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DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20220915
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20221015
DTSTAMP:20260426T165305
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SUMMARY:Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue  9/15/22
DESCRIPTION:photo by Howard Thoresen \n  \nOpen Road Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue \n  \nSeptember 15\, 2022 \n  \nThe corn was orient and immortal wheat\, which never should be reaped\, nor was ever sown. I thought it had stood from everlasting to everlasting. The dust and stones of the street were as precious as gold: the gates were at first the end of the world. The green trees when I saw them first through one of the gates transported and ravished me\, their sweetness and unusual beauty made my heart to leap\, and almost mad with ecstasy\, they were such strange and wonderful things. The Men! O what venerable and reverend creatures did the aged seem! Immortal Cherubims! And young men glittering and sparkling Angels\, and maids strange seraphic pieces of life and beauty! Boys and girls tumbling in the street\, and playing\, were moving jewels. I knew not that they were born or should die; But all things abided eternally as they were in their proper places. Eternity was manifest in the Light of the Day\, and something infinite behind everything appeared: which talked with my expectation and moved my desire. The city seemed to stand in Eden\, or to be built in Heaven. The streets were mine\, the temple was mine\, the people were mine\, their clothes and gold and silver were mine\, as much as their sparkling eyes\, fair skins and ruddy faces. The skies were mine\, and so were the sun and moon and stars\, and all the World was mine; and I the only spectator and enjoyer of it. I knew no churlish proprieties\, nor bounds\, nor divisions: but all proprieties and divisions were mine: all treasures and the possessors of them. So that with much ado I was corrupted\, and made to learn the dirty devices of this world. Which now I unlearn\, and become\, as it were\, a little child again that I may enter into the Kingdom of God. \n  \n—Thomas Traherne (1636-1674)\, writing about his childhood\, from Centuries of Meditations\, Third Century\, Meditation 3 \n* \n  \nSlowness \n  \n Eighteen years ago I was living in a small homesteader’s cabin in Central Oregon. One day I was chopping vegetables\, preparing a meal with great efficiency\, when for some reason\, or no reason\, I suddenly slowed down. Instead of moving rapidly from cutting board to stove\, I walked s-l-o-w-l-y. And something happened. It was quiet. I hadn’t noticed it\, but my mind had been busy with something or other\, while I was busy preparing dinner. Now I wasn’t “preparing dinner.” As I took each step\, my bare feet felt the floor. It felt like a blessing to be walking\, to be alive. The broccoli was beautiful. Everything was perfect. \n  \nI have performed this experiment thousands of times since then. I know that if I slow down I see what I’m looking at. I taste what I’m eating. Every thing is beautiful. Perfect. \n  \n—Johnny Stallings \n* \n  \nWill We Wake? \n  \nThe main project of life is to wake from the dark— \nto rise up\, to step forth foraging for the good. Do we \nhave it in us now? When the newsreel at the Sunday \nmatinee is a bad dream\, you leave the theater\, right? \nYou decide it’s high time to choose a different story. \nWhy worship lies\, denial\, heartless swagger\, when\, \noutside\, the sun shines on both suffering and true joy? \nAren’t we here to leave the cave of fables\, help \nthe hurt\, and begin to repair the injured Earth? \n  \nAm I preaching to the choir? Yes\, I speak to \nthose already singing. Sing ever more ravishing  \nsongs\, I say\, so sleepers may awake. \n  \n—Kim Stafford \n* \n  \n#292 Every Step a Prayer \n  \n“In the spirit of Buddhism\, anything you do that is accompanied by mindfulness\, concentration\, and insight can be considered a prayer. When you drink your tea in forgetfulness\, you are not truly alive because you’re not there\, you’re not mindful\, and you’re not concentrated. That moment is not a moment of practice. \n    When you hold your cup and drink your tea in mindfulness and concentration\, it’s like you’re performing a sacred ritual\, and that is a prayer. When you walk\, if you enjoy every step\, if every step nourishes and transforms you\, then every step is a prayer. When you sit in solidity and freedom\, when you breathe in and out in mindfulness\, when you touch the wonders of life\, that is meditation and that is also prayer.” \nfrom Your True Home by Thich Nhat Hanh \n  \n    Well\, I love this idea: every step a prayer\, anything done in mindfulness\, concentration and insight can be considered a prayer\, a meditation. \n    Sometimes just the word\, ‘meditation’ can sound daunting and not attainable—or attainable only with difficulty. And the idea of prayer\, the same. Does meditation require a Buddhist temple\, a zafu\, half-closed eyes\, touching fingertips? Does prayer require a church\, prayer book\, kneeling in a pew\, fingers steepled solemnly? Thank goodness—no! \n    It simply requires paying attention to whatever you’re doing\, in that moment\, and always. It may be difficult\, but it isn’t daunting. I can breathe deeply and place each boot on the trail and look up at the mountain in front of me and feel the cool air bathing my arms and listen to the chuckle of the creek beside me… \n    And that is prayer? That is meditation?  