'It is through the ritual power of speech and song that the Navajo are enabled most powerfully to affect and alter events in the enveloping cosmos. According to Gary Witherspoon, in his landmark study of 'Language and Art in the Navajo Universe', the Navajo consider the act of speech to be an externalization of thought, "an impositions of form upon the external world" in which the surrounding Air is transformed". And because the Air or Wind is the very medium in which the other natural forces live and act, by transforming the Air through song, the singer is able to affect and subtly influence the activity of the great natural powers themselves.
When a Navajo person wishes to renew or reestablish, in the world, the harmonious condition of well being and beauty expressed by the Navajo word 'Hozho' he must first strive, thorough ritual, to create this harmony and peacefulness within his own being. Having established such 'hozho' within himself, he can then actively impart this state of well-being to the enveloping cosmos, through the transforming power of song or prayer. Finally, according to Witherspoon, "after a person has projected 'hozho' in the air through ritual form, he then, at the conclusion of the ritual, breathes that 'hozho' back into himself and makes himself a part of the order, harmony, and beauty he has projected into the world though through the ritual mediums of speech and song".

'The Spell of the Sensuous' by David Abram pg. 236