BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//The Open Road:  a learning community - ECPv6.15.3//NONSGML v1.0//EN
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
METHOD:PUBLISH
X-ORIGINAL-URL:https://openroadpdx.com
X-WR-CALDESC:Events for The Open Road:  a learning community
REFRESH-INTERVAL;VALUE=DURATION:PT1H
X-Robots-Tag:noindex
X-PUBLISHED-TTL:PT1H
BEGIN:VTIMEZONE
TZID:America/Los_Angeles
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:-0800
TZOFFSETTO:-0700
TZNAME:PDT
DTSTART:20220313T100000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:-0700
TZOFFSETTO:-0800
TZNAME:PST
DTSTART:20221106T090000
END:STANDARD
END:VTIMEZONE
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20220715
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20220815
DTSTAMP:20260426T203111
CREATED:20220716T172631Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20220716T172631Z
UID:2974-1657843200-1660521599@openroadpdx.com
SUMMARY:Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue  7/15/22
DESCRIPTION:photograph taken in Iceland by Kim Stafford \n  \n  \nOpen Road Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue \n  \n  July 15\, 2022 \n  \nRemember? \n  \nRemember that day \nwhen the war ended \nand you climbed \nfrom your trenches \nand we oozed \nfrom our bunkers \nleaving \ngrenades\, guns \nbullets and bayonets \nbehind? \nRemember how we \nall sang in the streets \ndanced in the fountains \ncrazy with joy? \nRemember how \nclouds lifted \nhearts rose \nhatred\, vengeance \nbitterness and rage \nfell away like \ngrave clothes? \nRemember how \nwe stood \ntall and happy \nin the morning \nlight \neyeing the world \nand one another \nwith new eyes? \nRemember how \nin that ecstasy \nwe forgot \nif ours was \na red state \nor blue \nliberal cause or \nconservative stand? \n  \nRemember \nhow easily \nwe remembered \nwho we were \nfrom whence we had come \nwhere we were going \nwhy we were here \nand what we should do? \n  \nI will never forget \nthat day \nwhen the war ended \nand trust sprouted \nand spread like \na green \nsea of grass \nacross every divide \nover every division \nuniting all \ninto one state \nof grace \nindivisible \nat peace \nunder heaven. \n  \n —Will Hornyak   July 10\, 2022 \n* \n#223  Benefit From The Positive Elements  \n  \n“If the presence of the other is refreshing and healing to you\, keep hold of this presence and nourish yourself with it. If there are negative things around you\, you can always find something that is healthy\, refreshing and healing\, and with your mindfulness you can recognize its presence in your life. \n  \nYou need to recognize that these kinds of positive elements exist and that you can benefit from their refreshing and helpful presence. If you are facing a sunset\, a marvelous spectacle\, give yourself a chance to be in touch with it. Give yourself five minutes\, breathing deeply\, and you will be truly there. Touch the beauty of nature in a deep way. That will do your body and mind a great deal of good.” — Thich Nhat Hanh \n  \nWendell Berry’s poem\, “The Peace of Wild Things” is the embodiment of this page from Your True Home\, and I speak it silently to myself each day on entering my time of meditation. \n  \nI can’t deny that I am often agitated and fearful about the world\, particularly about our country\, when I sit down to meditate. And I quietly breathe in\, and out\, and remind myself: \n  \nThe Peace of Wild Things \n  \nWhen despair for the world grows in me\nand I wake in the night at the least sound\nin fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be\,\nI go and lie down where the wood drake\nrests in his beauty on the water\, and the great heron feeds.\nI come into the peace of wild things\nwho do not tax their lives with forethought\nof grief. I come into the presence of still water.