Joy Harjo's Web Log

January 11, 2006 Honolulu

I imagine that I am dreaming after I wake up and pull on my earthly skin. I pull it up over bumps. I am in reconstruction. I've had to re-remember and remind myself that my manner of construction of art comes directly from dreaming, from within dreamtime. That’s how my poems came, my songs, how they are born and come forth. Those years at UCLA and teaching in that kind of atmosphere did not value dreaming, though none of the academic constructions would exist without dreaming. The buildings wouldn’t exist without dreaming, nor would the humans who work there, nor would the various programs exist without dreaming and intuition. Reason and logic is a very small part of it, but necessary, like a ruler, compass and protractor are necessary when constructing buildings. I am being forced to strip myself of false notions of art and the purpose of art, of how art is born, where it comes from, its path and have to reconsider my attachment to certain ideas about the process.

i've had to deconstruct to remember myself again. (A different take on that term!)