Welcome, traveler! Enter and take your rest...

A chaikhana is a teahouse along the legendary Silk Road pilgrimage and trading route linking China to the Middle East and Europe. It is a place of rest along the journey, a place to shake off the dust of the road, to sip tea, and to gather together to sing songs of the Divine...



  Navaho Prayer - May it be beautiful

by Navaho (Anonymous)

 

Dark young pine, at the center of the earth originating,
I have made your sacrifice.
Whiteshell, turquoise, abalone beautiful,
Jet beautiful, fool's gold beautiful, blue pollen beautiful,
Reed pollen, pollen beautiful, your sacrifice I have made.
This day your child I have become, I say.

Watch over me.
Hold your hand before me in protection.
Stand guard for me, speak in defense of me.
As I speak for you, speak for me.
     May it be beautiful before me.
     May it be beautiful behind me.
     May it be beautiful below me.
     May it be beautiful above me.
     May it be beautiful all around me.

     I am restored in beauty.
     I am restored in beauty.
     I am restored in beauty.
     I am restored in beauty.

-- from The Essential Mystics: Selections from the World's Great Wisdom Traditions, Edited by Andrew Harvey


/ Photo by Rick Camacho /


View All Poems by Navaho (Anonymous)

Read Ivan M. Granger's commentary on this poem.

Poetry Chaikhana