Shine

Shine


Our bodies are spirit houses.
When my daughter’s spirit entered her body she became sunrise.
Her lungs accepted breath.
She took on the promise and challenge of earth as all of us do
when we come here, no matter that we are human, plant, mountain,
creature, stars or winds. We all assume the same pact.
And when I’ve viewed the body at death, it’s just that:
an abandoned house, though essence and memory may linger,
because the spirit makes an imprint that continues to generate
energy. And this is fed by memory, by the remembrance of those
who knew us, by the lands on which we walked, by the house
we lived in. It doesn’t go backwards or forwards.
It just is in timelessness. When we recognize each other,
it’s spirit we recognize. The body just holds the shape.
It’s the shine that we know.

It’s shine that compels us to want to watch sunrise, sunset,
to look fiercely into the eyes of another.
The stomp dance fire carries a shine that links us to the creator,
our ancestors, each other and the sacred stories of how we
came here and how we will leave this place. It is the heart,
just as the heart within our bodies that is the shine generator.
Some carry an immensity of shine. The sun nourishes us,
as surely as we are fed by fried chicken and greens.
Or a place: consider the shine of Diamond Head Crater,
or Denali Peak. Stones carry shine.
Everything has a spirit.


Joy Harjo June 2006
(unfinished draft from her blog site)