synopsis: With stories being the "bone and muscle" of being human, Joy Harjo's new book is a testament to the transformative power of self-expression and gratitude in a world crying out for connection. “We have to stand for what's right. You can't stand and watch a neighbor starving. We have to realize that ultimately we were created by a creator who loves diversity . . . The universal law is diversity. Universal law is love and connection. We're all connected.” - Joy Harjo Description: We are in what today’s guest calls a dark night of our national soul. But this notion of becoming is what Joy Harjo, the renowned poet, performer, writer and activist of the Muscogee Creek Nation takes up in her career. She is just out with “Girl Warrior: On Coming of Age”, a guide, dedicated especially to Indigenous girls, for people trying to find their way in a time of transformation. Guest: Joy Harjo (Mvskoke): Poet, Performer & Writer; Author, Girl Warrior: On Coming of Age Full Conversation Release: While our weekly shows are edited to time for broadcast on Public TV and community radio, we offer to our members and podcast subscribers the full uncut conversation. These audio exclusives are made possible thanks to our member supporters. Become a member today, go to https://Patreon.com/LauraFlandersandFriends. Watch the special report on YouTube; PBS World Channel November 23rd, and on over 300 public stations across the country. Listen: Episode airing on community radio starting November 26th (check your local station schedule) & available as a podcast.
Synopsis: Join acclaimed poet Joy Harjo for an illuminating conversation on finding courage and embracing our stories, as she discusses her new guide "Girl Warrior: On Coming of Age"
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Description: We are in what today’s guest calls a dark night of our national soul. Many of us are feeling hopeless, uncomfortable and stuck, but it is possible to make it through the darkness. Generations before us survived the unthinkable; if the past has a story to tell, what’s today’s? This notion of coming into ourselves and embracing our stories is what Joy Harjo, the internationally renowned poet, performer, writer and activist of the Muscogee Creek Nation takes up in her long-spanning career. Harjo is just out with “Girl Warrior: On Coming of Age”, a guide, dedicated especially to Indigenous girls, for people trying to find their way in a time of transformation. She is the author of two American Book Awards winners: “In Mad Love and War” and “Crazy Brave”, and was executive editor of the groundbreaking “When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through: A Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry”. She was the first Indigenous Poet Laureate and served three terms from 2019 to 2022. Join Harjo and Flanders for this illuminating conversation on finding courage this winter, plus a commentary from Laura on releasing the files on Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls.
“We have to stand for what's right. You can't stand and watch a neighbor starving. We have to realize that ultimately we were created by a creator who loves diversity . . . The universal law is diversity. Universal law is love and connection. We're all connected.” - Joy Harjo
“The bone and the muscle of being human is stories. That's what we do. I remember years ago, thinking about what use are human beings to the ecosystem. I really couldn't find a reason that we were here, except that we make stories. It's important we express gratitude and that we're helpful to the other beings who live here.” - Joy Harjo
Guest: Joy Harjo (Mvskoke): Poet, Performer & Writer; Author, Girl Warrior: On Coming of Age
Full Conversation Release: While our weekly shows are edited to time for broadcast on Public TV and community radio, we offer to our members and podcast subscribers the full uncut conversation. These audio exclusives are made possible thanks to our member supporters.
Watch the special report on YouTube; PBS World Channel November 23rd, and on over 300 public stations across the country (check your listings, or search here via zipcode). Listen: Episode airing on community radio starting November 26th (check here to see if your station is airing the show and air date & time) & available as a podcast.
