#crazybrave

Remember the sky that you were born under,  know each of the star's stories.  Remember the moon, know who she is. I met her  in a bar once in Iowa City.  Remember the sun's birth at dawn, that is the  strongest point of time. Remember sundown  and the giving away to night.  Remember your birth, how your mother struggled  to give you form and breath. You are evidence of  her life, and her mother's, and hers.  Remember your father. He is your life also.  Remember the earth whose skin you are:  red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth  brown earth, we are earth.  Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their  tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,  listen to them. They are alive poems.  Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the  origin of this universe. I heard her singing Kiowa war  dance songs at the corner of Fourth and Central once.  Remember that you are all people and that all people are you.  Remember that you are this universe and that this universe is you.  Remember that all is in motion, is growing, is you.  Remember that language comes from this.  Remember the dance that language is, that life is.  Remember. 

-Joy Harjo

"No," he said. "We can't work politically for a better world for the people if we can't hold it together in our own house." I convinced myself that we owed it to ourselves to keep trying. I found excuses: He had been overcome with grief for his buddy. He was an Indian man in a white world. (145) As I sketched, I considered the notion of warrior. In the American mainstream imagination, warriors were always male and military, and when they were Indian warriors they were usually Plains Indian males with headdresses. What of contemporary warriors? And what of the wives, mothers, and daughters whose small daily acts of sacrifice and bravery were usually unrecognized or unrewarded? These acts were just as crucial to the safety and well-being of the people. (150) I did not get him out of jail that time. I did not take him back. My dreams had warned me. I understood why women went back to their abusers. the monster wasn't your real husband. He was a bad dream, an alien of sorts who took over the spirit of your beloved one. He entered and left your husband. It was your real love you welcomed back in. (157) These fathers, boyfriends, and husbands were all men we loved, and were worthy of love. As peoples, we had been broken. We were still in the bloody aftermath of a violent takeover of our lands. Within a few generations we had gone from being nearly one hundred percent of the population of this continent to less than one-half of one percent. We were all haunted. (158) CRAZY BRAVE, Joy Harjo

My rite of passage into the world of humanity occurred then, through jazz. The music was a startling bridge between familiar and strange lands. I heard stomp-dance shells, singing. I saw suits, satin, find hats. I heard workers singing in the fields. It was a way to speak beyond the confines of ordinary language. I still hear it. (18) A story matrix connects all of us. There are rules, processes, and circles of responsibility in this world. And the story begins exactly where it is supposed to begin. We cannot skip any part. (28) In those early years I lived in a world of animal powers. Most children do. In those years we are still close to the door of knowing. (39) I went inside to put on a shirt. I knew better than to talk back. In that small moment the earthly delight of being five years old, of being utterly body and breath, came falling down. (47) I loved the erotic poetry of the Song of Solomon from the Bible. These were in essence love songs for a beloved. The beloved was also God. I turned to these songs in the Bible to escape the pedantic sermons of the preacher. I preferred to consider God as a beloved rather than as a wrathful white man who was ready to destroy anyone who had an imagination. (79) We were all "skins" traveling together in an age of metamorphosis, facing the same traumas from colonization and dehumanization. We were direct evidence of the struggle of our ancestors. We heard them and they spoke through us, though like others of our generation, we wore bell-bottoms and Lennon eye-glasses. (86) Breaths of CRAZY BRAZE, by Joy Harjo.  Joy is a warrior, performer/writer of the Mcskoke/Creek Nation. Her story is speaking to deep parts of my spirit and I feel the need to share some of her words, while encouraging you to read her work 

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