\nAnd I feel above me the day-blind stars\nwaiting with their light. For a time\nI rest in the grace of the world\, and am free. \n  \n—Wendell Berry \n  \nI am so fortunate to be surrounded by beauty. I look to the north and see snow-clad Mt. Adams\, and to the south\, fleecy Mt. Hood —my two sentinels. To the east the sun rises over Surveyor’s Ridge and to the west it sets over Mt. Defiance. And above me either the “day-blind stars\, waiting with their light\,” or the visible blaze of stars in the deep and silent night sky. \n  \nWendell Berry and Thich That Hanh know the score. \n  \n—Jude Russell \n* \n  \nI read Thomas Traherne’s poem “Silence” this morning. It begins: \n  \nA quiet silent person may possess \nAll that is great or high in Blessedness. \nThe inward work is the supreme… \nA man who seemeth idle to the view \nOf others\, may the greatest business do. \n  \nLater in the poem\, he describes Adam\, in the Garden\, before the Fall: \n  \nThe first and only work he had to do\, \nWas in himself to feel his bliss\, to view \nHis sacred treasures\, to admire\, rejoice\, \nSing praises with a sweet and heavenly voice\, \nSee\, prize\, give hourly thanks within\, and love\, \nWhich is the high and only work above \nThem all. \n  \nTraherne felt that\, as a child\, he lived in that same Paradise: \n  \nA world of innocence as then was mine\, \nIn which the joys of Paradise did shine: \nAnd while I was not here I was in Heaven\, \nNot resting one\, but every\, day in seven\, \nFor ever minding with a lively sense\, \nThe universe in all its excellence. \nNo other thoughts did intervene\, to cloy\, \nDivert\, extinguish\, or eclipse my joy\, \nNo other customs\, new-found wants\, or dreams \nInvented here polluted my pure streams… \n  \nAs an adult\, by writing poems in which he gives thanks and praises to God\, who created “the universe in all its excellence\,” he could again enter the Garden of Paradise which he knew as a child: \n  \nHe was an ocean of delights from Whom \nThe living springs and golden streams did come: \nMy bosom was an ocean into which \nThey all did run. And me they did enrich. \nA vast and infinite capacity\, \nDid make my bosom like the Deity\, \nIn whose mysterious and celestial mind \nAll ages and all worlds together shin’d\, \nWho tho’ He nothing said did always reign\, \nAnd in Himself Eternity contain. \nThe world was more in me\, than I in it. \nThe King of Glory in my soul did sit\, \nAnd to Himself in me he always gave \nAll that He takes delight to see me have\, \nFor so my spirit was an endless Sphere\, \nLike God Himself\, and Heaven\, and Earth was there. \n  \n—Thomas Traherne  (1636-1674) \n  \nA quiet silent person may possess this Blessedness. It’s our birthright. \n  \n—Johnny \n* \n  \nPoems from Kim are always welcome: \n  \n          Pain & Grace \n  \nFar from here\, pain abounds— \nwar\, storm\, crime\, cruelty. \nNews freights that here to us. \nClose to home\, grace abounds— \nrain\, leaf\, birdsong\, touch. \nPoetry sends this there to them. \nThis disjunction puzzles everyone. \nUnknown beauties must be there. \nAnd here\, we have hurts in plenty. \nSo what is worth the telling? Let me \nbe the journalist of old affections. \nIn the tyrant’s prison\, may there be \n    a song. \n  \n                A Right to Rest \n  \nWhen you’re well\, it’s Up and at ’em!  \nRise and shine! Daylight in the swamp!  \nAnd there you stride into the storm of all  \nthat calls you to be the hero of action and  \naccomplishment. You’ll earn rest when  \nspent at dusk\, stumbling for home. \nBut when you’re under the weather\, it’s  \nTake it easy…Kick back…Doze. At last\, \nyour puritan self will let you be a slacker\,  \nshiftless\, a lazy bum. Now’s the time \nfor frailty\, for faltering\, when sickness  \ntakes pity on your weary soul. \n  \n                 Covid Guest \n  \nFor years you traveled in my country.  \nPeople told stories of your wanderings\,  \ncounted how many you met when they  \ncould take off the mask of reticence.  \nSome shut their doors\, shunned your  \ntouch\, but others took you in\, hosted \nyour companionship\, even grew intimate.  \nHow their breath came fast as you dazzled \nand left them utterly amazed. \nNow you come to my house\, and at last  \nwe meet. “Don’t be a stranger\,” you say\,  \noffering your hand. And I take you in. \n  \n—Kim Stafford \n* \n  \nCongratulations to Michel Deforge\, who has now written more than 300 meditations in his journal\, inspired by Thich Nhat Hanh’s meditations in Your True Home. In our Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue what we have shared of Michel’s writings is only the tip of the iceberg. Here are some things from his June journal: \n  \nJune 6\, 2022  #299 Definition of Hell \n  \nI love Thây’s solution—compassion. Any place I go\, I will meet men and women who have created their own hell on earth. All I can do\, and need to do\, to ease their suffering is bring my compassion (from love and understanding) into his or her life—mine too! I don’t have to be the “best” or be all-compassionate.  I merely need to breathe (consciously)\, share some compassion cultivated from understanding the person before me in that moment—no history past\, or future yet to be formed: simply he and me\, in the now. Johnny is our example\, here at TRCI; it’s repeatable. \n  \nJune 23\, 2022  #309  How to Listen to the Dharma \n  \nThis could apply to any time I (and you) are listening to a talk\, a lecture\, a debate\, a sermon\, maybe even a discussion on wise and salient topics. I imagine\, even if it’s silly\, foolish\, wastrel chatter I (and you) can allow the noise to wash over and pass on through. Engaging with intellect risks trapping all sorts of ideas\, notions—pond scum\, if you will. Wholesome talk/listening can also be reviewed later and maybe bear fruit. Listen to wisdom by letting it just soak in\, without any interference or additives. Your life seeds will be better for it in the long run. \n  \nJune 26\, 2022  #310  Here to Love \n  \nThis is a simple one. Breathe\, smile\, be aware\, and love. I wonder how often and easily any of us can get into a mental mess by giving too much thought to Love: What it is/is not\, how it “works.” Maybe\, and I don’t really know from my own experience\, we simply need to breathe\, smile\, be present to the reality of now—including the object of love (self\, other\, or object not self)\, and then choose to contemplate loving thoughts toward our object of love. I think an appropriate love will arise. (Provided the contemplation was appropriate.) Of course\, another option comes to mind: Breathe\, smile and just be. Just breathe and be\, simply\, as if in mindful meditative practice. Allow life to continue\, just to observe\, without judgement\, what happens. \n  \nJune 29\, 2022  #312  None Other Than Enlightenment \n  \nAll these skills and practice come together\, as I continue practicing on my own\, to reveal a freedom from suffering and a life of “nirvana.” It’s no special secret. If I (we) do this work\, we will reap the rewards of enlightenment in all of our efforts and interactions with reality. And it all starts with deliberate breathing. \n  \nOn June 30th\, Michel wrote this: \n  \nJohnny and friends\, \n  \nI don’t know precisely when\, but I am given to believe that I will go to my first hip replacement surgery in July. I’m hoping the week following the 4th\, but I have to wait and see. At the same time\, TRCI is locking back down as infections of Covid rise. (Big sigh!) If I go “dark” you’ll know I went to the infirmary and didn’t have my writing tools to keep journalling. We’ll see. \n  \nI hope everyone is well and I will be back “on track” as soon as I am able. \n  \nTake care\, with much love and gratitude\, \n  \nMichel \n* \n  \nKatie says:  \n  \nWhile I was typing this up I was doing meditation with the Shambhala sanghas in New York and Ukraine\, and one person read Thay’s poem “Please Call Me by My True Names.” \n  \nSo magical this life. \n  \nAda Limón – born 1976 – has just been named the new Poet Laureate of the United States. We need her poems today; so glad to share them.   \n  \n“Right now\, so often we are going numb to grief and numb to tragedy and numb to crisis\,” Limón said. “Poetry is a way back in\, to recognizing that we are feeling human beings. And feeling grief and feeling trauma can actually allow us to feel joy again.” \n  \nHere are a few of my favorites of her poems –  \n  \nA New National Anthem \n  \nThe truth is\, I’ve never cared for the National \nAnthem. If you think about it\, it’s not a good \nsong. Too high for most of us with “the rockets \nred glare” and then there are the bombs. \n(Always\, always\, there is war and bombs.) \nOnce\, I sang it at homecoming and threw \neven the tenacious high school band off key. \nBut the song didn’t mean anything\, just a call \nto the field\, something to get through before \nthe pummeling of youth. And what of the stanzas \nwe never sing\, the third that mentions “no refuge \ncould save the hireling and the slave”? Perhaps\, \nthe truth is\, every song of this country \nhas an unsung third stanza\, something brutal \nsnaking underneath us as we blindly sing \nthe high notes with a beer sloshing in the stands \nhoping our team wins. Don’t get me wrong\, I do \nlike the flag\, how it undulates in the wind \nlike water\, elemental\, and best when it’s humbled\, \nbrought to its knees\, clung to by someone who \nhas lost everything\, when it’s not a weapon\, \nwhen it flickers\, when it folds up so perfectly \nyou can keep it until it’s needed\, until you can \nlove it again\, until the song in your mouth feels \nlike sustenance\, a song where the notes are sung \nby even the ageless woods\, the short-grass plains\, \nthe Red River Gorge\, the fistful of land left \nunpoisoned\, that song that’s our birthright\, \nthat’s sung in silence when it’s too hard to go on\, \nthat sounds like someone’s rough fingers weaving \ninto another’s\, that sounds like a match being lit \nin an endless cave\, the song that says my bones \nare your bones\, and your bones are my bones\, \nand isn’t that enough? \n  \nThe Raincoat \n  \nWhen the doctor suggested surgery\nand a brace for all my youngest years\,\nmy parents scrambled to take me\nto massage therapy\, deep tissue work\,\nosteopathy\, and soon my crooked spine\nunspooled a bit\, I could breathe again\,\nand move more in a body unclouded\nby pain. My mom would tell me to sing\nsongs to her the whole forty-five minute\ndrive to Middle Two Rock Road and forty-\nfive minutes back from physical therapy.\nShe’d say\, even my voice sounded unfettered\nby my spine afterward. So I sang and sang\,\nbecause I thought she liked it. I never\nasked her what she gave up to drive me\,\nor how her day was before this chore. Today\,\nat her age\, I was driving myself home from yet\nanother spine appointment\, singing along\nto some maudlin but solid song on the radio\,\nand I saw a mom take her raincoat off\nand give it to her young daughter when\na storm took over the afternoon. My god\,\nI thought\, my whole life I’ve been under her\nraincoat thinking it was somehow a marvel\nthat I never got wet. \n  \nBurying Beetle \n  \nI like to imagine even the plants\nwant attention\, so I weed for four\nhours straight\, assuring the tomatoes\nfeel July’s hot breath on the neck\,\nthe Japanese maple can stretch\,\nthe sweet potatoes\, spider plants\,\nthe Asiatic lilies can flourish in this\nplace we’ve dared to say we “own.”\nEach nicked spindle of morning glory\nor kudzu or purslane or yellow rocket\n(Barbarea vulgaris\, for Christ’s sake)\,\nand I find myself missing everyone I know.\nI don’t know why. First come the piles\nof nutsedge and creeper and then an\nache that fills the skin like the Cercospora\nblight that’s killing the blue skyrocket juniper\nslowly from the inside out. Sure\, I know\nwhat it is to be lonely\, but today’s special\nis a physical need to be touched by someone\ndecent\, a pulsing palm to the back. My man\nis in South Africa still\, and people just keep\ndying even when I try to pretend they’re\nnot. The crown vetch and the curly dock\nare almost eliminated as I survey the neatness\nof my work. I don’t feel I deserve this time\,\nor the small plot of earth I get to mold into\nsomeplace livable. I lost God awhile ago.\nAnd I don’t want to pray\, but I can picture\nthe plants deepening right now into the soil\,\nwanting to live\, so I lie down among them\,\nin my ripped pink tank top\, filthy and covered\nin sweat\, among red burying beetles and dirt\nthat’s been turned and turned like a problem\nin the mind. \n—Ada Limón \n  \nCarrying Thay Into the Future  \n  \nThay founded Plum Village Monastery in the French countryside in 1982. His first monastery in the West and his home for many years\, Plum Village has been a refuge and mindfulness center for those displaced and suffering from war\, to those searching for the ease of feeling at home in a peaceful community. Over the next four decades\, Plum Village drew more and more practitioners while Thay went on to found 10 more monasteries and practice centers around the world. \n  \n“I can see very clearly that wherever you are\, you are my continuation\, and in one way or another\, you are carrying me into the future\,” Thay has said of those who follow the Plum Village path of mindfulness. “We\, teacher and student\, will continue to climb the hill of the century\, offering our love\, understanding\, freedom\, and solidity to the world.” \n  \n—Katie Radditz
