THE OPEN ROAD

peace, love & happiness

Spring Equinox

March 19, 2020

Dear Friends of The Open Road

Today I’m inaugurating a weekly peace, love & happiness newsletter. There will be an online version and a print version for people who are living in prison. It’s an experiment. I predict that it will be somewhat unpredictable. Hopefully, it will nurture culture and community at a time when gathering together is not encouraged.

Last night Prabu let me know about the Metropolitan Opera’s new “Nightly Opera Stream” program. You can learn more about it at the Open Road website (openroadpdx.org), or directly from the Met’s website at metopera.org. It’s just the kind of thing we need right now. And here’s a link to an article on “All the virtual concerts, plays, museums and other culture you can enjoy from home”:

 https://www.cnn.com/style/article/what-to-do-at-home-streaming-art-museums-concerts-coronavirus-trnd/index.html.

Lately, I’ve been reading things by Alan Watts, and listening to audio recordings that were made of his talks. Many of his talks have been transcribed, edited and published since his death in 1973. When I was young, I didn’t take him seriously—maybe because he wasn’t from India or Japan. I was a snob! These days I really enjoy his wit, knowledge and insight into questions of philosophy, religion and psychology, East and West. Here’s a quote:

What I am really saying is that you

don’t need to do anything,

because if you see yourself in the correct way,

you are all as much extraordinary phenomena

of nature as trees, clouds, the patterns

in running water, the flickering of fire,

the arrangement of the stars,

and the form of a galaxy. You are all just like that,

and there is nothing wrong with you at all.

(opening quote by Alan Watts, from his book Still the Mind: An Introduction to Meditation, edited by Mark Watts and Marc Allen)

Here are a couple good prayers:

Serenity Prayer

Grant me the serenity 

to accept the things I cannot change,

the courage to change the things I can,

and the wisdom to know the difference.

Metta Prayer

May all beings be happy.

May we be peaceful and at ease.

May we be well in body and mind.

May we live in love.

Well that’s it for me for this issue.

Now I’d like to tag Kim and Katie and Deborah. In future issues I want to include things from you, the readers, so send me your poems and ruminations, et cetera.

—Johnny Stallings

*

Dear Johnny,

Your mention of the spring equinox reminded me of this poem of spring rain, a long time favorite of mine, a lover of rain and mystery and evocative words. The poem is by Yang Wan-li from the Sung Dynasty in China (his lifespan: 1127 to 1279 AD). 

Night Rain at Kuang-k’ou

The river is clear and calm;

a fast rain falls in the gorge.

At midnight the cold, splashing sound begins,

like thousands of pearls spilling into a glass plate,

each drop penetrating the bone.

In my dream I scratch my head and get up to listen.

I listen and listen, until the dawn.

All my life I have heard rain,

and I am an old man;

but now for the first time I understand

the sound of spring rain 

on the river at night.

 Yang Wan-li, from Heaven My Blanket, Earth My Pillow

—Deborah Buchanan

*

EAGLE POEM

To pray you open your whole self

To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon

To one whole voice that is you.

And know there is more

That you can’t see, can’t hear;

Can’t know except in moments

Steadily growing, and in languages

That aren’t always sound but other

Circles of motion.

Like eagle that Sunday morning

Over  Salt River. Circled in blue sky

In wind, swept our hearts clean

With sacred wings.

We see you, see ourselves and know

That we must take the utmost care

And kindness in all things.

Breathe in, knowing we are made of

All this, and breathe, knowing

We are truly blessed because we

Were born, and die soon within a

True circle of motion,

Like eagle rounding out the morning

Inside us.

We pray that it will be done

In beauty.

In beauty.

Joy Harjo, our National Poet Laureate 

“Eagle Poem” from In Mad Love and War. 

Spring Equinox is one my favorite and most cosmic times of year to be joyful about just being alive on Planet Earth. As pink Azaleas, yellow Forsythia, and luscious

Magnolia blossoms fill the air, may we find kindness and equanimity this Spring day. 

Love and peace, dear friends.

—Katie Radditz

We’ll conclude with a couple poems that Kim Stafford, Oregon’s Poet Laureate, sent for us to include in our first peace, love & happiness newsletter:

*

Foolish Young Flowering Tree 

It’s winter—dark days, still too cold

for bird or blossom—dull sky, 

and all our hearts in shadow. 

But there—at a ragged cleft

darkened by cedars of gloom

a flash of light cries out— 

the incandescent wisp of wild

plum—far too early to be

so happy, so naive, a child 

refusing to obey the rules of grief.  

Trees in the Wind 

Even the sturdy spruce is teaching:

you are rooted and strong, yet you give.

Some call it dancing, this strength. 

And the wind has a far place to be, is

pure volition, whimsical, yet it hugs

the planet in a life-sustaining grip. 

Some call it happiness, this shimmer

of feeling that runs over bone, along tendon—

in the sense of hap: what happens to us. 

So we are all chameleon, capricious

outside, but sturdy inside, where,

helplessly, we are who we are. 

When I was young, a Danish girl asked me

what the old song means: There are changes

in the ocean, and changes in the sea, 

there are changes in my true love,

but no changes in me.

—Kim Stafford