0to hail again.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It was supposed to be a 4-hour drive, but it took me over 6 hours. I drove through two different hail storms with stones so big I was worried they were denting Bluebell! Then I encountered heavy\u00a0snow so thick I\u00a0couldn’t see more than the bumper of the car in front of me. I was, unfortunately,\u00a0able to\u00a0see a few 4WD vehicles crashed\u00a0in the median and shoulder as I rolled by. But I kept my cool, positioned myself\u00a0behind a slow, heavy truck and followed his\u00a0tire tracks in the snow. I had some temporary relief when\u00a0I emerged from the mountains because there was sun\u00a0– for about 30 minutes – and then there was snow…. again<\/em>. At hour 5, I called my sister because I needed some company on this loooooong drive. But 5 minutes into the call, we had to end it because the noise from the second<\/em>\u00a0hail storm grew\u00a0so loud that we couldn’t hear each other over it.\u00a0Needless to say it was a nerve-wracking drive.<\/p>\n

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Monument Valley at sunset<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Monument Valley is located on the border of Arizona and Utah and is in\u00a0Navajo lands. When you hear\u00a0Monument Valley, think Wile E. Coyote chasing the Road Runner around tall, narrow rock formations\u00a0and then inevitably falling\u00a0off the long mesas. And\u00a0after hours of driving through treacherous\u00a0weather, eyes fixed to the road, my arrival in the valley was well worth the hardship getting there. Pulling up to my destination the\u00a0skies were clear and it was the\u00a0golden hour of sunset. Absolutely stunning.<\/p>\n

Weeks back when I looked for a place to stay in Monument Valley, I looked for hotels (there couldn’t possibly be an AirBnB offered in\u00a0this remote area, right?). I found a pricey\u00a0lodge in Bluff, Utah but it was 40 minutes outside the park (its reservation land so non-Navajo commercial entities aren’t allowed) On a whim, I logged into AirBnB, and there was a listing! An authentic, family-built, Navajo hogan (pronounced ho-g\u00e1hn<\/em>, accent on second syllable) that a lovely Navajo mom had listed. From the pictures the\u00a0view from the east-facing door (which every\u00a0door on any hogan will face) was picturesque, it was a decent price, and she offered to cook\u00a0Navajo tacos for any\u00a0guests. I didn’t mind\u00a0that there was no running water and I’d have\u00a0to walk 20 yards in the cold to an outhouse. I couldn’t wait\u00a0to experience\u00a0an authentic\u00a0hogan!<\/p>\n

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Bluebell, the distant outhouse and the\u00a0hogan at sunrise<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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My hogan heroes making a fire for me<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

My lovely hosts met me and made a fire in the hogan’s stove for warmth. Then they brought out their tacos, which are basically taco fixings on homemade thick Navajo fry bread. Delicious! We all ate the tacos together in the hogan, and the\u00a0mom and her\u00a0teenage daughter and I got talking. Before we knew it, it was nearly midnight.\u00a0I asked them a\u00a0bunch of questions (as is my way), and they told me a ton about\u00a0Navajo history, the differences between Navajos and other tribes, and then they took\u00a0me through some of their cultural ceremonies. I heard about births and burials, weddings and sweat lodges, but one\u00a0of the most interesting\u00a0ceremonies was\u00a0the one the Navajos hold when a young girl becomes a woman (don’t worry, there’s nothing gross ahead). Navajo tradition marks this transition with four days of events. The young woman wears formal Navajo dress and moccasins with bracelets and jewelry given to her from the elder women in her tribe, and the young woman performs\u00a0symbolic activities like running and collecting certain flora and fauna on each of the four days, all of which culminate with the family\u00a0and friends coming together to bake a huge corn cake in the ground, celebrating and offering\u00a0her blessings and advice to becomes the woman she is destined\u00a0to be.<\/p>\n

