I began this show by reading a poem by Joy Harjo [http://www.joyharjo.com/]. She is the author of eleven books of poetry, including the highly acclaimed, Weaving Sundown in a Scarlet Light: Fifty Poems for Fifty Years, several plays, children’s books, and non-fiction works, and two memoirs, Crazy Brave and Poet Warrior. Cloud Runner, Harjo’s twelfth book of poetry, will be published by W.W. Norton in Fall of 2026.
Once the World Was Perfect
By Joy Harjo
Once the world was perfect, and we were happy in that world.
Then we took it for granted.
Discontent began a small rumble in the earthly mind.
Then Doubt pushed through with its spiked head.
And once Doubt ruptured the web,
All manner of demon thoughts
Jumped through—
We destroyed the world we had been given
For inspiration, for life—
Each stone of jealousy, each stone
Of fear, greed, envy, and hatred, put out the light.
No one was without a stone in his or her hand.
There we were,
Right back where we had started.
We were bumping into each other
In the dark.
And now we had no place to live, since we didn’t know
How to live with each other.
Then one of the stumbling ones took pity on another
And shared a blanket.
A spark of kindness made a light.
The light made an opening in the darkness.
Everyone worked together to make a ladder.
A Wind Clan person climbed out first into the next world,
And then the other clans, the children of those clans, their children,
And their children, all the way through time—
To now, into this morning light to you.
Joy Harjo opened her Bioneers Conference keynote with a powerful reading
Anyway, I want to start with a dream. And what I’ve learned, I learn a lot in dreams. I’ll just read this. But one thing I’ve learned too, is that, what he was showing you, in a way, the wonderful images and the sounds, was kind of like it’s a kind of dreaming. And you could say.
Sometimes I challenge myself to think that I’m walking through a dream right now. And maybe we are. And what would I do? What would I do in that if I understood that we are in the dream field, or the story field. I call it the story field.
When I was young in my poetry making, I was a mother to two young children with a full time job and tending to what my art demanded. I was beset by dreams that were appearing more and more dimensional and real. I was as awake in them as I was in my living.
In one of my dreams, I was taken by a guardian far above the earth. Earth was dressed in blue and green. She was lit from within. I was enveloped in a lush darkness that extended forever to eternity. Space was not empty. Rather, there was a profound depth of sound presence like an echo stacked within many layers of echoing. There were blues that don’t exist in everyday earthly existence. Stars and planets gleamed like giant colored diamonds. I was in a circle of exquisite belonging.
When I looked closer to the detail, I saw a lit field of stories. They were all over the world, through all time. The stories were continually shifting in shape and color. Where there was kindness, there was light. Meanness made upheaval. There were those who created light and shared it, and others who stole and devoured it.
Every story that ever happened made an imprint on the field. The past was just as mobile as the present and future. Everyone’s thoughts, dreams and actions were motivated by the story direction. And when I say everyone, also the animals, the plants, the stones, the winds. Everyone’s thoughts and dreams and actions were motivated by the story direction, the energetic particles around and through everything were made of what we Muskogee people called “vnokeckv” (uh-no-getch-kuh), or love. It is a fierce love that is strong enough to compel to beauty and right action. It is a love beyond what is fully comprehensible by any singular mind. We need all of our minds to comprehend us. it is happening now. In the dream, I understood that we are “ēkvnv” (i:kaná), Earth. In my Muskogee language, we are the story. All of this was shown to me. Then I woke up. I was much like you. I turned off the alarm, slid out of bed, and stepped into the details of the day.
We are all part of a living story, one that requires deep listening and understanding, inside and outside. This notion of being interconnected is a recurring theme throughout her work, as she encourages us to recognize our place within the larger narrative of life on Earth.
Check out her full 2025 Bioneers Conference keynote and a later discussion with Cara Romero, Program Director of the Bioneers Indigeneity Program and a Chemehuevi artist and photographer.
Resources/Articles:
Joy Harjo keynote at the 2025 Bioneers Conference:
https://bioneers.org/art-and-healing-a-conversation-with-joy-harjo-and-cara-romero/
Joy Harjo, the 23rd U.S. Poet Laureate and member of the Muscogee Nation, is the author of eleven books of poetry, several plays, children’s books, two memoirs, and seven music albums. Her many honors include Yale’s 2023 Bollingen Prize for American Poetry, National Book Critics Circle Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, the Ruth Lily Prize for Lifetime Achievement from the Poetry Foundation, the Academy of American Poets Wallace Stevens Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Cloud Runner, Harjo’s twelfth book of poetry, will be published by W.W. Norton in Fall of 2026.
She is a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and Chair of the Native Arts & Cultures Foundation, and is the inaugural Artist-in-Residence for the Bob Dylan Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where she lives.
Cara Romero (Chemehuevi), Program Director of the Bioneers Indigeneity Program, previously served her Mojave-based tribe in several capacities, including as: first Executive Director at the Chemehuevi Cultural Center, a member of the tribal council, and Chair of the Chemehuevi Education Board and Chemeuevi Headstart Policy Council. Cara is also a highly accomplished photographer/artist.
Jack Eidt is an environmental journalist, urban theorist and designer, and advocate for the wild, as well as award-winning fiction writer. He is Co-Founder of SoCal 350 Climate Action and Executive Producer of EcoJustice Radio. He writes for a PBS SoCal Artbound project called High & Dry [https://www.pbssocal.org/people/high-dry]. He is also Founder and Publisher of WilderUtopia [
https://wilderutopia.com
], a website dedicated to the question of Earth sustainability, finding society-level solutions to environmental, community, economic, transportation and energy needs. He also publishes articles and podcasts on Substack [
].
