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SUMMARY:peace\, love\, happiness & understanding  10/2/25
DESCRIPTION:The Harvesters by Pieter Bruegel the Elder \n  \nTHE OPEN ROAD \npeace\, love\, happiness & understanding \n  \nOctober 2\, 2025 \n  \nCrossing a bare common\, in snow puddles\, at twilight\, under a clouded sky\, without having in my thoughts any occurrence of special good fortune\, I have enjoyed a perfect exhilaration. I am glad to the brink of fear. \n  \n—from Nature\, by Ralph Waldo Emerson \n* \n  \nThe Turn \n  \nThere are the asters\, of course \nbarnyard hollyhocks\, determined \nsky blue chicory flowers hanging on \nMostly though it’s the light \nfiltered through lingering fire haze \nsharp and soft all at the same time \n  \nBathe in the light\, air freshening \nrain\, as green turns inward \nleaves glisten yellow gold\, red \n  \nA stoplight of sorts. Time to \nget out the big books\, deep \nreflections\, collars up and warm \n  \nAgainst the chill\, that is\, \nsurely\, on its way. \n  \n—Elizabeth Domike\, October 2025 \n* \n  \nGail Lester shared this poem: \n  \nGift \n  \nA day so happy\nFog lifted early\, I worked in the garden\nHummingbirds were stopping over honeysuckle flowers\nThere was nothing on earth I wanted to possess.\nI knew no one worth my envying him.\nWhatever evil I had suffered\, I forgot.\nTo think that once I was the same man did not embarrass me.\nIn my body I felt no pain.\nWhen straightening up\, I saw the blue sea and sails. \n  \nBerkley\, 1971 \n  \n—Czeslaw Milosz (1911-2004) \n* \n  \nSomeone wrote in the last [August] PLHU that Peace Love Happiness and Understanding are all related\, inseparable—and I agree. \n  \nMy ‘journey’ started with a search for Understanding—learning to understand those different from myself. It led me to five trips to the deep South to learn more about relations between whites and African Americans. Then to work with and mentor rough teenagers. Then to befriend a Native American woman and her family—and remain a friend for eighteen years. To work in the Hispanic community of Hood River as a tutor in English. To tutor severely dyslexic teenagers and adults (a very poignant experience!). To facilitate a discussion group of fifteen to twenty men at Two Rivers Correctional Institution (a life-changing experience!).  \n  \nAnd now (since my beloved prison group is no more)\, I am learning to understand imminent death as a Hospice volunteer. I am a ‘companion’ to two people\, a 90 year old woman and (sadly) a 63 year old man. My conversations with the woman are jewel-like; she is a jewel. We have so much in common and we have become very close. My conversations with the man \, after the first visit\, have been non-existent; he is a paraplegic and bound in a hospital bed in his home\, with his dear wife. He didn’t have the strength to talk\, so I sit by his side\, give him frequent fluids\, watch 1980 reruns of Emergency!—- and give his wife the time to take a much-needed nap. \n  \n  \nAll of these journeys of Understanding result in Love for all those I meet\, Peace in my heart that I can feel the love\, and Happiness that this life can encompass so much richness. \n  \n—Jude Russell \n* \n  \nRocky is now at Oregon State Correctional Institution in Salem\, with seven months to “the gate.” Here are excerpts from some of his letters: \n  \n8-21-25 \n  \nWhen we reach out with our hearts\, yearning to become entwined like ivy\, spinning\, climbing\, and gently becoming together as one\, like Baucis and Philemon\, we show the world what love looks like. \n  \nI see it in nature\, I see it all around\, the way the soil meets the trees. It’s a relationship they share\, made out of love—the way the sea is in love with the shore. \n  \nIf you look closely at all the world and everything around\, there’s a relationship that has no bounds. The harmony of love that keeps all things together is plain to see. It’s written in the mountains\, rivers\, clouds\, rocks & upon our very own hearts. \n  \n8-22-25 \n  \nIt’s important to me to maintain a good amount of love and joy and acceptance of others & their feelings & emotions. My dream & my outlook is to experience as much wellness\, beauty & love as possible with the people in my life. I want to support and love my friends & my new family as much as my being will allow. I would like to have deeply intellectual\, witty\, kind and smart relationships\, to share my heart openly\, unafraid of people—just love and be loved. \n  \n9-1-25 \n  \nI remember back then…how badly I wanted forgiveness & did not know how to give it to myself & how you all showed me the way to do it\, and how I still fought it\, so I could beat myself up for all my wrongs. I can look back & now look at the present & see that if I just live and be love and accept all for what it is & do the best I can in all of it\, I’m going to do good for my life & for the lives of others too. I can truly say that I like who I am and what I’ve become. I can’t wait to live a new life with a new me. I’m ready. \n  \n9-3-2025 \n  \nI feel that the simple way of living a day-to-day life is one of the keys to a truly successful utopian society. We all work as one to achieve life…a happy life\, full of quality & love. I’ve got ideas of what it should be\, part of me thinks it is more of a state of mind. Living from an inner peace\, a utopia inside each of us\, and if that’s the case it would hopefully spread like fire. \n  \n9-13-2025 \n  \nMy first letter from OSCI…. \n  \nOn the way here I could see out of the window of the bus the change of nature. Right by Cascade Locks\, the dark deep green of the forest & the fog and mist in the tops of the Douglas Firs were breathtaking. I could feel the mist in my lungs & it made memories of times past flood back into my mind. We have such a beautiful place on Earth. It’s enchanting & fills the soul with beauty…. \n  \nIn my heart of hearts\, the want is always growing in my mind’s eye to share moments of joy & love amongst everyone. To have simple conversation that reveal what is deepest in our own beings. Never being held back\, but showing our hearts to all who wish to see them. I want to be open to others when I’m no longer in a cage. \n  \nA cage I’ve outgrown so long ago. \nI want to love what I do \nI want to love who I want \nand be loved in kind. \nI want to see the world in \neveryone’s eyes\, feel the love \nin their hearts\, & know the \nbeauty we have in our minds. \nThe rain has cleansed the soul. \n  \n—Rocky Hutchinson \n* \n  \nLast Saturday (9/27)\, Katie Radditz and I invited friends to get together to talk about the Essential Hippie Library. We all talked about where we were and what we were doing between 1968 and 1972. It was fun! This morning (9/29)\, I sent an email to Katie and Howard Thoresen and Charles Erickson. Here it is: \n  \nIf you’re going to San Francisco \nBe sure to wear some flowers in your hair \nIf you’re going to San Francisco \nYou’re gonna meet some gentle people there \n  \nFor those who come to San Francisco \nSummertime will be a love-in there \nIn the streets of San Francisco \nGentle people with flowers in their hair \n  \n—“San Francisco\,” by John Edmund Andrew Phillips; popularized by Scott McKenzie \n  \ndear Howard & Katie & Charles \n  \ni had a thought this morning… \na lot was happening between 1968 and 1972 \nto mention a few things: women’s liberation\, black liberation\, native american liberation\, gay liberation\, the vietnam war and the anti-war movement\, jimi hendrix\, country joe and the fish (etc.\, etc.)\, magical mystery tour\, marijuana\, psychedelics\, looking glass bookstore\, birth control pills\, the first earth day\, hermann hesse\, carlos castaneda\, whole earth catalog (etc.\, etc.)\, hitchhiking\, communes\, crunchy granola\, yoga\, long hair\, vegetarianism… \none thing we all remember were the vibes–they were friendly and laid back and gentle \nyou were supposed to DO YOUR OWN THING \nand we did \nthinking back on that time\, what influenced me (and many others) most profoundly was THE EAST \nthe beatles went to india \nalan watts and joseph campbell and gary snyder and r. h. blyth and allen ginsberg and richard alpert had all been to the east \nand there were all those yogis and zen teachers–shunryu suzuki\, krishnamurti\, thich nhat hanh\, nitya chaitanya yati\, yogi bhajan\, bhaktivedanta prabhupada\, maharishi mahesh yogi\, rajneesh\, swami satchidananda\, sasaki roshi (etc.\, etc.) \nwe read the tao te ching and consulted the i ching \nit has always seemed incredible to me that there is no word for dhyāna in any of the european languages \nwe use the english word “meditation\,” but it’s original meaning meant something like “to think about\,” and dhyāna is about being awake and alert with a quiet mind \nanyhow\, here’s this morning’s new (to me) idea… \nin addition to meditation and yoga\, one of the big things we got from THE EAST was the idea of nonviolence—ahimsa \nseems incredible\, but…the west has always been so warlike \nso not only did we not have the idea of sitting in silence\, we didn’t have the idea of non-hurting—although there was the occasional oddball vegetarian\, like leonardo da vinci and mary & percy bysshe shelley \nmartin luther king was inspired by gandhi \nand his nonviolence helped to inspire the peace movement–the largest one in the history of this country up to that time \ngentle people with flowers in their hair \nas far as i know\, vegetarianism traces its origin to buddha and mahavira–about 500 b.c. in india \nit has been a part of buddhist and hindu beliefs ever since \nand it changes the way you see the world \nit changes the way you feel \ni know why i became a vegetarian \nit was because i read autobiography of a yogi and yogananda was a vegetarian\, and i wanted to be like him! \ni’m sure that people have tried to get out of going to war since the beginning of time–even odysseus tried to get out of going to troy by pretending to be insane— \nbut during the hippie era millions of young men all had the same feeling:  \n“i don’t want to kill anyone” \nand the fact that there were lots of other “gentle people” that didn’t want to do that made it easier to say “no” to war \njoan baez and her sisters pauline and mimi had a poster of themselves with the slogan: GIRLS SAY YES to boys who say NO \nwell\, that’s my thought for this morning \n  \npeace & love \njohnny \n* \n  \nJohnny put together a gathering of old hippies\, whether we identify as that or not\, to discuss the books of the Sixties and Seventies that were important to us.  We piled our books and comix on the center table like an altar. Some changed our lives and helped us along a new path.  Reflecting on our stories made me go back to some origins of non-conformism in literature and the influence in art from those seers and brave souls bearing witness.    \n  \nI love Thoreau\, who influenced me when i took a break my senior year of college and lived in a cabin in the Mt Hood Forest\, my own little pond near by Camp Creek. \n  \nThoreau was criticized ferociously by his capitalist\, conventional townspeople. They could not fathom the value of taking a retreat to pay close attention to his surroundings\, to take a break from some prescribed working path. Out of that experience he wrote the first seminal ecology book and journals used now to study climate changes in agriculture. He was the first person to publish a Buddhist text in America\, with the translation help of Elizabeth Peabody. He looked deeply at the consequences of cutting down the forest and shipping trees away on the new railroad lines. He wrote “Civil Disobedience\,” which inspired Gandhi\, Martin Luther King\, and Thich Nhat Hanh in changing the world with nonviolent protest of social injustice.  \n  \nComing up to the Sixties\, there was the confluence of movements that led to a counterculture revolution. There was Women’s Liberation\, and books like Sexual Politics. We ate “natural foods.” Food Co-Ops sprung up. Communes developed. There was Mother Earth News\, Monday Night Class and Whole Earth Catalog. We protested against the Vietnam War and read Underground Comix—Mr. Natural and The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers. There were psychedelic posters of rock concerts at the Fillmore Auditorium.  \n  \nAt Looking Glass Bookstore in downtown Portland\, we distributed alternative magazines and comix mainly in the Pacific Northwest to record stores and bookstores and Natural Food stores. There was only one news distributor in town then\, and every store got whatever the distributor gave them.  Mother Earth News was considered “radical”—dangerous to the status quo. Just imagine what people thought of Coevolution Quarterly and Whole Earth Catalog! We broke out of an era of accepted censorship that was not even realized by most people except artists. \n  \nThere was also the Spiritual Revolution\, when Yoga and the yogis came to the West Coast\, bringing teachings and books first published in India\, and later in the U.S. In Oregon we had our own bright lights: Ursula Le Guin\, Gary Snyder\, the Staffords\, Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters—to name some of the game changers.  \n  \nMusic and Theater and Literature made the counterculture a joyful intellectual and soulful revolution—out of the 50’s\, into an era of freedoms. The government was so afraid. Feels very familiar to our current situation.   \n  \nI remember going to college in 1968\, and for the first time\, girls did not have to wear skirts to school or on campus. We just showed up with jeans and bicycles after a summer of love and enlightenment.  \n  \nOn reflection from our talk Saturday\, i realized how the counterculture spread up and down the East and West coasts. But much was not available across the Midwest\, which might help to account for the divide we see today. How do we share the beauty of living without such experience to draw on? Art is the most important medium to cross and embrace communities! Censorship is the dark shut down.  \n  \nAt the end of our gathering on Saturday\, Andy Larkin consulted the I Ching\, asking: How shall we live? The hexagram was number 8\, Pi / Holding Together: “What is required is that we unite with others\, in order that all may complement and aid one another through holding together.” It also warned of the great danger of having a corrupt leader at the center. Sigh. . . \n  \nI look forward to rereading some of the great books of hippie times: Hesse\, Le Guin\, Susan Griffin. And making bread again from The Tassajara Bread Book!  Thank you\, Johnny\, for holding us together\, and taking a long view.    \n  \nHere is a poem from those days ringing true now.   \nGary agrees it’s a good one\, and sends his regards. \n  \nI Went into the Maverick Bar \n  \nI went into the Maverick Bar    \nIn Farmington\, New Mexico. \nAnd drank double shots of bourbon \n              backed with beer. \nMy long hair was tucked up under a cap \nI’d left the earring in the car. \nTwo cowboys did horseplay \n             by the pool tables\, \nA waitress asked us \n                         where are you from? \na country-and-western band began to play    \n“We don’t smoke Marijuana in Muskokie”    \nAnd with the next song\, \n                         a couple began to dance. \n  \nThey held each other like in High School dances    \n                         in the fifties; \nI recalled when I worked in the woods \n                         and the bars of Madras\, Oregon.    \nThat short-haired joy and roughness— \n                         America—your stupidity.    \nI could almost love you again. \n  \nWe left—onto the freeway shoulders— \n                         under the tough old stars— \nIn the shadow of bluffs \n                         I came back to myself\, \nTo the real work\, to \n                         “What is to be done.” \n  \n—Gary Snyder \n  \n—Katie Radditz \n* \n  \nKim and Perrin just got back from a trip to Iceland\, England & Ireland. Here’s a poem: \n  \nThe Weather Will Change \n  \nSometimes you stagger with the wind \nagainst your face\, rain in a river down \nyour back\, and you begin to wonder \nhow it’s fair to suffer so. But the weather \nwill change\, sun come your way\, and you \nwill wander easy once again. Sometimes \nlife is good\, it all goes your way\, luck \nfollows luck for days and days. But then \nyour weather changes\, and you will \nfind it strange to suffer like the others \nyou passed by. Sometimes your country \nfalters\, leaders lead astray\, and all the old \nassumptions for the good are gone. But \nthe weather will change\, and we will \nfind it strange to remember our gloom \nwhile it rained and rained and rained. \n  \n—Kim Stafford \n* \n  \nKim & Perrin shared this letter that Nick Cave wrote to a friend who had asked: “Where do you stand?” \n  \nDear Alastair\, \n  \nI acknowledge that this may be\, to you and your friends\, an unhelpful admission\, but I’m not entirely sure where I stand on anything these days. As the ground shifts and slides beneath us\, and the world hardens around its particular views\, I become increasingly uncertain and less self-assured. I am neither on the left nor on the right\, finding both sides\, as they mainly present themselves\, indefensible and unrecognizable. I am essentially a liberal-leaning\, spiritual conservative with a small ‘c’\, which\, to me\, isn’t a political stance\, rather it is a matter of temperament. I have a devotional nature\, and I see the world as broken but beautiful\, believing that it is our urgent and moral duty to repair it where we can and not to cause further harm\, or worse\, willfully usher in its destruction. I think we consist of more than mere atoms crashing into each other\, and that we are\, instead\, beings of vast potential\, placed on this earth for a reason—to magnify\, as best we can\, that which is beautiful and true.  I believe we have an obligation to assist those who are genuinely marginalized\, oppressed\, or sorrowful in a way that is helpful and constructive and not to exploit their suffering for our own professional advancement or personal survival. I have an acute and well-earned understanding of the nature of loss and know in my bones how easy it is for something to break\, and how difficult it is to put it back together. Therefore\, I am cautious with the world and try to treat all its inhabitants with care. \n  \nI am comfortable with doubt and am constitutionally resistant to moral certainty\, herd mentality and dogma. I am disturbed on a fundamental level by the self-serving\, toddler politics of some of my counterparts—I do not believe that silence is violence\, complicity\, or a lack of courage\, but rather that silence is often the preferred option when one does not know what they are talking about\, or is doubtful\, or conflicted—which\, for me\, is most of the time. I am mainly at ease with not knowing and find this a spiritually and creatively dynamic position. I believe that there are times when it is almost a sacred duty to shut the fuck up. \n  \nI’m not particularly concerned about where people stand—I’ve met some of the finest individuals from across the political spectrum. In fact\, I take pride and immense pleasure in having friends with divergent views. My life is significantly more interesting and colorful with them in it.  \n  \nPerhaps this all amounts to very little\, but I suppose\, in the end\, I value deeds over words. I see my own role as a musician\, songwriter\, and letter writer as actively serving the soul of the world\, and I’ve come to understand that this is the position that I must adopt in order to attempt to cultivate genuine change. In fact\, I am now beginning to understand where I do stand\, Alistair—I stand with the world\, in its goodness and beauty. In these hysterical\, monochromatic\, embattled times\, I call to its soul\, the way musicians can\, to its grieving and broken nature\, to its misplaced meaning\, to its fragile and flickering spirit. I sing to it\, praise it\, encourage it\, and strive to improve it—in adoration\, reconciliation\, and leaping faith.  \n  \nLove\, Nick
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SUMMARY:peace\, love\, happiness & understanding  11/6/25
DESCRIPTION:The Good Samaritan by Vincent Van Gogh \n  \nTHE OPEN ROAD \npeace\, love\, happiness & understanding \n  \nNovember 6\, 2025 \n  \nThe Stories We Tell Ourselves \n  \nThese are really the thoughts of all men in all ages and lands\, they are not original with me\, \nIf they are not yours as much as mind\, they are nothing… \n  \n—Walt Whitman\, from “Song of Myself” \n* \n  \nA man is what he thinks about all day long. \n  \n—Ralph Waldo Emerson \n* \n  \nWe are what we think. \nAll that we are arises with our thoughts. \nWith our thoughts we make the world. \n  \n—Buddha\, from Dhammapada \n* \n  \nethnosphere: “the sum total of all thoughts\, beliefs\, myths and institutions made manifest today by the myriad cultures of the world.” \n  \n–Wade Davis\, from Light at the Edge of the World\, p. x \n* \n  \nMortals suppose that the gods are born\, and wear clothes\, and have voice and form like themselves. \n  \nBut if cattle and lions had hands\, and could paint with their hands\, and fashion images\, as men do\, they would make pictures of their gods in their own likeness; horses would make them like horses\, cattle like cattle.             \n  \n—Xenophanes (570-478 B.C.) \n* \n  \nI…peruse manifold objects\, no two alike and every one good\,  \nThe earth good and the stars good\, and their adjuncts all good.  \n  \n—Walt Whitman\, from “Song of Myself” \n* \n  \n…this our life\, exempt from public haunt\, \nFinds tongues in trees\, books in the running brooks\, \nSermons in stones\, and good in every thing. \n  \n—Duke Senior in Shakespeare’s As You Like It\, Act 2\, scene 1 \n* \n  \nI believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. (Nobel Prize speech\, 1964) \n  \nI have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear. \n  \nHate paralyzes life; love releases it. Hate confuses life; love harmonizes it. \n  \nI know that love is ultimately the only answer to mankind’s problems. \n  \n—Martin Luther King \n* \n  \nwhat we think is who we are \nas indivduals \nand collectively \n  \nFor more than twenty years\, i’ve been turning this phrase over in my mind:  \n  \nthe stories we tell ourselves \n  \nI’m fascinated by how each of us constructs an identity and a worldview—stories about who we are and about the world and our relationship to it. Each of the things I’ve chosen for this “peace\, love\, happiness & understanding” suggests a story—a way of experiencing or understanding our life. My own felt sense of things is that Johnny Stallings is a fictional character\, and from moment to moment I’m dreaming the world in which I live. \n* \n  \nA Story that Could be True \n  \nIf you were exchanged in the cradle and\nyour real mother died\nwithout ever telling the story\nthen no one knows your name\,\nand somewhere in the world\nyour father is lost and needs you\nbut you are far away. \nHe can never find\nhow true you are\, how ready.\nWhen the great wind comes\nand the robberies of the rain\nyou stand on the corner shivering.\nThe people who go by—\nyou wonder at their calm. \nThey miss the whisper that runs\nany day in your mind\,\n“Who are you really\, wanderer?”—\nand the answer you have to give\nno matter how dark and cold\nthe world around you is:\n“Maybe I’m a king.” \n  \n—William Stafford \n* \nThe parable of the good samaritan: \n  \n25 And\, behold\, a certain lawyer stood up\, and tempted him\, saying\, Master\, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? \n26 He said unto him\, What is written in the law? how readest thou? \n27 And he answering said\, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart\, and with all thy soul\, and with all thy strength\, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself. \n28 And he said unto him\, Thou hast answered right: this do\, and thou shalt live. \n29 But he\, willing to justify himself\, said unto Jesus\, And who is my neighbour? \n30 And Jesus answering said\, A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho\, and fell among thieves\, which stripped him of his raiment\, and wounded him\, and departed\, leaving him half dead. \n31 And by chance there came down a certain priest that way: and when he saw him\, he passed by on the other side. \n32 And likewise a Levite\, when he was at the place\, came and looked on him\, and passed by on the other side. \n33 But a certain Samaritan\, as he journeyed\, came where he was: and when he saw him\, he had compassion on him\, \n34 And went to him\, and bound up his wounds\, pouring in oil and wine\, and set him on his own beast\, and brought him to an inn\, and took care of him. \n35 And on the morrow when he departed\, he took out two pence\, and gave them to the host\, and said unto him\, Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more\, when I come again\, I will repay thee. \n36 Which now of these three\, thinkest thou\, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves? \n37 And he said\, He that shewed mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him\, Go\, and do thou likewise. \n  \n—Luke 10:25-37  (KJV) \n* \nHere’s a more recent version of the same story\, by E. E. Cummings: \n  \na man who had fallen among thieves\nlay by the roadside on his back\ndressed in fifteenthrate ideas\nwearing a round jeer for a hat \nfate per a somewhat more than less\nemancipated evening\nhad in return for consciousness\nendowed him with a changeless grin \nwhereon a dozen staunch and leal\ncitizens did graze at pause\nthen fired by hypercivic zeal\nsought newer pastures or because \nswaddled with a frozen brook\nof pinkest vomit out of eyes\nwhich noticed nobody he looked\nas if he did not care to rise \none hand did nothing on the vest\nits wideflung friend clenched weakly dirt\nwhile the mute trouserfly confessed\na button solemnly inert \nBrushing from whom the stiffened puke\ni put him all into my arms\nand staggered banged with terror through\na million billion trillion stars \n  \n—e. e. cummings \n* \nThis is an old folktale: \n  \nThe Shirt of a Happy Man \n  \nOnce there was a king who wanted to be happy. His wise counselors informed him that he needed to acquire the shirt of a happy man. So\, he sent his soldiers out in quest of such a shirt. One by one they returned empty-handed. None of them could find a happy man. Finally\, the last soldier returned.  \n  \nThe king asked\, “Did you find a happy man?”  \n  \n“Yes\,” the soldier said.  \n  \n“Where’s his shirt?\,” asked the king.  \n  \n“He didn’t have one.” \n* \n  \nCheck out the Playing for Change version of “Peace Train” by Yusuf/Cat Stevens on YouTube! \n  \n* \nMy dad liked this poem: \n  \nAbou Ben Adhem \n  \nAbou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!) \nAwoke one night from a deep dream of peace\, \nAnd saw\, within the moonlight in his room\, \nMaking it rich\, and like a lily in bloom\, \nAn angel writing in a book of gold:— \nExceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold\, \nAnd to the presence in the room he said\, \n“What writest thou?”—The vision raised its head\, \nAnd with a look made of all sweet accord\, \nAnswered\, “The names of those who love the Lord.” \n“And is mine one?” said Abou. “Nay\, not so\,” \nReplied the angel. Abou spoke more low\, \nBut cheerly still; and said\, “I pray thee\, then\, \nWrite me as one that loves his fellow men.” \n  \nThe angel wrote\, and vanished. The next night \nIt came again with a great wakening light\, \nAnd showed the names whom love of God had blest\, \nAnd lo! Ben Adhem’s name led all the rest. \n  \n—Leigh Hunt \n* \n  \nPlato told this story: \n  \nSome people are in a cave. They are chained up in such a way that they can’t move\, and can’t turn their heads. They are all looking straight ahead.  \n  \nBehind them are people with torches who are carrying things back and forth and talking to each other. The cave-dwellers see shadows on the wall in front of them—their own shadows and the shadows of the objects that are being carried back and forth. As far as they know\, the only reality is these shadows and the conversations that the shadows appear to be having with each other. \n  \nOne man escapes from his bondage and is able to turn around and see what’s going on in the cave. Then he leaves the cave and sees the sun illuminating an amazing world. \n  \nHe wants to tell the people in the cave about what he has seen and understood. He goes back down into the cave. When he tries to tell the people what he has seen\, they think he is mad. \n* \n  \nHere’s one from William Blake: \n  \nThe Garden of Love \n  \nI went to the Garden of Love\, \nAnd saw what I never had seen: \nA Chapel was built in the midst\, \nWhere I used to play on the green. \n  \nAnd the gates of this Chapel were shut\, \nAnd ‘Thou shalt not’ writ over the door; \nSo I turn’d to the Garden of Love\, \nThat so many sweet flowers bore.  \n  \nAnd I saw it was filled with graves\, \nAnd tomb-stones where flowers should be: \nAnd Priests in black gowns\, were walking their rounds\, \nAnd binding with briars\, my joys & desires. \n  \n—William Blake \n* \n  \nThese are a few or my favorite passages from my favorite poem\, Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself: \n  \n20 \n…Why should I pray?  Why should I venerate and be ceremonious? \n  \nHaving pried through the strata\, analyzed to a hair\, counseled with doctors and calculated close\, \nI find no sweeter fat than sticks to my own bones. \n  \nIn all people I see myself\, none more and not one a barley-corn less… \n  \n24 \n…I believe in the flesh and the appetites\, \nSeeing\, hearing\, feeling\, are miracles\, and each part and tag of me is a miracle. \n  \nDivine am I inside and out\, and I make holy whatever I touch or am touched from\, \nThe scent of these arm-pits aroma finer than prayer\, \nThis head more than churches\, bibles\, and all the creeds…. \n  \nEach moment and whatever happens thrills me with joy…. \n  \nA morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books. \n  \n30 \nAll truths wait in all things… \n  \n31 \nI believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars\, \nAnd the ant is equally perfect\, and a grain of sand\, and the egg of the wren\, \nAnd the tree-toad is a masterpiece for the highest\, \nAnd the running blackberry would adorn the parlors of heaven\, \nAnd the narrowest hinge in my hand puts to scorn all machinery\, \nAnd the cow crunching with depressed head surpasses any statue\, \nAnd a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels. \n  \n44 \nImmense have been the preparations for me…. \n  \nCycles ferried my cradle\, rowing and rowing like cheerful boatmen\, \nFor room to me stars kept aside in their own rings\, \nThey sent influences to look after what was to hold me. \n  \nBefore I was born out of my mother generations guided me\, \nMy embryo has never been torpid\, nothing could overlay it. \n  \nFor it the nebula cohered to an orb\, \nThe long slow strata piled to rest it on\, \nVast vegetables gave it sustenance\, \nMonstrous sauroids transported it in their mouths and deposited it with care. \n  \nAll forces have been steadily employed to complete and delight me\, \nNow on this spot I stand with my robust soul. \n  \n48 \n…whoever walks a furlong without sympathy walks to his own funeral drest in his shroud… \nAnd to glance with an eye or show a bean in its pod confounds the learning of all times… \nAnd there is no object so soft but it makes a hub for the wheeled universe…. \n  \nWhy should I wish to see God better than this day? \nI see something of God each hour of the twenty-four\, and each moment then\, \nIn the faces of men and women I see God\, and in my own face in the glass\, \nI find letters from God dropt in the street\, and every one is signed by God’s name\, \nAnd I leave them where they are\, for I know that wheresoe’er I go \nOthers will punctually come for ever and ever. \n  \n—Walt Whitman \n* \n  \nThomas Traherne was a Seventeenth Century Christian mystic. I love his ecstatic poems and meditations! In this meditation he is writing about how he experienced the world as a small child: \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\, from Centuries of Meditations \n* \n  \nIn Dostoevsky’s great last novel\, The Brother’s Karamazov\, there is a monk named Father Zossima. When I first read the novel\, fifty years ago\, I was impressed with the words of Father Zossima\, which are of course Dostoevsky’s words: \n  \nBrothers\, do not be afraid of men’s sin\, love man also in his sin\, for this likeness of God’s love is the height of love on earth. Love all of God’s creation\, both the whole of it and every grain of sand. Love every leaf\, every ray of God’s light. Love animals\, love plants\, love each thing. If you love each thing\, you will perceive the mystery of God in things. Once you have perceived it\, you will begin tirelessly to perceive more and more of it every day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an entire\, universal love…. \n  \nMy friends\, ask joy from God. Be joyful as children\, as birds in the air…. \n  \nWhen you are alone\, pray. Love to throw yourself down on the earth and kiss it. Kiss the earth and love it\, tirelessly\, insatiably\, love all men\, love all things\, seek this rapture and ecstasy. Water the earth with the tears of your joy\, and love those tears. Do not be ashamed of this ecstasy\, treasure it\, for it is a gift from God\, a great gift\, and it is not given to many\, but to those who are chosen.  \n  \n—Fyodor Dostoevsky \n* \n  \nHere are some recent small poems from my journal: \n  \nwalking on the earth \nevery step a prayer \n* \n  \nraspberries say what i want to say \nbetter than i can \n* \n  \nhow did i get to be old? \ni used to be young  \nwhat the hell happened? \n* \n  \nbriefly visiting book after book \ni’m like a hummingbird going from flower to flower  \n* \n  \nstart your day with hummingbirds \nnot the new york times \n* \n  \nthe problem with being one-with-everything  \nis all the misery \n* \n  \nmodern farming \n  \nget up early \nfeed the tofurkys \nmilk the oats \n* \n  \nit’s the most beautiful day since the world began \na bumblebee is on the lobelia \n* \n  \ni’m transitioning \nfrom happiness \nto bliss \n* \n  \nLet’s end with a brief passage from the book Peace Is Every Step by the Vietnamese Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh. Like many of the things here\, it’s a story in the sense that it is a way of experiencing and understanding our precious life on this beautiful planet  \nHere’s a thought: \nIf you find yourself feeling ungrateful\, you might remind yourself that the average surface temperature on the planet Venus is 867 degrees Fahrenheit. \n  \nInterbeing \n  \nIf you are a poet\, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in this sheet of paper. Without a cloud\, there will be no rain; without rain\, the trees cannot grow; and without trees\, we cannot make paper. The cloud is essential for the paper to exist. If the cloud is not here\, the sheet of paper cannot be here either. So we can say that the cloud and the paper inter-are. “Interbeing” is a word that is not in the dictionary yet\, but if we combine the prefix “inter-“ with the verb “to be\,” we have a new verb\, inter-be.  \n  \nIf we look into this sheet of paper even more deeply\, we can see the sunshine in it. Without sunshine\, the forest cannot grow. In fact\, nothing can grow without sunshine. And so\, we know that the sunshine is also in this sheet of paper. The paper and the sunshine inter-are. And if we continue to look\, we can see the logger who cut the tree and brought it to the mill to be transformed into paper. And we see wheat. We know that the logger cannot exist without his daily bread\, and therefore the wheat that became his bread is also in this sheet of paper. The logger’s father and mother are in it too. When we look in this way\, we see that without all of these things\, this sheet of paper cannot exist. \n  \nLooking even more deeply\, we can see ourselves in this sheet of paper too. This is not difficult to see\, because when we look at a sheet of paper\, it is part of our perception. Your mind is in here and mine is also. So we can say that everything is in here with this sheet of paper. We cannot point out one thing that is not here—time\, space\, the earth\, the rain\, the minerals in the soil\, the sunshine\, the cloud\, the river\, the heat. Everything co-exists with this sheet of paper. That is why I think the word inter-be should be in the dictionary. “To be” is to inter-be. We cannot just be by ourselves alone. We have to inter-be with every other thing. This sheet of paper is\, because everything else is. \n  \n—Thich Nhat Hanh\, from the book Peace Is Every Step
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/peace-love-happiness-understanding-11-6-25/
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20251115T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20251115T160000
DTSTAMP:20260424T060306
CREATED:20251025T222816Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251025T222948Z
UID:5898-1763215200-1763222400@openroadpdx.com
SUMMARY:JOURNEYS: Stories of Immigrants & Refugees
DESCRIPTION:  \nJOURNEYS \n  \nstories of immigrants & refugees  \nwith Johnny Stallings & friends \n  \nSaturday\, November 15th\, 2 pm \nArtspace Room at Taborspace\, 5441 SE Belmont  \n  \nthis Open Road event is free \n  \n 
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/journeys-stories-of-immigrants-refugees/
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://openroadpdx.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Chaplin_-_Immigrant.jpg
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20251204
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20251208
DTSTAMP:20260424T060306
CREATED:20251203T191245Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251203T191534Z
UID:5948-1764806400-1765151999@openroadpdx.com
SUMMARY:King Lear
DESCRIPTION:  \nOur friend Allen Mills is producing this show.  \n  \nCatch it if you can!   \n  \nClick here to reserve tickets:  \n  \n https://www.facebook.com/share/p/19NeFfGPne/ \n  \npeace & love   \n  \nJohnny
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/king-lear/
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://openroadpdx.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/unnamed.jpg
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20251204
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20260101
DTSTAMP:20260424T060306
CREATED:20251211T024742Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251211T025624Z
UID:5963-1764806400-1767225599@openroadpdx.com
SUMMARY:peace\, love\, happiness & understanding  12/4/25
DESCRIPTION:  \nTHE OPEN ROAD \npeace\, love\, happiness & understanding \n  \nDecember 4\, 2025 \n  \nKim Stafford shared this poem by David Budbill: \n  \nSometimes \n  \nSometimes when day after day we have cloudless blue skies\,\nwarm temperatures\, colorful trees and brilliant sun\, when\nit seems like all this will go on forever\, \n  \nwhen I harvest vegetables from the garden all day\,\nthen drink tea and doze in the late afternoon sun\,\nand in the evening one night make pickled beets\nand green tomato chutney\, the next red tomato chutney\,\nand the day after that pick the fruits of my arbor\nand make grape jam\, \n  \nwhen we walk in the woods every evening over fallen leaves\,\nthrough yellow light\, when nights are cool\, and days warm\, \n  \nwhen I am so happy I am afraid I might explode or disappear\nor somehow be taken away from all this\, \n  \nat those times when I feel so happy\, so good\, so alive\, so in love\nwith the world\, with my own sensuous\, beautiful life\, suddenly \n  \nI think about all the suffering and pain in the world\, the agony\nand dying. I think about all those people being tortured\, right now\,\nin my name. But I still feel happy and good\, alive and in love with\nthe world and with my lucky\, guilty\, sensuous\, beautiful life because\, \n  \nI know in the next minute or tomorrow all this may be\ntaken from me\, and therefore I’ve got to say\, right now\,\nwhat I feel and know and see\, I’ve got to say\, right now\,\nhow beautiful and sweet this world can be. \n  \n—David Budbill \n* \n  \nFrom “The Marginalian\,” an online journal: \n  \nHere we are\, living these lives bright and perishable as a poppy\, hard and shimmering as obsidian. We know that they are entirely improbable\, that we bless that bright improbability with each flash of gratitude for it all\, that if we pay attention closely and generously enough we are always repaid in gladness\, that it is the handle of the door to the world. And yet over and over we choose to live in the cage of complaint\, too preoccupied with how the will of life betrayed our wishes\, the wanting monster always growling in the other corner of the cage. \n  \nImagine parting the bars and stepping out. Imagine waking up with a rush of gladness at everything we were never promised but got anyway — trees and music\, clouds and consciousness\, the cobalt eye of the scallop\, the golden fan of the gingko\, the alabaster chandelier of the ghost pipe. \n  \nIn our age of competitive prostration\, this is a headstand hard to hold for long. But it is trainable. It is possible to become strong enough to be tender\, it is. \n  \n—Maria Popova\, editor of “The Marginalian\,” November 23\, 2025 \n* \n  \nI’ve been keeping a journal more-or-less daily for 55 years. Sometimes it’s fun to revisit things I’ve written. This is from last Spring: \n  \nfriday\, april 25th\, 2025 \n  \nthe conventional way of looking at perfect moments is that they happen once in a while \nthey’re brief \nand then they’re gone \nand we’re back to boring everyday humdrum life \nbut it’s possible to experience perfect moments as having nothing to do with time \nthey don’t have a beginning or end \nyou could say they last a lifetime—or that they are a lifetime \nthe beauty of humans overwhelms me!!!!!!! \nit’s getting ridiculous! \ni don’t know what to do with it\, or how to communicate it \n  \nsaturday\, april 26th\, 2025 \n  \nyesterday\, i watched “the accountant 2” at the laurelhurst theater\, from 4 to 6 \nit was a beautiful sunny spring day \nafter two hours in a dark theater\, under the spell of a movie\, when you come out and it’s still daytime\, the sunshine seems brighter and everything more vivid and somehow more real \nyou’ve been immersed in an imaginary reality—under its spell—and now you’re in the actual world \nas i walked by the crema coffee house and the moon shot tavern\, lots of people were outside at picnic tables \nit’s friday\, they’ve just gotten off work\, the sun is shining and they’re in a good mood \na little girl of about 4 or 5 is running down the sidewalk toward me \nshe’s laughing as she runs \nshe’s the happiest person on earth \nher happiness goes right into me \npassing a food cart area\, there are lots more people at picnic tables \nand the sound they are making together is a joyous one \nand i have a feeling which is also a thought that people are so beautiful! \nand then the thought that moments don’t have boundaries \nalthough we are accustomed to thinking that they do \nand thinking that they are short \nand that perfect moments are infrequent\, and then quickly gone \nbut they’re not gone \njohn keats said \na thing of beauty is a joy for ever \nmaybe a reason that this quote became famous is because it expresses a deeper truth than mr. gradgrind’s facts: \n  \nChapter 1 \nThe One Thing Needful \n‘Now\, what I want is\, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else\, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is the principle on which I bring up my own children\, and this is the principle on which I bring up these children. Stick to Facts\, Sir!’ \n  \n—Gradgrind\, the schoolmaster\, from the opening of Hard Times by Charles Dickens \n  \nthe way I was seeing and feeling and being when the little girl was laughing and running toward me and people nearby were in a glorious mood—that way of seeing and feeling and being is truer for me than the feeling i have when i’m reading the new york times \nin those boundaryless moments i’m alive! \n  \nthich nhat hanh says you can spend your whole life in a kind of exile from the present moment and miss your life entirely \nif you died and went to the pearly gates\, they’d look in the book and see that you haven’t lived yet—and send you back for another try \n  \nscientific and rational ways of knowing are not bad \nand they leave things out\, like imagination\, love\, beauty and meaning \n  \nto see a world in a grain of sand \nand a heaven in a wild flower \n  \na thing of beauty is a joy for ever \n  \n(maybe those romantic poets gave me a blessing) \n(maybe they changed the way i see and feel and experience the world) \n  \nif the sight of a tulip or a hummingbird goes into you deeply enough\, it does something to you \nit changes you \n  \nmy primary felt experience is that i am living in Paradise \n  \n—Johnny Stallings \n* \n  \nEarth Born Creatures \n  \nThe gravel parking lot smells \nlike oil\, the trash strewn woods \nback up the roadhouse to the creek. \n  \nA boxy banana-colored car \nrusts there\, sags a bit in \nchangeable late afternoon light. \n  \nThe long-waisted girl in torn jeans \npauses over her broom. Fantasy \nburns through her\, leaves a tired ache \n  \nfor pretty things\, clean lines\, shine. \nShe looks at her hands \nHer fingers not quite straight \n  \ncaught that way in the womb \nthey remind her that she is subject \nto time and accidents of fate. \n  \nA scrawny tabby steps out of shadow\, \nprimly wraps his tail round his feet. \nThey stare at each other. The girl blinks \n  \nthinks of comfort and laughs. \nThe cat imagines cornering mice. \nAn owl awakens hungry back in the trees. \n  \n—Elizabeth Domike \n* \n  \nHere are a couple of excerpts from two of Rocky’s many letters: \n  \nNovember 11\, 2025 \n4 a.m. \nDear Johnny & Nancy \n  \nWe all got the day off in here due to the holidays. We have a lot of holidays this month. Soon the year will be over\, too. I’ve been looking back a little in time & knowing 17 years is quite a long time\, it seems like it was…only a few days ago that I came into D.O.C. custody! I think it’s because time\, in our minds\, moves differently. In our minds we can slow it down\, or\, speed it up. We could freeze it as well\, if we wanted to. \n  \nIt’s a sad reality to think that I’ve spent ⅓ of the life I’ve been given this time around as a prisoner. I know that I deserved to serve this time. Without my life in here I would not be who I am now. That would not be good\, because I would never have met the people in my life that I love & who help make me who I am. I would never have gotten to become the man I am today. That thought just gave me chills. Those seeds of wild emotions—Empathy\, Joy\, Kindness\, Love\, Wonder\, Humility—that were scattered upon my heart\, mind & soul\, like someone scattering handfuls of wildflower seeds on a hillside is what grows inside of me. You two had a hand in scattering those seeds. I believe we each\, in our own ways\, help each other’s hearts to grow & heal in all sorts of ways….. \n  \nNovember 12\, 2025 \n4:27 a.m. \nWe had a conversation on the phone yesterday afternoon. It was nice to talk about many different things. We had talked a few days before about that! It’s easy to talk about release from prison under the circumstances. \n  \nOne of the things that stuck out to me was the peace that I get from waking up early in here. It truly is the only quiet time of the day. What I’ve been thinking about is that Kim Stafford does that & his dad did too. The fact to me that really rang a bell was how he came by doing it. He started doing it in a prison camp! \n  \nPrison is not a place where most can find or have a second of peace\, most are overwhelmed by frustrations\, sadness\, hopelessness and misery. All those emotions & vibes come off of them & touch and trigger emotions in others\, even reaching the staff sometimes.  I found that if I start my day as early as I can & meditate in my writing\, do my letters to home & do my school work\, my days are most of the time started on the Golden Path. Everyone is still sleeping and none of the negativity is in the air. I love starting my days off before the world comes to life…. \n  \nAlways planting good seeds in the World\, \nRocky \n—Rocky Hutchinson
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/peace-love-happiness-understanding-12-4-25/
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://openroadpdx.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/0-9.jpeg
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20251214T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20251214T160000
DTSTAMP:20260424T060306
CREATED:20251208T043559Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251211T023340Z
UID:5955-1765720800-1765728000@openroadpdx.com
SUMMARY:The Second American Renaissance
DESCRIPTION:  \nTHE SECOND AMERICAN RENAISSANCE \n(1955-2025) \n  \nan entertainment by Johnny Stallings  \nSunday\, December 14th\, 2 pm \nLibrary at Taborspace\, 5441 SE Belmont  \n  \nthis Open Road event is free
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/the-second-american-renaissance/
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DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20260101
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20260205
DTSTAMP:20260424T060306
CREATED:20260101T204209Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260101T205613Z
UID:5994-1767225600-1770249599@openroadpdx.com
SUMMARY:peace\, love\, happiness & understanding  1/1/26
DESCRIPTION:photo by Abe Green \n  \nTHE OPEN ROAD \npeace\, love\, happiness & understanding \n  \nJanuary 1\, 2026 \n  \nthe Dalai Lama has a busy day today \nhe has to remind everybody \nto be kind to each other \n  \nF. O. Matthiessen coined the phrase “American Renaissance” in his 1941 book with that title. He was referring to the period between 1850 and 1855\, which saw the publication of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Representative Men\, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter\, Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick\, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin\, Henry David Thoreau’s Walden and Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself. \n  \nI’ve been thinking about the period between 1955 and the present as a “Second American Renaissance.” By an amazing coincidence this period coincides nicely with my own life. I was born in 1951. I’m using the term “renaissance” loosely to mean an exciting time of transformation and new ideas. \n  \nThough Mathiessen’s American Renaissance was short-lived\, like the Italian Renaissance\, it sowed seeds that continued to sprout everywhere. The Italian Renaissance lasted approximately 200 years\, from 1400 to 1600. This Second American Renaissance\, now about 70 years old\, is still going strong. \n  \nWhen I think of the Italian Renaissance\, the first people who come to mind are artists: Michelangelo\, Da Vinci\, Raphael\, Botticelli. But there was more to it than painting. There were the Borgias and Medicis\, Machiavelli\, Petrarch\, Galileo and Columbus. In the same way\, the Second American Renaissance contains all kinds of big ideas and important changes. \n  \nHere are some of the Big Things that have happened: \n  \nCivil Rights Movement\, Environmental Movement\, Peace Movement\, Women’s Liberation\, Gay Liberation\, Humanistic Psychology and the Human Potential Movement\, Eastern Influences: Meditation\, Mindfulness\, Yoga & Zen\, Rock & Roll\, Trip to the Moon\, Whole Earth Catalog\, (return to) Organic Agriculture\, vegan & vegetarian diets\, advances in medical technology\, computers\, cell phones—and a Knowledge Explosion. \n  \nAnd something I’m going to call the “evolution of consciousness.” I am going to put forward the crazy idea that there is even an evolution of love and of peace and of happiness and of wisdom. Sounds New-Agey\, doesn’t it? And the reason is simple: this is a New Age. There was a certain feeling that many of us had between 1968 and 1972 that a Big Change was underway. We were right. \n  \nDuring a “renaissance\,” not everything is groovy. Michelangelo and Da Vinci were rare birds. Not everyone who was living in what we now call “Italy” between 1400 and 1600 were actively remaking the world. The popes and political leaders were horrible people! There was lots of senseless warfare going on—not to mention plagues! So it wasn’t a particularly happy time. But\, as in Periclean Athens\, things were happening in the human imagination that changed the potential of what it means to be a human being. \n  \nThat’s what I mean by the phrase “evolution of consciousness.” In one way\, consciousness\, or awareness never changes. Like Life (with a capital “L”) it just is what it is. But human potential—for understanding and for loving—can change and does change\, both for individuals and for cultures. As Heraclitus and the Buddhists say: everything is always changing. \n  \nEach of our lives is full of possibilities! Let’s make the most of them in the New Year! \n  \n—Johnny Stallings \n* \n  \nDriven to Exclaim \n  \nHow can I be so happy! \nThere’s so much bad news! \nInside\, my heart is crying! But \noutside\, the crows are shouting! \nDon’t they heed bad news—ruffians! \nHard times are coming! Hard times \nare here! Everywhere I look\, pain! \nWhy are leaders such angry children! \nI’m such a child I want to stay up \nlate loving the ruined world! \nEven the crows are shouting \nstrange joy! All I can do is crow! \n  \n—Kim Stafford\, Winter Solstice 2025 \n* \n  \nThe Robin and You \n  \nExtravagant in praise he bows to her. \nTells her she is a falcon-ness\, a phoenix \nand in his quiet moments a swan. \n  \nShe knows she is a plain woods robin \nand what matters is her song. \nEarly before the worms\, she practices her art. \n  \nHer flash of red breast a surprise \nonly to those who have no feel for the natural world. \nWrapped inside themselves\, amidst their suffering \n  \nshe sings for them. \nHer beak is the vessel\, her mate the morning dew. \nHer only audience\, the wise and patient yew. \n  \n—Elizabeth Domike \n* \n  \nThere is still magic in the world\, whether it be natural or man-made. \n  \nAcross the Columbia River from Hood River is White Salmon\, Washington. Every year in early December members of the White Salmon Chamber of Commerce climb in their cherry picker vehicles and head out to Dock Grade\, a half-mile\, one- way road that travels from Highway 14 up the hill to White Salmon. They are laden with close to a thousand Christmas ornaments\, huge ornamental balls and stars to hang in the trees overhanging the road. The ornaments can be 8”-10” in diameter\, and they are suspended 10’ to 30’ up in the bare-limbed trees. You drive up the road and are surrounded by a thousand floating orbs\, spheres\, globes and stars. It feels like you’re floating through space in a spaceship\, with celestial elements surrounding you\, enveloping you. Sunlight shines down and lights each ornament from above. It’s a feeling of magic. The kind of feeling you normally lose as you grow up and become “too old” for magic. \n  \nBut there’s the natural magic—the magic of nature. A terrible wildfire (one of many!) swept through Catherine Creek\, a wildflower lover’s mecca\, and left the entire area blackened\, crushed\, destroyed\, last summer. A friend has been working on restoration there and she told me to head out and take a look—“Just go!” she said. So after the drive up Dock Grade I drove the ten miles out to Catherine Creek and started tromping around: charred\, blackened tree trunks and limbs\, and shrubs nothing more than crusty twigs. Heartbreaking. What am I doing out here??!!? But! I  look down and I  see thousands of tiny blades of green grasses\, and atop many of them\, the soft purple blossoms of the grass widows: the first wildflowers of spring! In bloom! In December!. They hardly ever appear before late February or early March. People make the trek out to Catherine Creek just to see the grass widows in March\, knowing that blossoms mean spring! But here they are\, nodding up at me\, saying\, Yep\, the fires of summer gave us a jumpstart. Thought you’d like that. Like???!!! I love it! The magic of nature. The magic of life. \n  \nAnd this was all in just one day! \n  \n—Jude Russell \n* \n  \n“Know that you are a child of the universe.” \n—Yogi tea bag wisdom \n  \nMusings on a Winter sunny day… \n   \nWhen Winter comes in cold and bright\, after days of rain that have turned Summer’s brown grasses back to green\, I think\, “Oh no\, Spring is coming too soon.” I love the long winter dark\, which is my excuse for reading and being cozy under quilts even in the daytime\, and by the wood stove in the evenings.   \n  \nHere it is New Year’s Eve and Spring is in the air\, coming up all around us in Autumn’s left over leaves—crocuses\, scilla\, hyacinth\, a first pink camellia in bloom\, daphne budding out.  \n  \nThoreau wrote of this wonder in Walden\, about the ponds in Winter\, the first crack of the ice signifying Spring has begun. Frozen ponds are rare in the Northwest\, and snow in the mountains is a month late\, but we have subtle signs. Even in my body that wants to hibernate\, I also want to go out looking for sprouts and buds\, returning birds and bunnies.   \n  \nRecently I read about Thoreau’s extraordinary Kalendar. He had a daily habit of walking and noting what was happening through the season in his Nature neighborhood. His Journal is the record of these practices\, and the Kalendar is their culminating gesture: the final major endeavor of his life.  \n  \nThe charts of general phenomena derived from Thoreau’s long-held sense that ‘our thoughts & sentiments answer to the revolution of the seasons\,’ and his equally long-standing desire to more fully experience and comprehend the complex network of relations—what we would now call the ecosystem—of which he knew himself to be a part. Though Thoreau had for many years been keeping lists and charts of individual observations of the natural world—bird migration times\, the flowering and leafing out of trees—the Kalendar was a discovery: a crystallization of his long-developing ideas about time\, the natural world\, and the nature of perception.” \n  \nReading through this makes me aware of how extraordinary it is to be alive\, to be here at all at such a blip in the planet’s life. I also see this wonder in my puppy’s exploration of Nature. Being a Border Collie\, she is dumbfounded by the squirrels that run up trees\, and by birds and even airplanes in the sky—because these are moving things she cannot herd. She at least has chickens and rabbits and a giant Golden Retriever who visits on weekends. Then there is my granddaughter’s wonder at everything new—mushrooms coming out of the ground in leaves that have turned red!! \n  \nSo\, thank goodness for the seasons that return on their own timeline with no prompting from us. Hopefully we all fall in love with the magic of life and finally save as much as we can for the children and creatures coming along. \n  \nHere is a poem from my friend Barbara\, a gardener and a writer: \n  \nWinter Solstice \n  \nThe long nights recede \nAs the light slowly returns \nAnd my heart lifts up \nStars in the night sky \nYield to an early sunrise\, \nPink and orange sky \nAnd evenings stretch out; \nThe light lingers longer now\, \nWarming the new buds \nI come more alive: \nThe light feeds my hungry soul\, \nStarving for beauty. \nMore revealed each hour\, \nLeaves\, buds\, flowers greet the day \nAs the sun warms them \nWelcome light’s return \nOur gift for surviving the \nDark\, cold winter nights. \n  \n—Barbara Blossom \n  \nSpeaking of watching the wild\, here is a funny aside from Gina Wilson\, who sent this: \n  \nGayle Highpine writes in her book on making friends with wild birds: \n  \n“To survive among us\, they (birds) have to watch what we are doing\, and we are odd and different from the other ground creatures they see. Cows and squirrels and cats and deer are understandable\, and predictable. If you see enough cows\, you have a good idea what to expect from any cow you see. But humans are different. They do different things—sometimes humans do things that nobody’s ever seen. Sometimes a human may change its clothing overnight and yet it is the same human.” \n     \nGina wrote:  Never thought about how we change our “skin”—often numerous times a day! \n  \n—Katie Radditz
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/peace-love-happiness-understanding-1-1-26/
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260117T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260117T160000
DTSTAMP:20260424T060306
CREATED:20251222T010722Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251222T010953Z
UID:5978-1768658400-1768665600@openroadpdx.com
SUMMARY:ZEN: History & Essence  1/17/26
DESCRIPTION:  \nZEN:History & Essence \n  \nJohnny Stallings will give an overview of the history of Zen and host a conversation about the meaning of Zen on Saturday\, January 17th\, 2026\, at 2 pm (PST).  \nHere’s the Zoom link: \n  \nhttps://us02web.zoom.us/j/88465906598 \n  \n  \n  \n 
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/zen-history-essence-1-17-26/
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20260122
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20260202
DTSTAMP:20260424T060306
CREATED:20260122T200705Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260122T201603Z
UID:6032-1769040000-1769990399@openroadpdx.com
SUMMARY:An Sceal (The Story) with Will Hornyak
DESCRIPTION:  \nThe Open Road Recommends:  \n  \nAn Sceal (The Story) Will Hornyak joins Portland’s brilliant Corrib Theatre folks to celebrate St. Brigit and Imbolc with dance\, drama\, singing & storytelling. \nThursday\, January 22\,  1 pm \nSunday\, January 25\,  8:30 pm \nThursday\, January 29\,  1 pm \nSunday\, February 1\,  8:30 pm \nT.C. O’Leary’s Pub\, 2926 NE Alberta\, in Portland  \nTickets & info: https://www.corribtheatre.org/tickets \n 
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/an-sceal-the-story-with-will-hornyak/
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20260205
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20260305
DTSTAMP:20260424T060306
CREATED:20260205T154540Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260222T011110Z
UID:6043-1770249600-1772668799@openroadpdx.com
SUMMARY:peace\, love\, happiness & understanding  2/5/26
DESCRIPTION:Bodhidharma \n  \nTHE OPEN ROAD \npeace\, love\, happiness & understanding \n  \nFebruary 5\, 2026 \n  \nThe Infinite a sudden Guest \nHas been assumed to be— \nBut how can that stupendous come \nWhich never went away? \n  \n—Emily Dickinson \n* \n  \nBeginning My Studies \n  \nBeginning my studies the first step pleas’d me so much\, \nThe mere fact consciousness\, these forms\, the power of motion\, \nThe least insect or animal\, the senses\, eyesight\, love\, \nThe first step I say awed me and pleas’d me so much\, \nI have hardly gone and hardly wish’d to go any farther\, \nBut stop and loiter all the time to sing it in ecstatic songs. \n  \n—Walt Whitman \n* \n  \nYes \n  \nIt could happen any time\, tornado\, \nearthquake\, Armageddon. It could happen. \nOr sunshine\, love\, salvation. \n  \nIt could\, you know. That’s why we wake \nand look out—no guarantees \nin this life. \n  \nBut some bonuses\, like morning\, \nlike right now\, like noon\, \nlike evening. \n  \n—William Stafford \n* \n  \n“…I believe there is a limit to the number of times a man can profitably inform his neighbor\, or be informed by him\, that the inexpressible cannot be expressed.” \n  \n—Owen Barfield\, from the essay “Imagination and Inspiration” in The Rediscovery of Meaning and Other Essays\, p. 180 \n* \n  \nA man who encountered the Buddha for the first time was impressed by his radiance. \nHe asked: “Are you a man or a god?” \nBuddha replied: “I’m awake.” \n* \n  \nsome thoughts on Zen \n  \nAccording to legend\, one day many people had gathered to hear the Buddha speak. Instead of speaking\, he held up a flower. One man\, Kasyapa\, smiled\, and realized enlightenment. Zen Buddhism traces it’s origin to this “Flower Sermon.” \n  \nThat just about sums it up. \n  \nA thousand years later\, Bodhidharma traveled from India to China\, and sat for nine years facing the wall of a cave. Buddhism had been in China for many centuries by this time\, but this emphasis on sitting in silence was what launched the Zen tradition of Buddhism. Bodhidharma is known as the “First Zen Patriarch.”  \n  \nThe Third Zen Patriarch\, Seng Ts’an\, produced the first Zen text—Hsin Hsin Ming. As an account of what the Zen way of experiencing the world\, it is unsurpassed. Here are 28 of the 73 couplets: \n  \nthe great way (Tao) is not difficult \nit has no preferences \n  \nmake the smallest distinction \nand heaven and earth are far apart \n  \nconflict between liking and not liking \nis the disease of the mind \n  \nif its deep meaning is not understood \nwe strive in vain to quiet the mind \n  \nit is perfect like vast space  \nnothing lacking\, nothing left over \n  \ndon’t get entangled in outer things \nor abide in inner emptiness \n  \nwhen the mind is still \nall views disappear \n  \ntrying to quiet the mind \nis just more activity \n  \nthe more talking and thinking \nthe farther you go from what is \n  \nlook within for just a moment \nand go beyond appearance and emptiness \n  \ndon’t seek truth \njust let go of your views \n  \nwhen the mind is still \nthe ten thousand things do not offend \n  \nwithout an object of thought\, there can be no thinking subject \nwithout a thinker\, there are no things \n  \nthe great way is vast \nto live in accord with it is neither easy nor hard \n  \nfollowing our nature\, we are in harmony with the way \nwandering freely\, without a care \n  \nfixed ideas can’t encompass what is true \nthey sink into darkness\, become unhealthy \n  \nif you want to take the one vehicle \ndon’t reject mental or sensory experience \n  \nto accept everything  \nis to be enlightened \n  \nseeking the mind with the mind \nisn’t that a big mistake? \n  \nprofit and loss\, right and wrong \nget rid of them once and for all \n  \nunderstanding the mystery of one suchness \ndifficulties are forgotten \n  \nno descriptions or analogies are possible \nof this state where relations have come to an end \n  \nempty\, clear\, your light shines \nwithout mental effort \n  \nthought can’t reach this \nbeyond knowing\, imagining\, feeling \n  \nin the realm of things as they are \nthere is no self or other \n  \nno here\, no there \nthe whole world right before our eyes \n  \nthe tiny is as large as the vast \nwhen boundaries are gone \n  \nbeyond words \nno past\, no future\, no now \n  \nLao Tzu’s advice in the Tao Te Ching to do nothing (wu wei)\, and the Zen practice of sitting in silence had a big influence on Chinese and Japanese culture\, and\, more recently\, on the lives of many people in the rest of the world. \n  \nThe idea of sitting in silence seems to many people like a big waste of time. The practice goes back to before the time of the Buddha in India. The Japanese word “zen” is a translation of the Sanskrit word dhyāna\, which means “meditation\,” or sitting silently. Sometimes\, in the quiet\, thought and language fall away. \n  \nI came upon this idea of blissful silence in Paramahansa Yogananda’s book Autobiography of a Yogi when I was 19 years old. He called it samādhi. I wanted to get that! \n  \nThe Zen texts which are dearest to my heart\, and to which I’ve returned again and again are: the Hsin Hsin Ming of Seng Ts’an\, Cold Mountain: 100 Poems of Han Shan\, translated by Burton Watson\, Unborn: The Life and Teachings of Zen Master Bankei\, 1622-1693\, translated by Norman Waddell\, “Song of Myself” by Walt Whitman\, Zen in English Literature and Oriental Classics by R.H. Blyth\, Zen Mind\, Beginner’s Mind by Shunryu Suzuki & the writings of Thich Nhat Hanh. \n  \nHan Shan lived in China sometime during the Tang Dynasty (618-907). He spent the last part of his life living the simple life of a hermit in the mountains\, writing poems like these: \n  \nAmong a thousand clouds and ten thousand streams\, \nHere lives an idle man\, \nIn the daytime wandering over green mountains\, \nAt night coming home to sleep by the cliff. \nSwiftly the springs and autumns pass\, \nBut my mind is at peace\, free from dust or delusion. \nHow pleasant\, to know I need nothing to lean on\, \nTo be as still as the waters of the autumn river! \n  \n  \nThe clear water sparkles like crystal\, \nYou can see through it easily\, right to the bottom. \nMind free from every thought\, \nNothing in the myriad realms can move it. \nSince it can not be wantonly roused\, \nForever and forever it will stay unchanged. \nWhen you have learned to know in this way\, \nYou will know there is no inside or out! \n  \nBankei gave talks to large groups of people. He said we all have unborn Buddha-mind. He said: “Don’t exchange your unborn Buddha-mind for the mind of a hungry ghost!” \n  \nMany of the things Walt Whitman says in “Song of Myself” express what to me is the essence of Zen. Here are a few examples:  \n  \nThis minute that comes to me over the past decillions\,  \nThere is no better than it or now. \n  \nA morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books. \n  \nAll truths wait in all things. \n  \nI believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars… \nAnd a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels. \n  \n…to glance with an eye\, or show a bean in its pod confounds the learning of all times… \n  \nZen in English Literature and Oriental Classics is one of my favorite books. I read it slowly. When I get to the end\, I start at the beginning again. Blyth explores the Zen way of seeing and being in the world. We come to see beauty and perfection in ordinary things. \n  \nFor many people of my generation\, Shunryu Suzuki served as a contemporary exemplar of the Zen way. He taught us how to sit. \n  \nThich Nhat Hanh is the most congenial Zen teacher to me. I love his friendliness\, his gentleness\, his sweetness\, his joy. He seems to radiate deep peace and love. His book Your True Home has been for me the most useful guide for how to live my human life on Earth. I’ve given away dozens of copies to my friends. \n  \npeace & love \nJohnny \n* \n  \nIf you want peace love happiness and understanding NOW\, RIGHT NOW\, all I can say\, my friends\, is watch (google\, facebook\, instagram\, etc.) the 18 Buddhist monks as they walk for peace. They are walking 2300 (!) miles from their monastery in Fort Worth\, Texas to Washington\, D.C. They cover approximately 20 miles per day\, and have walked between 1900-2000 miles from October 26th when they began. \n  \nTheir leader is 44 yr old Venerable Bhikkhu Pannakara\, and he began this journey in an attempt to foster and promote peace in his fellow man\, in a troubled world. When they began there were a few curious onlookers—a very few. Most just curious to see these burnt-orange robed men walking\, mostly barefoot\, (but booted and bundled when heavy snow began to fall)\, along the roadways\, first through Texas\, then Louisiana\, Alabama\, Georgia… Soon\, however\, there were hundreds\, and then thousands\, tens of thousands followers\, the monks now with multiple police escorts to manage the crowds. Men\, women\, children all lining the roads\, bowing their heads offering prayers and heartfelt thank yous\, shedding tears\, tears of relief\, and peace and joy to witness this moment of beauty\, this moment of peace in a fractured world. This respite from pain. \n  \nThe Venerable Bhikkhu says he has been overwhelmed at the response; he never expected this  tremendous show of peace\, love\, happiness and understanding. Now millions are watching\, witnessing their progress towards Washington\, DC. \n  \nThe peace which passeth all understanding. This is it. \n  \n—Jude Russell
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/peace-love-happiness-understanding-2-5-26/
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260214T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260214T160000
DTSTAMP:20260424T060306
CREATED:20251222T011412Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260206T230442Z
UID:5981-1771077600-1771084800@openroadpdx.com
SUMMARY:Humanism   2/14/26
DESCRIPTION:  \nHUMANISM \n  \nJohnny Stallings will host a dialogue on Humanism on Saturday\, February 14th\, 2026\, at 2 pm (PST).  \nHere’s the Zoom link: \n  \nhttps://us02web.zoom.us/j/82751789337 \n  \n  \n  \n  \n 
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/humanism/
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20260305
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20260402
DTSTAMP:20260424T060306
CREATED:20260305T162431Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260305T162710Z
UID:6107-1772668800-1775087999@openroadpdx.com
SUMMARY:peace\, love\, happiness & understanding  3/5/26
DESCRIPTION:Primavera by Sandro Botticelli \n  \nTHE OPEN ROAD \npeace\, love\, happiness & understanding \n  \nMarch 5\, 2026 \n  \nsome thoughts on Humanism \n  \nAll deities reside in the human breast…. \nGod only Acts & Is\, in existing beings or Men. \n  \n—William Blake\, from “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell” \n* \n  \nNumberless are the world’s wonders\, but none more wonderful than man. \n  \nSophocles\, from “Antigone” \n* \n  \nIn all people I see myself\, none more and not one a barley-corn less… \n  \n–Walt Whitman\, from “Song of Myself” \n* \n  \nWhat a piece of work is a man\, how noble in reason\, how infinite in faculties\, in form and moving how express and admirable\, in action how like an angel\, in apprehension how like a god\, the beauty of the world\, the paragon of animals… \n  \n–William Shakespeare\, Hamlet speaking in “Hamlet\,” Act Two\, scene two \n* \n  \nInspired by Sarah Bakewell’s book Humanly Possible: Seven Hundred Years of Humanist Freethinking\, Inquiry and Hope\, I hosted a Zoom conversation about Humanism on February 14th. I enjoyed reading and thinking about Humanism in preparation for the Zoom event. \n  \nHumanism can mean a lot of different things. I think of it as related to the word “humane.” A humanistic attitude is one that considers human beings to be basically good. It tends to be optimistic about human potential\, and about education\, progress\, reason and science. Humanists tend to be against war and against capital punishment. In one way\, “humanism” must be as old as humanity.  \n  \nAs a historical movement\, Humanism is associated with the Renaissance\, and an interest that some writers and artists took in classical Greece and Rome. The poet Petrarch (1304-1374) is often cited as the father of Humanism. For a thousand years in Europe\, it was dangerous to espouse “heretical” views. From the beginning until now\, humanists have promoted freedom of thought\, freedom of speech and freedom of religion. We tend to take these things for granted\, but in some countries atheism or homosexuality are punishable by death. \n  \nFor many many people in the Middle Ages (and many people today) our life on Earth is a kind of prison house or purgatory\, which serves only as a misery which we must endure in preparation for a glorious eternal afterlife in Heaven. Humanists are pretty unanimous in their belief that our human life on Earth is to be cherished—and some go as far as to believe that when we die we’re dead. \n  \nModern Humanism includes Feminism and Human Rights. Perhaps the most important modern document which could not have been imagined without centuries of humanist influence is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Here’s a link: \n  \nhttps://openroadpdx.com/event/peace-love-happiness-understanding-9-2-21/ \n  \nThe Multnomah County Library is a temple of Humanism. Here’s a poem I wrote recently: \n  \nOde to Humanists \n  \nThank you \nbrave humanists \nfor making it possible \nfor us to read  \nwhatever  \nwe want to read \nto think  \nour own thoughts \nto imagine \nto dream \nto say  \nwhatever  \nwe feel like saying \nto write and publish \nour ideas and imaginings \nto go  \nwhere we want \nand do  \nwhatever  \nwe feel like doing. \n  \nIf not for you \nwe would have \nonly one book \nand the world  \nwould be  \nflat. \n  \nAlthough some modern humanists are generally hostile to religion\, since Humanism is fundamentally open to the free exchange of ideas and beliefs\, that includes the right of people to think things and believe things that you don’t. A “Declaration of Modern Humanism” from a General Assembly in Glasgow\, United Kingdom in 2022\, agreed that “…we are committed to the unfettered expression and exchange of ideas\, and seek to cooperate with people of different beliefs…” They also said\, “We recognize that we are part of nature and accept our responsibility for the impact we have on the rest of the natural world.” \n  \nI’ll conclude these thoughts on Humanism with something that gives the essence of many humanist values. It’s from the Nineteenth Century agnostic who gave the eulogy at Walt Whitman’s grave—Robert G. Ingersoll. The full essay is called “The Liberty of Man\, Woman and Child.” Below is an abridged version of “The Liberty of the Child” along with an abridged version of his conclusion to the whole essay: \n  \nTHE LIBERTY OF CHILDREN \n  \nIf women have been slaves\, what shall I say of children?…. \n  \nI tell you the children have the same rights that we have\, and we ought to treat them as though they were human beings. They should be reared with love\, with kindness\, with tenderness\, and not with brutality. That is my idea of children…. \n  \nWhen your child commits a wrong\, take it in your arms; let it feel your heart beat against its heart; let the child know that you really and truly and sincerely love it…. \n  \nDo you know that I have seen some people who acted as though they thought that when the Savior said “Suffer little children to come unto me\, for of such is the kingdom of heaven\,” he had a raw-hide under his mantle\, and made that remark simply to get the children within striking distance? \n  \nGive them a little liberty and love\, and you can not drive them out of your house. They will want to stay there. Make home pleasant. Let them play any game they wish…. \n  \nLet children have some daylight at home if you want to keep them there\, and do not commence at the cradle and shout “Don’t!” “Don’t!” “Stop!” That is nearly all that is said to a child from the cradle until he is twenty-one years old\, and when he comes of age other people begin saying “Don’t!” And the church says “Don’t!” and the party he belongs to says “Don’t!” \n  \nI despise that way of going through this world. Let us have liberty—just a little. Call me infidel\, call me atheist\, call me what you will\, I intend so to treat my children\, that they can come to my grave and truthfully say: “He who sleeps here never gave us a moment of pain. From his lips\, now dust\, never came to us an unkind word.” \n  \nPeople justify all kinds of tyranny toward children upon the ground that they are totally depraved. At the bottom of ages of cruelty lies this infamous doctrine of total depravity. Religion contemplates a child as a living crime—heir to an infinite curse—doomed to eternal fire…. \n  \nSabbaths used to be prisons. Every Sunday was a Bastille. Every Christian was a kind of turnkey\, and every child was a prisoner\,—a convict. In that dungeon\, a smile was a crime. \n  \nIt was thought wrong for a child to laugh upon this holy day. Think of that! \n  \nA little child would go out into the garden\, and there would be a tree laden with blossoms\, and the little fellow would lean against it\, and there would be a bird on one of the boughs\, singing and swinging\, and thinking about four little speckled eggs\, warmed by the breast of its mate\,—singing and swinging\, and the music in happy waves rippling out of its tiny throat\, and the flowers blossoming\, the air filled with perfume and the great white clouds floating in the sky\, and the little boy would lean up against that tree and think about hell and the worm that never dies. \n  \nThe laugh of a child will make the holiest day-more sacred still…. \n  \nDo not treat your children like orthodox posts to be set in a row. Treat them like trees that need light and sun and air. Be fair and honest with them; give them a chance. Recollect that their rights are equal to yours. Do not have it in your mind that you must govern them; that they must obey. Throw away forever the idea of master and slave. \n  \nIn old times they used to make the children go to bed when they were not sleepy\, and get up when they were sleepy. I say let them go to bed when they are sleepy\, and get up when they are not sleepy…. \n  \nI believe in allowing the children to think for themselves. I believe in the democracy of the family. If in this world there is anything splendid\, it is a home where all are equals. \n  \nYou will remember that only a few years ago parents would tell their children to “let their victuals stop their mouths.” They used to eat as though it were a religious ceremony—a very solemn thing. Life should not be treated as a solemn matter. I like to see the children at table\, and hear each one telling of the wonderful things he has seen and heard. I like to hear the clatter of knives and forks and spoons mingling with their happy voices. I had rather hear it than any opera that was ever put upon the boards. Let the children have liberty. Be honest and fair with them; be just; be tender\, and they will make you rich in love and joy…. \n  \nCONCLUSION. \n  \nI have given you my honest thought. Surely investigation is better than unthinking faith. Surely reason is a better guide than fear. This world should be controlled by the living\, not by the dead. About this world little is known\,—about another world\, nothing. \n  \nOur fathers were intellectual serfs\, and their fathers were slaves. The makers of our creeds were ignorant and brutal. Every dogma that we have\, has upon it the mark of whip\, the rust of chain\, and the ashes of fagot. \n  \nOur fathers reasoned with instruments of torture. They believed in the logic of fire and sword. They hated reason. They despised thought. They abhorred liberty. \n  \nSuperstition is the child of slavery. Free thought will give us truth. When all have the right to think and to express their thoughts\, every brain will give to all the best it has. The world will then be filled with intellectual wealth…. \n  \nAs long as woman regards the Bible as the charter of her rights\, she will be the slave of man. The Bible was not written by a woman. Within its lids there is nothing but humiliation and shame for her. She is regarded as the property of man. She is made to ask forgiveness for becoming a mother. She is as much below her husband\, as her husband is below Christ. She is not allowed to speak. The gospel is too pure to be spoken by her polluted lips. Woman should learn in silence. \n  \nIn the Bible will be found no description of a civilized home. The free mother surrounded by free and loving children\, adored by a free man\, her husband\, was unknown to the inspired writers of the Bible. They did not believe in the democracy of home—in the republicanism of the fireside. \n  \nThese inspired gentlemen knew nothing of the rights of children. They were the advocates of brute force—the disciples of the lash. They knew nothing of human rights. Their doctrines have brutalized the homes of millions\, and filled the eyes of infancy with tears. \n  \nLet us free ourselves from the tyranny of a book\, from the slavery of dead ignorance\, from the aristocracy of the air. \n  \nThere has never been upon the earth a generation of free men and women. It is not yet time to write a creed. Wait until the chains are broken—until dungeons are not regarded as temples. Wait until solemnity is not mistaken for wisdom—until mental cowardice ceases to be known as reverence. Wait until the living are considered the equals of the dead—until the cradle takes precedence of the coffin. Wait until what we know can be spoken without regard to what others may believe. Wait until teachers take the place of preachers—until followers become investigators. Wait until the world is free before you write a creed. \n  \nIn this creed there will be but one word—Liberty. \n  \nOh Liberty\, float not forever in the far horizon—remain not forever in the dream of the enthusiast\, the philanthropist and poet\, but come and make thy home among the children of men! \n  \nI know not what discoveries\, what inventions\, what thoughts may leap from the brain of the world. I know not what garments of glory may be woven by the years to come. I cannot dream of the victories to be won upon the fields of thought; but I do know\, that coming from the infinite sea of the future\, there will never touch this “bank and shoal of time” a richer gift\, a rarer blessing than liberty for man\, for woman\, and for child. \n  \n—Johnny Stallings \n* \n  \nSpeaking of miracles…well\, I find the word ‘miracle’ too loaded with religiosity\, so I will dub those events as ‘moments of awe\,’ both outward(ly) and inward(ly).  \n  \nLast night the brilliant full moon lit up Mt. Hood like it was the middle of the day. I could see Tie-In Rock\, Langille Glacier\, Eliot Glacier\, Illumination Rock (so aptly named)\, Barrett Spur—every feature on the northeast side of the mountain\, where we are\, lit up as bright as day. At ten o’clock at night!  Right there\, the moon\, and the mountain\, a moment of awe. And then\, then! from 4-5 a.m.\, I watched the lunar eclipse and watched and felt the shadow of our earth passing between the sun and the moon. Those who got to witness the solar eclipse in 2021 spoke often of having a spiritual experience during the moments of totality. This lunar eclipse brought forth the same kind of feeling in my being. I feel—graced—to witness moments like these.  \n  \nI mentioned moments of awe both outwardly and inwardly—the ‘inwardly’ part is…the body\, the human body. It is…awesome. I tutored a high school student who had cerebral palsy. I helped him study anatomy and physiology because he wanted to be a personal trainer. (Yes.) We studied every system of the human body\, the nervous system\, skeletal\, circulatory\, endocrine\, digestive\, respiratory\, etc. You name it\, we studied it\, and learned it. I was blown away\, studying alongside Daniel. Just for one example\, the functioning of the liver is so elegant! And complex\, that it defies belief!  I was constantly shaking my head and laughing at the awesomeness of each part and each function\, down to the cellular level. And the whole body is like that!  \n  \nBut you know what? The moon\, the mountain\, stars\, the human body\, trees\, rocks\, grass\, light\, dark\, raindrops\, birdsong\, bird poop…it’s all damned miracle. An awesome miracle. There\, I said it. \n  \n—Jude Russell
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/peace-love-happiness-understanding-3-5-26/
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260321T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260321T160000
DTSTAMP:20260424T060306
CREATED:20260228T235417Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260309T230014Z
UID:6068-1774101600-1774108800@openroadpdx.com
SUMMARY:Hamlet: a reading  3/21/26
DESCRIPTION:photo by Corky Miller \n  \nHamlet \na reading  \n  \nJohnny Stallings reads an abridged version of Hamlet. \nSaturday\, March 21 at 2 pm \nArtspace Room at Taborspace\, 5441 SE Belmont  \n  \nthis Open Road event is free \n 
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/hamlet-a-reading/
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://openroadpdx.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/104610964_3065227406856808_2745251198236974423_o.jpg.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260321T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260321T210000
DTSTAMP:20260424T060306
CREATED:20260306T171007Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260306T173158Z
UID:6121-1774119600-1774126800@openroadpdx.com
SUMMARY:Jay Bean Performing Live at Hood River Brewing Company  3/21/26
DESCRIPTION:  \nJay Bean Performing Live! \n  \nSaturday\, March 21st\, 7-9 pm \nHood River Brewing Company   \n101 4th Street\, Hood River \n  \n  \n  \n 
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/jay-bean-performing-live-at-hood-river-brewing-company-3-21-26/
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://openroadpdx.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/0.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20260327
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20260411
DTSTAMP:20260424T060306
CREATED:20260301T221935Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260325T182310Z
UID:6091-1774569600-1775865599@openroadpdx.com
SUMMARY:Will Hornyak upcoming performances
DESCRIPTION:  \n  \nThe First Irishman: The Legend of Tuan Mac Cairill and the Tale of the Dagda’s Harp (ORR) Storyteller William Kennedy Hornyak weaves the epic myth of Tuan Mac Cairill with poems\, songs and Irish lore in celebration of Beltaine\, St. Patrick and the Druids and gods and goddesses of the Emerald Isle. \n  \nFriday\, March 27\, 7:30 pm \nKALA Performance Space\, 1017 Marine Drive\, Astoria\, OR \nBeer\, wine & cocktails available  \n$20   \nReservations:  https://www.tickettomato.com/event/9948 \n  \nFriday\, April 10\, 7 pm \nTaborspace Copeland Commons\, 5441 SE Belmont\, Portland \n$20 Cash/Check/Venmo at the Door   \nLimited Seating\, Reservations Recommended:   \nhornyak.will@gmail.com \n  \n  \n 
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/will-hornyak-upcoming-performances/
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://openroadpdx.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/unnamed.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20260402
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20260507
DTSTAMP:20260424T060306
CREATED:20260402T113146Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260402T113343Z
UID:6151-1775088000-1778111999@openroadpdx.com
SUMMARY:peace\, love\, happiness & understanding  4/2/26
DESCRIPTION:Rocky & Johnny under the palm trees \n  \nTHE OPEN ROAD \npeace\, love\, happiness & understanding \n  \nApril 2\, 2026 \n  \nTime is money. \n  \n—Benjamin Franklin \n* \n  \n…time is not money. Time has much more value than money. \n  \n—Thich Nhat Hanh \n* \n  \nI’m excited that Rocky Hutchinson is getting out of prison on April 15th\, after 17 years. He’s even more excited than I am! See for yourself: \n  \nRocky’s final letters from prison \n  \nMarch 8\, 2026 \n5:15 a.m. \nDear Johnny & Nancy \n  \nWell\, it’s a start to another week & as I lay in my bunk last night I felt a memory come over me. It was no normal memory\, but one of those that you can feel physically. It was like a wind\, a change of season wind that I could feel blow over my soul. It reminded me of times to come & times that have passed. Time changes\, but sometimes memories & emotions & a subtle wisp of Nature all mix together\, bringing on a feeling so good\, when we were so happy\, that we can even remember how the wind felt and we can feel the atmosphere in our minds stirring our souls. It’s not any one memory\, it’s many I think\, or maybe a junction where our heart\, mind & soul\, our joy & our love all come together with the elements of the world around us giving us a gift. \n  \nI often of late have been getting those types of feelings\, like something in me is waking up and the feeling is of joy and wonder. The thoughts & feelings are of such beauty that they’re hard to describe. The other morning I was meditating & somehow I was standing on a rocky riverbank & in the wind blew thousands of dandelion wishes. I think my soul is feeling the beauty that is to come soon. It is reaching out and lacing itself to it\, my aura is reconnecting to the world. \n  \nI understand the gift that I have been able to rebuild within myself & I plan to cherish it & share it with all that I’m close to. It has been difficult…almost damaging to me to be looked upon like I’m weak or crazy when I’ve tried to talk about the deeper beauty of life with others recently. \n  \nAt first\, I felt that if I explained what I meant a little better\, others would understand. So I used the example of how a fruit tree and the soil have a relationship\, a love\, so to speak. The tree cultivates the soil & provides life for all the creatures with which it is involved. The tree’s blood grows leaves & fruit & nuts for us\, so we can then live & love. \n  \nAll things connect in a circle of life\, love & joy. Like this one relationship\, all relationships are connected in one way\, shape or form. It is beautiful to behold how all things work together. In my life before\, I never really took the time to be in love—for no other reason than its rightness in the world. \n  \nSo\, getting to be around like-minded people here in the near future is really going to be something wonderful. Everything is going to work out so good. I’m sure that as time passes and I just stay kind & calm\, diligent & positive\, do the right things that are being asked of me\, life will be good. I just need to keep things simple and transparent. \n  \nGetting to sit and have good conversations with you two & everyone else—Jude\, Dick\, Josh\, Carla\, Kristen—and all the rest of the gang is really going to increase the quality of all of our lives. Mine more than you all know! When I think about that and how soon that will happen I feel my chest swell up and my eyes start to get blurry! All the tears I’ve been holding back are going to finally fall…that will be so cleansing\, tears of so many mixed emotions. I should save them in a little vial! Use them to water a bunch of seeds for flowers for everyone as a gift of love & devotion. \n  \nIn the last few days I’ve lost all desire to participate in anything here but my release classes\, writing resumes\, letters\, and in my journal—staying out of the way\, in my cell\, and relaxing. This is fine with me & since I’m 30 days to home I’m not required to do anything but finish school! \n  \nI’ve been thinking about when I find a place to rent and all of that starts coming together. The first two plants I want to get are: #1) a canna lily and #2) a monstera. Both get large & both are beautiful. An Irish ivy will be nice\, too. I plan on having a very green apartment. I’m also planning on eating so healthy…fresh veggies! Different kinds of breads & fruits that have so many amazing tastes. No more crazy processed foods\, or being forced to eat things I don’t want to eat\, because I have to to live! That will be Amazing\, and even more so…to eat with friends! Yes! \n  \nMy day switched gears & I’m now sitting in class and vibe is good today in here. This is my last book and it was a big one. I finished the written part\, so the book is done—now it’s just group work! My seat is right under the skylight and there are geese walking on the skylight!!! Very funny. \n  \nSitting here thinking about what you\, Johnny\, and I were talking about concerning treatment! I am over that part of my life. I simply have zero want or urges to participate in anything that that life has to offer. I’m so far from it that it never really crosses my mind. \n  \nAs I sit here & am going through my treatment support people\, it’s always the same 6 people: Johnny\, Nancy\, Shawna\, Autumn\, Dick\, Howard. Seems to be a pattern in my life\, and with a few added loved ones like Josh & Jude\, these are my loved ones. My dearest friends. The people who took this long 216 month journey with me! \n  \nMarch 10th \n  \nWell\, I moved cells again—I hope for the last time. Once again it’s with someone I’ve known for years. He is a really mellow guy & a super good artist. Right about the time I release he will be going into the dog program. He will do very well at that. \n  \nThe new cell I’m in is the coolest one so far! It has an art collage drawn all over in it\, complete with a cityscape of Portland & Mt. Hood\, along with many other things. It’s cool to have artwork on the walls in the house. \n  \nI don’t know what it was about today & our call\, but it triggered something in me that put my mind into a whole state of home & this is all already in the past\, really in the past. I’ve really been thinking about what it’s going to feel like to walk out this door! I might RUN! What I am going to do is pay close attention to my emotions. I want to feel & remember walking out that door & leaving this place behind. Later in life I want to be able to process at different times these emotions in many ways throughout my life. \n  \nMarch 19\, 2026 \nDear Johnny \n  \nIt’s a beautiful morning here & I’m sure it is at your place too. It’s because the world we live in is amazing in every way\, all of it. \n  \nOne of the counselors or officers asked me last night if I was going to go back to a life of crime. The answer came so fast & so natural that it made me…I don’t know—feel normal! It was a big NO! I’m not even of that mind any longer\, nor of that world. The thought of it put fear in me\, a fear that most people have never felt themselves. A fear of losing “Everything in life” is a fear only those who have really gone through that truly know what horrors come from it. So\, no. My life is truly a second chance gift and full of wonder & joy & love! I won’t even be caught J-walking! \n  \nI’ve not been writing very much for a little while now. But recently it has come back like a wave\, the tide of it is rolling in & soothing me. It takes the moments of stress & restlessness away from me\, preoccupying my mind\, so that I’m not thinking only about releasing. It’s always been such a good friend to me\, like a salve for the soul\, bringing a much needed peace to me & to others. My writing is a gift and has gotten me through a lot in life. Having people to write to—like you\, Johnny\, and others—is a gift. \n  \nIt is the end of the night now. My little bit of nightly work is finished & I’m settling into my bunk\, which is a cozy little place. When my friend went to the Hole on 3-2-26 I got his old pillows! That’s how it goes in here\, it’s a normal thing. He had very nice pillows! Now I have them & for my last 25 days I get to have the best pillows in the whole joint!!! One of them is a Sealy Posturepedic—never had one of them before now. \n  \n3-23-2026 \n  \nWell\, the weekend went by very fast\, which is a good thing. I spent a lot of time with letters & journalling and trying to be…in my cell alone\, away from all the needless drama—no distractions\, and focusing on home. \n  \nI’m so excited about getting to spend time with you & everyone else. I’ve been noticing these…well\, mental time jumps. I’ll be home so soon and I catch myself planning out my week-to-week life…then it hits me: *Home*! Where I can walk down the street & see all the cherry trees that are in bloom\, smell a million flowers & draw them if I want to. This will happen soon…only a short time after you’ve read this letter\, we will be drinking coffee together. \n  \nHealthy food has been on my mind\, too—fresh food\, clean\, good food\, well-prepared food. I’m so happy to get to share this with you and Nancy and everyone else. \n  \nI have gone through a few changes in the last few days…. Pressure from others is heavier than ever before. I’m trying to stay away from everyone and everything. \n  \n3-24-26 \n  \nI’m sitting in class under the skylight. The rain is beating down on the skylight. I’m hoping that the rain does not take all the cherry blossoms from the face of Spring until I can see them this year. There’s so many other beautiful things to see & soon I will love feeling overwhelmed by all of it. I’m really looking forward to taking walks\, running\, and being in & of nature\, and being with the ones I love. This is how I want to be with the opening of my heart in this new world—the beauty pouring into my blooming\, opened heart. \n  \nI truly want to let all of the wonders of it all soak into me. Truly allow the wind that’s full of the smell of flowers & trees seep into my mind\, feel the hugs of my loved ones imprint upon my soul. To feel the touch of another human…will be…strange & wonderful & a little scary! So destructive is the lack of human touch\, simple contact\, holding hands\, a hug\, a gentle hand upon the shoulder—these are so needed in life to feel human. How wonderfully overwhelming it all is going to be & amazing—the gift of it from those who truly love me. To have emotions like this fulfilled will be a once-in-a-lifetime gift. We all have the best love for each other…because it’s very real & unconditional. I’m so lucky…we are all so blessed to have this. What an amazing life we have to share with each other! \n  \nI’ve been thinking a lot about food! LOL Healthy\, clean good food\, homemade food\, soups & salads\, a large variety of veggies\, breads\, fruits…fish! Healthy foods…I’ll have to be careful at first\, so I don’t get sick. I’ve heard that real food will make me sick at first. We will see! \n  \n     Sitting in a room full of men trying to find a way out\, out of addictions of all sorts. \n     Unpacking all the broken pieces & knowing you can not pick them up at all anymore. \n     Knowing that to find the golden paths in life we have to leave it behind & walk out the door. \n     I did not succeed in doing this alone with my life—my friends & family helped me to survive. \n     So many times sitting in a small empty room\, putting broken pieces together with no glue. \n     Pieces of sadness\, shame\, sorrow & remorse\, of a broken life that I tried to fix from guilt\, haunted by ghosts. \n     Having let it all go & gladly starting all things in life anew is easy knowing now what to do. \n  \n….It feels good to have the relationships I have in my life with all of you. They are deep & strong & real & powerful—full of love and goodness\, joy and truth. I’m proud of the person I’ve become & know that I’m lucky to have the life I have. Most don’t come back from a level of damage like this. I hope others see it & know that they can overcome the pitfalls of life\, too! \n  \nLove you & see you later for Coffee too! \n  \n—Rocky Hutchinson \n* \n  \nElizabeth Domike shared this poem: \n  \nNurture \n  \nFrom a documentary on marsupials I learn \nthat a pillowcase makes a fine \nsubstitute pouch for an orphaned kangaroo. \n  \nI am drawn to such dramas of animal rescue. \nThey are warm in the throat. I suffer\, the critic proclaims\, \nfrom an overabundance of maternal genes. \n  \nBring me your fallen fledgling\, your bummer lamb\, \n  \nlead the abused\, the starvelings\, into my barn. \nAdvise the hunted deer to leap into my corn. \n  \nAnd had there been a wild child— \nfilthy and fierce as a ferret\, he is called \nin one nineteenth-century account— \n  \na wild child to love\, it is safe to assume\, \ngiven my fireside inked with paw prints\, \nthere would have been room. \n  \nThink of the language we two\, same and not-same\, \nmight have constructed from sign\, \nscratch\, grimace\, grunt\, vowel: \n  \nLaughter our first noun\, and our long verb\, howl. \n  \n—Maxine Kumin \n* \n  \nSHEEP  \n  \nSo why would I write about sheep? What do sheep have to do with Peace\, Love\, Happiness and Understanding? Well\, as it turns out—-everything!  \n  \nWe have one hundred and fifty sheep about half a mile down the road from us. I either ride my bike or drive past them every day. Almost always I stop. “Hi sheep!” I call out. Without interrupting their grass munching\, they lift their heads and eye me with a mild gaze. They’re used to me by now. I’ve been greeting them this way for as long as they’ve been in the pasture\, five or six years? I’ve seen them at every stage: big and white and fluffy\, ragged and molting\, shorn and pink-skinned.  \n  \nWhen I see them my heart is filled with peace. And love. And sheer happiness. And deep understanding that this—-being in the moment with peace\, love and happiness is what matters in my life. \n  \n—Jude Russell
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/peace-love-happiness-understanding-4-2-26/
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://openroadpdx.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/0-15.jpeg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260411T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260411T160000
DTSTAMP:20260424T060306
CREATED:20260325T175513Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260401T000708Z
UID:6135-1775916000-1775923200@openroadpdx.com
SUMMARY:For Amusement Purposes Only  4/11/26
DESCRIPTION:  \nFor Amusement Purposes Only \n  \nJohnny Stallings  attempts to entertain. \nJust for fun! \nThere will be snacks. \n  \nSaturday\, April 11\, at 2 p.m. \nArtspace Room at Taborspace\, 5441 SE Belmont  \n  \nthis Open Road Event is free \n 
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/for-amusement-purposes-only-4-11-26/
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20260416
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20260418
DTSTAMP:20260424T060306
CREATED:20260410T000403Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260410T001516Z
UID:6162-1776297600-1776470399@openroadpdx.com
SUMMARY:A Midsummer Night's Dream in Prison: screenings on April 16th & 17th
DESCRIPTION:  \nThis month\, there will be two screenings of Bushra Azzouz’s film A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Prison\, in Portland. If you haven’t seen the film\, this will be a good opportunity. If you have seen it\, maybe you’d like to watch it again. Or tell your friends about it.  \nBoth screenings will be followed by Q & A with actors.  \nBoth are free and open to the public. \n  \nPortland State University  \nWomen’s Resource Center & Queer Resource Center  \nApril 16th\, 2026     3:30 p.m.  \nSmith Memorial Union Building   \n1825 SW Broadway   \n4th Floor\, Room 439   \n  \nS.M.I.L.E. STATION  \nSellwood-Moreland Improvement League Neighborhood Association  \nApril 17th\, 2026     5:30 p.m.  \n8210 SE 13th Ave \n  \n  \n  \n  \n 
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/a-midsummer-nights-dream-in-prison-screenings-on-april-16th-17th/
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://openroadpdx.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/DSC_7307-donkey-titania1-cropped-2.jpg
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260531T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260531T160000
DTSTAMP:20260424T060306
CREATED:20260301T001521Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260301T001616Z
UID:6078-1780236000-1780243200@openroadpdx.com
SUMMARY:Song of Myself  5/31/26
DESCRIPTION:painting of Walt Whitman by Rick Bartow \n  \nSong of Myself  \n  \nTo celebrate Walt Whitman’s 207th birthday\, Johnny Stallings will read from Walt’s masterpiece.  \nThere will be a birthday cake! \n  \nSunday\, May 31\, at 2 p.m. \nArtspace Room at Taborspace\, 5441 SE Belmont  \n  \nthis Open Road event is free
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/song-of-myself-5-31-26/
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://openroadpdx.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/unnamed-20-3.jpg
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260613T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260613T160000
DTSTAMP:20260424T060306
CREATED:20260305T165459Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260305T165726Z
UID:6116-1781359200-1781366400@openroadpdx.com
SUMMARY:¡Bibliophilia!
DESCRIPTION:  \nRead any good books lately? What are your favorite books of all time? What books changed the way you understand and experience the world? Join Johnny for a lively dialogue about books \n  \nIt’s gonna be FUN!. \n  \n¡Bibliophilia! Johnny Stallings hosts a conversation about books. There will be snacks. \nSaturday\, June 13\, 2 pm  \nArtspace Room at Taborspace\, 5441 SE Belmont   \nThis Open Road event is free! \n 
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/bibliophilia/
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