Photo by Paul Abdoo
Sometimes We Hear It
Hearing the Dream of the Earth
with help from Joy Harjo
Sometimes we hear it. Sometimes, late at night, as we stroll beneath the canopy of a starlit sky, or early in the morning as we bend down to tend to our garden, or mid-afternoon as we dip our feet in the gentle currents of a stream in a local park, or early evening, as we gaze into the eyes of someone we love without saying anything except "I love you" with our eyes, the world around us seems to hold its breath, and we hear the dream of the Earth.
I borrow the phrase "dream of the Earth" from the late Thomas Berry. His book by that title is a landmark for any of us interested in a different kind of world: a world that is kind and just, loving and ecological, amidst which we understand ourselves as kin to other creatures, with Earth as our living home. The Earth Community, as he often said.
The dream of the Earth is not a dream about the earth, but rather a dream of and from the Earth; the Earth dreaming, and we hear its murmurs. It's as if the rustling leaves and the twinkling stars engage in an ancient conversation, and we listen in as part of it, albeit as participants, not bystanders. Or the act of tending to our garden becomes a communion, where the soil yields not only to our touch but also shares the whispers of generations, encoded in the roots and stems. The dream beckons us to recognize, along with Joy Harjo, that the Earth itself is not a collection of objects to be bought and sold in the marketplace, but a living communion of subjects, human and more than human, of which we are a part. The Earth is a living poem whose lines are the landscapes, waterways, and creatures as they interact with one another, and our actions are among the verses. The poem is a poem-in-the-making.
As we are touched by this dream, we turn our sights toward the soil. We know that even as we can now see into distant galaxies with marvelous telescopes, we can also see what life is about by looking at a single leaf from multiple points of view: aerodynamically, mathematically, poetically, and biologically. Academics often speak of transdisciplinary studies; we become transdisciplinary leaf-observers. We know that there are many ways of knowing, and we welcome them all.
There is an ethical and prophetic side to this, too. We recognize that our calling in life is not to make money or receive acclaim but to listen and remember all the sources around us and within us, and to create Beauty out of listening. We may be carpenters, accountants, physicians, or chimney sweepers; parents, partners, grandparents, or teenagers; our task is to create Beauty in whatever contexts we find ourselves. We also understand that our creation of Beauty is an act of co-creativity because we are creating with and from the other sources, and in response to the unbidden calling of a deep and divine creator, one of whose names is Beauty. We want to walk in Beauty and help others do the same. We want to walk in the light of the sacred whole, the light of God.
We want to be nurturers, too. We want to bring up our children and grandchildren with an understanding of the dream of the Earth. We want them to know that their own skins, wrought in so many beautifully different shades and colors, are the skin of the Earth too: black earth, red earth, yellow earth, white earth. We want them to understand that each person is all people, and all people are each person. We want them to know that in their differences, they are together and in their togetherness, they are different.
At some point, very early, we want children to be told the truth about how far some of us have fallen from this vision. We may be among the fallen. They must know that some of us, the colonizers, have sought to conquer our sisters and brothers, to erase their memories, to pretend that our story is and ought to be the master narrative, and that the results have been horrible. We must tell them that justice is a form of Beauty, too, and that walking in Beauty is walking justly, too: taking responsibility for the past and future and repairing our sins, as best we can. The colonizers have thought that their ways are the epitome of civilization, forgetting that the true civilization is the earth itself, and that all creatures have their cultures and ways. The mockingbirds and ravens; the salmon and the turtles: they have their cultures, too.
Those among us who yearn in these ways seek voices that will articulate our hopes and dreams for a true civilization, an Ecological Civilization, where people live with respect and care for one another, for themselves, and for the community of life. We do not want these "articulations" to be in dominating terms with authorial voices, but in poems and music, in the sounds of flutes, saxophones, drums, and words. We grow weary of platitudes, which too easily become self-congratulatory clichés. We need more poets and musicians, and perhaps fewer philosophers and theologians, at least of the prosaic variety.
For them, for us, Joy Harjo is such a voice. We read her words and listen to her again and again, seeking nourishment and hope. Many of the images above come from her: the Earth as a living poem, the idea that our skin colors are the skins of the Earth, the idea that a single leaf tells the story of the universe, the idea that colonialisms have erased stories, for example. All of these are rewoven from her work below. She is a performer and writer from the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. She served three terms as the 23rd Poet Laureate of the United States from 2019 to 2022 and was honored with Yale's 2023 Bollingen Prize for American Poetry. Harjo has an impressive body of work, including ten books of poetry. She has also authored several plays and children's books, along with two memoirs, 'Crazy Brave' and 'Poet Warrior.' Her accolades include the National Book Critics Circle Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, the Ruth Lily Prize for Lifetime Achievement from the Poetry Foundation, the Academy of American Poets Wallace Stevens Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. As a musician and performer, Harjo has produced seven award-winning music albums, including her latest creation 'I Pray for My Enemies.' Below you will find some of the songs from this album." This page is a sampling of the work and music of Joy Harjo, meant to complement other explorations into her work that you can do in your way. Click here for her website.