Piece of cake! I’m on it! \n  \n—Jude Russell \n* \n  \nAugust 7\, 2022  #328  Anywhere You Go (from Your True Home) \nI like Thây’s point that mindful practice isn’t limited to an ashram\, zendo\, or other “formal” space for practice. First\, I settle in and pay attention to my breath. Then\, I open up my awareness to all that is around me—without any judgement and/or without assigning any “meaning” to the NOW moments as they pass. And\, that’s it. I can participate in the NOW by simply (and only) attending to my breath—grounding in the NOW— and not spinning stories about what is going on around me. I can simply breathe and simply enjoy the experience of NOW. Nothing more is needed. \n  \nAugust 8\, 2022  #329  A New Holiday (from Your True Home) \nI like this one! It reminds me of an aphorism my friend Carl likes to share from time to time—it’s his view of birthdays. In essence he expresses the same ideal. Why wait for a “special” day to celebrate a friend’s life and import in one’s own life? Celebrate every day. Happy un-birthday all! Thây’s idea goes only one small step further: Why not celebrate every day by living NOW?—breathing deeply of each moment\, touching Earth\, seeing sky\, hearing all life as it surrounds\, leave nothing out. \n  \nEmbrace the NOW for all it has to offer. Celebrate life as it is\, NOW. We can let go of how we “want” or “think” life should be and embrace it for what it is NOW. We can celebrate alone or with others\, as much or as little as we choose. Let us enter Today (NOW)\, live fully within\, celebrate through conscious\, deliberate breath and touch NOW. \n  \nAugust 9\, 2022  #330  A Loving Community of Two (from Your True Home) \nThis is simple life guidance. It expresses the ideal of “real” love requires and external object of love; therefore\, love is action\, or requires action to be seen\, felt and known. Love can’t simply be spoken\, or\, worse\, unspoken. (Some operate from there. “Oh\, she knows I love her.” My reply: “Oh really?! How?”) \n  \nI thought\, recently\, that I had finally found one who would draw me out of my shell. One who would challenge my façades and masks. One who would “complete me.” One in whom I could trust and with whom I could\, as Thây suggests today\, practice (learn) being a two-person community of love. Instead…well\, it wasn’t what I hoped for; it was more infatuation with my own ideals embodied in another person—(Was I even on the right track? I don’t know any more.)—than a joining together of mutual love\, respect and admiration. But it gave me hope—hope that someday I will find a person who is a positive match\, and with whom I can build a loving community. \n  \n—from the meditation journal of Michel Deforge
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/meditation-mindfulness-dialogue-9-15-22/
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DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20220925
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20221009
DTSTAMP:20260426T165305
CREATED:20220923T163859Z
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SUMMARY:Bibliophiles Unanimous!: POETRY  9/25/22
DESCRIPTION:  \n \npoem written and engraved by William Blake\, from “Songs of Innocence” \n  \n  \nBeloved Bibliophiles!  \n  \nOn September 25th we read poems to each other via Zoom. Here are some of the poems we read: \n  \nMartha read this poem  by Andrea Hollander: \n  \nOverture   \n Portland\, Oregon\, February 2012   \n  \nSo I stepped off the streetcar   \nand walked to the bus stop\,   \nmarveling at the city around me\,   \nand at the young woman I could never be   \nstanding as if beautiful   \nwith her tattooed neck   \nand metal studs through her nose and ears\,   \nand actually she was beautiful\,   \nsinging a familiar tune\, its notes of grace   \nfilling the space between the two of us\,   \nand suddenly too a limping man   \nwith his cardboard WILL-WORK-FOR-FOOD sign   \nlike the title of a poem and not his life\,   \nbut who was he then\,   \nbecause he began to hum\, and the woman\,   \nteeth not yellow like his\, smiling at him\,  \n reached into the breast pocket   \nof her denim jacket while she sang\,   \nand fluttered a five-dollar bill toward him   \nlike some butterfly\, which reminded me   \nof my mother\, who sang on the bed of her death   \nas if song could keep her alive\, or maybe   \nit was I who imagined this\, a prayer   \nnot for the dead but from the dying\,   \nmy mother in her purple gown   \nsinging as if Death were not the name   \nof anything\, but part of an overture\,   \nher brown eyes earnest like those   \nof the woman at the bus stop in my new city   \nwhere I did not yet know who I would become   \nbut now it seemed I was at least a singer   \nat a bus stop\, for my own voice joined in   \nwithout my permission and the three of us hovered   \nin the mellifluous air on the darkening sidewalk   \nas the bus came to us and lifted us   \ntogether and away.   \n  \n—Andrea Hollander \n* \n  \nJude read a poem by Vern Rutsala and some Autumn-themed haikus: \n  \nThe Fat Man \n  \nI call everyone  \nshriveled. Dried apples \nfit for cellars\, \nnothing more. \nThey have no folds\, \nNo flesh to touch— \nGangling reminders \nof the grave. \n  \n Existence melts \nin my mouth. \nI relish\, I taste \nthe sweet jams of life; \nI gorge and worship \nthe place of love: \nall kitchens everywhere. \n  \n Diet is sin: \nan effort \nto turn limbs \nto razors that slice \na lover’s hands. \nRight angles \npierce my eye; \nI love the arc \nsoft ovals\, the curve— \nthings molded \nto be touched\, \nthe soothers of sight. \n  \n I feel at least  \nten souls \nswimming in my flesh\,  \nI feed them  \nwith both hands. \nSomeday \nI will become  \na mountain. \nI eat the world. \n  \n–Vern Rutsala \n* \nThe Boddhisattva’s Necklace \n  \nWhen from the moor the autumn mists have fled\, \nA spider’s web holds dew on every thread. \n  \n–Hakuyu \n  \nInspiration  \n  \nThe autumn wind: leaves patterning the air; \nAnd for the poet\, haiku everywhere. \n  \n–Kyoshi \n  \nSacrilege  \n  \nBefore this perfect white inviolate \nChrysanthemum—the scissors hesitate. \n  \n–Buson  \n* \n  \nElizabeth read this poem by Margaret Atwood: \n  \nThe Loneliness of the Military Historian \n  \nConfess: it’s my profession \nthat alarms you. \nThis is why few people ask me to dinner\, \nthough Lord knows I don’t go out of my way to be scary. \nI wear dresses of sensible cut \nand unalarming shades of beige\, \nI smell of lavender and go to the hairdresser’s: \nno prophetess mane of mine\, \ncomplete with snakes\, will frighten the youngsters. \nIf I roll my