(check her out at www.myspace.com/jenniferkreisberg)
"President George W Bush and God's Law
Dear President Bush,
Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God's law. I have learned a great deal from you and try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind them that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination. End of debate.
I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some other elements of God's Laws and how to follow them:
1. Leviticus 25:44 states that I may possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not to Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can't I own Canadians?
2. I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?
3. I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual uncleanliness (Lev. 15:19-24). The problem is, how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offense.
4. When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord (Lev. 1:9). The problem is my neighbors. They
claim the odor is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?
5. I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states that he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself, or should I ask the police to do it?
6. A friend of mine feels that, even though eating shellfish is an abomination (Lev. 11:10), it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I
don't agree. Can you settle this? Are there "degrees" of abomination?
7. Lev. 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle-room here?
8. Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev. 19:27. How should they die?
9. I know from Lev. 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?
10. My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev. 19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them (Lev. 24:10-16)? Couldn't we just burn them to death at a private family affair, like we do with people
who sleep with their in-laws (Lev.20:14)?
I know you have studied these things extensively and thus enjoy considerable expertise in such matters, so I am confident you can help. Thank you again for reminding us that God's word is eternal and unchanging."
1/24/08
"Have you ever seen a bird trying hard to sing?"
“Have you ever seen a bird trying hard to sing? Birds never work to make a song. They sing effortlessly. That’s how they teach us to love one another. We need to allow love to happen without any effort. It’s natural to love.”
Brazilian healer, Otavia Aloes Pimentel Barbosa
from Hands of Faith, edited by Bradford Keeney PhD, Ringing Rocks Press in association with Leete Island Books.Philadelphia, PA, 2003
And to hate, fear or dislike takes incredible effort. We bend ourselves into unnatural shapes. Then our energy gets caught in the crooks and twists. This goes for all bodies: human, family, tribal, national, global or universal.
Brazilian healer, Otavia Aloes Pimentel Barbosa
from Hands of Faith, edited by Bradford Keeney PhD, Ringing Rocks Press in association with Leete Island Books.Philadelphia, PA, 2003
And to hate, fear or dislike takes incredible effort. We bend ourselves into unnatural shapes. Then our energy gets caught in the crooks and twists. This goes for all bodies: human, family, tribal, national, global or universal.
ELIZABETH WOODY Featured Guest Blogger
LONG WALK (starring BEAR)
Photo and Story c Elizabeth Woody 2008
Walk in love is my mantra in the morning and at night. Walking is as elemental as water, which is my first medicine and protection. Walking is the hallowed tempo and my expression of vigorous space. It is the calm between words. In between turmoil the calm is preferable. In calm spaces to love is to be both vulnerable and omnipotent. If you love then you can start to fear loss. If you fear loss then you are conquerable. To become fearless with love is both potent and sacred. You move and radiate peace.
I walk twice a day with my dog, Anahui-Anahui (Baby Black Bear). Our walk is in love. Absent of introduction we literally look a fearsome couple even though we mean no harm. My companion is the “King Kong” of dogs. He is a 138 pound black mix of reservation muscle dogs, a “wolf in a lab disguise,” as my friend calls him. Spawned from the hunters and protectors of Indian country he was less than two months of age when rescued as a dumped puppy . He is progeny of the beauty found in survival of the fittest and its bestial elegance. I am a big, brown Native woman of the Diné of the Southwestern United States, and NW Columbia River Plateau peoples, Nusuxmí Tanánma (People of the salmon). There aren’t many like us at all in the world.
I am born from those who survived the arduous long walks of the Nineteenth century. One ancestress walked from the Columbia River gorge to the present day reservation , stopping along the way only for the soldiers to round up more people who up until that time lived free. Perhaps the shortest walk of all, it still was forced, and people could only carry with them what they could hold in their arms. They left their cedar plank houses filled with the finest of cultural accoutrements of the time. The finely woven baskets, nets, and carved wooden standards of their clans went to the abyss of neglect or through hands of Indian Traders to international museums.
