Joy Harjo's Web Log

Beautiful morning. Cherry blossoms in bloom. According to the river it is calm, receptive day. The clock on my computer reads 3:23AM, Honolulu time. Here it's six hours later. My spirit is somewhere inbetween. I put my lower mind to work holding open the door for inspiration and then what happens? The maid knocks and on the door and forces her way in, next the guy who wants to check the minibar that I haven't opened. I can’t think about time. It’s a construction for the lower mind. For the higher mind there’s eternity.

Why is virtue so difficult to cultivate? And why does vice grow and over take even if the seeds are merely tossed on concrete?
It appears more difficult to be disciplined and train my mind in the direction of brilliance and accomplishment and compassion than to read People Magazine and other such ilk all the way across the country on a packed plane. I just have to get back on it, and this morning is it:

--Free write, then write towards perfection and knowing
--Workout in the fitness room
--Practice sax and find a couple of more reeds.
--Catch up on expense log
--Write up schedule for time here. And put on PDA. Today I'm picked up by Howard Bass for a tour of the NMAI, then perform tonight and discussion with Suzan Harjo.

This morning the news is the Death of the Pope. The larger question is, who are the contenders for this powerful position, as whoever it is will wield incredible power throughout the world. Please, a compassionate human being. The likelihood? Is it possible for a compassionate human being to come to power in a time of noxious and nasty currents of police state and war mentality? It’s possible, not likely. Is a time like this prone to run itself out until we are all destroyed or mowed down, give in to the momentum? Or is this the culminating point of years of such a force? And what does this mean at the Mvskoke tribal level?

Thinking of how someone has given their company an imagined Indian moniker. Would be like me calling my company the Kabbalah, or Kwanza-something something like that and talking about how much I love and respect the particular group of people--hence the naming. Well, maybe they were Indian in their last life, or want to be in this one...But I don't think they would really want to be Indian, to live as an Indian person in this land. It's easy to admire an image from a distance, but the packaged image of Indian has nothing to do with us as human beings, nothing at all. Personally, this morning I'm over it. Too much jealousy, infighting, shame, fury--but once we settle down and remember who we really are--before the knife of "civilization" then the gift is amazing. But like any gift, it takes sacrifice, tending and songs.

Now, why do people get away with this false naming? It has to do with how Indians are still viewed in this country. Our dreams, our minds, our history or how they are imagined to be are being colonized.

And is it possible to walk outside that construct, outside linear time and being, outside these expectations? If you do you may walk alone for a long time.

So it is.

So, quit complaining.