Joy Harjo's Web Log

Great show last night in Ketchum! I have the same "Protecting America from Terrorism since 1492" T-Shirt as the lonesome Navajo visitor. A topical shirt with Columbus Day and all.
Supposedly the Senior Center in Hailey here, choose to honor Columbus day, rather than Martin Luther King Jr. day, when it came down to a choice between one of the two.

Dozens of outstanding gems emanated from you, Joy and Louise last night. I was happy as a heathen to worship your microcosmic solar flares. In particular, "It says something terrible about us, when the lowest paying jobs are child care and elementary school teaching." -Those which should be the most important. "Even the Sun knows when it made an error,'I made my mistake.'

The talk about healthy varieties of Bananas in Hawaii reminded me of this phrase I wrote after visiting a South American exhibit of 100 potatoes of different sizes, shapes and colours at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington D.C.:
"Discovering multiple varieties of potatoes in the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial, was a rush for me. Scientists explain that not only is variety the spice of life, but that cultivating such diversity enables farmers to have options to choose by, in the event some potatoes comform to blight or nematodes. Limited homogenized forms of pototoes can be boring. So too it is the same with human beings. And the Abe Lincoln memorial celebrates this fact. Multiculturism is a forgotten cornerstone of this country. "Give me your huddled masses" is what another fine figurine, The Statue of Liberty (donated by France) beckons. Though nowadays Lawrence Ferlinghetti has a great unfinished painting of Lady Liberty currently posted on his City Lights website saying, "Don't give me Your Huddled masses"

I found it interesting that government agents forbid the speaking of Objibwei in the fifties / early sixties. How soon it was forgotten / unappreciated how Navajo code-talkers helped save our butts in WW2.

Hearing how spirits come and find you if you show up with intent at scheduled times for focused writing, made some in the audience laugh. But for those of us who have had this repeatedly happen, it's a nice resource to know in the back of your head that this does happen. And helps brine us out of our saltiest moods.

Stephen King says that writing is sometimes like navigating a bathtub across the ocean. There's plenty of time for doubts.

As far as Faulkner drinking and writing, Hemingway here split the pie in three with kids. I wonder which slice came in third?

Thanks again for helping us all "Train our eyes upon the Truth" -just a little bit more.