etching by Alan Larkin

 

Open Road Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue

 

November 15, 2023

 

Where…do universal human rights begin?

in small places,

close to home—

so close and so small

that they cannot be seen

on any map of the world.

 

—Eleanor Roosevelt (shared by Jill Littlewood

*

 

October 23, 2023

9:40 a.m.

Dear Johnny

 

The weather is getting ready to change & the leaves are all changing too. Within the frame of my window all of the spiders are spinning their winter webs. I watch them & soon the birds will find them & two feet from my eyes I will see the winter feast of the birds. I find these things in life to be what polishes my mind, the simple functions of all the life of all things around me. The moss growing on the rocks, the autumn leaves falling off the tree, the longing of love reciprocated with every beat of my heart.

 

I long to share all of this with the ones I love in life. To see the world in each other’s mind & eyes without the walls between any of us. We will all discover new wonders that will really be old ones, but new to us.

 

Do you remember when your eyes first opened to see a redirection of your life? Was there a scene of contrast in the cloth you thought you were cut from & did you find you were truly made from something altogether different? For me it was a casting away of tools and hooks, and a soul-cleansing rain that washed away a lifetime of blood, bruises & filth. Once I simply “let go” my eyes opened, and something like a waterfall poured into my mind, flooded me inside. After that, well…breathing & balance was needed. It’s a strange thing that the only way I can explain my transformation is with elemental references—which is unintentional.

 

Love You, Love Me!

 

—Rocky Hutchinson

*

 

I was on the University of Michigan campus last Thursday (11/9/23). I visited one of Ashley Lucas’s classes there. All the students in the class go into prison every week and teach workshops in theater, creative writing, or visual art. They had watched Bushra’s film “A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Prison.” We talked about Love.

 

When I think of “meditation & mindfulness,” the first thing that comes to mind is quietly enjoying the the beauty and miraculousness of my human life on Earth. Out the window, where I’m sitting right now, in South Bend, Indiana, an old maple tree is dropping some of its bright yellow leaves. The Open Road Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue tries to be uplifting and is mostly intended to be inspirational, to nurture peace, love, happiness, beauty and goodness in our minds and hearts. This does not mean we ignore the violence, the injustice, and suffering that are always present in the world. When we read or listen to the news, we are reminded of terrible ongoing tragedies in the Middle East, in Ukraine, Sudan, and many other places. The suffering is real. The beauty is also real. The sorrows of the world do not negate the Love and Joy that are our birthrights.

 

As Ashley and I were crossing the campus, more than a hundred people lay on the ground. Many of them had small signs with someone’s picture on it. A woman in a hijab read the names of people in Gaza who have been killed. The list of names was very long.

 

It felt to me like a real peace demonstration. No one was shouting. Jewish participants held signs that said: JEWS SAY CEASE FIRE NOW. Another sign said: NOT IN OUR NAME. To see some of the faces of those killed, and to hear the names read, was deeply moving to me, and to Ashley, and to many others I’m sure.

 

My own position on the violence in the Middle East is simple. I’m against the killing of children. Always. Everywhere. At my age, soldiers are children too. (The subtitle of Kurt Vonnegut’s novel Slaughterhouse Five is: “The Children’s Crusade.” It’s about World War II.)

 

Recommended listening: “Road to Peace,” from Tom Waits’ 2006 “Orphans” album.

 

May all people be happy.

May we live in peace & love.

(Even if some people are making other choices.)

 

—Johnny Stallings

*

 

                Big Eddy

 

It’s where we camped as kids—

the Clackamas River fresh from

fast water waves breaking boulders

in long runs of rapids met a cliff

that turned its brawny rush to swirl

back on itself under a lid of glass

so you could see green stones deep

inside their secret room where all

that rain slowed in thought to

reconsider, before going on. There 

our river learned to retrace its steps, 

to ponder, to reconcile, restore itself, 

become young again. Oh, my country.

 

—Kim Stafford

*

 

Oh, dear ambulance

high above the hospital:

a sheer, blue-white dust.

 

—Alex Tretbar

*

 

Still

 

There are possibilities

maybe less of them

But still

 

As long as there is water

some nourishment

heat

 

A cool breeze

perhaps

You know; the basics

 

There can be a moment

that shines

bright skin on a piece of fruit

 

A flash of light

as a bird wings away above

 

The sound of a song

sung in unison

the hum of it bearing

the weight of our well used bones

 

—Elizabeth Domike

*

 

As we approach the holiday season with Thanksgiving almost upon us, this lovely poem by Gary Snyder is always a touchstone for me. In my hierarchy of values, Gratitude and Kindness stand out as primary. Certainly aspirational even when I fail to meet the mark. Here is the poem:

 

Prayer for the Great Family 

 

Gratitude to Mother Earth, sailing through night and day—
and to her soil: rich, rare and sweet
in our minds so be it.

 

Gratitude to Plants, the sun-facing, light-changing leaf
and fine root-hairs; standing still through wind
and rain; their dance is in the flowering spiral grain
in our minds so be it.

 

Gratitude to Air, bearing the soaring Swift and silent
Owl at dawn. Breath of our song
clear spirit breeze
in our minds so be it.

 

Gratitude to Wild Beings, our brothers, teaching secrets,
freedoms, and ways; who share with us their milk;
self-complete, brave and aware
in our minds so be it.

 

Gratitude to Water: clouds, lakes, rivers, glaciers;
holding or releasing; streaming through all
our bodies salty seas
in our minds so be it.

