Navajo Nation, New Mexico, United States
Be still and the earth will speak to you.
—Navajo proverb
The forty-million-year-old volcanic Shiprock Peak, rising out of the high desert floor to an elevation of 1,800 feet, may look like a nineteenth-century ship to outsiders, but to the Navajo it looks like a winged rock. In fact, according to legend, Tsé Bit’a’í (as it is called by the Navajo) was once the dwelling place of a mythological great bird that carried the tribe’s ancestors from their home in the north to their new home in the southwest. Another of the many myths associated with Tsé Bit’a’í is that it is a medicine pouch carried by a powerful mountain spirit.
If you would like to experience the Navajo healing ceremony known as Yeibichai (Night Way), visit Shiprock. It lies at the intersection of Highways 64 and 491, with the nearest towns being Cortez, Colorado, and Farmington, New Mexico.
Find a guide willing to help you understand the portions of the ceremony you are allowed to see. Feel the healing energy of the chanting. Create a self-healing chant (for example, “My body is in the process of returning to perfection: every cell, every organ, every system”).
Shiprock, in the Four Corners region, is the site of the Navajo Nation’s annual October festival, which includes a nine-day healing ceremony. Photographs and videos of the sacred ceremony are prohibited, as are hiking and climbing on the sacred peak.