Entry 140: Sitting with Ceremony: A Reflection on Place and Healing

 

Sitting with Ceremony: A Reflection on Place and Healing

Michael Bradley

 

Ceremony, written by Leslie Marmon Silko and published in 1977, is a novel centered on Tayo, a Laguna Pueblo man returning home after World War II. Silko, who is of Laguna Pueblo heritage, draws heavily on Indigenous storytelling traditions and her own cultural background. That influence is clear throughout the book, both in how the story is told and in the ideas it explores.

Reading Ceremony was not like reading most books. I kept trying to follow it in a straight line, like I usually do, paying attention to what happened next and how the story moved forward. But the deeper I got into the book, the more I realized my approach was not really working, it is not that kind of book.

After finishing it, and thinking back on it, I started to see that the story is less about plot and more about experience. The book kept rolling through my mind, as I read it and even days afterward. I wrestled with it as I went, when things felt unclear, and then would try to make sense of it later. I will admit that I needed some help unpacking parts of it. I went back, read through sections, and did a bit of additional reading and internet searching to better understand what was happening. The extra few hours spent made the book more meaningful, but also, it is not a story that gives everything to you right away.

Tayo comes back from World War II carrying a lot of pain, and nothing seems to help at first. His healing does not come from anything quick or direct, it comes from reconnecting with things he had lost or been separated from, especially the land, stories, and people around him. Silko’s point, well-taken, is the idea of healing being less about fixing a problem and more about finding your way back to something.

The structure of the book also started to make more sense over time. Early on, the shifts between past and present, and the mix of poetry and story, were hard to follow. But looking back, Silko was quite intentional. The story itself moves in a way that reflects what Tayo is going through, it is not clean or linear because his experience is not clean or linear. I feel many of us can certainly relate to Tayo in this sense.

The contrast between the characters helped me understand the book more clearly. Tayo, Harley, and Emo all go through similar things (all war vets), but they respond in very different ways. Harley drifts and never really finds a way out. Emo leans into anger and violence. Others go along with it. Tayo makes a different choice, especially near the end. When he has the chance to act violently, he does not, he refrains.  That moment in the book felt quiet and sad, but was the most important part of the book, it is where things change.

I also kept thinking about Ts’eh, a lady friend Tayo comes to know. At first, I was not sure how to understand her. She felt real, but also not entirely grounded in the same way as the other characters. Did Silko present her as a spiritual guide or a living being was a question I pondered. As I let it simmer, it makes more sense to think of her as both. She is a person in the story, but she also represents something larger, especially Tayo’s connection back to the land and to a sense of balance.

This is also one of those books that I find myself connecting to my own life and work. The idea of place stood out to me in a way that felt familiar and honest. In Ceremony, the land is not just a setting. It shapes identity, memory, and direction. When Tayo reconnects with the land, he begins to find himself again. I thought of the places I have connected with in my life; Texas, Oklahoma, Kentucky, and now Arkansas.

That idea aligns closely with the concept of sense of place, which is something I encounter often in my work. Whether in outdoor recreation, tourism, or community development, place plays a central role in how people experience the world. It influences how people form attachments, how they engage with communities, and how they make meaning out of their experiences. Places are not just locations. They carry stories, values, and relationships.

In that sense, Tayo’s journey reflects something I see in our places. When people are disconnected from place, they can also feel disconnected from themselves and from others. Rebuilding that connection can be part of a larger process of healing and growth. In recreation and tourism work, this often shows up in how people respond to landscapes, how they build attachment to communities, and how shared spaces can support well-being.

Overall, I liked the book, even though I did not fully understand it while I was getting through it. It is the kind of story that makes more sense after you step away from it and reflect. It does not tie everything up neatly, but that seems to be part of the point. It leaves you with something to think about, and that ended up being more meaningful than a straightforward story.

Source Citation: Silko, L. M. (1977). Ceremony. Viking Press.