Christmas Spirit

Painting by Gary Ampel


Christmas Spirit


Basically economics is an exchange system.
It describes the ebb and flow of what is
materially valuable within individuals,
families, clans and nations.
Before the world cash markets we bartered.
The money system grew from silver and gold mines,
the lands and the labor of indigenous peoples
of the Americas.

It is a system that has sustained few
yet required the labor of many.
In our indigenous cultures it is morally unlawful
to acquire wealth beyond need, and reprehensible
to ignore the care of the needy.

A system created from trickery,
sustained from the need of a few to control
and own world markets is motivated by fear
of not having or being enough.
There will never be enough for the greedy.
That kind of hunger is never satisfied.
That hunger destroyed and dispossessed us
from our original lands.

There is no separation between economics,
social, political, or spiritual systems.
Each is interconnected.
Each system within the whole
either supports life, or it degenerates.
For life to be sustained, whether it is
a bio system like Earth, or a cultural system
(each culture is an energetic system),
there must be balanced flow in and out.

To heal means addressing the source of the problem,
to bring what is broken back into balance.
It means changing the story.

We must return to the original teachings,
which stress respect, dignity, creativity
and forgiveness. In these teachings
the power of the individual is a crucial
denominator to the power of the whole.

We must start at the root of meaning.
What makes meaning that will sustain us?
Does the acquisition and control of material
goods by a few individuals serve all of us?
How do we take care of what we have?
And most of all, at the heart of the question
is how we value who we are
and who we are becoming.

We have to go back to the beginning of the story
and remember why we are here
and what we are truly about,
as spirit beings that inhabit the earthly body.

What do we need for true growth and fulfillment?
How do we meet challenges?
Do we take care of our resources?
Are we generous? Do we take care of those
who cannot care for themselves?
Are we thinking and acting,
with our descendents in mind?

We have to want the shift.
We must acknowledge water
and all of our resources as sentient beings
and treat them as such.
We must consider that our reason to be here
is to serve each other,
to be there in joy and sorrow.

There is no room for laws that compel us
to throw away our grandchildren,
so there is more money for others.
And perhaps most of all,
we must take care of our collective imagination,
to re-vision a system that will sustain
and take care of all of us.
We must create fresh stories and images
that promote regenerative metaphor and meaning
and give value to what matters.
Artists, visionaries and those coming up
feed the people with fresh images.

When you see the earth from the perspective
of the guiding stars you know without question
that we are one being, that what anyone thinks,
speaks or acts grows the potential
of the next generations.

We then understand that no one can own the earth
or what grows upon or within the earth,
that there is enough for everyone.
This is the true Christmas spirit.
Imagine.


Joy Harjo

Posted as prose over on Joy Harjo's Poetic Adventures in the Last World Blog