Letters: Prepare for El Niño now

El Niño is a weather pattern that originates in the Southern Hemisphere and comes into the Northern Hemisphere in the winter months. This winter, 2015 and 2016, the experts are saying the weather will be quite severe, meaning heavy rain in the fall and heavy snow in the coming winter. What does this mean for the Navajo people?

It means preparation and more preparation in terms of stockpiling groceries, livestock feed and insulating homes. Heavy rain and snow means limited or no transportation to the stores or to get livestock supplies. Every warehouse should be stockpiled with food and other necessities from October to November. December may be too late.

Heavy flooding and heavy snow make travel impossible in remote areas of the Navajo Reservation and even to border towns.

All 110 chapters should prepare and request the Navajo Nation government for immediate preparation with the necessary food and supplies, and call on the local people to prepare with food and firewood as soon as possible. Elders should be prepared to move to nursing homes or to relatives in the communities.

Your support and preparation are very necessary and important to protect and save lives.

Daniel Peaches
Black Mesa, Ariz.

Navajo Nation needs big-picture thinkers

Dear Editor,

As I listen to my constituents in the realm of NN government reform, or government transforming as I see it, and also of my fellow students within the Navajo Nation academic field, on how to improve the current issues surrounding governmental reform, I am a believer of holistic cognition towards problem solving.

I believe that holistic approaches must be implemented to “expand the depth of our knowledge and the breadth of our understanding,” of our Nation’s governmental structure. This being said, I ask, “Where do we go from here as a people seeking a better government?”

A major part of finding solutions to improving a nation, I think, is to expand a method of thinking that is current with the times in which we live today. Our daily Navajo life is no longer confined to local areas within the Navajo Reservation; instead we live in an age where national, international, and global events have an impact on our lives and way of thinking, a “new measure of intelligence” as most global thinkers call it. Changes in the situations we find ourselves over the years have caused this to be so and thus it is imperative that we think likewise. Yes, the dance of change is taking place.

Change has been taking place since the early history of the Diné people, a few examples of this stem back to the influx of the Pueblo people into the Diné population via Pueblo Revolt of 1680, the Navajo experiences at Ft. Sumner, the introduction of boarding schools, missionary work of various faiths, introduction of technology, more recently the debate of the Dine Language Referendum.

There is no doubt, changes are taking place and thus adjustments are needed in our thinking and planning to how we should proceed in dealing with the future. And all this cognitive readjusting is needed by way of pragmatically overall viewing, holistic picture cognition, and retrospectively analyzing the bigger picture.

I believe this principle of “bigger picture thinking” should begin in the early stages of life and in the daily life atmosphere we all experience. Eventually it will lead to how we expand our thinking globally, in employment, our existence as a society, tribal growth, etc.

Currently, the Navajo Nation government is working on the transformation of growth and community development. This concept of overall thinking and big picture applies to the major decisions we make at the community level. An example is all of the community projects such as the Crownpoint Community Market Project in Crownpoint, New Mexico. This local project will enable local artists to sell and make profit.

In the overall planning of this particular project, which will benefit the community culturally, economically, educationally, and recreationally, the subject matter, tourism, will be the focal point alongside the proposed Crownpoint Hotel and Conference Center, Convenience Store and Gas Station, Eastern Navajo Administrative Complex, Crownpoint Wellness Center, and other projects progressing locally by other entities.

Later, a museum and visitors center is planned. (The Community Market Place will also be part of a short-, mid-, and long-term development for surrounding communities.) Planning holistically and utilizing a “market place” concept which include other cultural venues such as an amphitheater for cultural theatrical events inclusive for local educational and cultural activities. Tourists can be drawn in for scheduled cultural events, coinciding with the local Crownpoint Rug Auction.

And to accommodate and expand tourism efforts, the present Crownpoint Airport, with the lay plans being instigated, will be used to bring tourists into the area for a cultural experience. Globally advertising a dynamic cultural adventure would likely draw tourists from abroad therefore, reaching a global market place. Thus, the skills needed for visionary insight, meta-analysis, and wide-angle view; visionary thinkers are essential for the future development for their communities.

Global development and the effects on the Navajo Nation should be thought from a realistic perspective. In order to see and recognize the patterns in the world we inhabit, the next step for advancement of human progression is to encompass a wide-angle view of the world. For instance, the “big picture mentality” has a domino effect as one small action may have an impact on a local community to global wide thinking which is an art of projection a few people possess.

The concept of human dimension in decision-making is vital to coming up with viable solutions and answers which require incorporating knowledge from various disciplines into this thinking process. And it is for these reasons, history, economics, sociology, psychology, anthropology, as well as other disciplines are included in the decision-making processes. It is important to see any project or issue from all angles and including all dimensions of global thinking.

Contrary to this, are those who hold reductionist thinking, a form of limitation to the holistic thinking process; everything is broken down to its smallest component and focuses on made on those details. Reductionist thinking limits possibilities. Figuratively, reductionist thinkers can be compared to a physiological state of muscles rather than movements, and its focus is on small insignificant aspects of a movement, and obviously big picture thinking is the opposite, which focuses on flow, linkage and rhythm.

As the Navajo Nation seeks ways to improve their government, communities, educational structures, “timeworn” approach is a form of improvement. The Navajo Nation must advance to an expanded method of progressive thinking that is current with the times in which we live today. Navajo life is no longer confined to local areas, but instead has moved toward an age where the global events continue to impact the lives of a once secluded civilization. Moreover, our way of thinking must be parallel to the constant changes of a world that continually changes.

Presently, there are intelligent people in our culture, those who possess “practical intelligence,” but they have a missing piece, the ability to assimilate information into a bigger picture in order to see the bigger picture, which involves connecting the dots and trends. This entails thought processing that reaches beyond the norm using a higher level of understanding than most people exhibit.

The people who can see the bigger picture, “meta-analyzers” analyzing the world around them have a “wide angle view” in which they integrate observational data from a very large …

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