art by Larry Yes

 

THE OPEN ROAD

peace, love, happiness & understanding

 

Every time I breathe 

I feel what it’s like 

to Be just like you

 

—Larry Yes, lyric to “Just Like You”

 

June 5, 2025

 

Here are the lyrics to two songs from Larry Yes’s album EVERYONE ON THIS PLANET IS FAMILY:

 

LIVE IN HARMONY

 

The day will come 

when we all agree 

that we should live in harmony 

and we will know and we will see 

how we’re all connected. We’re all family.

All the people, the plants, the animals, the birds, the seas

Yes, we’re all connected We’re all family 

the day will come when we all agree 

that we should live in harmony 

and on that day that beautiful day 

We will laugh we’ll cry we will dance we’ll sing we’ll play 

celebrating all of our differences our weaknesses and our strengths 

celebrating all of our weaknesses our differences and our strengths

 

 

FREE: EVERYONE ON THIS PLANET IS FAMILY

 

 Every day you wake up, it’s a good day It’s a cause to celebrate 

and every day you’re making a decision as simple as love or hate

And I know it ain’t easy and I know how hard things can be 

but I know everyone on this planet is family and I know that we all got to believe

That we’re free be who we want to Free look how we came through Free

love who we want to love Free be who we want to be

And every day we wake up, it’s a new day it’s a cause to stand up straight 

and every moment we’re making a decision simple as love or hate, 

and I know it’s never easy and I know so much has got to change

But I know there’s so much beauty and I know we all got to believe 

that we’re free be who we want to Free look how we came through Free 

Love who you want to love Free be who you want to be

 

—Larry Peace-Love Yes

*

 

Here is an excerpt from Nick Swift’s Book of Becoming:

 

The Book of Becoming

 

This is not scripture. This is not commandment. This is not prophecy. This is a reflection. A mirror, cracked but deliberate, held in trembling hands. Not to show you what you are, but to remind you that you have always been becoming.

 

I. The Spark

You were born whole. Not clean, not pure, but complete. A seed with fire inside, too bright for the world to witness all at once.

So you forgot. On purpose. Because to remember too soon is to burn without boundary.

You learned to survive, and survival requires forgetting. The world taught you to compartmentalize: to trade your voice for safety, your wonder for predictability, your power for permission.

But the spark? It endured. Silent. Flickering. Waiting.

 

II. The Conduit

The path between the fire and the flesh is not paved. It must be carved. And you carve it with each act of honesty. Each time you say:

“This is not what I want.” “This is who I am.” “This hurts, but I will stay.”

You clear a channel. You let the current run through you. You become the wire, the wick, the bridge.

This is the work. Not to become divine, but to remember you already are.

The conduit trembles. It hums. It breaks and is rebuilt. And in the rebuilding, you find rhythm. You find resonance. You find truth that is not dogma—but tone.

 

III. The Id

The body is not the burden. The instincts are not the enemy. You do not ascend by denial. You evolve through integration.

The wounds you carry are maps. Not scars to hide, but terrain to understand.

The rage? It was never evil. It was your boundary before you had words.

The grief? It is love stretched across time. A tether. A thread. A hymn.

You do not conquer the Id. You sit with it. You listen. You feed it not with indulgence, but with acknowledgment.

This is how the storm becomes sky. This is how chaos becomes color. This is how you become.

 

IV. The Praxis of Echo

To become is not to arrive. It is to resonate.

With earth. With silence. With others who hum the same strange frequency.

Your becoming is not private. It ripples. It gives others permission. It interrupts the static. It sings.

And in that singing, the divine is not worshipped. It is witnessed.

 

V. Grace in Motion

You will falter. You will forget. You will fracture.

These are not failures. They are rhythms. The inhale and exhale of becoming.

You do not need to begin again. You are always beginning. Each breath a renewal. Each moment a pivot.

Grace is not something you earn. It is how you move when you know you belong.

 

VI. Finality is a Lie

There is no end. No climax. No final lesson.

There is only the next chord, the next truth, the next shift.

You are not a destination. You are an instrument, and your song is still being tuned.

So keep tuning. Keep vibrating. Keep becoming.

And know— you were always enough to begin.