RESOURCES:
Related Laura Flanders Show Episodes:
• Jacqueline Woodson & Catherine Gund: Breathing Through Chaos & the “Meanwhile”: Watch / Listen- Episode and Full Uncut Conversation
• Survival Guide for Humans Learned from Marine Mammals with Alexis Pauline Gumbs: Watch / Listen- Episode and Full Uncut Conversation
• Red Road to the Future: Native Sovereignty is Key to Climate Justice: Watch / Listen- Episode
• Dolores Huerta & Ellen Gavin: Creative Courage in the Face of Fascism: Watch / Listen- Episode and Full Uncut Conversation
•. Resistance and Revolutionary Poetry: Aja Monet: Watch / Listen- Episode
Related Articles and Resources:
• The Contagious Gen Z Uprisings, by Katrin Bennhold, October 19, 2025, The New York Times
• Exclusive: Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery Unveils Four New Portraits, by Emily Burack, October 22, 2025, Town & Country
• High youth death rates are an ‘emerging crisis’, global health study, by Kat Lay, October 12, 2025, The Guardian
• Joy Hard Honored With Portrait of a Nation Award at Smithsonian Gala, by Levi Rickert, November 16, 2025, Native News Online
• Joy Harjo’s Inaugural Reading as U.S. met Laureate, September 19, 2019, Library of Congress
• Health Disparities in Suicide, Suicide Prevention, May 16, 2024, CDC
• Joy Harjo, U.S. Poet Laureate, 2019-2022 - Library of Congress
• “Shelter in Place Sessions”, 2020, featuring Joy Harjo, Southwest Roots Music - Watch
Full Episode Notes are located HERE.
Music Credit: 'Thrum of Soil' by Bluedot Sessions, and original sound design by Jeannie Hopper
Support Laura Flanders and Friends by becoming a member at https://www.patreon.com/c/lauraflandersandfriends
Chapters:
Introducing Joy Harjo's Guide for Our Times
00:00:00
Joy Harjo on Humanity's Spiritual Transformation
00:02:14
From Caterpillar to Butterfly: Navigating Collective Chaos
00:05:29
Finding Community: Real Life vs. Digital Connections
00:08:06
Humans as Storytellers: Navigating Contradictions and Gratitude
00:12:47
Finding Calm Amidst Anxiety and Embracing Inner Stillness
00:17:42
Joy Harjo Shares "Overwhelm" and Creative Healing
00:23:24
Finding Inspiration and Wisdom in Mentors and Humor
00:26:52
Embracing Curiosity for a Collective Vision of Harmony
00:29:56
Nurturing Youth for a Spiritual Renaissance
00:34:31
Joy Harjo's Upcoming Works and Final Wisdom
00:37:59
123.
Narrator: While our weekly shows are edited at a time for broadcast on Public TV and community radio, we offered to our members and podcast subscribers the full, uncut conversation.
These audio exclusives are made possible thanks to our member supporters.
0:24
We are in what today's guest calls a dark night of our national soul.
Violence is targeting our women and girls and all those who identify as female.
We're witnessing an epidemic of those who never make it home and I never heard from again.
0:40
The Arctic ice is melting and record numbers of our young people are losing their dreams to the doom scroll of the Internet.
So how do we find our courage if every generation has a story to tell?
What's this one's In her newest book, our guest today reminds us that unusual things can happen at the intersection of time, form, place, and passion, and it is just possible that our story is unfolding exactly as it should.
1:10
Those lines come from Girl Warrior on Coming of Age, the latest book from the celebrated writer Joy Harjo, written as a guide for young people, especially young indigenous girls.
There is a message in Girl Warrior for anyone looking for help finding their way.
1:27
And that, it seems to me, is all of us right now, certainly me, which makes me very happy to welcome Joy Harjo to our program.
Harjo is the author of countless books, including two American Book Award winners in Mad Love and War and Crazy Brave, and she was the executive editor of The Ground Breaking When the Light of the World Was Subdued.
1:49
Our songs came through a Norton Anthology of Native Nations poetry.
Harjo is a saxophone player and performer, a visual artist, a member of the Muskogee Creek Nation, and served 3 terms as the 23rd Poet Laureate of the United States from 2019 to 2022.
2:08
It is my incredible honor and pleasure to welcome Joy Harjo to Laura Flanders and friends.
Welcome friend.
Well, I'm glad to be back.
We it's been years, way too long.
Many years.
And thank you for all of those lines and for this book.
2:24
I took the liberty of lifting from your words to describe the nation the the moment that we're in as I'm feeling it.
How would you describe it if if you were to do it afresh today, what would you, how would you describe this moment that we're in?
2:41
Well, we're definitely in a transformative moment, but we're in many layers of transformative moments, everything from the environment to the political to racial to it's all spiritual.
2:57
I mean, all of those, it's really, it's really about a spiritual transformation.
