Aaron Gilbert as Sir Toby Belch in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night (Two Rivers prison, 2011)

THE OPEN ROAD

peace, love, happiness & understanding

My mind started to blossom…

August 13, 2020

Recently I suggested to Aaron Gilbert that he might write about what he’s learned about love while in prison. This is what he wrote:

July 26, 2020

Dear Johnny

….I have been contemplating on expanding on my ideas from my last letter and what I have learned about Love while in prison. Wow! There is just so much to it. I think of one thing, then it expands into so many different ideas. I will just try to keep it simple and hit the points that have truly meant the most.

Before I came to prison, I had a very narrow view of what love was. When you get to a place like this, you have two choices, you can either cling to positive things in your life or go down a very dark lonely path. I asked myself how did this happen, how did I get here? The answer was quite simple, it was because I didn’t care about anyone or anything, including myself. Through self-reflection, I started to try to figure out: why? Then I met Johnny.

I was very skeptical at first about what this man was all about. I just wanted to be in the play, but first we had to sit through this “dialogue group.” We would, or they would, talk about these foreign topics: Mythos, Identity, Silence, Love, etc. I just wanted it to be over so we could get on with rehearsals. I don’t know how long it took, but I remember exactly when it happened for me. I began to hear other people speak and the biggest thing I heard was the silence. Someone would have something to say and I remember wondering what Johnny was doing when he got that look on his face, then it hit me at once, he was LISTENING! I began to realize that he was truly caring for us just by listening to us. My mind started to blossom, I started to see the things I had been contemplating about love become something real. He volunteered a huge portion of his life to come and listen to us when most of the rest of society had written us off. This is one of the most pure forms of love I have ever felt and I wanted more.

For the first time in my life, I became engaged with people around me. At the end of class, Johnny would say “be kind to yourself.” I started to work on self-forgiveness and ask for forgiveness from the people I hurt. This love was transforming my life and I started to feel like a person of value.

The question then became: is it truly possible to love everyone? It is very complicated and I have a lot of work to do in this category, but I believe the answer is “yes, it is possible.” I have been in prison for almost fourteen years now, I have many friends that have committed the worst possible crimes, and they will never go home. When you know these guys without that stigma over their head, you realize that they are human as well, with the same basic needs as the rest of us, to love, to be loved and have companionship with others. You realize they are no less human than anyone else is, even though society wants us to think otherwise. These “lifers” are some of the most respectful caring people I have met in my life, not only on the inside. Most of these guys are doing good things for others, trying to make their environment a healthier place to live.

This is where I struggle because there are many people I don’t know that I may still be holding judgment against. I believe Love says if you forgive one person’s transgressions, you should be able to forgive them all. As I said, Love is a work in progress.

I have learned most everything I know about love from being in prison. It doesn’t seem right, but it is true. Mostly because one man was able to help my mind flower and start to soak in all the light of Love. The best part about it is I am not the only person he touched. I know of many more in the few short years I was part of Group Dialogue. I can’t imagine how many others have felt some of that love as well. I was reading The Heart of Buddha’s Teaching by Thich Nhat Hanh recently, and something that stood out, I am just paraphrasing, but he was saying of love “we can’t expect to fit people into our own little world about what we feel love is. We should truly try to understand them for who they are, even if they have wronged us we should try to understand why.” Imagine if we can all just take a little piece of that compassion, understanding, and listening and spread it, it has to make the world a better place, right?

Maybe next time I can expand a little more on the journey of life and what it means to me. This is just the most important thing I could say today. I do want to thank Johnny for you just being you. This world needs people like you in it now more than ever I believe. I know the impact you have had on me and many others has forever transformed us into better humans, so thank you for all that love….

Love & Respect

Aaron G.

*

Aaron was in the dialogue group at Two Rivers prison from April of 2010 to May of 2013, when he transferred to the Oregon State Penitentiary. He’s serving the end of his sentence at South Fork Forest Camp. While at Two Rivers, he played Helena in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Sir Toby Belch in “Twelfth Night” and Juror Number Six in “Twelve Angry Men.” In real life he’s a nice guy, but as a juror he wanted to convict the defendant quickly so he could go to a baseball game! (Just kidding, Aaron.)

It is kind of Aaron to say so many nice things about be.  I, too, learned a lot about love in prison. One thing I learned is that the circle is a good shape for us humans. Everyone has an equal place in a circle. That’s important. In 2015, when I started going to Two Rivers once a month, instead of once a week, other people came forward to facilitate the dialogue group discussions and to direct the plays. I think we all have had a similar experience to what Aaron is talking about. Being in a circle with 16 or 20 people, sometimes talking, always listening, is a transformative experience. We get to know each other in a deep way and we get to know ourselves better too. I don’t know where the love comes from, but we all have felt it getting stronger and stronger. This world can be seen as a School for Love. When it is, even prison is a home for The Nonstop Love-In. As Aaron says, we all have the same basic needs: “…to love, to be loved and have companionship with others.”

Kim taught a poetry class at Coffee Creek prison. And wrote a poem about it:

  Poetry Class    

     at the Women’s Prison

Put chairs in a circle. “Where

is everyone?” “Oh, they’re all

watching ‘Love after Lock-Up.’

It’s fake, but addicting.”

On every chair, put a notebook

and a pen. “You know what?

In this class I’m not an inmate,

I’m a person.” “Every time

that door opens, and another

joins our circle, we’re stronger.”

“It’s not so much what we write —

it’s how we listen.” Finally, the show

over, the room resonant,

we are the full twelve writing

in a ring, as onto scribbled pages

we bow to pray hard stories.

—Kim Stafford

*

Here’s a poem that Katie Radditz shared:

A Blessing

Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,

Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.

And the eyes of those two Indian ponies

Darken with kindness.

They have come gladly out of the willows

To welcome my friend and me.

We step over the barbed wire into the pasture

Where they have been grazing all day, alone.

They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness

That we have come.

They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.

There is no loneliness like theirs.

At home once more,

They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.

I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,

For she has walked over to me

And nuzzled my left hand.

She is black and white,

Her mane falls wild on her forehead,

And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear

That is delicate as the skin over a girl’s wrist.

Suddenly I realize

That if I stepped out of my body I would break

Into blossom.

—James Wright