The Open Road: a learning community

peace, love, happiness & understanding 1/2/25
2025-01-02 - 2025-02-05
THE OPEN ROAD
peace, love, happiness & understanding

January 2, 2025

Swiftly the years, beyond recall,
Solemn the stillness of this fair morning.
I will clothe myself in spring-clothing,
And visit the slopes of the Eastern Hill.
By the mountain-stream a mist hovers,
Hovers a moment, then scatters.
There comes a wind blowing from the south
That brushes the fields of new corn.

—T’ao Ch’ien (365-427 A.D.), translated by Arthur Waley, from Zen In English Literature and Oriental Classics by R. H. Blyth
*

I Believe Nothing…

I believe nothing—what need
Surrounded as I am with marvels of what is,
This familiar room, books, shabby carpet on the floor,
Autumn yellow jasmine, crysanthemums, my mother, my mother’s flower,
Earth-scent of memories, daily miracles,
Yet media-people ask, ‘Is there a God?’
What does the word mean
To the fish in his ocean, birds
In his skies, and stars?

I only know that when I turn in sleep
Into the invisible, it seems
I am upheld by love, and what seems is
Inexplicable here and now of joy and sorrow,
This inexhaustible, untidy world—
I would not have it otherwise.

—Kathleen Raine (1908-2003)
*
Joyas Voladoras

Consider the hummingbird for a long moment. A hummingbird’s heart beats ten times a second. A hummingbird’s heart is the size of a pencil eraser. A hummingbird’s heart is a lot of the hummingbird. Joyas voladoras, flying jewels, the first white explorers in the Americas called them, and the white men had never seen such creatures, for hummingbirds came into the world only in the Americas, nowhere else in the universe, more than three hundred species of them whirring and zooming and nectaring in hummer time zones nine times removed from ours, their hearts hammering faster than we could clearly hear if we pressed our elephantine ears to their infinitesimal chests.

Each one visits a thousand flowers a day. They can dive at sixty miles an hour. They can fly backwards. They can fly more than five hundred miles without pausing to rest. But when they rest they come close to death: on frigid nights, or when they are starving, they retreat into torpor, their metabolic rate slowing to a fifteenth of their normal sleep rate, their hearts sludging nearly to a halt, barely beating, and if they are not soon warmed, if they do not soon find that which is sweet, their hearts grow cold, and they cease to be. Consider for a moment those hummingbirds who did not open their eyes again today, this very day, in the Americas: bearded helmet-crests and booted racket-tails, violet-tailed sylphs and violet-capped woodnymphs, crimson topazes and purple-crowned fairies, red-tailed comets and amethyst woodstars, rainbow-bearded thornbills and glittering-bellied emeralds, velvet-purple coronets and golden-bellied star-frontlets, fiery-tailed awlbills and Andean hillstars, spatuletails and pufflegs, each the most amazing thing you have never seen, each thunderous wild heart the size of an infant’s fingernail, each mad heart silent, a brilliant music stilled.

Hummingbirds, like all flying birds but more so, have incredible enormous immense ferocious metabolisms. To drive those metabolisms they have race-car hearts that eat oxygen at an eye-popping rate. Their hearts are built of thinner, leaner fibers than ours. Their arteries are stiffer and more taut. They have more mitochondria in their heart muscles—anything to gulp more oxygen. Their hearts are stripped to the skin for the war against gravity and inertia, the mad search for food, the insane idea of flight. The price of their ambition is a life closer to death; they suffer more heart attacks and aneurysms and ruptures than any other living creature. It’s expensive to fly. You burn out. You fry the machine. You melt the engine. Every creature on earth has approximately two billion heartbeats to spend in a lifetime. You can spend them slowly, like a tortoise and live to be two hundred years old, or you can spend them fast, like a hummingbird, and live to be two years old.

The biggest heart in the world is inside the blue whale. It weighs more than seven tons. It’s as big as a room. It is a room, with four chambers. A child could walk around it, head high, bending only to step through the valves. The valves are as big as the swinging doors in a saloon. This house of a heart drives a creature a hundred feet long. When this creature is born it is twenty feet long and weighs four tons. It is waaaaay bigger than your car. It drinks a hundred gallons of milk from its mama every day and gains two hundred pounds a day, and when it is seven or eight years old it endures an unimaginable puberty and then it essentially disappears from human ken, for next to nothing is known of the the mating habits, travel patterns, diet, social life, language, social structure, diseases, spirituality, wars, stories, despairs and arts of the blue whale. There are perhaps ten thousand blue whales in the world, living in every ocean on earth, and of the largest animal who ever lived we know nearly nothing. But we know this: the animals with the largest hearts in the world generally travel in pairs, and their penetrating moaning cries, their piercing yearning tongue, can be heard underwater for miles and miles.

