LINEAGE
Timeless wisdom lived through fatherhood
DAILY PRACTICE
HOZHOOJI
A Blessing Spoken Is A Blessing That Takes Root
Story
Among the Diné (Navajo Native American), there is a foundational ceremony, the Blessingway Hozhooji. Anthropologists who have spent decades documenting Navajo life describe it as the root from which nearly every other ceremony grows. It is not performed to cure an illness. It is created to invoke harmony and abundance over a birth, a new home, a major transition in a person's life.
At the center of the ceremony are songs. Sung over a person by those who came before them parents, grandparents, medicine singers, voice carrying blessing into the body of the one being honored.
The Diné (Navajo) believe that hozhó, harmony itself, is not simply found. It must be invoked, spoken, sung into being, again and again, by those responsible for the ones coming after them.
There is something in this that every father carries whether he knows the word or not.
A father blesses his children constantly through ceremony of life: small, repeated words he chooses. You're going to be fine. I believe in you. I'm proud of who you're becoming. Words spoken before a hard day. Words spoken after a mistake. Words spoken for no reason at all, just because the children was standing there.
Our ancestors understood that blessing is not a feeling you wait to have. It is something you speak intentionally into the life of the one you are responsible for and in the speaking, harmony begins to take root.
Shift
Your words, spoken with intention, they become the blessing your children carries forward.
Action (Today, With Your Children)
Tonigh, speak one blessing over your children out loud.
Not generic. Specific to them: "I'm proud of how you handled today." "You are exactly who you're meant to become."
Say it because you feel it.
Let it be the last thing they hear from you.
A father speaks it into his children, one word at a time.
You’re receiving this as part of a daily fatherhood practice
Thank you for being here
PASS IT FORWARD
They can suscribe and obtain this daily