Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings Quotes

“Bless the poets, the workers for justice,
the dancers of ceremony, the singers of heartache,
the visionaries, all makers and carriers of fresh
meaning—We will all make it through,
despite politics and wars, despite failures
and misunderstandings. There is only love.”
― Joy Harjo, Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings: Poems

“Call your spirit back. It may be caught in corners and creases of shame, judgment, and human abuse.

You must call in a way that your spirit will want to return.

Speak to it as you would to a beloved child.

Welcome your spirit back from its wandering. It may return in pieces, in tatters. Gather them together. They will be happy to be found after being lost for so long.

Your spirit will need to sleep awhile after it is bathed and given clean clothes.

Now you can have a party. Invite everyone you know who loves and supports you. Keep room for those who have no place else to go.

Make a giveaway, and remember, keep the speeches short.

Then, you must do this: help the next person find their way through the dark.”
― Joy Harjo, Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings: Poems

“A panther poised in the cypress tree about to jump is a
panther poised in a cypress tree about to jump.

The panther is a poem of fire green eyes and a heart charged
by four winds of four directions.

The panther hears everything in the dark: the unspoken
tears of a few hundred human years, storms that will break
what has broken his world, a bluebird swaying on a branch a
few miles away.

He hears the death song of his approaching prey:

I will always love you, sunrise.
I belong to the black cat with fire green eyes.
There, in the cypress tree near the morning star.”
― Joy Harjo, Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings: Poems

“Cut the ties you have to failure and shame. Let go the pain you are holding in your mind, your shoulders, your heart, all the way to your feet. Let go the pain of your ancestors to make way for those who are heading in our direction. Ask for forgiveness. Call upon the help of those who love you. These helpers take many forms: animal, element, bird, angel, saint, stone, or ancestor.”
― Joy Harjo, Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings: Poems

“I need a song that will keep sky open in my mind. If I think behind me, I might break. If I think forward, I lose now.”
― Joy Harjo, Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings: Poems

“Let's not shame our eyes for seeing. Instead, thank them for their bravery.”
― Joy Harjo, Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings: Poems

“Don't forget: hold somebody's hand through the dark.”
― Joy Harjo, Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings: Poems

“Call your spirit back. It may be caught in corners and creases of shame, judgment, and human abuse.

You must call in a way that your spirit will want to return.
Speak to it as you would to a beloved child.

Welcome your spirit back from its wandering. It may return in pieces, in tatters. Gather them together. They will be happy to be found after being lost for so long.”
― Joy Harjo, Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings: Poems

“What shall I do with all this heartache?”
― Joy Harjo, Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings: Poems

“Do not feed the monsters.
Some are wandering thought forms, looking for a place to set up house.
Some are sent to you deliberately. They come from arrows of gossip, jealousy or envy--and inadvertently from thoughtlessness.
They feed on your attention, and feast on your fear.”
― Joy Harjo, Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings: Poems

“Let the earth stabilize your postcolonial insecure jitters.”
― Joy Harjo, Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings: Poems

“I would rather not speak with history but history came to me.
It was dark before daybreak when the fire sparked.
The men left on a hunt from the Pequot village here where I stand.
The women and children left behind were set afire.
I do not want to know this, but my gut knows the language of bloodshed.
Over six hundred were killed, to establish a home for God’s people, crowed the Puritan leaders in their Sunday sermons.
And then history was gone in a betrayal of smoke.
There is still burning though we live in a democracy erected over the burial ground.”
― Joy Harjo, Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings: Poems

“Be respectful of the small insects, birds and animal people who accompany you.
Ask their forgiveness for the harm we humans have brought down upon them.”
― Joy Harjo, Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings: Poems

“The wanting infected the earth.
We lost track of the purpose and reason for life.
We began to forget our songs. We forgot our stories.
We could no longer see or hear our ancestors,
Or talk with each other across the kitchen table.”
― Joy Harjo, Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings: Poems

“I lay my body down in another city, another hotel room. Once Louis Armstrong and his band stayed here. Later the hotel fell to trash. New money resurrected it. Under the red moon of justice, I dream with the king of jazz.”
― Joy Harjo, Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings: Poems

“You must speak in the language of justice.”
― Joy Harjo, Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings: Poems

“You cannot legislate music to lockstep nor can you legislate
the spirit of the music to stop at political boundaries-

-Or poetry, or art, or anything that is of value or matters in
this world, and the next worlds.