Mammals and birds have hearts with four chambers. Reptiles and turtles have hearts with three chambers. Fish have hearts with two chambers. Insects and mollusks have hearts with one chamber. Worms have hearts with one chamber, although they may have as many as eleven single-chambered hearts. Unicellular bacteria have no hearts at all; but even they have fluid eternally in motion, washing from one side of the cell to the other, swirling and whirling. No living being is without interior liquid motion. We all churn inside.

So much held in a heart in a lifetime. So much held in a heart in a day, an hour, a moment. We are utterly open with no one in the end—not mother and father, not wife or husband, not lover, not child, not friend. We open windows to each but we live alone in the house of the heart. Perhaps we must. Perhaps we could not bear to be so naked, for fear of a constantly harrowed heart. When young we think there will come one person who will savor and sustain us always; when we are older we know this is the dream of a child, that all hearts finally are bruised and scarred, scored and torn, repaired by time and will, patched by force of character, yet fragile and rickety forevermore, no matter how ferocious the defense and how many bricks you bring to the wall. You can brick up your heart as stout and tight and hard and cold and impregnable as you possibly can and down it comes in an instant, felled by a woman’s second glance, a child’s apple breath, the shatter of glass in the road, the words I have something to tell you, a cat with a broken spine dragging itself into the forest to die, the brush of your mother’s papery ancient hand in the thicket of your hair, the memory of your father’s voice early in the morning echoing from the kitchen where he is making pancakes for his children.

—Brian Doyle (1956-2017), published in The American Scholar, June 12, 2012, and in One Long River of Song. a collection of his essays
*
Here’s a New Year’s essay by Michael Meade:

Finding Ways to Begin Anew

Although there can be no quick fix for all that troubles the world at this time, the aim of traditional New Year rites was to end the reign of the old year in order to begin everything anew. The idea was to follow the course of nature in which the world descends into darkness before the light and the energy of life begin to return.

The old idea was not simply the turning over of a calendar, but the understanding that a capacity for transformation and regeneration resides at the heart of nature, at the center of the cosmos and in the heart of humanity as well. The point was not to be naive and deny problems that must be faced, but to return to the origins of creation and symbolically participate in the capacity of life to renew itself.

For, small and insignificant as we may increasingly feel, we carry within our souls a spark that is connected to the galaxies and to the origins of creation. On one hand we are time bound, on the other we are secretly tied to eternal things that transcend the limits of time and space. By symbolically participating in the dissolution of time, ancient people were temporarily delivered from their faults and failings and had their original life potential restored.

Although this primordial sense of rejuvenation and renewal does not remove suffering or injustice from the world, it becomes more important if we are to avoid overwhelm and navigate the chaotic and exhausting times in which we live.

We live amidst a shattering of paradigms that radically alter familiar patterns in both nature and culture. As the future of the Earth itself becomes increasingly uncertain the search for genuine knowledge begins with accepting the sense that we truly do not know what the New Year might bring. To find the kinds of insight and wisdom we most need, we must accept the condition of “not knowing” that parallels the uncertainty and darkness that appear before creation occurs.

Inside all stuck situations there is a deep vulnerability that can lead to a release of unexpected imagination and inspired ideas. In Zen Buddhist traditions the practice of shoshin translates as “beginner’s mind.” Shoshin begins where received ideas and accepted patterns are left behind as an innate capacity to awaken from within begins with “not knowing.” The open and humble attitude of a beginner makes us less likely to simply repeat old patterns of behavior.

While those who claim to be able to solve the complex problems we face may claim dogmatic certainty, the openness of the beginner is more likely to find the true nature of a situation. A principle idea of shoshin is that in the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind there are few. Thus, beginner’s mind offers a particular kind of wisdom based upon a willingness to be at the edge where life remains open to many possibilities and unrealized potentials.

