Sacred

I've been doing reasearch for my paper for my Religions of North American Aboriginals course. I'm learning about the Sacred Places of the Hopi and the Navajo. These are two Native groups that have gone through many political conflicts in relation to land. The US government declared that the land (in the Arizona area) was the land of the Navajo, but the Hopi had been living there too. This caused much conflict between the groups.

There was also difficulty for the Navajo and the Hopi when the US Forest Service was going to permit the expansion of a Ski Resort that was encroaching the Sacred land that surrounded the Mountains that they believed the Spirits to reside in. A forest ranger asked the Hopi:

"'Just show us on this map which parts of the mountain are sacred so we can protect them.' And like the elders of Taos twenty years earlier, the Hopi answered, 'How can we point on a map to a sacred place? The entire mountain, the land surrounding the mountain, the whole earth is sacred.'" - Peter Nabokov, Where The Lightning Strikes

We're Engaged!

Well as Kaleigh says, Zak and I are "finally" engaged;)

Our day yesterday began with Zak calling me at what I thought was 9:15am - I was on a roll and I was actually going to be ON TIME for church for once, but no, Zak called me to say that we were already 15 minutes late for church. We had both forgotten about the time change for Daylight Savings! Part of the reason was that we were out enjoying ourselves at the Med Formal the night before:)

All morning Zak kept asking me what I wanted to do for the afternoon, we had both decided that we should take some time off and do something nice. It was quite funny, because there was something slightly awkward about how Zak kept asking me what I wanted to do and he's never awkward around me:) I guess he wanted me to think that our whole outing was my idea - but he knew what I wanted to do anyway and I knew what he was up to. I already told him a month or two ago that when he was to propose it would have to be outside and that we'd have to go for a hike - I just love to be outside - especially in Edmonton's River Valley.

So as we were getting ready to go for our hike Zak couldn't find his special hat that me and my parents gave him two Christmases ago. We called his friends and fortunately Nick remembered Zak putting it on the Grand Piano when we were at the Med Formal. We both know that that is a super special hat so any special pictures outside would not be complete without it (see the pictures - what good taste:).

So then we went to the Hotel downtown to pick it up and went on our way to one of the trails that starts just off Japser Ave. It was a fairly nice day and just a bit overcast. In Edmonton here, the snow is still melting - it stayed around from the WHOLE winter. Things were pretty slushy and Zak's shoes got soaked through.

We hiked and chatted for a while and then decided to go up some stairs so we could have an overview of the valley and just sit and relax on a bench. That is where Zak pulled a letter out of his pocket and then a little box:) Now you all know the rest.

Here we are at the top overlooking the valley. That's the Saskatchewan River behind us.


Here is the bench that we were sitting on - after we got up we noticed that it was in Celebration of someone's 50th Wedding anniversary:)



And yes, here's what the laides are waiting to see. Sorry for my mediochre photography skills. It's hard to take a picture of a diamond!