My mother wrote lyrics and sang but was overtaken by life with four children and worked. Joy Harjo More Quotes by Joy Harjo More Quotes From Joy Harjo My house is the red earth . . . . Joy Harjo redearthhouse I listen to the gunfire we cannot hear, and begin this journey with the light of knowing the root of my own furious love. Joy Harjo lightjourneyroots My sister accommodates me, never reproaches me with her doctrine, never tries to change me. She accepts and loves me, despite our differences. Joy Harjo differencesand-lovetrying Remember that you are this universe and that this universe is you. Joy Harjo universeremember Because Music is a language that lives in the spiritual realms, we can hear it, we can notate it and create it, but we cannot hold it in our hands Joy Harjo languagespiritualhands I spoke with the crows before leaving for Los Angeles. They were the resident storytellers whose strident and insistent voices added the necessary dissonance for color. They had cousins in California, and gave me their names and addresses, told me to look them up. They warned me, too, what they had heard about attitude there. And they were right. Attitude was thick, hung from the would-be's and has-beens and think-they-ares, so thick that I figured it was the major source of the smog. Joy Harjo cousinattitudethinking I know I walk in and out of several worlds each day. Joy Harjo walkseach-dayworld In Isleta the rainbow was a crack in the universe. We saw the barest of all life that is possible. Bright horses rolled over and over the dusking sky. Joy Harjo rainbowhorsesky I was born with eyes that can never close. Joy Harjo borneye I believe that poets have to be inside their poems somewhere, or the poem won't work. Joy Harjo i-believepoetrybelieve The woman hanging from the 13th floor window on the east side of Chicago is not alone...She is all the women of the apartment building who stand watching her, watching themselves. Joy Harjo suicidaleastchicago I don't see the desert as barren at all; I see it as full and ripe. It doesn't need to be flattered with rain. It certainly needs rain, but it does with what it has, and creates amazing beauty. Joy Harjo amazingdesertrainbeauty When you play a sax, that saxophone is irreverent. It's noisy; it's a trickster... you cannot hide the saxophone in your hands, so it's a good teacher. Joy Harjo goodyougood-teacherteacher When I began to listen to poetry, it's when I began to listen to the stones, and I began to listen to what the clouds had to say, and I began to listen to others. And I think, most importantly for all of us, then you begin to learn to listen to the soul, the soul of yourself in here, which is also the soul of everyone else. Joy Harjo yourselfyousoulclouds I believe in the sun. In the tangle of human failures of fear, greed and forgetfulness, the sun gives me clarity. Joy Harjo mefearsunbelieve I don't like this romanticization of Indian people in which Indian people are looked at as spiritual saviors, as people who have always taken care of the land. We're human beings. But I think different cultures have developed different aspects of humanness. Joy Harjo thinkcarespiritualpeople Sometimes, I think, in order to get to something that we really want or we really love or something that needs to be realized, that we're tested. Joy Harjo thinkwantsometimeslove Humans are vulnerable and rely on the kindnesses of the earth and the sun; we exist together in a sacred field of meaning. Joy Harjo meaningearthtogethersun The creative act amazes me. Whether it's poetry, whether it's music, it's an amazing process, and it has something to do with bringing forth the old out into the world to create and to bring forth that which will rejuvenate. Joy Harjo memusicpoetryworld The homeland affects you directly: it affects your body; it affects the collective mind and the collective heart and the collective spirit. Joy Harjo youbodymindheart