In keeping with the sense of many possibilities, the ancient term for beginner’s mind has more than one meaning. Shoshin can also mean something or someone that conveys “genuine truth.” Thus, it can refer to a work of art or a person that is genuine and not a fake or an imitation. When we draw from the root of our deeper self, we become more authentic and able to act in alignment with the inner spirit and the genuine aim of our souls.

As a practice, beginner’s mind can also involve the sense of forgiveness. For only when we forgive ourselves for mistakes and misdeeds can we let go of the ties that bind us and be released from the need to repeat the mistakes of the past. In that sense, not knowing, being open to change and forgiving ourselves and others turn out to be key ingredients in seeking to rejuvenate, start anew and be able to imagine and contribute to a better world.

Something ancient and knowing is trying to catch up to us and being fully present when a moment in time breaks open to unseen possibilities depends upon practices like beginner’s mind that help us to be authentic and original and able to start anew. In being more open and forgiving we become more able to unlock untapped capacities for creativity, flexibility, and resilience.

In the open moments of life we become connected to the heart of nature again and can sense what the ancients meant in saying that all of life is sacred; and all that can be a grace in the world and at the edge of every moment.

We at Mosaic wish for you and for all of us, that we might allow ourselves to be touched by the eternal, be blessed by the sacred and become more able to help with the healing healing of the Earth and each other.

—Michael Meade (https://www.mosaicvoices.org/)
*

News from Rocky Hutchinson:
11/24/24

Dear Johnny & Nancy
I’m getting ready for work right now & it is a nice, quiet morning. The sun has not yet cracked the sky, but it’s looking like a beautiful Autumn day, my favorite time of year. Nature is at its most alluring time for me, all the colors fading and changing, pushing out all of the fragrances. Birds nesting in the windows, spiders spinning their webs, beauty in everything I see.
The best time for me, the very best things are friends & family & food….

12/10/24

Okay, several more days down, I’m sorry I got caught up in all the Alcohol & Drug packets. They are much easier to do, due to the fact that I want to live clean and sober. I’m not fighting it in any way. So to me it’s all positive trinkets I’m picking up while walking along the golden path.
It is very early here & besides myself there are only two others awake, such a peaceful time of morning. Between the hours of 4:30 & 5:30 A.M….Ahhh, so nice! It is so could out (27°) and the fog is so thick that it is billowing on the windows like some scene out of a vampire movie, it is really quite cool. Our world is such a mysterious place & so beautiful. I’m in a condemned mental hospital that is now a maximum prison, engulfed in vampire fog! LOL
Today I will work on the big turtle I’m drawing. From here on out I will be keeping all of my works for my place to hang on my walls….
I received “peace, love, happiness & understanding” from the Open Road yesterday. They warm the heart always. I also got four Christmas cards. That’s the most I’ve received in quite a long time! The kindness I can feel in my soul is such a gift & in only a few months I will be able to reciprocate “all” of it with everyone in a normal social way!
When I do my emotional & personal & mental evaluations I’ve started to realize that my capacity to obtain, accept & reciprocate goodness can be done in volume & on a calm level, with a depth of sincerity that I can only describe as…peaceful harmony…like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. It’s supposed to be good! I have this ability now because I have no more anger or resentments using up space in me any longer.
One of the many things I’m looking forward to is to engage in positive social settings. I’m a little worried that people might be scared of me. I hope that’s not the case & I’m sure it won’t be, but once people get to know me they will find out that I’m really a nice guy, smart & funny! I’m dying to be in a greater social setting!

12/12/24
4:35 a.m.

….Another thing I’m really excited about doing is going to an arts & crafts store to get supplies for drawing!!! All that COOL stuff! Man, that’s going to be fun!
Time to get this into the mail box!

Love & Light
Rocky
*

A Reverie

A cozy fire in the library.
Up in the ballroom
just a bed and the faint winter
light through leaded glass.

Out in the gulch the vines
twine around bare branches
of scrub trees, furry seed pods,
cotton against the rain.

In preparation, rusted parts of things long
forgotten grace willow arrangements
in chic salons with terracotta floors.
Men walk by. Smile half smiles.

Everyone dreams of the sun,
long bare legs, smell of land.
But now, there is tea and ceremony.
Musicians assemble in the drawing room.

Soon the Bach will ache and set us down
in the white dewed ground
as if we inhabited the heartbreak
reflected in the garden pool at midnight.