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/meditation-mindfulness-dialogue-7-15-22/
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://openroadpdx.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/287487754_10162242333949657_7281919826119755049_n.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20220804
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20220901
DTSTAMP:20260426T203111
CREATED:20220807T040044Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20220807T040243Z
UID:3167-1659571200-1661990399@openroadpdx.com
SUMMARY:peace\, love\, happiness & understanding  8/4/22
DESCRIPTION:Edith Mirante in Chin State\, Burma \n  \nTHE OPEN ROAD \npeace\, love\, happiness & understanding \nAugust 4\, 2022 \n  \nADVENTURE TALES! \n  \nI asked some friends to send in stories of adventures they had. First to reply was Edith Mirante\, who is a member of the Society of Women Geographers: \n  \nThe Society of Woman Geographers was established in 1925 at a time when women were excluded from membership in most professional organizations\, such as the Explorers Club\, who would not admit women until 1981. It is based in Washington\, D.C.\, and has 500 members. \n  \nThe society was organized by four friends\, Gertrude Emerson Sen\, Marguerite Harrison\, Blair Niles and Gertrude Mathews Shelby\, to bring together women interested in geography\, world exploration\, anthropology and related fields. Membership was restricted to women who had “done distinctive work whereby they have added to the world’s store of knowledge concerning the countries on which they have specialized\, and have published in magazines or in book form a record of their work.”   \n  \n—from Wikipedia \n  \nHere’s what Edith wrote: \n  \nBeing an adventurer is intrinsic to my personality. I’ve always sought the “unsafe path” and accepted the dangers & misadventures that come with that. I try to use those reckless proclivities for good\, investigating human rights issues and environmental crises in remote\, sometimes war torn\, regions — especially the frontiers of Burma (Myanmar). My three books\, Burmese Looking Glass\, Down the Rat Hole and The Wind in the Bamboo are adventure stories as much as political & historical narratives.  \n  \n======= \n  \nIn the Pines\, Burma \n  \nI had gotten used to riding on the back of small motorbikes\, which had only recently replaced study mountain ponies in Chin State\, a rugged\, mostly roadless region of western Burma (Myanmar.) I managed not to upset the balance — or fall off — even on convoluted dirt tracks and rickety bamboo bridges\, as I researched the region’s environmental issues in 2016 with the assistance of some motorbiking local enviro activists. \n  \nMining (nickel and other minerals) was of particular interest to me. I had read in a local news outlet that Valvum\, a village reachable from Tedim town was the site of “ongoing coal mining work managed by a Japanese company.” Low-grade\, highly polluting coal is mined in some areas of Burma and with coal’s disastrous climate-changing effects for the whole world\, the Valvum operation was certainly worth investigating.  \n  \nGunning the bikes up and down narrow\, rock-strewn trails\, we got to Valvum mid-morning. I drank tea with some women who were smoking cheroots in a dark\, smoky house. Burma was enjoying a period of relative freedom for civil society after decades of brutal military dictatorship. But those changes were recent and I was concerned about possible scrutiny of our visit\, whether by government agents or mining company thugs. So I tried to make sure I wouldn’t be getting anyone in trouble by visiting the mine. A village representative reassured us: “It is no problem to go there. They are expecting you there.” \n  \nPast the village the swerve\, wobble and roll of our bikes disturbed the silence of khasi pine and rhododendron forest until a fence appeared and a couple of mine employees waved us through the gate. The owner\, a 70 year old Japanese eccentric married to a local woman\, was away\, they told me. But they were happy to show me the operation: “Here are the four ovens where we make the coal.” So it turned out to be not a coal mine at all. This was a charcoal making project. The words for coal and charcoal are very similar in Burmese\, as in English.  \n  \nAlthough charcoal is used for household cooking throughout Burma\, this product was apparently for export to Japan\, where special charcoals are often used as air freshener\, commanding high prices for small amounts. I was certainly relieved that it was not a coal mine. But I learned that this charcoal business was having its own environmental impact: depleting the area around Valvum of four types of trees\, described in the local language as thal sing\, lim sing\, nai sing and se sing.  \n  \nI mentioned that bamboo\, a plentiful and thoroughly renewable resource\, could be used instead for export quality charcoal. In Japan bamboo charcoal is prized and costly\, for incense or just displayed in a bowl to purify the air. Chin State reminded me of Appalachia in many ways (the rhody forests\, the Christian hymns resounding in mountain churches\, those blue ridges\, hollers and mines.) One place’s pollution or deforestation is another part of the world’s clean breath of air.  \n  \nLeaving Valvum we reached the main road\, where I had to wrap up in scarves like a nomad raider to keep the dust out of my lungs. Six years on\, that entire region has become a horrifying conflict zone. Since the Feb. 1\, 2021 coup in Myanmar\, entire towns and villages have been burned across Chin State by the shock troops of the regime. Civilians fled to neighboring India. The young environmentalists I knew and other activists fight back with guerrilla tactics\, as armed convoys invade their land. The pine forests are now resistance strongholds.  \n  \n—Edith Mirante\, 2022 \nfor more about Chin State: \nhttps://www.projectmaje.org/chin_report_2021.htm \n* \n  \nVW Bug in Mud \n  \nWe had this bright idea to take a short cut on a road that faded from gravel to dirt to mud. “Maybe if we go fast enough we can get through that big puddle.” Nope. We were stalled with wheels spinning\, car body resting in muck. Did I mention we were ten miles from anywhere…my baby sister was with us…it was dusk? Well\, we gathered a heap of flat rocks\, lifted the car high enough to place pavers under each wheel (playing mighty Archimedes with a dead tree we plucked from the ground)\, laud down stones to fill the ruts\, revved it\, and roared onward…arriving home to the frightened family around midnight. A sturdy lesson in foolishness and self-reliance. \n  \n—Kim Stafford \n* \n  \na seagull conversation     \n  \non a chilly autumn afternoon \nwith the barest minimum of experience \nI’m cautiously paddling a kayak  \naround and among a group of small islands  \noff the jagged coast of Connecticut \ngently encouraged and accompanied by \nan athletic younger brother and his mate  \neach in their own kayak  \nmaneuvering with skill far superior to my own \n  \nat the moment  \nI have unintentionally wandered out of their sight   \nsuddenly alone in an unfamiliar domain \nI calm a rising concern with assurances  \nmy partners are almost certainly  \non the far side of the next small island  \nor the island just beyond  \n  \nmeanwhile  \nI contemplate the territorial agreement  \nthe local cormorants and seagulls appear to have made  \noccupying alternate perching rocks  \ntwelve to fifteen feet apart \nthat surround the island I’m slowly moving past \n  \nclenched postures and cold stares make it clear \nagreement has also been reached  \nthat my presence is entirely unwelcome \n  \nas I round the narrow end of the island  \none of the gulls hunkered on a rock just ahead  \nconfronts me with the abrasive\, demanding cry  \nthat seems