Some years ago my partner Robin and I took up residence in the beautiful town Santa Fe, New Mexico, a place with adobe buildings and known as the first town in America settled by Europeans. Having lived many years in Hawaii and having studied the teachings of Huna with the Kahuna Lapa'au Morrnah Nalamaku Simeona, a powerful teacher who was designated a living treasure of Hawaii, we hoped that our path in our new Southwest home would lead us to a similar Native American teacher. Morrnah told us when she married us during a Ho'oponopono ceremony, Ho'oponopono being an ancient Hawaiian cleansing process, that we would find many powerful teachers coming our way. The teachers she told us would be in the flesh and from spirit.

When we arrived in Santa Fe we moved into a big old adobe mud brick house close to town, but nestled away in a fragrant pinon and ceder forest. Upon seeing the house for the first time we immediately knew we had to live there, no question. We wanted a large place where we could host salons centered upon mysticism, personal empowerment, and environmental activism.

Our only neighbor was The Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian, founded in 1937 by Mary Cabot Wheelwright, our house at one time was part of the museum. The museum building was shaped in the form of a large Navaho Hogan and displayed contemporary and historical American Indian art and crafts. The museum was originally built to house Navaho ceremonial art, particularly the weavings of Hosteen Klah, who passed on in 1937, and was historically known as the most powerful of the Navaho medicine men ( you may want to read “Hosteen Klah: Navaho Medicine Man and Sand Painter” by Franc Johnson Newcomb).

After moving into the house we began to have constant computer trouble, having to replace three new computers. While this was going on we happened to mention the problem to John Kimmey, a Hopi medicine person who had at one time worked at the museum. He laughed, and told us it was a prank by the Navajo medicine man Hosteen Klah. This prompted us to walk over to the museum where we talked to the two Navaho women working in the gift shop. We told them what Kimmey had told us, and after they also had a good laugh, they told us that Klah’s bones were buried somewhere on the land on which our house and the museum were located, and that Klah was using coyote or trickster medicine with the computers. They had experienced similar instances over the years and suggested that we do a ceremony and tell him that our computers were our way of communicating, much as he had done with his weavings and sand paintings. So, we got out the native drum and sage and performed our Hosteen Klah ceremony. Our computer crashes stopped.

Hosteen Klah with one of his sandpainting tapestries - 1927

But after this things really got interesting. One day shortly thereafter, Robin rushed into our office from the kitchen and said that the door was open from the kitchen into the garage and that an Indian man had been standing in the garage and she saw him go out through the wall.

On another occasion when we were traveling, a son of a friend was house sitting for us and he became freaked out when his keys and alarm clock would move from his bedroom into other parts of the house where he hadn’t been.

Wheelwright Museum Hogan and Hosteen Klah sandpaintings - 1938

He wouldn’t house sit anymore, but a woman who worked part-time for us was house sitting during the time of the annual pueblo corn dances. She selected a native drumming CD to play from our collection, sat down in the big salon room, closed her eyes and began meditating with the drums. She said that when she opened her eyes to her surprise there was an Indian dancing in the room. She did the same thing the next night and said that there were three Indians dancing across the room. Unlike the first house sitter, she thought it was a great occasion and enjoyed the show.

Following all this, Robin and I decided that Hosteen Klah was part of our life. We began to study his remarkable life and placed a 1930s photo of him on our fireplace mantle. Today he sits on our mantle in Spain and reminds us of the powerful medicine of the natives of the American Southwest and how we all can be a part of this ancient path of power.

Read more about Hosteen Klah at: The Kennedy Museum of Art - Hosteen Klah, Nadle Hatali: Gender, Transformation, and Navajo Weaving

During our up coming GREAT AMERICAN SOUTHWEST EXPEDITION - May 14-23, 2007, our group will be visiting The Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian in Santa Fe, an unforgettable place. Those coming along can then look over at our former house, the only house on the land, and wave a greeting to the great Navaho medicine man Hosteen Klah.

After visiting the Wheelwright Museum, the group will go to another nearby museum and walk an amazing and highly magnetic and sound echoing labyrinth at a Native American power spot.

Hosteen Klah: Navaho Medicine Man and Sand Painter
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