—Elizabeth Domike

Silence
2025-01-04 19:00 - 21:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
Silence

Johnny Stallings performs his theater piece about meditation.

Saturday, January 4th, 7 pm
Artspace Room at Taborspace, 5441 SE Belmont. in Portland

This Open Road event is free.

¡Bibliophiles Unanimous!: Nature & Science 1/12/25
2025-01-12 03:00 - 17:00
¡Bibliophiles Unanimous! Friendly online conversation that starts out with books and…meanders. On January 12th, at 3 pm (PST) our topic is Nature & Science.

Here’s the Zoom link:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87614013058.

This is a free Open Road event.

I hope to see you there!

peace, love & happiness

Johnny

William Stafford Birthday Celebration Reading!
2025-01-25 13:00 - 15:00
On Saturday, January 25th, at 1 pm (PST), we will gather together on Zoom to celebrate William Stafford’s Birthday. Williams Stafford was born on January 17, 1914. He left this Vale of Soul-making on August 28, 1993. There is a long tradition of getting together to read his poems (and other poems, too) in the month of January. Here’s the Zoom link:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84630878898

Please bring poems to read by William Stafford, poems by his beloved son Kim, poems you wrote, or some of your favorite poems from any time and place.

peace, love & poetry
Johnny

peace, love, happiness & understanding 2/6/25
2025-02-06 - 2025-03-05
Statue of Peace in the Plaza La Paz, Guanajuato, Mexico.
Note the dismayed soldier at the base of the monument, who is out of work.

THE OPEN ROAD
peace, love, happiness & understanding

February 6, 2025

The earth is all before me: with a heart
Joyous, not scared at its own liberty,
I look about, and should the guide I chuse
Be nothing better than a wandering cloud,
I cannot miss my way

—from The Prelude by William Wordsworth (1805)
*

I love Love—though he has wings,
And like light can flee,
But above all other things,
Spirit [of Delight], I love thee—
Thou art love and life! Oh come,
Make once more my heart thy home.

—Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Song” (“Rarely, rarely comest thou,/Spirit of Delight!”)
*

We got a long letter from Rocky Hutchinson in early January. Here are some excerpts:

12-27-24

Dear Johnny & Nancy

Well, it has been the best year of my whole prison set. Since I’ve been here life has been richer. But the next step will be even better than this one….

While I’m waiting [to be transferred] I’ve been working on this packet that I was given a few months ago. The class is called: “My Personal Values and Ethics.” These are the topics that it hits on:

1. Determining 5 to 10 core values.

2. Select my top five values and prioritize them. I felt that my top 5 were: honor, ingenuity, continuous improvement, love & positivity. But I also flipped it & chose 10 things I want to get better at, to be a stronger and more ethical person. They are: Discipline, Growth, Continuous Improvement, Balance, Serenity, Leadership, Self-reliance, Confidence, Diligence, Obedience.

3. The areas in my life I want to focus on are: partners, family, friends, careers, intellectual & personal growth—contributions to community & humanity.

4. My areas of strength are: Art, music, problem-solving, foresight, insight, intuition, love, acceptance, kindness & defusing conflicts (“mediator”)!

5. Dreams: If it was my last day on Earth, what would I regret not doing, seeing, or creating?

My choice for “Doing” would be regretting that I did not ever share my whole self completely with at least one person. I truly in my heart, mind & soul believe that we should have one person we can trust to completely open up to in our life, without fear of judgement or ridicule. We would grow as a person, I feel.

My choice for “Seeing” would be two things: seeing the pyramids in Mexico & the Aurora Borealis in its peak season…both with my wife “if I have one!”

My choice for “Creating” would be: to create a setting or event for my closest, most dearest friends that is breathtakingly beautiful & peaceful for no particular reason…well, it would be made out of the deepest love I have for them.

6. Skills: What are three areas I strongly want to cultivate skills in that will in some way enrich all of my life experiences? I said: 1) A greater & deeper sense of taking in & expressing Empathy. 2) Verbally explain how I see the beauty of the world & in people. 3) Adapt to social situations better.

