Joy Harjo - The Power of Collective Healing

Thomas speaks with internationally renowned performer, writer of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, and 23rd Poet Laureate of the United States, Joy Harjo. They discuss the power of poetry to open our awareness, allow access to greater knowledge, and connect with other humans throughout history. Joy shares what drew her to poetry, and how her work is deeply rooted in her ancestral lineage.

She and Thomas explore how to attune to the living ancestral field that we inhabit, and how to reckon with historical trauma through storytelling rituals and ceremonies. Joy also reads an excerpt from her 2021 memoir, Poet Warrior: A Call for Love and Justice, and shares two poems, This Morning I Pray for My Enemies, and For Calling the Spirit Back from Wandering the Earth in Its Human Feet.

Key Points:

00:00 Introduction

01:47 Finding poetry and one’s divine mission

07:27 Reading snippets from Joy’s books

19:27 The significance of listening

21:38 Poetry as a doorway to the unknown

25:02 Conflict and humanity in storytelling

31:02 Creating fluidity and healing with words

37:59 Channeling your inner knowing

46:29 History never rests

51:41 How poetry and visual art amplify the abstract

57:40 Final thoughts

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Joy Har­jo, the 23rd Poet Lau­re­ate of the Unit­ed States, is a mem­ber of the  Muscogee Nation. Har­jo began writ­ing poet­ry as a mem­ber of the Uni­ver­si­ty of New Mexico’s Native stu­dent orga­ni­za­tion, the Kiva Club, in response to Native empow­er­ment move­ments. 

Har­jo is the author of ten books of award-winning poet­ry, three children’s books, and sev­er­al screen­plays and col­lec­tions of prose inter­views. Har­jo per­forms with her sax­o­phone and flutes, solo and with her band, the Arrow Dynam­ics Band, and pre­vi­ous­ly with Joy Har­jo and Poet­ic Jus­tice. In addi­tion to serv­ing as a three-term U.S. Poet Lau­re­ate, Har­jo is a chan­cel­lor of the Acad­e­my of Amer­i­can Poets and is a found­ing board mem­ber and Chair of the Native Arts and Cul­tures Foun­da­tion. She has recently been induct­ed into the Amer­i­can Acad­e­my of Arts and Let­ters, the Amer­i­can Philo­soph­i­cal Soci­ety, the Nation­al Native Amer­i­can Hall of Fame, and the Nation­al Woman’s Hall of Fame. She lives in Tul­sa, Okla­homa where she is the inau­gur­al Artist-in-Res­i­dence of the Bob Dylan Center. 

Learn more at joyharjo.com

Thomas Hübl is a renowned teacher, author, and international facilitator whose lifelong work integrates the core insights of the great wisdom traditions and mysticism with the discoveries of science. Since 2004, he has taught and facilitated programs with more than 100,000 people worldwide, including online courses which he began offering in 2008. The origin of his work and more than two decades of study and practice on healing collective trauma is detailed in his book Healing Collective Trauma: A Process for Integrating Our Intergenerational and Cultural Wounds.

Learn more at thomashuebl.com