eyes and mutter\, \nif I clutch at my heart and scream in horror \nlike a third-rate actress chewing up a mad scene\, \nI do it in private and nobody sees \nbut the bathroom mirror. \n  \nIn general I might agree with you: \nwomen should not contemplate war\, \nshould not weigh tactics impartially\, \nor evade the word enemy\, \nor view both sides and denounce nothing. \nWomen should march for peace\, \nor hand out white feathers to arouse bravery\, \nspit themselves on bayonets \nto protect their babies\, \nwhose skulls will be split anyway\, \nor\, having been raped repeatedly\, \nhang themselves with their own hair. \nThese are the functions that inspire general comfort. \nThat\, and the knitting of socks for the troops \nand a sort of moral cheerleading. \nAlso: mourning the dead. \nSons\, lovers\, and so forth. \nAll the killed children. \n  \nInstead of this\, I tell \nwhat I hope will pass as truth. \nA blunt thing\, not lovely. \nThe truth is seldom welcome\, \nespecially at dinner\, \nthough I am good at what I do. \nMy trade is courage and atrocities. \nI look at them and do not condemn. \nI write things down the way they happened\, \nas near as can be remembered. \nI don’t ask why\, because it is mostly the same. \nWars happen because the ones who start them \nthink they can win. \n  \nIn my dreams there is glamour. \nThe Vikings leave their fields \neach year for a few months of killing and plunder\, \nmuch as the boys go hunting. \nIn real life they were farmers. \nThey come back loaded with splendour. \nThe Arabs ride against Crusaders \nwith scimitars that could sever \nsilk in the air. \nA swift cut to the horse’s neck \nand a hunk of armour crashes down \nlike a tower. Fire against metal. \nA poet might say: romance against banality. \nWhen awake\, I know better. \n  \nDespite the propaganda\, there are no monsters\, \nor none that can be finally buried. \nFinish one off\, and circumstances \nand the radio create another. \nBelieve me: whole armies have prayed fervently \nto God all night and meant it\, \nand been slaughtered anyway. \nBrutality wins frequently\, \nand large outcomes have turned on the invention \nof a mechanical device\, viz. radar. \nTrue\, valour sometimes counts for something\, \nas at Thermopylae. Sometimes being right— \nthough ultimate virtue\, by agreed tradition\, \nis decided by the winner. \nSometimes men throw themselves on grenades \nand burst like paper bags of guts \nto save their comrades. \nI can admire that. \nBut rats and cholera have won many wars. \nThose\, and potatoes\, \nor the absence of them. \nIt’s no use pinning all those medals \nacross the chests of the dead. \nImpressive\, but I know too much. \nGrand exploits merely depress me. \n  \nIn the interests of research \nI have walked on many battlefields \nthat once were liquid with pulped \nmen’s bodies and spangled with exploded \nshells and splayed bone. \nAll of them have been green again \nby the time I got there. \nEach has inspired a few good quotes in its day. \nSad marble angels brood like hens \nover the grassy nests where nothing hatches. \n(The angels could just as well be described as vulgar \nor pitiless\, depending on camera angle.) \nThe word glory figures a lot on gateways. \nOf course I pick a flower or two \nfrom each\, and press it in the hotel Bible \nfor a souvenir. \nI’m just as human as you. \n  \nBut it’s no use asking me for a final statement. \nAs I say\, I deal in tactics. \nAlso statistics: \nfor every year of peace there have been four hundred \nyears of war. \n  \n–Margaret Atwood\, from  Morning in the Burned House (1995) \n* \n  \nNick read this poem he wrote: \n  \nextreme close-up  \nsleight of hand \nwhen the unique individual life cycle of a plant or animal has run its course \n there’s a significant final event that triggers the return of its physical form \nto an elemental state releasing any remaining life-energy to parts and \ndimensions that can be seen as scientific or metaphysical or both \nmeanwhile the swift dispersal of animating energy and \nthe timely return of the physical form to its essential state \nare familiar steps in the universal process of renewal \na creative procedure so routine \nthat we barely notice \nand seldom \ncelebrate \nits seamless \nefficiency \nas in the larger domain of \nimploding stars and merging galaxies \nwhen the relentless wheel of cosmic creation \nspins the remains of a failing form into a new possibility \nactive energies are released and recombined in chaotic harmony \nwith those fundamental laws of physics we humans have managed to grasp \nas well as laws still drifting beyond the firelight of our understanding \nmicroscopic or galactic \nevery combination or collision or expansion of originating energies \ngenerates a new creative surge in the essential power \nthat keeps our universe expanding and unfurling \nacross potentially endless time and space \nextreme close-up sleight of hand \noccurring everywhere \nalways \nNick Eldredge \n2022 \n* \n  \nDave read Bitter Sweet Symphony by The Verve: \n  \nBittersweet Symphony \n\n\n\n‘Cause it’s a bittersweet symphony\, that’s life\nTryna make ends meet\nYou’re a slave to money then you die\nI’ll take you down the only road I’ve ever been down\nYou know the one that takes you to the places\nWhere all the veins meet yeahNo change\, I can change\nI can change\, I can change\nBut I’m here in my mold\nI am here in my mold\nBut I’m a million different people\nFrom one day to the next\nI can’t change my mold\nNo\, no\, no\, no\, no\nHave you ever been down?Well I’ve never prayed\nBut tonight I’m on my knees yeah\nI need to hear some sounds that recognize the pain in me\, yeah\nI let the melody shine\,\nLet it cleanse my mind\,\nI feel free now\nBut the airwaves are clean and there’s nobody singing to me nowNo change\, I can change\nI can change\, I can change\nBut I’m here in my mold\nI am here in my mold\nAnd I’m a million different people\nFrom one day to the next\nI can’t change my mold\nNo\, no\, no\, no\, no\nHave you ever been down?