And we, you know, we all take on the story and we take on breath, we take on a story.
And, and I have to think about it.
I have to think about it like that, that, you know, we're here to grow spiritual muscle and this is quite the time we were given quite the opportunity to come in at this time.
3:24
This is what I tell younger generations too, that they came in with exactly what we needed to get through and to learn.
I mean, we are here to learn and the learning continues.
No matter how young or how old you are, it's you know it's important that you keep open.
3:41
Well, this book, as you say, what started out as a guide for young people, but it feels as if it became much more what happened in the writing.
Yeah, I never know what's going to happen in the writing.
I have 1/3 memoir due and I'm trying to figure that out, but I can't overthink it.
4:00
I just have to go.
And I this book came about because I travel about quite a bit speaking, especially in universities.
That's my major.
That's the those that's my major touchdown places and native communities and I speak to young people and, and so I wrote this thinking about who they are, what they're going through during this time to, to maybe give assistance because of things that I've been through.
4:30
I can't, I can't, nor do I want to tell anyone what to do.
But when you get to my age, you know, you've got some kind of wisdom.
You, you've had teachers, I've had many, many teachers and mentors along the way.
And and so I just wanted to pass this along.
4:48
And as I wrote, I did start to realize that, well, we're, this is a coming of age moment, you know, for democracy.
It's a coming of age moment for humanity.
Are we going to choose kindness over cruelty?
5:06
It's so in a way, this book has turned out to address this age that we're all in together, you know, because that because, you know, coming of age just isn't becoming an adult, but it's all of the kinds of becoming as we move toward self knowledge, which is also community knowledge where you.
5:29
Write in the book in variety of ways how challenging transformation can be, sometimes physically painful, often spiritually.
So our young people, well, our people are seeing, all of us are seeing tremendous rates of despair.
5:45
Suicide rates have gone up something like 36% in two decades, especially among young people and kids of color, Indigenous kids most of all.
How did you find those young people and how did you connect with them?
Well, one of the stories, I think it's the third one in called Mystery, was in the 80s, I was called up to the Wind River Reservation because the suicide was epidemic and so much that it even was in the national news.
6:14
And Natives rarely get into the national news.
And so the, the community, the community people called me in because they knew, they know the power of language and they knew that poetry could be helpful to the young people.
6:30
And so that's, that story is about going up there and engaging with, with the young people and thinking about too, what they were going through.
And, and it's interesting.
I love what happens when you're in the middle of creation, whatever it is, and things come.
6:45
And I would say, thank you.
Where did that come from?
And I started thinking about how adolescence or even even a period like we're going through now in this country and the whole earth is, you know, you're a Caterpillar in your, in your knowledge base, sort of in your awareness and, and you're eating and taking in information and stories.
7:07
And then the next thing you know, you're wrapped up in them and, and it all starts to mesh and deteriorate.
And there's chaos.
Like right now there's chaos.
We don't know what's going to happen.
We never know.
We turn, you know, you don't know from one moment to the next what kind of insanity is going to erupt from from the house where there is supposed to be a leader in residence.
7:35
And so that's that chaotic soup.
But then in the stories, you know, what emerges from that is the butterfly, and that's how I I was equating in that I equate in that story become going from being a child to an adult is like that.
7:55
That teenagehood becoming of age period is like that.
But it's like that right now with in, you know, in our collective community.
Well, I want to believe that we're shedding all those little legs and, and growing wings and that it's just painful.
8:11
So I, I can, I can relate to the discomfort perhaps.
And I guess that brings me to your question about how you found your story.
I think if I remember from your memoirs, you, you, you wrote about, I think you put it as escaping, escaping to the warmth of Santa Fe to a native school, not how people normally talk about those native boarding schools.
8:31
But for you, yours had a focus on arts and you were always a, an artist, a visual artist and a Music Maker.
Describe that for us, if you would that that moment in your life, that period for you.
Yes, I mean the resident, the residential or Indian schools could be pretty brutal, you know, with a large graveyards attached to them and there was even some of that.
8:56
I went to the Institute of American Indian Arts when it was a Bureau of Indian Affairs school and they were doing something then that had never been done before, which is arts.
