Indigenous Peoples’ Day

Dear Friends,

Happy belated Indigenous Peoples’ Day. I do hope you found some time to restore, to reignite, to be peaceful.

My gift to you today is a poem by Joy Harjo, who born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and is a member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, and named U.S. poet laureate in June 2019.

This Morning I Pray for My Enemies

Joy Harjo - 1951-

And whom do I call my enemy?

An enemy must be worthy of engagement.

I turn in the direction of the sun and keep walking.

It’s the heart that asks the question, not my furious mind.

The heart is the smaller cousin of the sun.

It sees and knows everything.

It hears the gnashing even as it hears the blessing.

The door to the mind should only open from the heart.

An enemy who gets in, risks the danger of becoming a friend.

Here at school students are working on friendships with open hearts, often in the context of the dappled woods or the rippling hillside, where like Harjo, they navigate the complexities of their feelings and learn empathy.

This school is, indeed, a fertile factory of complexity where we're working through challenges and triumphs together, children and adults, with open hearts, as you'll read below.

Big love,

Charlie Spencer

Head of School