While Getting Ready

Call Your Spirit Back

As we navigate the transitions of a new year, unpacking and packing in preparation, I invite you to join me in reflection and action. Throughout January, my posts explore what we can release, where we can refocus, and how we can take meaningful steps to stay present for ourselves and for each other in these challenging times.

While we are getting ready . . .

Excerpt from “For Calling the Spirit Back from Wandering the Earth in Its Human Feet”. by Joy Harjo

….Let go the pain you are holding in your mind, your shoulders, your heart, all the way to your feet. Let go the pain of your ancestors to make way for those who are heading in our direction.

Ask for forgiveness.

Call upon the help of those who love you. These helpers take many forms: animal, element, bird, angel, saint, stone, or ancestor.

Call your spirit back. It may be caught in corners and creases of shame, judgment, and human abuse.

You must call in a way that your spirit will want to return.

Speak to it as you would to a beloved child.

Welcome your spirit back from its wandering. It may return in pieces, in tatters. Gather them together. They will be happy to be found after being lost for so long.

Your spirit will need to sleep awhile after it is bathed and given clean clothes.

Now you can have a party. Invite everyone you know who loves and supports you. Keep room for those who have no place else to go.

Make a giveaway,* and remember, keep the speeches short.

Then, you must do this: help the next person find their way through the dark.

– Joy Harjo

from Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings by Joy Harjo.

*Many Native nations and tribes have a giveaway when someone is being honored. That person offers gifts to strangers out of gratitude for all the blessings of life.

These materials are used pursuant to fair use copyright provisions of the US Copyright Act (17 U.S.C.§107).