They brought in some of the finest native and non-native artists and you had to, as a student, it went from 8th to grade to 12th and two years postgraduate, you had to apply.
9:19
I applied with drawings and, and I got in and it, it saved my life because I mean, Can you imagine being a sort of like the fame school in New York, you know, where you're suddenly you're around your own kind, you know, you're the weirdo, but so is everybody else, you know, and you have a, you guys have, you know, everyone has a similar story.
9:41
And we came from Native communities all over the country, even as far as from Florida to Alaska to make art with people who are making art.
And that, that was my home.
That became my home.
And that really, that really saved my life.
9:57
Yet we weren't allowed to speak Native languages.
There were still residue, you know, from, from the previous Indian school, you know, previous Indian school incarnations, but it, this one was, you know, this one was I guess a kind of bridge.
10:24
You talk a lot in the book about the challenge of sort of surfing.
Bad verb, but the Internet, and it does seem to me that a lot of people go to the Internet for what you found at that school for community, for people like them, for their own folks.
10:43
How do you weigh the the the the sort of advantages and disadvantages of of everybody in their palm of their hand or so many people being able to connect to the world?
I think that a lot of the young this, what I've noticed going on the Internet because I go on there too, is that they're not who the people aren't often who they say they are or they remake their image with effects or so on to be somebody who they think they should be.
11:13
I think that's the main difference.
At Indian school, we were just who we were.
We didn't, we weren't dealing with filters.
We weren't dealing with trying to fit in with people we didn't even know, you know, in that community.
11:29
And when that I think I wrote about this too, when those images like the reels and TikTok started invading my dreams.
I value my dream space, which is my it's my creative space too.
It starts breaking it and when in my dreamscape, which I like because of the time, I appreciate because of the timelessness and the way you can move creatively.
11:54
When my dream start space started acting like Tik Toks little little short pieces, I thought I deleted TikTok.
And yet I know there's so much on there.
There's so much about you valuable.
A lot of people make their living on it and so on.
12:09
And every once in a while I'll dip in, but I cannot.
It is so addictive.
I think it's even more addictive than sugar.
It's it's one of the most addictive things and.
Designed to be that way to make money off us all.
Yeah, we're losing grandchildren.
12:25
I mean, we've talked about some of some of our grandchildren who who they're not interested in, in higher education of whatever sort.
I mean, there's all kinds.
You don't have to go to a university for education, but they're so locked into the Internet that they don't want to get out of the house.
12:44
So how do we find our stories?
How did you find yours?
And another part of your book, I think that's very powerful is, you know, we've been through this period of transformation and new storytelling.
And I was actually in Cherokee.
I was, I was in North Carolina with the Eastern Band of Cherokee.
13:00
And in Cherokee, they have a new museum or they have the old museum and they're redoing it and they're redoing it with these little, they are not done yet.
It's a process.
And they're putting these questions on the wall and the questions say, would you want your people represented by the relics that they left, you know, hundreds of years ago?
13:19
And what relic would that be?
And, and, and what about these drawings?
They're asking people to ask new questions about this history at the same time as they're telling this painful history.
And I guess one of the things I I have in my mind is how to balance our own story with our ancestors story with what we bring into this moment, which can feel heavy but also helpful, as you say.
13:49
So how do?
You or impossible?
Impossible because you think about it is there's contradictions.
Every one of us is a contradiction.
I think it was.
Was it Kris Kristoffer and Kris Kristofferson?
14:05
You know, we partly truth, partly fiction and, you know.
Yeah.
And anyway, yeah, there's such contradictions.
I mean, how you can't make.
There's things I finally had to realize through the years as you can't.
You can't make peace with everything that there is.
14:23
No, you cannot.
Like, there are people in our families we can't talk to because they're not going to listen.
And are we going to listen to them because they're supporting somebody who, you know, is going down the street and taking the grandfather of friends who has never lived in another country and dragging him off into, you know, dragging them off and, and sending them to a country they've never been to.
14:51
Never to come home and never to be heard from again.
Yeah, yeah.
So I'm not sure because I, I am about, I think everybody has a story and all this, you know, the whole, the whole first Part 1 is about a dream, you know, where all the stories exist.
