One of the really joyful things in this world is the weaving of the Dine.I recently had a birthday and this reminded me of a present I received for a past birthday when we visited the American South West.
It was a print by Alice Yazzie showing some pots and a rug thrown on a table. There was only a partial view of the rug and I wanted to reconstruct an image of the whole which is what this shows. It is possible to locate where a rug was woven if it is of a particular style. It could be Wide Ruins or Crystal who knows.
Tony Hillerman's books fascinated us so much when we read them that we traveled to New Mexico and Arizona just to see the country. We only got the tourist view of the Dine but that did not matter as we had absorbed so much from Tony's books. I had forgotten about that time and our understanding of it. One of the key elements in life in such an environment is balance. The whole of the culture and practice of it is to maintain a balance. Difficult enough to do at the best of times but when you live in an area where there is no water and all water for you and your stock has to be hauled in 80 gallon drums in the back of a pick up truck you get to appreciate balance!
