Ceremony 163-186

Tayo is continuing on his journey and working through the healing process. He is making progress and is using nature to appreciate the beauty of life. "He breathed deeply, and each breath had a distinct smell of snow from the north. of ponderosa pin on the rimrock above; finally he smelled horses from the direction of the corral. and he smiled. Being alive was all right then; he had not breathed like that for a long time"(Silko 167). Tayo smiles because he feels alive and he is recognizing that. He is finding beauty in nature with the animals and the fresh air and it is healing him. There is a recurring theme that keeps showing up and that is sunrises. The book starts with a sunrise and ends with one.  "Sunrise! We come at sunrise to great you. We call you at sunrise. Father of the clouds you are beautiful at sunrise. Sunrise(Silko 169)! The sunrise is a symbol of new beginnings and Tayo is starting to see that he can have fresh starts. After he meet with Betonie he is enlightened with all the ways nature can heal him. "He had been so intent on finding the cattle that he had forgotten all the events of the past days and past years. Hunting the cattle was good for that. Old Betonie was right. It was a cure for that, and maybe for other things too"(Silko178). Tayo is looking for cattle and it has taken his mind off of all the things that has happened to him in the past. Its curing his PTS and he feels like it can cure other things as well.

Tayo is beginning to look at the bigger picture and he has less hate towards people because of that. All these people can fight over who 'owns' the land but in the end no one truly does. "All but a small part of the mountain had been taken. The reservation foundry included only a canyon above Encinal and a few miles of timber on the plateau. The rest of the land was taken by the National Forest and by the state which later sold it to white ranchers who came from Texas in the 1900's"(Silko 172). The land and Earth as a whole are so much bigger then the humans on it and they will never really own anything. Land is ageless and the humans fighting over it will die and pass it down but the land will always remain. Tayo is looking at things from the present now rather then living in the past. "He knew then the old-timers could only speak of yesterday and tomorrow in terms of the present moment; the only certainty; and this present sense of being was qualified with bare hints of yesterday or tomorrow..."(Silko 179). Tayo is now dealing with his pain in the present moment instead of having flashbacks and feeling like he's stuck in the past. He has learned that he can still live life today with the events of the past.

Ceremony 140-163

Tayo is beginning to depict the healing process and is starting to have a different outlook on the world in general. As he is spending more time with Betonie he is trying to find healing through ceremony. "He was thinking about the ceremony the medicine man had performed over him, testing it against the old feeling, the sick hallow in his belly formed by the memories of Rocky and Josiah, and all the years of Auntie's eyes and her teeth set hard on edge. He could feel the ceremony like the rawhide thongs of the medicine pouch, staining to hold back the voices, the dreams, faces in the jungle in the L.A. depot, the smoky silence of solid white walls"(Silko 141). Tayo is looking back at things in his past that have hurt him in one way or another. Wether it is missing them or the pain they had caused him. He says he can feel the ceremony when he thinks about these things and its helping block out the pain. He says that the voices and dreams are being held back. Tayo tells Betonie that he wants to thank him for the ceremony he just did on him and Betonie tells him that this ceremony has been going on for longer then he knows."Old Betonie shook his head 'This has been going on for a long long time now. It's up to you. Don't let them stop you. Don't let them finish off this world' "(Silko 141).  Betonie is telling Tayo that he has been healing for some time now and to not let the corruption in the world stop his healing process. Tayo can see the world however he chooses to and Betonie is trying to teach him to see the beauty in it. 

As Tayo is traveling he sees and experiences the stereotypes of Indians. Tayo stops at a gas station and the man who owns the store gave off the impression that Tayo was up to no good. "He looked at Tayo suspiciously as if he thought Tayo might be drunk, or in there to steal something. In his anger Tsyo imagined movie image of himself turning the pockets of his jeans inside out, unbuttoning his shirt to prove he had stolen nothing"(Silko 143). Tayo walks in this station and the man looks at him as just another drunk indian. He assumes Tayo is there to steal something just because he is Native American. Instead of Tayo getting angry he laughs at the ignorance of this man. " He had never seen a white person so clearly before. He had to turn away. All those things old Betonie said had told him were swirling inside his head, doing strange things; he wanted to laugh. He wanted to laugh at the station man who did not even know that his existence of all white people had been conceived by witchery"(Silko143). Betonie taught Tayo that witchery is what corrupted society and had made people think that not everyone is equal when everyone is just human. This shows how much Tayo is growing and it shows that he is healing.