15:06
But it doesn't mean that they're, the stories aren't the same.
We need a diversity of stories.
I mean, there would be no story at all without challenge.
There would be no story without contradictions.
We wouldn't even be interested without that.
15:22
We would just walk away with disinterest because, you know, it's the human thing.
We're we're we're taken by a fresh sounds, ears, stories, what's happening.
And that's the the bone and the muscle of of being human is stories.
15:38
That's what we do.
I remember going through years ago thinking about what use are human beings to the ecosystem, and I really couldn't find a reason that we were here except that we make stories, you know that, and that it's important we express gratitude and that we're helpful to the other beings, to each other and the other beings who live here.
16:03
So how are we doing on that front?
I think most people.
I think most.
I've been all over the world.
I haven't met everyone, but I've been all over.
And I think most people really want the same things.
16:19
They might go about it in a different way.
And I don't know how you deal with that with people who demand, and we see a lot of that here with certain religions, especially in the state of Oklahoma, who demand that everyone think like them and and they will enact laws to force that to force.
16:44
And I don't know what I don't I don't know what you do with that really.
I mean, we can stand up and and then there's a point to where you start feeding it because you're giving them all the energy and yet you need to acknowledge it, but continue to make a story weave that includes the children and includes, you know, is about making a place of that so that everyone has fresh water, so that, you know, everyone has enough food to eat.
17:22
You know, you're not stealing from you're not stealing from the poor to give the money to people who already have too much money.
And in the Muskogee tradition, if somebody has is accumulating and lives to accumulate, they're seen as being mentally ill.
17:42
Well, maybe that is the illness we are trying to shake off right this minute.
Yes, it's kind of inbuilt, it seems built into the system and maybe This is why we're going through this is to all of us to understand, to understand, to see it within ourselves, you know, and to change.
18:08 MIDROLL BREAK
As we say on this show, this is the place where the people who say it can't be done take a backseat to the people who are doing it.
From our recent conversations with Dolores Huerta on courage, or with the federal workers blowing the whistle at HUD, or with the congresswoman and the Marine veterans standing together against the militarization of our cities, we seek out stories that can inform and even inspire.
18:31
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Independent journalism like ours, Only some survives because people like you believe it matters.
If you value bold reporting on grounded solutions for a fairer future for all, please consider making a donation today at lauraflanders.org.
18:50
And thank you for standing with us at Laura Flanders and Friends, and for helping to keep independent journalism like ours alive and kicking.
So give us, give us tools.
19:06
You, you, you know, I'm hearing, you know, we need our stories and our ancestors and some of our relatives to be maybe seasoning, not not too much, not dominating the the flavor of our lives.
And we have to be open somehow.
19:25
You have a beautiful part in the chapter Feeding Your Spirit, where you write the songs plant themselves more easily when our bones and minds are more pliable, and you write often about being open to what comes and what comes from inside.
19:45
I don't know how you get there.
We're both in a moment of cold right now.
I feel like I'm clenching slightly, but sometimes what's happening around me makes me clench too.
So how do I?
How do I be pliable enough to let the song?
Settle, man.
20:01
And that's where you know there's anxiety.
I get it once in a while.
You know, everybody's dealing with it in some way when you.
When you, there's a, a kind of system, you know, when you know that it's, it's like going into a community and there's a leader.
20:17
You can tell this in any business you go to, you walk up to the counter and you can tell immediately by how people are acting, what the leadership is like, you know how, how kind, how the, you know how the business is run.
20:33
You can see evidence around it.
But when a business is being run helter Skelter then you see it, you see it in the employees, you see it in the interactions with customers, with, you know, with what is put out.
20:49
It's the, it's you don't rest.
There is no, you know, you cannot rest.
So we're in a situation like that right now where a kind of helter Skelter situation, and that can be anxiety provoking.
21:06
And the one thing I found is, is listening to heartbreak songs.
Yeah, I just figured this and it calmed me out because I've been on the road a lot too.
And I'll be in some hotel or someplace I don't really feel and I'll put those on.
21:22
And I find that I don't have to take any pill or anything.
There's something about it that just, you know, has calmed me out.
And being out in the inland, you know, being outside, unplugging will do it and just unplugging will help.