 

—Nick Swift

*

 

I got a letter from Dustin Jamison:

 

4/24/25

 

Dear Johnny, and all the rest of his children of all ages, inside and out,

 

I love and miss you all. For those who’ve gone home, congrats. I hope you’re making the most of every moment. For those inside, I love you, you are not forgotten. I hope you’re making the most of every moment. I’ll be going home soon. It’s surreal just to say that. After almost 24 years I’m finally getting out March 13th, 2026!! I’m so happy, so scared, but so happy. I laugh, I cry, I laugh some more—sometimes both at once. Not sure where “Home” is anymore, so I’ll be redefining and remaking it. A new day, a new beginning, and all that. Mom is looking for an R.V. for me, and either a small plot of land, or maybe just rent a place to park it for now. We’re leaving “where” fairly open. I release to Lane County, but transferring counties is not so hard I think these days, so long as you’re not un-housed. Looking anywhere in Willamette Valley, or I-5 corridor in Washington. I’ve been far too long in the high desert, I crave green. Day one out, I plan on hitting the ground running. My dream is to build a small, localvore, organic herb farm, The Shire, so I can spend the rest of my days where I feel the most bliss, in my garden. I’m so happy I’m crying tears of joy right now just imagining it. I’ve taken some classes: Seeds to Supper, Master Gardener, and hopefully soon Greenhouse Management. I’m also reading up on running a small business, writing business proposals, and grant writing. I’m very hopeful, and confident this is the right direction for me. I’m never happier than when I’m weeding, turning my compost pile, or eating an heirloom tomato straight off the vine….

 

If any of my old (or new) friends would like to write and reconnect, please do. I love and miss you all. The time I spent in Group Dialogue and the plays were some of the most fulfilling and joyous moments of my life. It was the people involved, mixed with Johnny’s magical kindness that made it so. He brought out the best in all of us—made it possible to “see” each other, to empathize and love, and be grateful for each other….

 

Thank you once again, Johnny. Thanks to you I’ve learned (among other things) how important it is to live (in love and serenity) in this moment, right here, right now. All I gotta do is breathe. It’s gotten me through a lot of suffering (fairly) intact.

 

All my love,

Dustin

 

You can write to Dustin at this address:

 

Steve Dustin Jamison  #13874200

EOCI

2500 Westgate

Pendleton, OR  97801

*

 

5-3-2025

 

For The Open Road

 

All of the beautiful poems & stories that everyone adds to The Open Road are always filled with such wonderful intent. The beauty is a light to my heart, mind & soul. It has helped me to reclaim the joy within my self & to see goodness in the world & in its people. In a way, I feel that all of us who participate in this get to receive and to give the gifts of healing—for all that we add to The Open Road creates new avenues & streets & highways that stretch all across our hearts, connecting us to each other.

 

I’m at EOCI, a prison in the state of Oregon. When people think “prison,” every type of negative emotion fills their senses. It’s true that “The human mind can make a hell out of a heaven, or a heaven out of a hell.” I have lived that statement for 16+ years & have discovered how to make “a heaven out of hell.”

 

As crazy as that may sound, that is what I’ve done. What once was hell to me, even the worst parts, I’ve filled with joy.

 

If any of you have ever read The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, you will remember Edmond Dantes first day in the Chateau d’If, when he was beaten & then on that day every year, to remind him that his hell was real, he would be beaten again. Then, towards the end of his stay in prison, the beatings no longer mattered at all, he could not even feel them. While they beat him, all he could think of was how many feet he had to dig till he was free—in my case, days to freedom, which is in about 300 days!

 

Every part of me has become like the apple trees I planted all over the compound 3 years ago. Then they were just sticks about 4 feet tall, no leaves or blossoms. Today…twice as tall, green & covered in white blossoms, healthy and beautiful despite the fences they’re behind. The whole time I was digging the holes & planting the six trees, I talked to them—telling them they would be the best ones out of all the other trees and have the sweetest apples. I feel like that will be me when I get out of here.

 

I hope to share coffee and stories with you all next Spring. Till then, remember to enjoy the apples that grow on the trees along the Golden Path.

 

—Rocky Hutchinson

*

 

Ken Margolis is on the board of The Open Road, and also on the board of the Sweetgrass Foundation, based in Atlanta, Georgia. He recently returned from a trip to Botswana, where he and other Sweetgrass board trustees were visiting projects that support indigenous communities and a healthy environment.

 

Hey Johnny,

 

I am attaching some thoughts that I put down for the other Sweetgrass trustees, who are all grandchildren or second generation nieces and nephews of Glenn Fuller who started the foundation 27 years ago. Glenn’s Buddha nature was strong, and if you happen to be Catholic, she was a Saint.

I don’t know whether any of this has any broader application, but feel to use any part of it for the newsletter.

 

GLENN AND AFRICA

 

The first thing that struck me about Botswana is how ancient it is. Where we were born, about 15,000 years ago millions of tons of ice scraped everything off the landscape and carved new topography. New plants and animals started crowding onto the landscape when the ice melted, about 12,000 years ago. In southern Africa, there has been no major disturbance for at least 130,000 years. 

