My Heart like a Lantern

On good lives, community, and Joy Harjo's "For Calling the Spirit Back from Wandering the Earth in Its Human Feet"

Jul 29, 2021

A handful of years ago I came across a study carried out by so-and-so from insert prestigious university. It made the front page of the news app I was using at the time. I remember none of the specifics about who or what or why they did the study, but I do remember the important parts.

Researchers surveyed folks over 65 about a handful of topics—happiness levels throughout their life, satisfaction with accomplishments, well-being scores, self-esteem levels, and a few other measures intended to gauge whether or not the respondents felt they had lived a “good” life.

The participants with the highest scores were asked to complete interviews which were then used to create correlations between life-events, income levels, personal history (like where folks lived, for how long, what their jobs were, etc.).

I spent the better part of this morning trying to track down the published paper from the study but alas, no luck. Since my discovery of the publication probably 100 or so other similar studies had been conducted. I had trouble fishing out the original. This was because all of the studies I sat with and perused (and perhaps all of the studies conducted in this field) managed to come to the same conclusion. The data had led each disparate group to the same place.

These studies found that regardless of country, ethnicity, income level, occupation, disability or illness, and any other demographic observed, that the happiest and most fulfilled people were those with the most incidences of community throughout their lives. We belong to each other.

Community takes various shapes, has different models, aims for an array of possible things, it can often be hard to define and fall into the “you know it when you see it” way of defining things. Someday soon I’ll sit down and try to map out what I think community should look like and accomplish, but for the moment I would like to point towards how another has depicted it.

I like how Joy Harjo models community in her poem “For Calling the Spirit Back from Wandering the Earth in Its Human Feet.” It isn’t immediately apparent that what Harjo does is model community for us, but take a gander at the poem for a second.

For Calling the Spirit Back from Wandering the Earth in Its Human Feet
Put down that bag of potato chips, that white bread, that bottle of pop.
Turn off that cellphone, computer, and remote control.
Open the door, then close it behind you.
Take a breath offered by friendly winds. They travel the earth gathering essences of plants to clean.
Give it back with gratitude.
If you sing it will give your spirit lift to fly to the stars’ ears and back.
Acknowledge this earth who has cared for you since you were a dream planting itself precisely within your parents’ desire.
Let your moccasin feet take you to the encampment of the guardians who have known you before time, who will be there after time. They sit before the fire that has been there without time.
Let the earth stabilize your postcolonial insecure jitters.
Be respectful of the small insects, birds and animal people who accompany you.
Ask their forgiveness for the harm we humans have brought down upon them.
Don’t worry.
The heart knows the way though there may be high-rises, interstates, checkpoints, armed soldiers, massacres, wars, and those who will despise you because they despise themselves.
The journey might take you a few hours, a day, a year, a few years, a hundred, a thousand or even more.
Watch your mind. Without training it might run away and leave your heart for the immense human feast set by the thieves of time.
Do not hold regrets.
When you find your way to the circle, to the fire kept burning by the keepers of your soul, you will be welcomed.
You must clean yourself with cedar, sage, or other healing plant.
Cut the ties you have to failure and shame.
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.

For Joy Harjo a key aspect of community is sharing in the experience of nature. It also involves inclusion of other folks, but notice what she focuses on initially:

Put down that bag of potato chips, that white bread, that bottle of pop.
Turn off that cellphone, computer, and remote control.
Open the door, then close it behind you.
Take a breath offered by friendly winds. They travel the earth gathering essences of plants to clean.

To be in healthy community with others requires caretaking of the self. And, yes, others in community will lift you up and provide help, but you are first and foremost your primary caretaker. Think of that word for a second: “care” “taker.” You are given or receiving care. Give this gift to yourself as well.

She then reminds us of our communal duty to the Earth, making sure to include a healthy environment within her definition:

Acknowledge this earth who has cared for you since you were a dream planting itself precisely within your parents’ desire.

Other aspects of the community she models includes hardship—it bonds us at times—and we are able to traverse it in concert with others. Even the perfect community cannot be without trials. It also includes a safe-keeping of each other from these wounds. She is modeling a community that both includes suffering and excludes abuse, which is key.

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.

When she reaches the last line we have come through the wilderness, the human-wrought pain, the toils and tribulations of life. We have been lost and broken. We have gone through many transfigurations and forgivenesses. It is the journey and the building untaken that make the pen-ultimate lines more than earned:

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.

The community she has modeled includes care-taking of each other, a respect for our environment, a continual improvement of self in the interest of bettering each other, and the most important stipulation of all:

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

Beloveds, I do not pretend to know the meaning of life or what purpose lies behind it. But what I do know is this: at the end of your life, on your deathbed, there is no purpose in holding your diploma or looking at a bank statement or tossing luxury car keys to oneself. You will not want to polish your trophies or recount the stocks you’ve traded. No—you will want to be surrounded by those you cherish. Lovers, family, friends. If these will be the most important thing in that moment, why then are they not the centerpiece of our lives every second? What if we dedicated each waking moment to building our communities? What then would life be?

My heart like a fire escape

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