21:38
And then being out, yeah, with the trees and.
Animals.
I thought you were going to say go to the water, which which you talk about in the book and and there's a beautiful part of your book which either I could read or you could if you have your book there.
I have it right.
21:54
Here I was thinking of page 41 starting these days, going to the end of that little chapter.
OK, those days we might be tempted to retreat to the Internet story feed to calm the waters of the anxiety.
Yet in the unending scrolling story field on social media and the Internet, we are witness to disheartening stories that instead feed anxiety and plant in US distress and fear.
22:21
There are also positive images and stories, but it is the negative that more easily lodges in our consciousness and stirs the waters.
I was once reminded by the Old Ones that when the waters are stirred up in a pond, stream or river, you cannot see anything at all.
22:39
When you are disturbed and cannot find rest within your mind, then stop stirring the waters.
Thank the earth for her embrace, for holding you up.
Feel your rootedness.
Imagine the way the earth smells after a rain.
22:55
Breathe in blue sky clarity.
Breathe out muddy confusion.
Let your thoughts float.
Do not follow them.
The waters will grow still and clear.
When the waters are still and clear, you can see into the situation.
23:12
With a more comprehensive point of view, you can see farther, deeper.
As waters nature is to flow.
It will all pass, All of it.
I think I'm going to be reading that passage daily for a little while.
Yeah, I think I need it too.
23:30
I write things and I forget what I've written and I thought, whoa, I needed that.
I didn't know you.
You were an outrigged canoeist.
Yes.
On top of everything else.
Yes, I went to Hawaii.
Will my man killer ask if I was having a nervous breakdown, but you know, or something she was joking.
23:50
But I love the well, I love the I've always loved the ocean.
And there are I got to be it was the water was a healer for me.
Then I got to be in the water.
You didn't always play the sax, but music seems like it's playing a healing role with you too.
Yes, I always kind of wanted to and I grew up with my mother was a songwriter, singer and we had some of the best there.
24:15
Tulsa is a music town and they've been calling it Little Austin too, but it's Tulsa and it's been here and we had the best country swing band musicians at our house jamming out and the bootlegger lived next door, which made it convenient.
And but I didn't pick up a saxophone till I was almost 40 and started with music.
24:36
And now I have a new album coming out from Folkways.
They said I'm not supposed to say the name yet, but it'll be out from Folkways in March and it was produced with Esperanza Spalding.
Who has been a show, a guest on this show in our in our history, too?
24:52
Yeah.
Yeah.
I can't wait for that.
You have another book of poems coming out too.
Is there anything you want to read from those?
Yes, I'll read a poem called Overwhelm, again, addressing, addressing these times.
And I wound up in a little hotel room in Gunnison.
25:08
It was in Gunnison.
That's right, Gunnison Co.
And I remember noting on the elevator there was a guy who was really big with a case of beer.
And I thought, that's trouble.
Well, he wound up in the hotel room next to mine.
So here's here's the poem overwhelm.
25:28
There was a door between the men arguing and me in the small town hotel.
When I returned late to my room, then they went quiet.
Which can be more dangerous?
I became stealthy in my mind.
Bad spirits find doorways and stupor.
25:46
I used to see Cliff from the overwhelm and drink.
I'd ride over the Meadow of doubt flowers to the field of miracles where anything was possible.
In the blur.
I never drank alone.
It was the circle that drew me from the haunting to the waters.
26:03
We remembered songs we thought we had forgotten, and we were beautiful beyond belief.
The profane danced wildly with the sublime.
How ridiculous now to think we were happy in the quick shelter we sought from truth.
26:19
I now understand how a whole country can drink from the waters of illusion and go down, and how easy fury can turn to gunshots, then give way to torpor.
I needed a respite from the story.
26:34
Then, as in now.
I counted the steps from midnight to home to your arms.
The dark skies of eternity were lit with small fires.
They showed me the way.
That question of how you find your courage or find your way obviously as a big part of your multi page message to the people, the reading this book.
27:07
But if you were to speak to our audience today and maybe specifically to to fellow members of the Muskogee Nation, what's your advice?
What's your suggestion for how we find how you find your courage?