- Jay McDaniel
I borrow the phrase "dream of the Earth" from the late Thomas Berry. His book by that title is a landmark for any of us interested in a different kind of world: a world that is kind and just, loving and ecological, amidst which we understand ourselves as kin to other creatures, with Earth as our living home. The Earth Community, as he often said.
The dream of the Earth is not a dream about the earth, but rather a dream of and from the Earth; the Earth dreaming, and we hear its murmurs. It's as if the rustling leaves and the twinkling stars engage in an ancient conversation, and we listen in as part of it, albeit as participants, not bystanders. Or the act of tending to our garden becomes a communion, where the soil yields not only to our touch but also shares the whispers of generations, encoded in the roots and stems. The dream beckons us to recognize, along with Joy Harjo, that the Earth itself is not a collection of objects to be bought and sold in the marketplace, but a living communion of subjects, human and more than human, of which we are a part. The Earth is a living poem whose lines are the landscapes, waterways, and creatures as they interact with one another, and our actions are among the verses. The poem is a poem-in-the-making.
As we are touched by this dream, we turn our sights toward the soil. We know that even as we can now see into distant galaxies with marvelous telescopes, we can also see what life is about by looking at a single leaf from multiple points of view: aerodynamically, mathematically, poetically, and biologically. Academics often speak of transdisciplinary studies; we become transdisciplinary leaf-observers. We know that there are many ways of knowing, and we welcome them all.
There is an ethical and prophetic side to this, too. We recognize that our calling in life is not to make money or receive acclaim but to listen and remember all the sources around us and within us, and to create Beauty out of listening. We may be carpenters, accountants, physicians, or chimney sweepers; parents, partners, grandparents, or teenagers; our task is to create Beauty in whatever contexts we find ourselves. We also understand that our creation of Beauty is an act of co-creativity because we are creating with and from the other sources, and in response to the unbidden calling of a deep and divine creator, one of whose names is Beauty. We want to walk in Beauty and help others do the same. We want to walk in the light of the sacred whole, the light of God.
We want to be nurturers, too. We want to bring up our children and grandchildren with an understanding of the dream of the Earth. We want them to know that their own skins, wrought in so many beautifully different shades and colors, are the skin of the Earth too: black earth, red earth, yellow earth, white earth. We want them to understand that each person is all people, and all people are each person. We want them to know that in their differences, they are together and in their togetherness, they are different.
At some point, very early, we want children to be told the truth about how far some of us have fallen from this vision. We may be among the fallen. They must know that some of us, the colonizers, have sought to conquer our sisters and brothers, to erase their memories, to pretend that our story is and ought to be the master narrative, and that the results have been horrible. We must tell them that justice is a form of Beauty, too, and that walking in Beauty is walking justly, too: taking responsibility for the past and future and repairing our sins, as best we can. The colonizers have thought that their ways are the epitome of civilization, forgetting that the true civilization is the earth itself, and that all creatures have their cultures and ways. The mockingbirds and ravens; the salmon and the turtles: they have their cultures, too.
Those among us who yearn in these ways seek voices that will articulate our hopes and dreams for a true civilization, an Ecological Civilization, where people live with respect and care for one another, for themselves, and for the community of life. We do not want these "articulations" to be in dominating terms with authorial voices, but in poems and music, in the sounds of flutes, saxophones, drums, and words. We grow weary of platitudes, which too easily become self-congratulatory clichés. We need more poets and musicians, and perhaps fewer philosophers and theologians, at least of the prosaic variety.
For them, for us, Joy Harjo is such a voice. We read her words and listen to her again and again, seeking nourishment and hope. Many of the images above come from her: the Earth as a living poem, the idea that our skin colors are the skins of the Earth, the idea that a single leaf tells the story of the universe, the idea that colonialisms have erased stories, for example. All of these are rewoven from her work below. She is a performer and writer from the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. She served three terms as the 23rd Poet Laureate of the United States from 2019 to 2022 and was honored with Yale's 2023 Bollingen Prize for American Poetry. Harjo has an impressive body of work, including ten books of poetry. She has also authored several plays and children's books, along with two memoirs, 'Crazy Brave' and 'Poet Warrior.' Her accolades include the National Book Critics Circle Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, the Ruth Lily Prize for Lifetime Achievement from the Poetry Foundation, the Academy of American Poets Wallace Stevens Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. As a musician and performer, Harjo has produced seven award-winning music albums, including her latest creation 'I Pray for My Enemies.' Below you will find some of the songs from this album." This page is a sampling of the work and music of Joy Harjo, meant to complement other explorations into her work that you can do in your way. Click here for her website.
- Jay McDaniel