\nI can’t change it you know\nI can’t change it‘Cause it’s a bittersweet symphony\, this life\nTryna make ends meet\nTryna find some money then you die\nI’ll take you down the only road I’ve ever been down\nYou know the one that takes you to the places\nWhere all the veins meet yeahYou know I can change\, I can change\nI can change\, I can change\nBut I’m here in my mold\nI am here in my mold\nAnd I’m a million different people\nFrom one day to the next\nI can’t change my mold\nNo\, no\, no\, no\, noI can’t change my mold\nNo\, no\, no\, no\, no\nI can’t change my mold\nNo\, no\, no\, no\, no[Ad-libs:]\nYou’ve gotta change my mold\, no\, no\, no\nIt’s just sex and violence\, melody and silence\nGotta\, can’t change my violence\, melody and silence\nI’ll take you down the only road I’ve ever been downBeen down\nEver been down\nEver been down\nEver been down\nEver been down\nHave you ever been down?\nHave you ever been down? \n\n\n\n–Richard Ashcroft \n*\n\nJohnny read this poem by Wordsworth and a couple poems by William Stafford:\n\n\n\n\n\n\nWe Are Seven\n  \n-—A simple Child\, \nThat lightly draws its breath\, \nAnd feels its life in every limb\, \nWhat should it know of death? \n\nI met a little cottage Girl: \nShe was eight years old\, she said; \nHer hair was thick with many a curl \nThat clustered round her head. \n\nShe had a rustic\, woodland air\, \nAnd she was wildly clad: \nHer eyes were fair\, and very fair; \n—Her beauty made me glad. \n\n“Sisters and brothers\, little Maid\, \nHow many may you be?” \n“How many? Seven in all\,” she said\, \nAnd wondering looked at me. \n\n“And where are they? I pray you tell.” \nShe answered\, “Seven are we; \nAnd two of us at Conway dwell\, \nAnd two are gone to sea. \n\n“Two of us in the church-yard lie\, \nMy sister and my brother; \nAnd\, in the church-yard cottage\, I \nDwell near them with my mother.” \n\n“You say that two at Conway dwell\, \nAnd two are gone to sea\, \nYet ye are seven! I pray you tell\, \nSweet Maid\, how this may be.” \n\nThen did the little Maid reply\, \n“Seven boys and girls are we; \nTwo of us in the church-yard lie\, \nBeneath the church-yard tree.” \n\n“You run about\, my little Maid\, \nYour limbs they are alive; \nIf two are in the church-yard laid\, \nThen ye are only five.” \n\n“Their graves are green\, they may be seen\,” \nThe little Maid replied\, \n“Twelve steps or more from my mother’s door\, \nAnd they are side by side. \n\n“My stockings there I often knit\, \nMy kerchief there I hem; \nAnd there upon the ground I sit\, \nAnd sing a song to them. \n\n“And often after sun-set\, Sir\, \nWhen it is light and fair\, \nI take my little porringer\, \nAnd eat my supper there. \n\n“The first that died was sister Jane; \nIn bed she moaning lay\, \nTill God released her of her pain; \nAnd then she went away. \n\n“So in the church-yard she was laid; \nAnd\, when the grass was dry\, \nTogether round her grave we played\, \nMy brother John and I. \n\n“And when the ground was white with snow\, \nAnd I could run and slide\, \nMy brother John was forced to go\, \nAnd he lies by her side.” \n\n“How many are you\, then\,” said I\, \n“If they two are in heaven?” \nQuick was the little Maid’s reply\, \n“O Master! we are seven.” \n\n“But they are dead; those two are dead! \nTheir spirits are in heaven!” \n’Twas throwing words away; for still \nThe little Maid would have her will\, \nAnd said\, “Nay\, we are seven!” \n\n\n\n\n\n  \n–William Wordsworth \n* \n  \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAt the Un-National Monument along the Canadian Border \n  \n\n\n\nThis is the field where the battle did not happen\,\nwhere the unknown soldier did not die.\nThis is the field where grass joined hands\,\nwhere no monument stands\,\nand the only heroic thing is the sky.\n\nBirds fly here without any sound\,\nunfolding their wings across the open.\nNo people killed—or were killed—on this ground\nhallowed by neglect and an air so tame\nthat people celebrate it by forgetting its name.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n&\n\nGod snaps your picture–don’t look away–\nthis room right now\, your face tilted\nexactly as it is before you can think\nor control it. Go ahead\, let it betray\nall the secret emergencies and still hold\nthat partial disguise you call your character.\n\nEven your lip\, they say\, the way it curves\nor doesn’t\, or can’t decide\, will deliver\nbales of evidence. The camera\, wide open\,\nstands ready; the exposure is thirty-five years\nor so–after that you have become\nwhatever the veneer is\, all the way through.\n\nNow you want to explain. Your mother\nwas a certain–how to express it?–influence.\nYes. And your father\, whatever he was\,\nyou couldn’t change that. No. And your town\nof course had its limits. Go on\, keep talking–\nHold it. Don’t move. That’s you forever.\n\n–William Stafford\n*\n\nBecause Halloween is coming soon\, Todd read this poem by Robert Frost:\n\n\nThe Witch Of Coos \n  \nI staid the night for shelter at a farm  \nBehind the mountains\, with a mother and son\,  \nTwo old-believers. They did all the talking.  \n  \nMOTHER: Folks think a witch who has familiar spirits  \nShe could call up to pass a winter evening\,  \nBut won’t\, should be burned at the stake or something.  \nSummoning spirits isn’t ‘Button\, button\,  \nWho’s got the button\,’ I would have them know.  \nSON: Mother can make a common table rear  \nAnd kick with two legs like an army mule.  \nMOTHER: And when I’ve done it\, what good have I done?  \nRather than tip a table for you\, let me  \nTell you what Ralle the Sioux Control once told me.  \nHe said the dead had souls\, but when I asked him  \nHow could that be – I thought the dead were souls\,  \nHe broke my trance. Don’t that make you suspicious  \nThat there’s something the dead are keeping back?  \nYes\, there’s something the dead are keeping back.  \nSON: You wouldn’t want to tell him what we have  \nUp attic\, mother?  \nMOTHER: Bones – a skeleton.  \nSON: But the headboard of mother’s bed is pushed  \nAgainst the’ attic door: the door is nailed.  \nIt’s harmless. Mother hears it in the night  \nHalting perplexed behind the barrier  \nOf door and headboard. Where it wants to get  \nIs back into the cellar where it came from.  \nMOTHER: We’ll never let them\, will we\, son! We’ll never !  \nSON: It left the cellar forty years ago  \nAnd carried itself like a pile of dishes  \nUp one flight from the cellar to the kitchen\,  \nAnother from the kitchen to the bedroom\,  \nAnother from the bedroom to the attic\,  \nRight past both father and mother\, and neither stopped it.  \nFather had gone upstairs; mother was downstairs.  \nI was a baby: I don’t know where I was.  \nMOTHER: The only fault my husband found with me –  \nI went to sleep before I went to bed\,  \nEspecially in winter when the bed  \nMight just as well be ice and the clothes snow.  \nThe night the bones came up the cellar-stairs  \nToffile had gone to bed alone and left me\,  \nBut left an open door to cool the room off  \nSo as to sort of turn me out of it.  \nI was just coming to myself enough  \nTo wonder where the cold was coming from\,  \nWhen I heard Toffile upstairs in the bedroom  \nAnd thought I heard him downstairs in the cellar.  \nThe board we had laid down to walk dry-shod on  \nWhen there was water in the cellar in spring  \nStruck the hard cellar bottom. And then someone  \nBegan the stairs\, two footsteps for each step\,  \nThe way a man with one leg and a crutch\,  \nOr a little child\, comes up. It wasn’t Toffile:  \nIt wasn’t anyone who could be there.  \nThe bulkhead double-doors were double-locked  \nAnd swollen tight and buried under snow.  \nThe cellar windows were banked up with sawdust  \nAnd swollen tight and buried under snow.  \nIt was the bones. I knew them – and good reason.  \nMy first impulse was to get to the knob  \nAnd hold the door. But the bones didn’t try  \nThe door; they halted helpless on the landing\,  \nWaiting for things to happen in their favour.’  \nThe faintest restless rustling ran all through them.  \nI never could have done the thing I did  \nIf the wish hadn’t been too strong in me  \nTo see how they were mounted for this walk.  \nI had a vision of them put together  \nNot like a man\, but like a chandelier.  \nSo suddenly I flung the door wide on him.  \nA moment he stood balancing with emotion\,  \nAnd all but lost himself. (A tongue of fire  \nFlashed out and licked along his upper teeth.  \nSmoke rolled inside the sockets of his eyes.)  \nThen he came at me with one hand outstretched\,  \nThe way he did in life once; but this time  \nI struck the hand off brittle on the floor\,  \nAnd fell back from him on the floor myself.  \nThe finger-pieces slid in all directions.  \n(Where did I see one of those pieces lately?  \nHand me my button-box- it must be there.)  \n  \nI sat up on the floor and shouted\, ‘Toffile\,  \nIt’s coming up to you.’ It had its choice  \nOf the door to the cellar or the hall.  \nIt took the hall door for the novelty\,  \nAnd set off briskly for so slow a thing\,  \nStill going every which way in the joints\, though\,  \nSo that it looked like lightning or a scribble\,  \nFrom the slap I had just now given its hand.  \nI listened till it almost climbed the stairs  \nFrom the hall to the only finished bedroom\,  \nBefore I got up to do anything;  \nThen ran and shouted\, ‘Shut the bedroom door\,  \nToffile\, for my sake!’ ‘Company?’ he said\,  \n‘Don’t make me get up; I’m too warm in bed.’  \nSo lying forward weakly on the handrail  \nI pushed myself upstairs\, and in the light  \n(The kitchen had been dark) I had to own  \nI could see nothing. ‘Toffile\, I don’t see it.  \nIt’s with us in the room though. It’s the bones.’  \n‘What bones?’ ‘The cellar bones- out of the grave.’  \nThat made him throw his bare legs out of bed  \nAnd sit up by me and take hold of me.  \nI wanted to put out the light and see  \nIf I could see it\, or else mow the room\,  \nWith our arms at the level of our knees\,  \nAnd bring the chalk-pile down. ‘I’ll tell you what-  \nIt’s looking for another door to try.  \nThe uncommonly deep snow has made him think  \nOf his old song\, The Wild Colonial Boy\,  \nHe always used to sing along the tote-road.  \nHe’s after an open door to get out-doors.  \nLet’s trap him with an open door up attic.’  \nToffile agreed to that\, and sure enough\,  \nAlmost the moment he was given an opening\,  \nThe steps began to climb the attic stairs.  \nI heard them. Toffile didn’t seem to hear them.  \n‘Quick !’ I slammed to the door and held the knob.  \n‘Toffile\, get nails.’ I made him nail the door shut\,  \nAnd push the headboard of the bed against it.  \nThen we asked was there anything  \nUp attic that we’d ever want again.  \nThe attic was less to us than the cellar.  \nIf the bones liked the attic\, let them have it.  \nLet them stay in the attic. When they sometimes  \nCome down the stairs at night and stand perplexed  \nBehind the door and headboard of the bed\,  \nBrushing their chalky skull with chalky fingers\,  \nWith sounds like the dry rattling of a shutter\,  \nThat’s what I sit up in the dark to say-  \nTo no one any more since Toffile died.  \nLet them stay in the attic since they went there.  \nI promised Toffile to be cruel to them  \nFor helping them be cruel once to him.  \nSON: We think they had a grave down in the cellar.  \nMOTHER: We know they had a grave down in the cellar.  \nSON: We never could find out whose bones they were.  \nMOTHER: Yes\, we could too\, son. Tell the truth for once.  \nThey were a man’s his father killed for me.  \nI mean a man he killed instead of me.  \nThe least I could do was to help dig their grave.  \nWe were about it one night in the cellar.  \nSon knows the story: but ’twas not for him  \nTo tell the truth\, suppose the time had come.  \nSon looks surprised to see me end a lie  \nWe’d kept all these years between ourselves  \nSo as to have it ready for outsiders.  \nBut to-night I don’t care enough to lie-  \nI don’t remember why I ever cared.  \nToffile\, if he were here\, I don’t believe  \nCould tell you why he ever cared himself-  \n  \nShe hadn’t found the finger-bone she wanted  \nAmong the buttons poured out in her lap.  \nI verified the name next morning: Toffile.  \nThe rural letter-box said Toffile Lajway. \n  \n—Robert Frost (1922) \n* \n\n\npeace\, love & happiness  \nJohnny