27:25
I find relatives and people who inspire me and I listen to them.
I may not have their words.
I have their presences.
Some of them are relatives, some of them are are plants, some of them are poets, some of them are artists.
27:47
It's important to it's important to feed your spirit by the it's important, it's important to feed your spirit that in that way to keep going.
Where do I start?
I think about June Jordan's poems, of course, have been coming up quite a bit.
28:06
I was very lucky to come of age as a poet when I did with Audrey Lorde was a mentor.
Adrian Rich, Ishmael Reed.
I mean, I had so many, I've had so many mentors.
I just responded to an e-mail.
28:23
I've got a, I've had an ongoing correspondence with my first poetry teacher at the University of New Mexico, David Johnson.
And then the children, there's a group of, I watch these little girls that have just turned about two and they're incredible.
28:38
You know, they, they're, I'm thinking it's going to be OK when I see these little kids because of what they're bringing in.
They're, they're really intelligent.
There's a wisdom about them and they're watching.
They're already, it's like they're already teenagers and they're only two years old.
28:59
And I think OK.
And they inspire me.
One of the things about June Jordan that I was happy lucky to benefit from too, was that example of how to be fierce and also funny, desperately fierce, and also catch you unawares with humor.
29:23
Some people say that's a indigenous trait.
Is it?
I think it's the trait of anybody who's gone to hell.
Yeah, that's how that's how you survive.
I mean, you look at I love comedy comedians and watching them and one of my best friends was he's gone now was a comedian.
29:41
And they're often the wisest, really wise people.
But it's that lap finding the humor in the most horrible moments gives you gives you literally lift.
Yeah, lift our spirits, lift our eyes off the off the phone, lift our eyes out of the doom scroll.
30:04
I love that you talk about curiosity and you end the book talking about curiosity.
And we end every episode by saying, you know, stay kind, stay curious, you say give chase, be curious.
You want to speak about that?
30:20
I loved that idea.
Yes, you know, my, my husband turned me on to that particularly curious because I, you know, I can get into like all of us can get into corners of things.
But he said if you're curious, he reminded me that, you know, just be curious.
30:40
And so when I've gone into situations that before I would have a tendency to react to, I just kind of stop and think, OK, what's behind this?
What's around it?
Walk around it in my mind and then take myself totally out of it and then come back in.
30:59
It's sort of like having a what do you call it?
Oh man, you know, they lift up and fly around.
What do they call?
Like a drone.
Yes, OK.
It's still sort of like I'll go back.
31:15
It's sort of like having a drone, you know, a drone that can go through time.
You know that not only do you go around this situation with, you know, drone like, but you go you can go through time with it and somehow getting that perspective.
31:32
Then you're not so you're not so stuck.
You know, you get other, you get perception.
Come, can, can come with that, with that curiosity.
So how much effort do we, do you think we have to put into understanding, as you put it, the occupant of that house that is supposed to house a leader and some of his followers?
32:03
Well, we have to know what's going on for real, but we have to keep in mind a vision.
And I think democracy was a kind of collective vision that came out of the house and the Sony, but also the Muskogee Nation has been called one of the oldest democracies on the on earth, on the planet.
32:22
And so if you keep in mind a vision and then if there's a collective vision, that helps also because a collective vision towards unity or harmony in the end is going to work more, will work more than something that's breaking it apart.
32:42
It may not happen exactly when we want it to.
I don't know.
I keep thinking about when I've been, you know, I speak to audiences.
I, I remind, I'm reminded and I remind the audience sometimes, and I've got to remember the word.
There's a something that happens when people are together, united, united together, and their hearts start naturally beating together in rhythm.
33:07
It's natural scientific fact.
And I was thinking about that and how in a system, in whatever system it is, systems, our Earth's systems work towards harmony.
And sometimes destruction can be working towards harmony.
33:26
Not us destroying, but some.
There are some things in our system that are no longer useful.
And sometimes the way to get to that happens in ways that are again, we get back in the drone, others, there's a larger view.
33:45
But in the middle of it, you know, we have to, you know, we have to stand up for those.
We have to stand up for what's right.
You know, we have we we have to.