This is as far as I’ve gotten so far. Here are the other pieces of the curriculum:

7. Profession: What are the things I must do to feel fulfilled in my work?

8. Draft my Personal Vision Statement & how to develop it.

9. When to use my life vision & how to use it.

10. Three Essential Self-Development Tools for Lasting Change.

I don’t know when I will be leaving, but I do have things to do while I am waiting. This seems to be more productive than crosswords or video games. It also gets my mind off of other things.

The last few months I’ve had some lessons taught & they’re the kind that stick. They’re also the kind I don’t like because it makes me think & feel ill towards others. Before, in my past life, I would have reacted with violence. In a more recent, but past, life my reaction would have been anger, verbal confrontation and acting out. But now it’s almost a comic sense of approach to things. Now I keep my head & keep my peace in this type of situation. You teaching me to see them as children has helped out in every way! Now all of this makes me laugh.

No one, not even myself, is going to rob me of my peace & joy in my life anymore. I really do feel that due to the fact I’m always 90% of the time in a positive upbeat mood, that it has placed a target on me! LOL I don’t have time to care at all about it, if it is the case….

12-29-24

Well, I’ve come a long way from where I was in 2018. Looking back on the whole picture, the situation “prison” is somewhat the same, but I’m in a healthy environment here. No drama really, no violence—it’s good. Myself…well, I’ve changed and have grown happier & have overcome some trauma that played a huge role in “Everything!”

Recently, though, I have discovered a few things about life…my self…my life. I love the little simple things that people do, me included. A smile, a look, small talk, etc.

I do not like negativity at all! I used to be able to tolerate it, but now at all costs I try to avoid it. By making a greater effort to do so I have noticed I’ve been spending quite some time all alone. LOL I myself have spent too much time living in and with negativity.

My time in here has changed me, no doubt at all & my time is soon coming when I can truly get to choose who I want to spend time with & how I get to spend my time. Long meaningful talks about things that don’t pertain to prison. Adult conversations that…we grow from. Normal and non-stressful conversations with girls & not be judged for them!? I just realized how crazy that sounds as I wrote it!

Life is coming, my friends, & I’m truly happy and ready to live & to give of myself. I’m ready to apply myself to life in positive, productive, kind, loving & fun ways.

Wow, this letter got long! I might be gone by the time you get this letter. To be honest, I’m a little surprised that I’m still here. Man, I hope I get to see you guys soon. Till then…

All my Love
Rocky

[Editor’s note: Rocky was transferred to Powder River Correctional Institution in early January, 2025.]
*

This essay from Jude’s arrived a teency bit late for the January issue, so here it is in February:

The Kindness of Conservatives

Do those words even go together? You be the judge.

Our next door neighbor is conservative—-very. He hung his flag upside down until Trump was re-elected. Obama wasn’t born in the U.S. Had I known about the 2000 Mules? Hunter Biden’s laptop! You name it, if it came from Fox ‘News’ it was true.

They invited us over for a winter solstice party on December 21st, which we went to, as civil neighbors do. I can be neighborly, which I was, all the while seething inside. Their house was festive, and I commented on it. I told them that I was so exhausted from trying to manage our new rescue dog we’d adopted that we hadn’t even put up a Christmas tree—-for the first time in my life! So their decorated house was a welcome sight for me.

The next afternoon they called and said they’d bring over the dishes I’d left there. Fine, thanks. Mid-afternoon I opened the door and there they stood with the dishes and a wheelbarrow. In the wheelbarrow was a 3’ high fir tree planted in a 10 gallon pot. It was decorated with twinkling lights, spiraling red ribbons, and about two dozen silver and gold Christmas ornaments. It was heavenly!! They smiled and said, “We thought you shouldn’t be without a Christmas tree this year.” They’d gone up into the woods and dug a tree, planted it and decorated it for David and me. I was so shocked and moved; I burst into tears. “This is the kindest thing anyone has ever done for me,” I burbled. And it’s true; I still love Christmas and all that goes with it. This gesture was the essence of Christmas, and somehow they knew.

We carried it into the house, plugged in the twinkly lights, and the house and my heart lit up and glowed.

Their family is scattered around the country, so they were spending Christmas day alone. I invited them over for Christmas dinner and they accepted. We spent four hours eating, drinking wine, and playing board games, with the Christmas tree sparkling in the background.

He will always be conservative and I will always be liberal, but this year peace, love, happiness and understanding prevailed.