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/bibliophiles-unanimous-poetry-9-25-22/
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SUMMARY:peace\, love\, happiness & understanding  10/6/22
DESCRIPTION:  \nTHE OPEN ROAD \npeace\, love\, happiness & understanding \n  \nOctober 6\, 2022 \n  \nAmanda Waldroupe gave permission to reprint this article that was published by The Guardian (theguardian.com/us) on September 28\, 2022. \n  \nThe story of one US governor’s historic use of clemency: ‘We are a nation of second chances’ \nAmanda Waldroupe \n  \nLast October\, Kate Brown\, the governor of Oregon\, signed an executive order granting clemency to 73 people who had committed crimes as juveniles\, clearing a path for them to apply for parole. \nThe move marked the high point in a remarkable arc: as Brown approaches the end of her second term in January\, she has granted commutations or pardons to 1\,147 people – more than all of Oregon’s governors from the last 50 years combined. \nThe story of clemency in Oregon is one of major societal developments colliding: the pressure the Covid-19 pandemic put on the prison system and growing momentum for criminal justice reform. \nIt’s also a story of a governor’s personal convictions and how she came to embrace clemency as a tool for criminal justice reform and as an act of grace\, exercising the belief that compassionate mercy and ensuring public safety are not mutually exclusive. \n“If you are confident that you can keep people safe\, you’ve given victims the opportunity to have their voices heard and made sure their concerns are addressed\, and individuals have gone through an extensive amount of rehabilitation and shown accountability\, what is the point of continuing to incarcerate someone\, other than retribution?” Brown said in a June interview. \nNotable clemency acts \nWhen Brown\, a Democrat\, became governor in Oregon in 2015\, she received the power of executive clemency – an umbrella term referring to the ability of American governors and the president to grant mercy to criminal defendants. Clemency includes pardons\, which fully forgive someone who has committed a crime; commutations\, which change prison sentences\, often resulting in early release; reprieves\, which pause punishment; and eliminating court-related fines and fees. \nDuring the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic\, Brown was one of 18 governors across the US who used clemency to quickly reduce prison populations in the hopes of curbing virus transmission. \nShe approved the early release of 963 people who had committed nonviolent crimes and met six additional criteria – not enough\, according to estimates by the state’s department of corrections\, to enable physical distancing\, and far less than California\, which released about 5\,300 people\, and New Jersey\, which released 40% of its prison population. \nBut Brown’s clemency acts stand out in other ways. Brown removed one year from the sentences of 41 prisoners who worked as firefighters during the 2020 wildfire season\, the most destructive in Oregon history. \nShe has pardoned 63 people. Most notably\, she has commuted the sentences of 144 people convicted of crimes as serious as murder\, yet have demonstrated “extraordinary evidence of rehabilitation”. \nDemocratic and Republican governors in North Carolina\, Louisiana\, Missouri\, Kansas and Ohio have granted clemency for similar reasons. Yet Brown’s numbers are among the highest in the US\, and the impact of her decisions are profound: Oregon’s prison population declined for the first time since the passage of the state’s Measure 11 mandatory minimum sentencing law in 1994. \nMeasure 11 codified mandatory sentences for 16 violent crimes\, required juveniles over the age of 15 charged with those crimes to be tried as adults\, and ended earned time. Since its passage\, Oregon’s prison population tripled to nearly 15\,000 people and three new prisons were built. \nBrown also stands out for who she grants clemency to. Forty per cent of Brown’s commutations are Black\, in response to Black Oregonians being incarcerated at a rate five times higher than their share of the state’s population. Nearly two dozen other clemency recipients were convicted as juveniles. Many were sentenced to life without parole and other lengthy sentences. \n‘Eradicating racism and colonialism’ \nBrown’s acts reflect the governor’s values and beliefs. She accepts research in adolescent development showing people are not fully mature until their mid-20s. She was the first Oregon governor to visit the state’s women’s prison. She believes people are not defined by their worst acts and are capable of redemption. “We are a nation of second chances\,” she said. \nA voracious reader\, she cited books such as Just Mercy\, The New Jim Crow\, The Other Wes Moore\, and Picking Cotton as influences. Before holding elected office\, Brown worked as a lawyer representing families and children in the foster care system\, as well as people who violated their parole. She says she has always opposed Measure 11 as “a one-size-fits-all approach” that eliminated a judge’s ability to consider “facts and underlying circumstances of individual cases”. \nGeorge Floyd’s murder in May 2020 further galvanized her in “eradicating racism and colonialism” in Oregon\, she said. (The state’s first constitution made it illegal for Black people to live on or own property in Oregon.) \nBrown’s use of clemency is “well within established tradition”\, said Rachel Barkow\, a professor at NYU School of Law and an expert on clemency. \nThe use of clemency has been virtually non-existent since the “tough on crime” movement began in the 1980s\, coinciding with Willie Horton committing rape while on furlough. \nBut for much of history\, presidents and governors regularly used clemency. Governors cited a prisoner’s “exceptional rehabilitation” or\, in exposing wrongful convictions\, listed witness recantation\, flawed evidence and police misconduct. “For