This is about getting to know each other”
― Joy Harjo, Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings: Poems

“We will always become those we have ever feared or condemned”
― Joy Harjo, Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings: Poems

“Don't feed the monsters...Some are sent to you deliberately. They come from arrows of gossip, jealousy, and envy- and inadvertently from thoughtlessness. They feed on your attention, and feast on your fear.”
― Joy Harjo, Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings: Poems

“Praise the rain; the seagull dive
The curl of plant, the raven talk—
Praise the hurt, the house slack
The stand of trees, the dignity—
Praise the dark, the moon cradle
The sky fall, the bear sleep—
Praise the mist, the warrior name
The earth eclipse, the fired leap—
Praise the backwards, upward sky
The baby cry, the spirit food—
Praise canoe, the fish rush
The hole for frog, the upside-down—
Praise the day, the cloud cup
The mind flat, forget it all—

Praise crazy. Praise sad.
Praise the path on which we're led.
Praise the roads on earth and water.
Praise the eater and the eaten.
Praise beginnings; praise the end.
Praise the song and praise the singer.

Praise the rain; it brings more rain.
Praise the rain; it brings more rain.”
― Joy Harjo, Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings: Poems

“Am Not Ready to Die Yet My death peers at the world through a plumeria tree The tree looks out over the neighbor’s house to the Pacific A blue water spirit commands this part of the earth mind Without question, it rules from the kingdom of secrets And tremendous fishes. I was once given to the water. My ashes will return there, But I am not ready to die yet— This morning I carry the desire to live, inside my thigh It pulses there: a banyan, a mynah bird, or a young impatient wind Until I am ready to fly again, over the pungent flowers Over the sawing and drilling workmen making a mess In the yard of the house next door— It is endless, this map of eternity. Beware the water monster that lives at the borders of doubt— He can swallow everything whole: all the delectable mangoes, dreams, and even the most faithful of planets— I was once given to the water. My ashes will return there, But I am not ready to die yet— And when it happens, as it certainly will, the lights Will go on in the city and the city will go on shining At the edge of the water—it is endless—this earthy mind— There will be flowers. There are always flowers, And a fine blessing rain will fall through the net of the clouds Bearing offerings to the stones, and to all who linger. It will be a day like any other. Someone will be hammering; someone will be frying fish. And at noon the workmen will go home to eat poi, pork, and rice.”
― Joy Harjo, Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings: Poems

“If I think behind me, I might break.
If I think forward, I lose now.
Forever will be a day like this
Strung perfectly on the necklace of days.”
― Joy Harjo, Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings: Poems

“In the United terminal in Chicago at five on a Friday afternoon
The sky is breaking with rain and wind and all the flights
Are delayed forever. We will never get to where we are going
And there’s no way back to where we’ve been.”
― Joy Harjo, Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings: Poems

“Once the World Was Perfect
"Once the world was perfect, and we were happy in that world.
Then we took it for granted.
Discontent began a small rumble in the earthly mind.
Then Doubt pushed through with its spiked head.
And once Doubt ruptured the web,
All manner of demon thoughts
Jumped through—
We destroyed the world we had been given
For inspiration, for life—
Each stone of jealousy, each stone
Of fear, greed, envy, and hatred, put out the light.
No one was without a stone in his or her hand.
There we were,
Right back where we had started.
We were bumping into each other
In the dark.
And now we had no place to live, since we didn't know
How to live with each other.
Then one of the stumbling ones took pity on another
And shared a blanket.
A spark of kindness made a light.
The light made an opening in the darkness.
Everyone worked together to make a ladder.
A Wind Clan person climbed out first into the next world,
And then the other clans, the children of those clans, their children,
And their children, all the way through time—
To now, into this morning light to you.”
― Joy Harjo, Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings: Poems

“Some things on this earth are unspeakable:
Genealogy of the broken—
A shy wind threading leaves after a massacre,
Or the smell of coffee and no one there—”
― Joy Harjo, Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings: Poems

“Praise crazy. Praise sad.
Praise the path on which we're led.
Praise the roads on earth and water.
Praise the eater and the eaten.
Praise beginnings; praise the end.
Praise the song and praise the singer.

Praise the rain; it brings more rain.
Praise the rain; it brings more rain.”
― Joy Harjo, Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings: Poems

“You might try dancing theory with a bustle, or a jingle dress, or with turtles strapped around your legs. You might try wearing colonization like a heavy gold chain around a pimp's neck.”
― Joy Harjo, Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings: Poems

“In a world long before this one, there was enough for everyone,
Until somebody got out of line.”
― Joy Harjo, Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings: Poems

“By listening we will understand who we are in this holy realm of words.”
― Joy Harjo, Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings: Poems

“The door to the mind should only open from the heart.
An enemy who gets in, risks the danger of becoming a friend.”
― Joy Harjo, Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings: Poems