Spiritual Sunday
The latest news on climate change continues to be horrific as we battle through the hottest summer on record. The heat wave is hitting countries all over the world, with France at one point posting temperatures of 114 degrees. In other words, we are witnessing human impact on the earth as never before.
Current poet laureate Joy Harjo, a member of the Mvskoke (Creek) nation, provides a “Map to the Next World” that calls us out for our multiple crimes against nature—or as Harjo puts it, “our detour from grace.” “Our forgetfulness stalks us, walks the earth behind us,” she observes, “leaving a trail of paper diapers, needles, and wasted blood.”
Fortunately, her map also charts a path of reclamation.
The poem mentions five worlds. According to southwestern Native American myths, we evolved through five worlds, becoming human in the fourth and climbing through a hole in the sky to reach the fifth. It appears that, in the poem, the fourth world reflects our current plight while the fifth world is what the world could be if we reconnected with the birds, the deer, and our tribal grounds.
If we don’t, fog will steal our children, “flowers of rage” will “spring up in the depression,” monsters will be born of “nuclear anger,” and “trees of ashes” will “wave good-bye to good-bye.” After all, we have violated what once was a “lush promise” and “there is no exit.”
Yet Harjo urges hope, at one point addressing an unborn child who will be climbing through his or her own hole. Though she offers only an imperfect map to this child, it can “navigate by your mother’s voice, renew the song she is singing.” She says it can tap into the “fresh courage” that “glimmers from planets” and listen to the departed relatives who “make a feast of fresh deer meat and corn soup, in the Milky Way.”
Furthermore, if the child pays attention to the “blood of history,” it will “note the tracks of the monster slayers where they entered the cities of artificial light and killed what was killing us.” The landscape’s red cliffs (perhaps Oklahoma’s Red Rock Canyon) are the heart of the people and contain the ladder to possibility.
The poet assures this child that the earth too has made mistakes in the past—the journey doesn’t have to be perfect—and because “there is no beginning and no end,” there is still hope. And while the poet can teach the child much, in the end, “You must make your own map.”
A Map to the Next World for Desiray Kierra Chee In the last days of the fourth world I wished to make a map for those who would climb through the hole in the sky. My only tools were the desires of humans as they emerged from the killing fields, from the bedrooms and the kitchens. For the soul is a wanderer with many hands and feet. The map must be of sand and can’t be read by ordinary light. It must carry fire to the next tribal own, for renewal of spirit. In the legend are instructions on the language of the land, how it was we forgot to acknowledge the gift, as if we were not in it or of it. Take note of the proliferation of supermarkets and malls, the altars of money. They best describe the detour from grace. Keep track of the errors of our forgetfulness; the fog steals our children while we sleep. Flowers of rage spring up in the depression Monsters are born there of nuclear anger. Trees of ashes wave good-bye to good-bye and the map appears to disappear We no longer know the names of the birds here, how to speak to them by their personal names. Once we knew everything in this lush promise. What I am telling you is real and is printed in a warning on the map. Our forgetfulness stalks us, walks the earth behind us, leaving a trail of paper diapers, needles, and wasted blood. An imperfect map will have to do, little one. The place of entry is the sea or your mother’s blood, your father’s small death as he longs to know himself in another. There is no exit. The map can be interpreted through the wall of the intestine—a spiral on the road of knowledge. You will travel through the membrane of death, smell cooking from the encampment where our relatives make a feast of fresh deer meat and corn soup, in the Milky Way. They have never left us; we abandoned them for science. And when you take your next breath as we enter the fifth world there will be no X, no guidebook with words you can carry. You will have to navigate by your mother’s voice, renew the song she is singing. Fresh courage glimmers from planets. And lights the map printed with the blood of history, a map you will have to know by your intention, by the language of suns. When you emerge note the tracks of the monster slayers where they entered the cities of artificial light and killed what was killing us. You will see red cliffs. They are the heart, contain the ladder. A white deer will greet you when the last human climbs from the destruction. Remember the hole of shame marking the at of abandoning our tribal grounds. We were never perfect. Yet, the journey we make together is perfect on this earth who was once a star and made the same mistakes as humans. We might make them again, she said. Crucial to finding the way is this: there is no beginning or end. You must make your own map.
