Astrology News
Juanita Peters is a traditional Diné (Navajo) medicine woman and one of the few women now practicing this art. She was born in Shiprock, New Mexico, in 1951 and grew up on the Navajo Reservation at Two Grey Hills, New Mexico where she still lives today. She's of the Mud People Clan and was raised in the traditional ways.
Juanita follows the path of the healer through her demonstrations of her vibrant sandpainting art, telling stories of Navajo history and culture. Her demonstrations include traditional third and fourth world sandpaintings, but it must be remembered that Navajo healing ceremonies and many sandpainting designs are sacred religious traditions, secret and never divulged to outsiders! These ceremonial practices, steeped in an age-old sacred processes, give guidance and comfort to the Navajo who also use these colorful symbols-in-sand to call up supernatural spirits who drive away evil forces.
While sandpainting originated as an integral part of some Diné ceremonies, it is also practiced purely as an art form. Juanita frequently explains and demonstrates this ancient rite, following the process from the gathering of stones, their grinding and the sifting of the sand, to the painstaking creation of symbols by using sand of various colors.
The colorful and highly detailed designs in sandpainting are created by using crushed stone, flowers, gypsum, pollen, and other natural elements to make symbolic designs. Sandpaintings are created in one day and then erased, and the sand is returned to the earth. The technique involved uses a small amount of sand in the palm of her hand below the second finger. The sand is then allowed to trickle off the index finger, guided and regulated by the thumb.
Walking Thunder, as she is known, shares her talent and knowledge in the hope that people will learn more about her paintings and their meanings!
She is thrilled about the publication of her 178-page book Walking Thunder: Diné Medicine Woman, a first person account of a traditional Diné medicine woman. In it, Walking Thunder speaks poignantly and candidly of her life as a woman on the Diné, or Navajo, reservation in northwest New Mexico, and discusses her heritage, art, and native traditions. This book (which includes an audio CD) is the sixth volume in a series entitled Profiles of Healing, published by the Ringing Rocks Foundation in association with Leete’s Island Press.
>>> Buy Walking Thunder: Dine Medicine Woman (Profiles in Healing series)
The video clip of Walking Thunder talking about the importance of respecting and maintaining one's own cultural identity unfortunately is not available anymore, due to Brightcove.tv shutting down, but you can view a similar video introduction at Ringing Rocks (click on the "Walking Thunder" tab).
Amazon.com® Reviews of Walking Thunder: Dine Medicine Woman
Walking Thunder, May 27, 2003
Reviewer: Jean Suttle from Arizona,USA
This amazing woman has shown much of what is denied to most outsiders. Her information helped me understand many traditions that I have been wondering about. She explains the ways of traditions. I found myself reading her words aloud with a Navajo accent as I became engrossed in this book. Her pictorial history of the last century of Dine gives us a look into the real lives of the people.
A Dine woman healer living her walk...., October 16, 2002
Reviewer: An Amazon.com Customer from Seattle, WA United States
Walking Thunder immerses herself as a healer and delights in being human. Her rich heritage, generous heart and possessing a full understanding that she is the vessel the holy ones work through, makes this an "enriching read." Written wisdom is not the same as shared lived wisdom. She shares many lessons from her teachers and her abundant respect of Mother Earth is humbling. Less you think all medicine people are humorless, her laughter and pranks can be heard throughout the book. Walking Thunder is respectful of her culture, elders, family, friends, and Mother Earth. You can experience this from her voice on the compact disc that is included with the book. For those who want to further their appreciation of medicine work, while deepening their understanding of The People, this is the book for you.