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Their dog\u00a0Pepper came to watch\u00a0the sunrise with me<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Now clearly, as a believing and practicing Christian, I have a different\u00a0worldview. But at some point as they shared, I began to feel a bit jealous (hold on, there’s no faith crisis here). I’ll explain: what struck me as\u00a0so wonderful was the time they\u00a0set aside and the energy they spend to honor\u00a0significant events in life. Moreover,\u00a0they engage in all of these rituals as a family<\/em> and as a community<\/em>. I remembered the Israelite practice in the Old Testament of building altars and monuments as tangible reminders of\u00a0the\u00a0times the Lord had blessed or delivered them. We\u00a0don’t do that anymore. Not really. We often don’t take the time to honor the landmark occasions\u00a0in a life. We may have a party, and then we post and tweet about it, but then it feels like we get right back to our busy lives, barely carrying forward the celebratory memories. On the other end of the emotional spectrum, neither does our culture see grief as a valuable thing, something to devote\u00a0significant time\u00a0to. It’s okay to be sad, but it is kind of an unspoken rule that\u00a0we’re not allowed to be too<\/em> sad for too<\/em> long, or we’ll risk being\u00a0labeled whiners. I’m not advocating we sit in sackcloth and ashes for months on end, or that we party hearty until we drop, but somehow I think we\u00a0are missing something- missing the abundant part of life Jesus talked about – acknowledging the breathtaking highs\u00a0and devastating lows and all that is between that make up\u00a0a rich, well-lived life. I know that a person can’t live constantly in such extremes, but we are increasingly becoming a\u00a0culture full of antidepressants,\u00a0addictions, and distractions, all in our ongoing efforts to suppress our deeper feelings. Why is that? \u00a0Maybe\u00a0we think honest, unabashed celebration is more\u00a0selfish than joyful, or that profound grieving\u00a0is self-indulgent, instead of\u00a0honoring and healing the loss.<\/p>\n

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My bed and\u00a0stove with hogan door open at sunrise<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I realize none\u00a0of this is new thinking, but spending hours\u00a0with this Navajo family hearing their traditions was simply reinforcing the value of making time for such things. \u00a0I am taking these 5 months to rest and travel, think\u00a0and learn, and yes, to grieve\u00a0some significant losses that I was not able to let myself grieve before. I want to learn to process my emotions more fully and healthfully. What’s more, I don’t think people need to take a huge road trip to do this. It might just take determining in one’s mind to do it\u00a0and then designating\u00a0the time needed. I don’t remember who said it, but the quote goes something like this:”It is not for\u00a0lack of time that we can’t do things, but lack of setting priorities.” We were designed to feel, and\u00a0both medical science and spiritual practice back up the healthfulness of processing all our emotions. God gave us such a deep capacity to feel — to experience\u00a0abundant life – and to rejoice with those who rejoice and grieve with those who grieve. I know that when I have allowed myself to feel deep pain and loss, my capacity to empathize and offer\u00a0grace to others only increases. \u00a0And when I have given myself permission to celebrate fully, my tendencies toward cynicism and judgment are\u00a0diminished and I have a greater capacity to celebrate (and without envy) the many blessings of others.<\/p>\n

So why don’t we allow ourselves to feel deeply? Are we too busy? Too afraid? Or both? Or maybe we simply don’t know how. Then I remember\u00a0Jesus celebrated, and Jesus\u00a0wept. We can\u00a0ask Him how.<\/p>\n

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Bluebell\u00a0took the dirt roads like a champ!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After an amazing sunrise, and more Navajo\u00a0fry bread for breakfast (this time covered in\u00a0sugar and cinnamon!), I said goodbye to my host\u00a0family, hoping to return again. I got in the MINI, pointed her northward, and began to think about how I can be better and more intentional about marking and honoring both the good and the bad times in my own life and history.<\/p>\n

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Driving north through Monument Valley<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As I drove through a valley full of breathtaking God-created monuments, I was determined to build, honor\u00a0and celebrate more\u00a0monuments of my own.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

NEXT STOP: Four Corners & Santa Fe, New Mexico<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I planned my itinerary, I was most concerned with drive times and whether or not I would be able to do everything\u00a0I wanted to do in the 5 months I gave myself. I thought briefly about weather, but since I was starting out in mid-March, I figured I was in for a long hot […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":284,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-grand-canyon-state","post_format-post-format-image"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/storygirlontheroad.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/FullSizeRender-39-e1492716485735.jpg?fit=3264%2C1868&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8xsVh-4t","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storygirlontheroad.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storygirlontheroad.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storygirlontheroad.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storygirlontheroad.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storygirlontheroad.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=277"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/storygirlontheroad.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1113,"href":"https:\/\/storygirlontheroad.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277\/revisions\/1113"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storygirlontheroad.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storygirlontheroad.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storygirlontheroad.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storygirlontheroad.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}