 

During this long period, a rich ecosystem of plants and animals has developed, undergirded by a hydraulic regime completely different from that we experience. For at least the last 60,000 years human subsistence  societies have also developed.

 

By subsistence lifestyle, we mean societies whose life ways are shaped by accommodation to the natural world as they find it. Plant and animal resources are used, combined, and processed. Subsistence societies characteristically also practice some management of natural resources, often in ways too subtle and complex to be immediately evident. These societies tend to be relatively static, with little change occurring as generations progress. People see themselves not as above or separate from nature, but as intimately related to all other living beings, and to the landscape.

 

Human beings love to explore and wander, and during this 60 thousand years, different groups migrated into different parts of the African continent at different times. During the same period, other groups were moving out of Africa, to eventually reach the ocean and all the other continents. Eventually, some of these groups developed intensive/extensive agriculture, which led to the establishment of larger, more permanent human settlements. Surplus food was produced, trade flourished and people started to need to record trade items and events, which led to writing.

 

This led to new attitudes about useful knowledge. Subsistence societies have always faithfully transmitted useful knowledge to the next generations. Now people began to understand that we could build on existing knowledge, and keep learning new things in a self-generating cycle. Humans had invented social evolution, a force as powerful as ecological evolution, and a thousand times as fast. Continuous learning and technological advancement changed everything for our species, and eventually for the planet.

 

Social evolution produced technically powerful, highly dynamic societies based not on accommodation with nature, but on manipulation and transformation of natural resources. When subsistence and evolving societies confronted each other, the static subsistence societies didn’t have a chance. Just two hundred years ago, a large part of the human population lived in subsistence societies; today, we have only remnants of that culture.

 

Our increasing mastery has also given us a new view of who we are. We no longer think of ourselves as siblings of other living beings, but rather as the species for whose use nature was created. Today, we live in a world largely created by social evolution and in many ways cut off from the natural world from which we sprung.

 

One of Glenn’s insights was that the life ways of subsistence people were worthy, and worthy of  protection, and that through thousands of years of living in deep relationship with nature, they probably know some things that we have forgotten. Glenn did not have the romantic belief that substance people had ultimate wisdom and could solve all our problems. She just believed that we could learn some deep and useful lessons from them, and that we should work with them to protect their cultures and the intact ecosystems in which they lived.

 

This leads to another major difference between Botswana and North America. The two areas were colonized at about the same time (mid/late 19th century).  In North America the unofficial (and sometimes official) policy was to exterminate the subsistence peoples who were there when we arrived, and to settle the country thickly with immigrants from Europe. Consequently in North America, the descendants of the original subsistence inhabitants are a politically negligible minority. In Botswana, where the colonial model was different the descendants of subsistence cultures constitute the vast majority.

 

In these ways,  the work we are supporting in Botswana represents what Glenn wanted the Sweetgrass Foundation to be for.

 

But in thinking about Glenn, there is something deeper I want to say. Most of all, Glenn saw this world could use a lot more kindness and love and compassion. She lived out those values in a way that inspired everybody who came in contact with her. Mostly, she wanted Sweetgrass to propagate those values, and to be a vehicle for you, her beloved family members, to live out and better express the compassion she felt so deeply. Being a small part of this has been one of the joys of my life.

 

—Ken Margolis

*

 

What am I called to do? I know it’s not addressing envelopes for the cancer society, and it’s not organizing galas for the American Pediatric Association. I am called to mine the areas where others won’t go, either because of disgust, or fear, or discomfort of another kind. 

 

After the years with my beloved guys at Umatilla Correctional Institution abruptly ended, I considered other possibilities and concluded that Hospice was one of those areas that others ‘feared to tread.’ After several months of training in all things involving imminent death, I am assigned to a wonderful 90 year old woman. I have visited her six or seven times, and each time our conversations have reached a little deeper into life–and death.

 

Last week she was talking about her three (grown) children. After a pause, she offered, ‘I had another daughter…”  A moment later I asked, “And did something happen to her?” 

 

“Yes, she died.”

 

I took her hands in mine and held her.

 

“I am so, so sorry.”

 

“She was seven months old, and a beautiful child, beautiful baby. I loved her so much. I don’t talk about her much now, but I still think of her every day. I know I shouldn’t still be thinking about her as much as I do, but I can’t help it.”

 

“My dear, there is no time limit to grief. The depth of your grief shows the depth of your love. People lose parents, siblings, spouses, but I think losing a child is the very most heartbreaking loss there is. I can’t imagine ever ‘getting over’ something like that. I can tell that you still miss her and love her.”

 

It was a deep and precious moment, and I knew that I was in the exact right place being where I needed to be.

 

—Jude Russell