I am not a woman to melt into as one would a mother. I am not a woman to lust after as the quintessential naked dark woman of earthy sensuality, the paleo-erotic American fantasy. I am a woman who is statuesque like the heavy basalt palisades of volcanic landscape and one whose core burns with ferocity like a volcano. I am burlesque-ishly bawdy with sympathetic audiences, intimidating to those coddled in the norm, and then some interpret me as robust. I am attracted to few, and most chose to ignore me. I am a Native woman born to the mainstream maelstrom of the perpetually enslaved wage earners. There are those who wish me out the door and out of sight. In the past, there are those who wished my kind dead.
I am the indomitable big brown Native woman, and like the nameless and faceless Yeti or the Sasquatch, can disappear in an instant. The lawless west feared my Navajo ancestors as they did Apaches, the “guerilla” force of the Southwest. Kit Carson hunted and starved the Navajo people and forced a 300 mile long walk to Fort Sumner on the Bosque Redondo Reservation . It was unimaginable oppression. Still, my Dine ancestors’ had an axiom that I thrive in today--- Walk in beauty. Beauty is not a state of attraction, but a state of unity and indivisible spirit. It is the balance of night and day, the parched and the quenched, the beginning of creative will. It is love. With love I protect my rescue stray and our past is hushed.
When we walk we bless the earth with our contentment. We are mixes, mixed up by negligence and historical trauma. Manhandled by veterinarians, and bluff charged by neighborhood dogs, my dog can be fearful. In our puppy 101 class the people of the other puppies pulled their lolly-pups away from us. “My, his teeth are sooo big!” one said. I thought, “The better to eat you with my dear.” but said “They suit his big head.” Though the majority of our class time was spent in “time-outs” we eventually “graduated.” What we really learned was we create peace with our own fearless love.
For more information on Elizabeth Woody, please see:
http://www.nativewiki.org/Elizabeth_Woody
eawoody@bigfoot.com
1/15/08
What is weighing you down?
I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
1/8/08
1/6/08
A Little Bit of Flying, a few prayers
Flying from Chicago to Los Angeles, 12/30/07 This image is a prayer for Rainy--
-- and all our Navajo relatives.
--And though it comes apart, here it is, back together again on the North Shore of O'ahu--
We are one body. How beautiful we are in this light.
1/5/08
Overwhelming
The darkness hits.
Slams.
Consciousness turns belly up.
Yes, I see you.
Yes, I know you in myself.
No.
Keep moving.
No matter what you see and hear.
Keep love.
Slams.
Consciousness turns belly up.
Yes, I see you.
Yes, I know you in myself.
No.
Keep moving.
No matter what you see and hear.
Keep love.
12/29/07
Ghosts, Silence and Talk of Many Things
In an unimaginative bistro of this overpriced tourist hotel I saw the double of an ex who has been lost to all of us.
I thought I had seen a ghost.
There they were again, vibrant, where they left off before being taken over by the alcohol spirit.
I didn't take a photo. I remembered why I fell in love.
Heard a few panelists on Tillie Olsen. A tribute. Silences. Yes, I understand silences. What happens between event and word? Between ancestor and grandchild? Between now and now?
It might look something like this:
Back in the room.
Talk of the island of trash, mostly plastic, that is larger than the state of Texas (or is it State of Texas) and has been floating around the Pacific, from China; the number of native women writers who have worked for Mary Kay Cosmetics; thinking of all the names of those who are being left out of the story of native american literature (the silences), hearing of how one of our beloved native poets teaching in a Wisconsin university is being undermined and openly attacked by a colleague who believes that native or black poetry is inferior, or non-existent, and a native woman professor? How do you put that in your images of Indians? And the waters are full of drugs, chemicals, and
I am thankful for the laughter and love of good friends, for the persistence of poetry, despite the silencing by the greedy ones who have found no way to make billions from it.
"May it be beautiful above us, may it be beautiful below us, may it be beautiful inside us, may it be beautiful all around us..."
from the Navajo
So, reporting here, from the thirty-third floor of the Hyatt Regency, downtown Chicago, the end of another end.