one abuse of the pardon power\,” a 1911 Colorado Board of Pardon report noted\, “there are a thousand abuses of the convicting power.” \nAlexander Hamilton argued in The Federalist Papers that clemency is a necessary check on a justice system capable of leveling excessive punishment. Without clemency\, he argued\, “justice would wear a countenance too sanguinary and cruel”. \nThe push to curb Covid-19 via clemency eclipsed another\, growing movement. In August 2020\, the American Civil Liberties Union launched a campaign urging governors to use clemency as a “corrective tool” to mass incarceration. \n‘We’ve educated her’ \nBrown slowly became emboldened due to the work of a progressive lawyer and the legal clinic she directs. \nAliza Kaplan\, a lawyer and professor of lawyering at Lewis & Clark Law School\, founded the Criminal Justice Reform Clinic in 2015 to provide pro bono legal services to criminal defendants. By then\, Kaplan was well-known in criminal justice circles for co-founding the New England Innocence Project and working as the deputy director of the National Innocence Project. In 2011\, she moved to Oregon to join Lewis & Clark. Within years\, in addition to starting the clinic\, she helped launch an innocence project\, an organization challenging bad forensic evidence\, and another within the public defender’s office assisting people after their incarceration. \n“I don’t want to live in a world where we can’t believe people change and redemption isn’t possible\,” Kaplan said. “That’s too cruel of a world for me.” \nThe clinic launched its clemency project in 2016. Knowing Brown’s legal background\, Kaplan and Venetia Mayhew\, the project’s first staff attorney\, decided that the first applicants would be women\, people convicted as juveniles\, and those convicted of violent crimes and serving long prison sentences – people who\, Kaplan said\, “committed horrible crimes but have transformed”. \nMayhew interviewed clients at Oregon’s prisons\, wrote applications and oversaw clinic students assigned to applications. Clients “understood they had to talk about the crime and what they are most ashamed of”\, Mayhew said. “It was all about building trust. I spent time with them\, got to know them.” At the same time\, Kaplan took members of Brown’s staff to Oregon’s prisons to meet clients and other prisoners. \nThe clinic’s applications are unique. They are narratives\, drawn from interviews\, trial records\, police reports\, and prison records\, telling the story of a client’s life from childhood up to the crime\, their trial\, incarceration and work to change. “It’s not about blaming their history or background\, it’s part of understanding who they are\,” Kaplan said. “The legal system leaves out a lot of the personal stuff.” The applications include photos\, the applicant’s résumé\, and letters from family\, friends\, correction officers\, employers and volunteers. \nThe clinic’s early efforts were hit or miss. During her first three years in office\, Brown granted two pardons and one commutation. “It was heartbreaking\,” Mayhew remembered. “I felt like a snake oil salesman\, peddling hope.” \nIn 2018\, Brown’s numbers ticked up: she granted three commutations to people convicted as juveniles. \nIn 2019\, Kaplan and Mayhew published an article built from Mayhew’s research of every Oregon governor’s clemency acts\, proving clemency was not rare: governors regularly released up to a third of Oregon’s prison population\, recognized rehabilitation and corrected wrongful convictions. \nThat year\, Brown commuted a murder conviction for the first time\, in the case of a woman sentenced to a mandatory minimum of 25 years\, a sentence both the judge and prosecutor thought too harsh. \nAfter that\, Brown’s clemency numbers shot up: in 2020\, she granted 65 pardons and commutations; in 2021\, she granted 36. \nBrown approves approximately 7% of the applications her office receives. The clinic’s success rate is far higher: 45 of 179 applications have been approved (an additional 116 are pending; 18 have been denied). \nEach application tells an individual story. Collectively\, they exposed systemic inequities: of people who were exposed to drugs as children\, endured child abuse\, neglect and sexual abuse\, or became inescapably entrenched in gangs. \n“We’ve educated her\,” Kaplan reflected. “But she already had it in her.” \nMaking the world a better place \nOver time\, Brown and her legal counsel have created a six-month process to winnow out all but the 10% of applications that reach Brown’s desk. \nBrown’s decisions\, she said\, do not result from satisfying a checklist\, but a “totality of circumstances”. Applicants’ expressions of accountability and remorse are critical. “It’s not just ‘I understand\, and I regret\, and I feel remorse’\,” Brown said. “How is that lived? What are the actions to show that?” \nShe values a “lifetime commitment” to community service\, inspired by her mother’s decades of volunteering for the American Cancer Society. It is proof applicants “understand what they have done and are committed to making the world a better place”\, Brown argued. \nBrown also gives a lot of weight to applicants’ plans post-release. \n“They want him to succeed if she grants it\,” Kaplan said. Kaplan spoke via telephone with a clinic alumna\, now working as a public defender\, on an early June afternoon. Brown’s counsel requested a more detailed release plan – a strong sign the application is moving forward. \nThe application was open on Kaplan’s laptop. Beyond her laptop\, taped to a window in her office\, a piece of paper reads “Imagine”. Another\, at her office entrance\, says “Empathy”. \nLeaning forward toward the phone\, Kaplan rattled off potential questions: family he could live with\, jobs he wants to apply for\, exercise. “The more detail\, the more we can show what his life could be like\,” she said. \nA release plan\, submitted in July\, included information about plans to join a gym to work out and play pickup basketball games for stress relief\, living with two relatives\, and applying for jobs at a nearby