 

Gratitude to the Sun: blinding pulsing light through
trunks of trees, through mists, warming caves where
bears and snakes sleep—he who wakes us—
in our minds so be it.

 

Gratitude to the Great Sky
who holds billions of stars—and goes yet beyond that—
beyond all powers, and thoughts
and yet is within us—
Grandfather Space.
The Mind is his Wife.
so be it.

 

—Gary Snyder

 

—Jeffrey Sher

*

 

From One to the Other

 

Lips touch first,

not a kiss, not desire

or response,

but a gateway,

open breath and movement,

energy 

from being to being,

from another wanderer

sharing his deepest home,

dust on the pathways,

cold nights under stars,

youth that wakes each morning,

age’s knowing acceptance,

the ceaseless renewal of

atoms and smaller storms,

each one saying:

This moment,

this exact place,

endlessly.

 

—Deborah Buchanan

*

 

#79 Releasing Our Cows

 

One day the Buddha was sitting in the forest with a number of monks when a peasant came by. He had just lost his cows; they had run away. He asked the monks whether they had seen his cows passing by. The Buddha said, “No, we haven’t seen your cows passing through here; you may want to look for them in another direction.”

When the farmer had gone, the Buddha turned to his monks, smiled, and said, “Dear friends, you should be very happy. You don’t have any cows to lose.”

One practice we can do is to take a piece of paper and write down the names of our cows. Then we can look deeply to see whether we’re capable of releasing some of them. We may have thought these things were crucial to our well-being, but if we look deeply, we may realize that they are the obstacles to our true joy and happiness.

—from Your True Home by Thich Nhat Hanh

 

I come from a long line of conservers. We all were reduce, reuse, and recyclers long before that catchy phrase appeared on the scene. Duct tape, needle and thread, Elmer’s glue, needle-nose pliers were good friends and always close at hand.

 

One of the best Christmas presents I ever got was one of my dad’s specially tended and cultivated compost piles. He named all three of them that year, and I received the W A Mozart Compost Pile. Black gold, they call it in the nurseries, and that it is.

 

I save and reuse aluminum foil, and plastic produce bags, and sandwich bags, and storage bags—for years!  Why not?! They’re all perfectly good when washed and hung to dry. My daughter gave me a wooden mobile with a dozen or so small clothespins attached to strings for hanging washed plastic bags. (The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.) One of her early boyfriends gave me one dozen washed, dried and smoothed out sheets of aluminum foil he’d saved from deli sandwiches. Now that’s a thoughtful gift!

 

I darn and mend socks multiple times. Again—why not?!?! Ninety five percent of the sock is perfectly good. I have a friend who works at REI and she gives me all of her hole-y Smartwool socks. I mend them like new and give them back to her. She is ecstatic. 

 

Goodwill is my go-to luxury shopping spot; the Bend Goodwill has any and all of the best sports clothing, barely worn and just my style. But. I’m really not even a shopper, so any ‘come hither’ shopping sales are lost on me. 

 

Speaking of camping, I am never happier than when I am going to sleep in my cozy tent. I’ve turned it into a small home for a few days, and often I genuinely believe that I could live in nothing bigger than a tent with a campfire and meadow nearby. 

 

One of my husband’s first observations about me was: “You are the lowest maintenance woman I’ve ever known!” I like to believe it was said in admiration, but I think the tone was more one of exasperation.

 

So it’s not about cows and peasants and monks, I know that, but the thought is there: I can be happy with few “cows.”

 

—Jude Russell

*

 

There’s a lot of suffering in the world, some feeling it closer to our hearts than usual. There is also the abundance of life changing before our eyes, as the sky fills with a rush of yellow leaves in the wind. Impermanence, filled with joy of birch, and ginkgo, and fig passing into their next stage. Is a fig tree still a tree without its leaves?

 

I’ve been reading The Book of Joy, a conversation between the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu, about lasting happiness in a changing world. They are discussing eight pillars of joy, beginning with Perspective. Here’s an excerpt:

 

If we are suffering, the Dalai Lama suggests that we get a wider perspective, to see the bigger picture. Scientists call this practice “self-distancing,” and it allows us to think more clearly about our problems, as well as to reduce our stress response. The ability to go beyond our own self-interest is essential for any good leader, whether of a nation, an organization, or a family. The Dalai Lama suggests that by shifting our perspective to a broader, more compassionate one, we can avoid the worry and suffering of further pain. 

 

“Then, another thing,” the Dalai Lama continued. “There are different aspects to any event. For example, we lost our own country and became refugees, but that same experience gave us new opportunities to see more things. For me personally, I had more opportunities to meet with different people, different spiritual practitioners, like you, and also scientists. This new opportunity arrived because I became a refugee.  If I had remained in the Potala in Lhasa, I would have stayed in what has often been described as a golden cage. 

 

So personally, I prefer the last five decades of refugee life. It’s more useful, more opportunity to learn, to experience life. Therefore, if you look from one angle, you see, ‘Oh, how bad, how sad.’ But if you look from another angle at that same tragedy, that same event, you see that it gives me new opportunities. So, it’s wonderful. That’s the main reason that I’m not sad and morose. There’s a Tibetan saying: ‘Wherever you have friends that’s your country, and wherever you receive love, that’s your home.’ “ 

 

I have found this reading helpful, along with the colorful leaves and the star-filled night skies of Autumn, and conversing with my dear friends, to keep centered and compassionate and joyful.  

 

I hope this season finds you well and thankful for life!

 

—Katie Radditz