Hózhó — Walking in Beauty
The Navajo concept of Hózhó — beauty, balance, harmony, and right relationship — is the supreme aim of human life and the natural order of the cosmos.
Hózhó is the central organizing concept of Diné (Navajo) philosophy and encompasses beauty, harmony, balance, well-being, and right order. To 'walk in beauty' means to live in alignment with the sacred patterns underlying all existence. The Blessing Way (Hózhóójí) ceremony restores Hózhó when it is disrupted by illness, accident, or spiritual imbalance. The closing prayer of this ceremony — 'Beauty before me, beauty behind me, beauty above me, beauty below me, beauty all around me' — reveals that beauty is not aesthetic preference but cosmic principle. Navajo healing, ethics, and daily life all aim at the restoration and maintenance of Hózhó.
In beauty it is finished. In beauty it is finished. In beauty it is finished. In beauty it is finished.
Anthropologist Gary Witherspoon describes Hózhó as both descriptive and normative — it names the ideal state of the universe and prescribes how humans must live to maintain it.
Hózhóójí — The Blessing Way