to express the hardcore seagull personality  \n  \nafter a tense moment\, I try to soften the mood \nwith a modestly accurate but gentler seagull impression \n  \nthe gull’s harsh scream in response  \nis a furious reply to a personal insult  \n  \nmy attempt to back away with a shorter\, less ragged cry \nbrings a jagged challenge to deadly combat \n  \nmy third pass at making peace is cut short \nby a piercing shriek that must be a crippling curse  \n  \nand the gull lifts its wings and rises from its perch  \n  \nI pause and drift for a moment \nresting the double-blade paddle across my lap \nand watch the departing gull fly slowly but deliberately  \nin a remarkably straight line away from the nose of my kayak  \n  \nI’m just beginning to consider the possibility  \nof feeling guilty about disturbing this gull in the first place \nwhen the bird makes a tight turn mid-air \nprecisely reversing its course \nnow heading on a line directly toward my kayak  \n  \nin the time it takes to think: what the hell?  \nI see a slender rope of firm black and white matter  \nalmost two feet long and growing  \ndescending from beneath the bird’s tail  \n  \nswiftly lengthening and steadily on-coming  \nthis two-tone cord of seagull rebuke   \nis truly surreal and completely unnerving  \n  \nas the gull and dangling cord close in     \nI panic and thrust the right side of my paddle into the air  \nhoping to deflect the incoming projectile  \n  \nmy awkward parry is completely mistimed \nand the sudden movement sends the kayak tipping wildly to the left  \nI manage to right the boat but a generous amount of ocean water  \nhas washed into the kayak’s snug seating compartment  \n  \nthe frigid ocean stings as it soaks into my pants \nbut I can’t take my eyes off the approaching nightmare cord  \nwhich the gull suddenly releases  \ndropping it into the water a couple of feet in front of my kayak  \n  \nrelief begins to flood my mind before I realize   \nthis cunning seagull has very nearly \nsent me tumbling into the icy autumn Atlantic \n  \nlater that evening\, in warm dry clothes   \ncomes the bottom line: \nif the intruder’s pants are wet  \nthe seagull’s point is made   \n  \n—Nick Eldredge   2022 \n* \n  \nI’ve had an adventure or two in my day. Most of them a long time ago. I lived in India for a couple years. I was a gold miner in Northern California. I had a job where I was paid for sleeping. Another job was testing beet pulp pellets for hardness\, durability and fine particle content. Once\, when free climbing in the Wallowa Mountains\, I found myself on a rock ledge from where I could not go up and could not go back down. Somehow\, I lived to tell the tale. But that is not the tale I’m going to tell now… \n  \nI was awakened by a phone call in the middle of the night in the Fall of 1998. It was World Class Oddball Ken Campbell calling from London. “Johnny\,” he said. “Would you like to enroll in the School for Phils?” “I don’t know\, Ken. What is the School for Phils?” Ken explained that the little voices inside his head were telling him that it was important to usher in the Millennium by performing The Warp every weekend of 1999\, and that he needed to train up a team of Phils\, because if someone tried to play the part of Philip Masters every weekend for a year\, it would kill them. \n  \n“When does the School for Phils begin?” “One week from today.” “It’s tempting. I’d have to quit my job…” “Are you in?” \n  \nA week later\, I found myself in a smoke-filled basement in Camden Town. There were about six guys\, besides myself. Oliver Senton was giving us a briefing. He had played the part of Philip Masters. According to the Guinness Book of  World Records\, it is the longest part in the longest play in the English language. After a few days\, enrollment in the School for Phils had dwindled to one. Me. \n  \nThe Warp is a play unlike any other. It’s Neil Oram’s autobiography\, from 1959 to 1979\, in roughly the same way that Jack Kerouac’s On the Road is autobiographical. As in Kerouac’s book\, the names have been changed\, but the events recounted actually happened. At least this was Neil’s version of what happened and he was completely sincere when he said he didn’t make anything up. Neil Oram has the most astonishing memory of anyone I have ever met. When he wrote his play in 1979\, he could remember conversations he had fifteen and twenty years earlier. \n  \nRehearsals couldn’t begin until I was “off book.” It took me four months to learn my lines. I started every day at 8 a.m.