If There's Mother Nature, There's Also A Father Nature

If There's Mother Nature There's Also a Father Nature


Then someone reminds me that their ex-husband reported a hawk
who swooped down on a pigeon conference in his yard in Maryland
and scooped up one of the birds for dinner in his claws.
The remaining pigeons were outraged and are still disturbed
at the sudden loss of their friend and relative. Her ex was
quite entertained, she reported.

So much for the natural pacific tendencies of birds,
and humans.

I imagine the circle of guardians, ancestors, bored departed
relatives peering over into the high drama/soap opera going on
in this realm. Someone is always watching, so it's better
to watch yourself, first. Several years ago in the
Dallas/Fort Worth Airport between flights I inserted my
last change into postal stamp machine. I had mail in need
of urgent delivery and had to get it in on the run.
I was tired, probably running on sugar and caffeine.
(I notice that sugar, caffeine and exhaustion
in combination are lethal to my temperament.)

The machine took my change and didn't deliver the stamps.
I pounded. No stamps. Pounded the machine again. No change,
either. A tribal member who I've always admired for his
elegance and class interrupted my fury.
Talk about embarrassment. Being self-possessed is literally
to have possession of yourself. When you are truly
self-possessed, then no matter how stubborn and
uncooperative a machine (bureaucracies are included here,
like governments and utility companies) a human or even
a capricious Mother and Father Nature
(there has to be both in this realm of duality--
and a Trickster leaping the track inbetween) you remain elegant,
unruffled. That's what I aspire to--

Last Tuesday I hosted the Navajo poet Luci Tapahonso at UCLA.
We became her family. She passed on a Navajo saying
in her introduction that encapsulated what I've been telling
the students in both my classes since the first meeting.
The saying is much more concise:

The sacred is on the tip of the tongue.

She also reminded us that everything we speak stands behind us.

Now that's a frightening thought--and very true.


Joy Harjo........from her Blogsite February 2005