—Jude Russell
*

a gift from Pablo…

Poetry

And it was at that age…poetry arrived
in search of me. I don’t know, I don’t know where
it came from, from winter or a river,
I don’t know how or when,
no, they were not voices, they were not
words, not silence,
but from a street it called me,
from the branches of night,
abruptly from the others,
among raging fires
or returning alone,
there it was, without a face,
and it touched me.

I didn’t know what to say, my mouth
had no way
with names,
my eyes were blind.
Something knocked in my soul,
fever or forgotten wings,
and I made my own way,
deciphering
that fire
and I wrote the first, faint line,
faint, without substance, pure
nonsense,
pure wisdom
of someone who knows nothing;
and suddenly I saw
the heavens
unfastened
and open,
planets,
palpitating plantations,
the darkness perforated,
riddled
with arrows, fire, and flowers,
the overpowering night, the universe.

And I, tiny being,
drunk with the great starry
void,
likeness, image of
mystery,
felt myself a pure part
of the abyss.
I wheeled with the stars.
My heart broke loose with the wind.

–Pablo Neruda, translated by Alistair Reid, from Isla Negra: A Notebook
*

While in Mexico, inspired by Pablo Neruda’s odes, I’ve written some odes. Here are a couple of them:

Ode to Cardinalito

Little red bird,
every time I see you,
like right now,
I am suddenly
immensely happy.
Thank you.
I hope you enjoy
your evening meal
of bugs.
*

Ode to a Gym Teacher

There is an outdoor playground
at the Ignacio Allende school
across the way.
For many years
the same gym teacher
has been organizing games
for children
of different ages.
He knows
the games
that the littlest ones
and the biggest ones
love to play.
All day long
every school day
shouts of wild delight,
the ecstatic screams
of little girls
can be heard—
year after year.
Who is this guy?
I don’t know his name.
His job is:
THE HAPPINESS OF CHILDREN.
And he is a maestro,
a saint,
a bodhisattva.
I love
the sound
of his voice.

While some geniuses
are deciding
where to drop
the next bomb,
he is watering the seeds
of joy
today
and for the future
of the world.

—Johnny “Juanito” Stallings

Lost and Found in Peru
2025-02-09 19:00 - 21:00
Master Storyteller Will Hornyak Presents:

Lost and Found in Peru:
Stories from a Reporter’s Notebook

Tales of People, Politics, History, Landscapes
and Journeys Inner and Outer

Sunday, February 9th, 7 p.m. (Doors open 6:30)
Artichoke Music
2007 SE Powell Blvd.
$20
Tickets from Artichoke Music website.

For those who can’t attend, live-streaming is available.
Go to Artichoke Music Live a few minutes before the show.

Culture That Nurtures Online Seminar: CREATIVITY! 2/15/25
2025-02-15 13:00 - 15:00
Bread & Puppet Theater

Friends!

Culture That Nurtures is a monthly online seminar.
On Saturday, February 15th, from 1 to 3 pm (PST) our topic is Creativity!
Here’s the Zoom link:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87193719372

I hope you can join the conversation!

peace, love & creativity
Johnny

¡Bibliophiles Unanimous!: FOOD! 2/16/25
2025-02-16 15:00 - 17:00
painting by Giuseppe Arcimboldo (1526-1593)

¡Beloved Bibliophiles!

On Sunday, February 16th, from 3 to 5 pm (PST), our theme is FOOD!
Here’s the Zoom link:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87614013058

I hope to see you there!

paz, amor y comida

Juanito

peace, love, happiness & understanding 3/6/25
2025-03-06 - 2025-04-02
angel sighted in Plaza La Paz, Guanajuato, Mexico

THE OPEN ROAD
peace, love, happiness & understanding

March 6, 2025

We are loved by trees.

—Thich Nhat Hanh, Teachings on Love, p. 5
*

The mind is its own place, and in it self
Can make a Heav’n of Hell, a Hell of Heav’n.

—John Milton, from “Paradise Lost”
*

Paradise, and groves
Elysian, Fortunate Fields—like those of old
Sought in the Atlantic Main, why should they be
A history only of departed things,
Or a mere fiction of what never was?
For the discerning intellect of Man,
When wedded to this goodly universe
In love and holy passion, shall find these
A simple produce of the common day.

