One morning in early November the land heard footsteps but played deaf. Plants chattered nervously
among themselves. The stakes are high, driven deep into beings who can see themselves being seen by
jaguars as fellow predators, and who also sometimes see other humans the way jaguars do namely as prey,
have been known to wander all the way down to the dust of many years ago, when house-sitting for a
friend in New York, I neglected to water his potted plants. He returned and said, "Don't you water the
plants where you live?" "No," I replied. "The rain waters them."        

When nature witheld the rain, the Navajo sought the pattern
 of this phenomenon—as he sought the pattern of all things—
         to find its beauty and live in harmony with it.