On The Pollen Path Analysis

As the Navajo people chant, “Oh beauty before me, beauty behind me, beauty to the right of me, beauty to the left of me, beauty above me, beauty below me, I am on the Pollen Path. In the house of life I wander, On the pollen path.” (“Wandering the Navajo Pollen Path” 1). This chant is a Navajo Ritual, that is meant to remind the Navajo people that our journeys will have many starting points, stalling points, opportunities to develop, that people will be there to support us in our journey, until we are ready to emerge into the path and continue our journey. As a Navajo woman, who is Carmelita Graymountain and what is her journey like? Many close relatives and friends would say she has faced many hardships on her path. These hardships taught her to become even stronger and resilient than she was before. Furthermore, these

Her Navajo Pollen Path of life began with her grandparents, parents, and siblings teaching their beliefs of their traditions, morals, and beliefs of being a Navajo woman, in the remote town of Old Sawmill, Arizona. Moreover, both of her grandfathers died off quicker than both of her grandmothers because of alcoholism, one of her grandmother was a recovered alcoholic and the other grandmother had never drank alcohol in her life. At a young age, Carmelita questioned why fate was so cruel to her family, her grandfathers and grandmothers suffered from alcoholism and financial instability. Additionally, her father being a Vietnam Veteran who used alcohol heavily in his military career to deal with PTSD, but eventually stopped after getting married to Carmelita’s mother, but became physically abusive. Carmelita’s mother, who was raised Catholic and never drank alcohol in her life, started drinking alcohol after marriage to cope with her fall-out marriage; she eventually divorced Carmelita’s father, abandon the family, and remarried another