—William Wordsworth, from “The Excursion”
*

Ken Margolis sent this poem:

Bee! I’m expecting you!
Was saying Yesterday
To Somebody you know
That you were due–

The Frogs got Home last Week–
Are settled and at work–
Birds, mostly back—
The Clover warm and thick—

You’ll get my Letter by
The seventeenth; Reply
Or better, be with me–
Your’s, Fly.

–Emily Dickinson
*

Jill Littlewood sent this poem:

The Opera Singer

Today my heart is so goddamned fat with grief
that I’ve begun hauling it in a wheelbarrow. No. It’s an anvil
dragging from my neck as I swim
through choppy waters swollen with the putrid corpses of hippos,
which means lurking, somewhere below, is the hungry
snout of a croc waiting to spin me into an oblivion
worse than this run-on simile, which means only to say:
I’m sad. And everyone knows what that means.

And in my sadness I’ll walk to a café,
and not see light in the trees, nor finger the bills in my pocket
as I pass the boarded houses on the block. No,
I will be slogging through the obscure country of my sadness
in all its monotone flourish, and so imagine my surprise
when my self-absorption gets usurped
by the sound of opera streaming from an open window,
and the sun peeks ever-so-slightly from behind his shawl,
and this singing is getting closer, so that I can hear the
delicately rolled r’s like a hummingbird fluttering the tongue
which means a language more beautiful than my own,
and I don’t recognize the song
though I’m jogging toward it and can hear the woman’s
breathing through the record’s imperfections and above me
two bluebirds dive and dart and a rogue mulberry branch
leaning over an abandoned lot drags itself across my face,
staining it purple and looking, now, like a mad warrior of glee
and relief I run down the street, and I forgot to mention
the fifty or so kids running behind me, some in diapers,
some barefoot, all of them winged and waving their pacifiers
and training wheels and nearly trampling me
when in a doorway I see a woman in slippers and a floral housedress
blowing in the warm breeze who is maybe seventy painting the doorway
and friends, it is not too much to say
it was heaven sailing from her mouth and all the fish in the sea
and giraffe saunter and sugar in my tea and the forgotten angles
of love and every name of the unborn and dead
from this abuelita only glancing at me
before turning back to her earnest work of brushstroke and lullaby
and because we all know the tongue’s clumsy thudding
makes of miracles anecdotes let me stop here
and tell you I said thank you.

—Ross Gay
*

Elizabeth Domike sent this poem:

Joseph Sleeps,

his eyelids like a moth’s fringed wings.
Arms flail against the Ninja Turtle sheet
and suddenly-long legs
race time.

Awake, he’s a water-leak detector, a recycling ranger
who bans Styrofoam and asks for beeswax
crayons, a renewable resource.
He wants to adopt the Missouri river,
write the president
to make factories stop polluting.

They’re old friends, he and George Bush.
He writes and scolds
the president, every month or so,
about the bombing the children of Iraq
(he made his own sign to carry in protest),
about the plight of the California condor and northern gray wolf,
about more shelters and aid for the homeless.
The lion-shaped bulletin board in his room
is covered with pictures and letters from George,
who must be nice,
even if he is a slow learner.

Joseph is a mystery fan, owns 54 Nancy Drews.
Nancy’s his friend, along with Jo, Meg, and Amy
and poor Beth, of course, whom he still mourns.
He also reads of knights and wizards, superheroes,
and how to win at Nintendo.

The cats and houseplants are his to feed and water
and the sunflower blooming in the driveway’s border
of weeds. He drew our backyard to scale,
using map symbols, sent off to have it declared
an official wildlife refuge, left a good-night
note on my pillow, written in Egyptian hieroglyphs.

In my life, I have done one good thing.

—Linda Rodriguez
*

I love this poem by Walt Whitman!

Beginning My Studies

Beginning my studies the first step pleas’d me so much,
The mere fact consciousness, these forms, the power of motion,
The least insect or animal, the senses, eyesight, love,
The first step I say awed me and pleas’d me so much,
I have hardly gone and hardly wish’d to go any farther,
But stop and loiter all the time to sing it in ecstatic songs.
*

While in Mexico, I’m reading the poetry and prose of the English Romantic poets, and critical writings about them—in order to better understand who they were, the times they lived in, and what their ideas were. Kathleen Raine is one of my guides:

[Shelley] is the poet of apokatastasis, the restitution of all things to their essential perfection. In his belief that this possibility lies latent in man and in all creation, Shelley has the unanimous teaching of tradition, both pre-Christian and Christian, with him; besides the interior assent of every spirit not quite dead. Nor was he wrong in believing that love is the transforming principle which alone can bring this about, uniting what is divided, transforming…the hateful into the beautiful….