ferry. \nIf the application makes it to Brown’s desk\, it will receive thorough consideration. She is known to read the applications carefully. “They’re incredibly extensive\,” the governor said. \n“How do you plan to deal with your sobriety?” Brown said at an interview with one of the clinic’s clients in 2020. “What kind of job do you want to get?” \nWhen the interview ended\, Brown granted the client clemency. \nEveryone present began crying\, Kaplan remembered. \nInspiring hope \nBrown says her clemency acts are “part and parcel” of recent criminal justice reforms in Oregon. \nIn 2020\, Brown supported the end of non-unanimous jury decisions in criminal cases when she signed on to a brief\, written by Kaplan\, urging such a move in the US supreme court case Ramos v Louisiana. In doing so\, she opposed her own state justice department. (Oregon and Louisiana were the two states left using such juries\, which convict criminal defendants without a unanimous vote and have racist origins.) \nIn recent years\, the Oregon legislature passed laws redefining aggravated murder and restricting death penalty eligibility\, broadening expungement and allowing district attorneys and defendants to petition to change a prison sentence. \nIn 2019\, legislation gutting Measure 11’s provisions relating to juvenile offenders passed\, in recognition of supreme court rulings\, based on decades of research in adolescent development\, ending harsh sentences for people under 18. \nBrown made that law retroactive when\, last October\, she signed the executive order commuting the sentences of 73 juvenile offenders. They “are capable of tremendous transformation”\, Brown wrote\, citing research in adolescent development. \nIt wasn’t the first time clemency was used to make a law retroactive: in 1974\, the legislature passed a new criminal code\, and the then-governor\, Tom McCall\, commuted the sentences of 48 people to prevent “disparity” and “unequal treatment”. \nBrown’s executive order prompted a firestorm of media coverage. The fiercest response came from Kevin Mannix\, a lawyer\, former Republican state legislator\, and author of Measure 11. Representing two district attorneys and three crime victims\, Mannix sued Brown in January\, attempting to overturn the group commutations related to Covid-19\, the firefighters and the executive order. \n“The governor is not the super legislature\,” Mannix argued in a June interview. He said the “process” dictates the governor not “decide on a broad brush”\, and that “the victim is heard and the district attorney is heard”. \nMannix thinks “there may be individual cases” where prisoners show rehabilitation. “I don’t want to say no one is capable of rehabilitation\,” he said. But those convicted of violent crimes\, he believes\, should be “incapacitated” and “taken off the streets”. \nThe lawsuit and local media coverage galvanized criticism from district attorneys that Brown’s decisions lack transparency and that she is disregarding crime victims. State law requires district attorneys to keep victims apprised of defendants’ appeals\, as well as submit statements to the governor’s office in response to clemency applications. \nBrown has acknowledged victims of violent crime are “traumatized – sometimes violently and irreparably”. Her office recently hired a victim’s advocate to work directly with victims. Her clemency reports also reveal that not all victims oppose clemency: some are neutral\, while others are supportive. Victims opposed to clemency “have been given more attention in the press”\, said Mary Zinkin\, founder and executive director of the Portland-based Center for Trauma Support Services. “They do not represent all crime survivors.” \nDue to the controversy\, Kaplan and Mayhew regularly receive hate mail. Soon afterward\, Kaplan received a thank you card signed by the dozens of inmates at a men’s prison. Kaplan and her colleagues\, one wrote\, “is inspiring a lot of hope inside these walls”. \n‘Prison cleaned me up’ \nBrown’s office has received more than 2\,100 clemency applications since 2020 –100 times more than five years ago. \nIn January\, Kaplan and her students wrote a “step-by-step guide” to clemency that circulates in the prisons. And there are more lawyers than ever telling their stories; clemency is now a major part of pro bono work at four large law firms\, and more than a half-dozen lawyers – graduates of Lewis & Clark or mentored by Mayhew\, now in private practice – represent dozens of clemency cases. \n“People just see that word ‘murderer’\,” said Patty Butterfield. “But did that person [Brown] is letting out change their life in prison? Did they clean up their act?” \nButterfield received clemency in April 2020. Butterfield was 74 years old – one of the oldest people in Oregon’s prison system. She had served 23 years for shooting her abusive boyfriend during a fight\, injuries which later killed him. \nIn prison\, she maintained a spotless disciplinary record and became a mother figure to younger female prisoners. “I changed my life\,” Butterfield said. “Prison cleaned me up\, gave me a sense of worth again.” \nShe began crying as she recalled Mayhew calling to tell her she had been granted clemency. She now lives in central California with friends\, who have given her free rein of the garden. “I love doing yard work here\,” she said. \nIn March\, a county judge upheld Brown’s Covid-19 and firefighter commutations but halted the parole hearings for the juvenile offenders. Brown appealed\, the Oregon court of appeals heard oral argument in June\, and\, in early August\, issued a 44-page opinion entirely rejecting Mannix’s case. Mannix has asked the Oregon supreme court to review the decision. The court has not yet indicated whether it will. \nThe recent controversy does not dissuade Brown\, who leaves office in January\, from continuing to grant clemency. She said: “I have the ability to make these decisions” – just like all governors before her.
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/peace-love-happiness-understanding-10-6-22/
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