Photos c Joy Harjo 2007 11/12th's
I thought I had seen a ghost.
There they were again, vibrant, where they left off before being taken over by the alcohol spirit.
I didn't take a photo. I remembered why I fell in love.
Heard a few panelists on Tillie Olsen. A tribute. Silences. Yes, I understand silences. What happens between event and word? Between ancestor and grandchild? Between now and now?
It might look something like this:
Back in the room.
Talk of the island of trash, mostly plastic, that is larger than the state of Texas (or is it State of Texas) and has been floating around the Pacific, from China; the number of native women writers who have worked for Mary Kay Cosmetics; thinking of all the names of those who are being left out of the story of native american literature (the silences), hearing of how one of our beloved native poets teaching in a Wisconsin university is being undermined and openly attacked by a colleague who believes that native or black poetry is inferior, or non-existent, and a native woman professor? How do you put that in your images of Indians? And the waters are full of drugs, chemicals, and
I am thankful for the laughter and love of good friends, for the persistence of poetry, despite the silencing by the greedy ones who have found no way to make billions from it.
"May it be beautiful above us, may it be beautiful below us, may it be beautiful inside us, may it be beautiful all around us..."
from the Navajo
So, reporting here, from the thirty-third floor of the Hyatt Regency, downtown Chicago, the end of another end.
Photos c Joy Harjo 2007 11/12th's
12/23/07
MNN Column: The New Year
And this column either will or will not be in the January 2008 Muscogee Nation News. I sent it, didn't hear back. Squeezed in within minutes of the deadline. So, here it is.
Tonight, I went down to Hui Nalu Canoe Club for a late afternoon paddle. The winds have been up, carrying squalls of rain. The ocean, like tears, carries away sadness, anger, and fears. And, as I have many times before, entered into the ritual of gathering together, carrying the canoes out to the water's edge, lining up for seats, getting in, acknowledging the canoe, the water, each other and setting out, together. We didn't paddle far, nor were we in race training mode. Because of the winds instead of going out we headed up into the marina. We went for a while, then turned around and came back out in time to see the sun disappear into water. This is part of the ritual. Then we headed in. We carried the canoes back up, gathered together for the closing chant, then we parted into the dark. When I arrived I was in my cluttered mind. When I left I was back in my ocean mind. Tonight the ocean mind reminded me of forgiveness. And told me to be kind, even to those who test me. I am also reminded of our people’s tradition of going to the water every morning. The water cleans us, not just physically. The ritual marks a new beginning.
January marks the beginning of a new year, in the ‘na-hvtke tradition. Each sunrise marks a new beginning, so does each breath. Each marks a renewal. So as we begin again why not let ourselves shine with joy, kindness, the resolve to do the best we can in all things?
There’s a Hawaiian story that says it like this: we have a bowl of light. Each stone of anger, each stone of jealousy (we have lots of these in the nation) each stone of fear, of envy, of greed fills up the bowl, obscures the light. We can turn the bowl over, empty out the stones and restore the light.
The bowl is our fekce, where our spirit lives.
So, let it shine. Thanks to Rosemary McCombs Maxey for this version of
Kul-ku-ce cv-na-ke, or This Little Light of Mine.
This lit-tle light of mine, I’m gon-na let it shine.
Kul-ku-ce cv-na-kē, hv-ya-yi-ca-res,
This lit-tle light of mine, I’m gon-na let it shine.
Kul-ku-ce cv-na-kē, hv-ya-yi-ca-res,
This lit-tle light of mine, I’m gon-na let it shine.
Kul-ku-ce cv-na-kē, hv-ya-yi-ca-res,
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.
Kul-ke-kvs, kul-ke-kvs, kul-ke-kvs.
The stanzas in the hymnal continue:
Every where I go….
All-through the night …
This love I have… This hope I have… This faith I have… This peace I have…
I want to acknowledge two young Mvskoke filmmakers who are doing good work out there. Jason Asenap’s short film “Two Hearts” was just featured in the Santa Fe Film Festival. His mother is Marsha Asenap, her maiden name is Marsha Deer. His Creek grandparents are Alfred and Munna Deer. His father is Comanche. And Sterlin Harjo came to the University of New Mexico from Tulsa to speak to show his wonderful full-length feature film, “Four Sheets to the Wind”, which also featured one of our citizens, Richard Ray Whitman. Harjo’s film was featured at Sundance and is getting some deserved critical acclaim. He is both Creek and Seminole. His grandfather was Arthur Brunner on his mother’s side. His parents are Brownie and Nan Harjo.
Let it shine, Jason and Sterlin. Let it shine everyone. May it be a good year, full of fresh beginnings.
Tonight, I went down to Hui Nalu Canoe Club for a late afternoon paddle. The winds have been up, carrying squalls of rain. The ocean, like tears, carries away sadness, anger, and fears. And, as I have many times before, entered into the ritual of gathering together, carrying the canoes out to the water's edge, lining up for seats, getting in, acknowledging the canoe, the water, each other and setting out, together. We didn't paddle far, nor were we in race training mode. Because of the winds instead of going out we headed up into the marina. We went for a while, then turned around and came back out in time to see the sun disappear into water. This is part of the ritual. Then we headed in. We carried the canoes back up, gathered together for the closing chant, then we parted into the dark. When I arrived I was in my cluttered mind. When I left I was back in my ocean mind. Tonight the ocean mind reminded me of forgiveness. And told me to be kind, even to those who test me. I am also reminded of our people’s tradition of going to the water every morning. The water cleans us, not just physically. The ritual marks a new beginning.
January marks the beginning of a new year, in the ‘na-hvtke tradition. Each sunrise marks a new beginning, so does each breath. Each marks a renewal. So as we begin again why not let ourselves shine with joy, kindness, the resolve to do the best we can in all things?
There’s a Hawaiian story that says it like this: we have a bowl of light. Each stone of anger, each stone of jealousy (we have lots of these in the nation) each stone of fear, of envy, of greed fills up the bowl, obscures the light. We can turn the bowl over, empty out the stones and restore the light.
The bowl is our fekce, where our spirit lives.
So, let it shine. Thanks to Rosemary McCombs Maxey for this version of
Kul-ku-ce cv-na-ke, or This Little Light of Mine.
This lit-tle light of mine, I’m gon-na let it shine.
Kul-ku-ce cv-na-kē, hv-ya-yi-ca-res,
This lit-tle light of mine, I’m gon-na let it shine.
Kul-ku-ce cv-na-kē, hv-ya-yi-ca-res,
This lit-tle light of mine, I’m gon-na let it shine.
Kul-ku-ce cv-na-kē, hv-ya-yi-ca-res,
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.
Kul-ke-kvs, kul-ke-kvs, kul-ke-kvs.
The stanzas in the hymnal continue:
Every where I go….
All-through the night …
This love I have… This hope I have… This faith I have… This peace I have…
I want to acknowledge two young Mvskoke filmmakers who are doing good work out there. Jason Asenap’s short film “Two Hearts” was just featured in the Santa Fe Film Festival. His mother is Marsha Asenap, her maiden name is Marsha Deer. His Creek grandparents are Alfred and Munna Deer. His father is Comanche. And Sterlin Harjo came to the University of New Mexico from Tulsa to speak to show his wonderful full-length feature film, “Four Sheets to the Wind”, which also featured one of our citizens, Richard Ray Whitman. Harjo’s film was featured at Sundance and is getting some deserved critical acclaim. He is both Creek and Seminole. His grandfather was Arthur Brunner on his mother’s side. His parents are Brownie and Nan Harjo.
Let it shine, Jason and Sterlin. Let it shine everyone. May it be a good year, full of fresh beginnings.
Focus
c Joy Harjo 2007 iPhone image
About to venture out into crazy two-days-before Christmas holiday traffic.
So I will keep this image in mind.
And how beauty can be present despite the wreck of culture.
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