NEWS - GEOFF’S RECOMMENDED READING (AUGUST)

My book recommendation for the month of August is Joy Harjo’s incredible, soul-moving collection of poetry and songs in ‘Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings’, published by WW Norton New York and London. Harjo is a Muskogee Creek Nation poet.

I first came across Joy’s work in a daily meditation, which mentioned First Nation spirituality of the landscape and cosmos and when at her most mystical, has a way of touching the heart before your mind catches up. If you want soul-food then this book is for you.

Here is a touch of her genius, with the poem, ‘This Morning I Pray for my Enemies’.

And who do I call my enemy?

An enemy must be worthy of engagement.

I turn in the direction of the sun and keep walking.

It’s the heart that asks the question, not my furious mind.

The heart is a smaller cousin of the sun.

It sees and knows everything.

It hears the gnashing even as it hears the blessing.

The door to the mind should only open from the heart.

An enemy who gets in, risks the danger of becoming a friend.

Nothing here to do with dialectic tension and class struggle, or other forms of unconsciousness. Such people only hear the gnashing and not the blessings, their mind rushes to judge, to react and pour vengeance on the scapegoat, be that race, class, status or privilege. In this reactionary state there is no possibility of becoming a friend, only a dead enemy.

This to me is the only way forward; progressive spirituality versus reactionary regression. Which would you choose? This is not a trick question…

#joyharjo

#conflictresolutionforholybeings

#enterthevisionspace

Geoff Hall