I was tempted to choose "harmony" for this installment of my alphabet. However, a brief moment of reflection convinced me instead to favor this Navaho term which, while encompassing and often explained as harmony, delivers so much more than that when you plumb the true depth of its meaning.

Hozho cannot be adequately translated into a single English word. It is the essence of the Navaho way of being, a sense of elemental rightness that is core to their way of living - a way of being that we could do worse than to strive for in our own lives. Hozho is a word of depth and layers, meaning at once harmony and beauty, truth and balance. To be in hozho is to be at one with and a part of your environment and the world around you in such a way that the notes of your life complement and resonate with the symphony of life all around you. You neither pitch above nor below the thrumming chords of the Universe, but yet at the same time your melody stands on its own merits and is heard with utter clarity - pure in tone and pitch and strength, singular yet subsumed in the whole.

Hozho is not the easiest word to explain, but it's essential meaning can be intuited through experience. Think of those times when you felt as if you truly part of the creation around you, yet clearly a singular being, at once loved by and in love with all that was around you. Perfectly matched, perfectly balanced, perfectly in tune - walking with beauty and rightness and joy in every step and every breath. That is hozho, and I wish you the ability to find it and live it in your life.