16 pages • 32 minutes read
Joy HarjoFor Calling the Spirit Back from Wandering the Earth in Its Human Feet
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2015A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Guilt and Shame
The speaker tells the reader to severe their bindings to shame. They note that the spirit may be “caught” (Line 23) by shame. In the speaker’s philosophy, negative emotions hold the spirit, keeping it in a state of “wandering” (Line 26). The speaker suggests that some reasons for feeling guilt and shame are inherited: “Let go of the pain of your ancestors” (Line 20).
One can release shame by asking forgiveness. The speaker advises the reader ask forgiveness from insects and animals for the harm that humans have caused them. Almost all people step on insects, swat them away, or in some way damage them. This suggests that mistakes and unconscionable acts are part of the human condition. They are universal, maybe unavoidable, which mitigates the pain and stigma of admitting fault. At the same time, the speaker does not trivialize the importance of insects or a person’s need to ask their forgiveness.
The speaker acknowledges that just as people have been abused, so they too have they been abusers, or self-abusers. They need to forgive others and themselves, and to ask for others’ forgiveness. The poem’s wording displays a worldview of reciprocal relationships in which all things are connected, affecting and being affected by one another. It is important to clear away shame and guilt to allow a new feeling to emerge. Otherwise, these feelings catch the spirit, trapping it. Only by forgiving can the spirit be free.
The Healing Quality of Community with Humans and Natural Elements
Much of the speaker’s advice involves reaching out to others. They suggest that the reader sing to the stars, give breath back to the earth with gratitude, ask for help from ancestors, and have a party, leaving room for those without homes or shelter. These are examples of building community, but not only human communities. The speaker goes out of their way to clarify that “those who love” (Line 22) and support the reader may include “animal, element, bird, angel, saint, stone, or ancestor” (Line 22). They propose that there is much to gain from a conscious and respectful connection with the natural world. By connecting with nature, people gain support and love from all elements, not just with humans.
The humans in the poem are sometimes positive and sometimes negative, while plants and animals are positive and nurturing. The winds are “friendly” (Line 4); they bring the “essence of plants to clean” (Line 4). Connection with the earth is a way of calling the spirit back.
Benevolent Animism
The “spirit” wanders the earth inside “human feet” (title). The speaker depicts humans as being detachable from their spirits, or the human body as a cloak for the spirit. Underneath some of the very common, earthly, and mundane instructions—“put down that bag of potato chips” (Line 1)—is a reference to a world beyond the physical.
The soul or spirit exists beyond the human world, outside of its “human feet” in a place beyond time. Conscious beings are the soul’s “keepers” (Line 19). These guardians may help individuals when they are on earth. Helpers also take many forms: “animal, element, bird, angel, saint, stone, or ancestor” (Line 25). Beings outside the realm of physical reality change shape to help people. The speaker doesn’t pose a singular god, but multiple beings who protect souls and take various forms while they are wearing their “human feet.” This philosophy is known as “animism”—the belief that all elements of nature, even the non-sentient and non-verbal elements, have a spirit or soul.
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By Joy Harjo