I mean, you can't stand and watch a neighbor starving or, or, you know, it's the cruelty we have to, you know, and to realize that we're that ultimately we were I, you know, created by a creator who loves diversity, created a planet of diversity, a universe of diversity.
34:19
And that's, that's the universal law is diversity.
Universal law is, is love and connection.
We're all connected.
That's why that image of of Earth when it was first released by NASA in the 60s brought about terms like echo, you know, the ecosystem or because we could see that we are a being and there is light.
34:49
There is light coming from the planet, from within the planet, from within the life here that we are a part of.
Now the people that first published that picture thought this is going to change the human race.
We're going to see that we are all one.
35:07
It didn't quite work out that way and we're in a different era, this generation having a different relation, sort of tense relation, I think, to empathy.
Going back to those young people to whom you dedicate this book or this book is focused on, how do you recommend to people to be with them, to reach them, to offer a pathway to them?
35:36
I think you talk about a doorway into adulthood.
We need mentors.
How, how, how can we be mentors to those young people who I simultaneously feel so excited about and so scared for?
Yeah.
At the same time, one way I can is basically through the arts, you know, and then supporting, supporting the arts, you know, supporting and them in their efforts to to think and to engage and to be curious.
36:13
That word again, Yeah.
Invite them.
Yes, invite them and, and let you know they're well and let them know that that's their essential nature.
Even if you're going into STEM, you know, or, or whatever curiosity.
36:33
I mean, that's if you marry that with love, compassion, I guess I would say compassion and gratitude.
I mean, what else?
What else?
What else do you need?
So I'll, I'll end with the question I ask all of my guests.
36:52
Although I I almost began this way, but it has to do with the story of these times.
You're a time traveller.
If you were to look to the future, I don't know, 2550, a hundred years, What do you think is the story that future will tell of us now?
37:19
That's a hard one, but looking at these children and looking at what's possible after seeing the intensity and the curiosity with which this breaking apart has seem to have suddenly come about, is that it will be resolved in a way.
37:41
It will be resolved in a way that we thought we couldn't quite imagine at this point.
Like, I don't like to use the word renaissance because that's so, but sort of a spiritual.
That's what I is, a spiritual renaissance.
37:59
I can hear an ocean wave rocking in the background or.
Maybe that's your leader.
That's good.
It didn't come on until just now.
Has anyone ever asked you about your tattoos on your hand?
Oh yeah.
I used to get asked, I'd do a really serious performance and ask for questions.
38:16
And that would be the question, Yeah.
So what is that?
No, this is.
Yeah, I get asked about it.
This I got in Tahiti.
I lived in Hawaii 11 years and hung out with the cultural people and my friend Keoni Nunez, who helped, who helped bring back Hawaiian and Pacific tattoo art, recommended Rotunui to me.
38:39
And I'd always, I could see it on my hand.
And, and so I got it.
I got it done there.
I have a few and.
What is it?
What is it on your hand?
It's different symbols.
They're real.
38:54
They look very similar to Muskogee, to Muskogee symbols, and that's one reason I and there's very Tahitian symbols woven in.
It's related to water, of course.
Creativity, water spirits.
I love it.
Is there any other thought you want to leave us with?
39:11
Any question, anything you want to make sure we know about?
For one thing, you have another book of poems and the album that you mentioned.
You just keep giving us gifts, Joy.
Thank you.
Well, I have that and a children's book coming out from Penguin Random House next.
39:29
Is it October, September.
I forget.
They gave me the date next year called Gathering the Light.
The art is incredible by this Anish Nabi artist Manghi Sheikh.
And what is his last name?
Paula.
Anyway, he's he's got one.
39:46
It's wonderful art.
And then the cover I started painting again after 50 years.
So the cover of my new album will be It's a Painting that I finished and I've got finishing another one today, so yeah.
40:04
We'll let you get back to that Joy hard, Joe, thanks so much for being here with us on Laura Flanders and Friends.
It's been a real delight.
It was so great to get to visit with you again and I hope it's not so, so long.
I think it must be 20 years at.
Least yeah, the book speaks beautifully to these complicated moments.
40:25
Well, thank you.
I hope I I put it out to deliberately do a job so it.
It does it.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thanks for taking the time to listen to the full conversation.
40:41
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