\, seven days a week\, and worked on my lines till midnight. When I got tested\, it took more than eight hours to say my lines\, with someone giving me just my cues. The other actors all knew their parts. We only rehearsed for five days\, with everyone lining up to do their scenes with me. When we performed the play at the Roundhouse\, the performance began at 8 pm on Saturday and ended at 7 pm the following day. I was onstage the whole time. \n  \nA play that is more than 20 hours long sounds like it might be boring. When Ken directed The Warp there was not a dull moment. He was a comic genius\, the funniest man I have ever known. I don’t know how Neil felt about this\, but Ken directed his earnest account of his life journey for maximum laughs.  \n  \nThe first time I saw the play\, I was playing a small part\, Ralph Beak. He doesn’t come onstage for at least the first twelve hours\, so I got to watch the first half of the play as an audience member\, and it was the most exhilarating theatrical experience of my life. The energy that the actors brought to every scene was incredible! There are dozens of characters and more than 120 scenes. In every scene the actors were trying to outdo the previous scene. After eight hours of this barrage on my nervous system I was in a state of ecstasy. I felt like I had died and gone to Theater Paradise. \n  \nI had a little time off from line-learning\, when our theater company would perform Macbeth in Pidgin English at the Piccadilly Theatre on London’s West End. \n  \nI performed the part of Philip Masters in The Warp three times\, in early 1999\, before returning to The States. At the end of the 23 hour-long performances\, the audience stood up and shouted and cheered for about ten minutes. It’s the only time in my acting career that I got to feel what rock stars must feel when the crowd goes wild. \n  \n—Johnny Stallings \n* \n  \nReflections On the Art of “The Adventure” \n  \nThe Oxford Dictionary suggests adventure might be a “daring enterprise\,” describes adventurism as a “tendency to take risks\,” and offers up synonyms such as “audacious\, brave\, reckless\, valiant\,” and “risky.” \n  \nDefining adventure seems very subjective and individual to me. Certainly one person’s daring is another person’s ho-hum. I do feel (for myself) it requires “loose ends\,” cannot be over-planned\, must include improvisation and unknowns\, and necessitates I be “in the moment.” Thus I might say our entire life is an adventure as we navigate the surges\, eddies\, and constant strivings that are elements of being alive. \n  \nRather than describe one specific episode of bravado\, I’ve conceived a list of possibilities I hope will touch many: \n  \n—(Here’s the big one) Being with “me”…phew! (Can you relate?) \n—Family reunions (‘nough said) \n—First stroke of brush on canvas \n—The turn of a thought \n—Being member of Johnny’s dialogue group \n—Hiking in bear country \n—Being a part of OHOM circle of friends \n—Making new friends \n—Imagining in new ways \n—Prison \n—Going to the library/book store \n—Writing first word of poem/essay \n—Stepping onstage in front of an audience \n  \nHere’s a few more: \n  \n—Agreeing \n—Listening \n—Changing \n—Loving \n—Smiling \n—Commitment \n—Birth/Death \n  \nAnd as a last thought: \n  \n—This moment! \n  \nConclusion: we all\, at every moment are engaged in the living act of \n“The Adventure” \n  \nPeace and Love To All \n  \n—Abe Green  2022 \n  \n(Note to readers: peace\, love\, happiness & understanding now comes out on the first Thursday of every month\, instead of every other Thursday.)
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/peace-love-happiness-understanding-8-4-22/
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://openroadpdx.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/unnamed-9.jpg
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR