Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings (Part 4)
By Joy Harjo
4. Reduce Defensiveness and Break the Defensiveness Chain
I could hear the light beings as they entered every cell. Every cell is a house of the god of light, they said. I could hear the spirits who love us stomp dancing. They were dancing as if they were here, and then another level of here, and then another, until the whole earth and sky was dancing.
We are here dancing, they said. There was no there.
There was no “I” or “you.”
There was us; there was “we.”
There we were as if we were the music.
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.
We will wind up back at the blues standing on the edge of the flatted fifth about to jump into a fierce understanding together.
From Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings — Poems opens in a new tab by Joy Harjo.
We will publish part 5 in next month’s edition.