Love is the agent of apokatastasis; a truth which the Christian church itself acknowledges in the sacramental nature of marriage. His vision of the harmonious co-existence of all things in the state of Paradise (to which love, in whatever form, gives access) he has perhaps communicated (in “Prometheus Unbound” especially) more perfectly than has any other English poet….We can no more object that such poetic evocation of the state of beatitude itself lacks “the sense of evil” than we can make the objection to Mozart’s D-minor quartet. It might be said that the arts exist, finally, for no other end than the holding before us of images of Paradise.

—Kathleen Raine, from “A Defense of Shelley’s Poetry,” in Defending Ancient Springs, pp. 154-155

—Johnny Stallings
*

Upwelling

Dawn in the dark, dream in the mind,
whale in the sea, tree in the seed, seed
in the earth, leaf in the bud, fledgling
in the nest, pollen in the wind, rain in
the sky, pain in the past, love in the heart,
wonder in tomorrow, song in sorrow, song
at the tip of the tongue, mute poem coiled
in the pen aching to ooze forth to find
a reader in need, a listener long waiting,
a generation opening eyes, ready to rise,
birds in the trees singing “Here we are
and there you are and aren’t we all related?”

—Kim Stafford
*

Jeffrey Sher shared this poem by Billy Collins:

The Lanyard

The other day I was ricocheting slowly
off the blue walls of this room,
moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.

No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one into the past more suddenly—
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid long thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.

I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
or wear one, if that’s what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing
strand over strand again and again
until I had made a boxy
red and white lanyard for my mother.

She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sick room,
lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,
laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light

and taught me to walk and swim,
and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.

Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
And here, I wish to say to her now,
is a smaller gift—not the worn truth

that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took
the two-tone lanyard from my hand,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove
out of boredom would be enough to make us even.

—Billy Collins
*

Hi Johnny.

Thinking about how we are often asked to show up to get-togethers with an open heart. Such a gentle request.

Here in Santa Barbara where the flora and fauna are desserty and dry, the difference from NW rain effects wakes me with wonder.

There was a refreshing rain recently, so lavender and herbs and bougainvillea are blooming in winter.

Finches and warblers and hummingbirds flitter along with the tiny leaves of the old oaks and sunlight flickers through the tree tops along with them. Quail and chipmunks skitter about. The sudden abundance of new bird songs – feels fleeting . . . .

I think about what I’ll miss not seeing my granddaughter for a week. She is taking her first walk without holding onto my fingers! Impermanence can be heartrending, but this is how it is.

Brian Doyle wrote a book about the heart as a wet engine while he was worrying about his son’s heart health.

Here are some musings by him:

“Our hearts are not pure:
our hearts are filled with need
and greed as much as with love and grace,
and we wrestle with our hearts all the time.
The wrestling is who we are.
How we wrestle is who we are.
What we want to be is never what we are.
Not yet. Maybe that’s why we have these
relentless engines in our chests, driving us forward
toward what we might be.”

—Brian Doyle

“So much held in a heart in a lifetime. So much held in a heart in a day, an hour, a moment. We are utterly open with no one, in the end — not mother and father, not wife or husband, not lover, not child, not friend. We open windows to each but we live alone in the house of the heart. Perhaps we must. Perhaps we could not bear to be so naked, for fear of a constantly harrowed heart. When young we think there will come one person who will savor and sustain us always; when we are older we know this is the dream of a child, that all hearts finally are bruised and scarred, scored and torn, repaired by time and will, patched by force of character, yet fragile and rickety forevermore, no matter how ferocious the defense and how many bricks you bring to the wall. You can brick up your heart as stout and tight and hard and cold and impregnable as you possibly can and down it comes in an instant, felled by a woman’s second glance, a child’s apple breath, the shatter of glass in the road, the words ‘I have something to tell you,’ a cat with a broken spine dragging itself into the forest to die, the brush of your mother’s papery ancient hand in a thicket of your hair, the memory of your father’s voice early in the morning echoing from the kitchen where he is making pancakes for his children.”

—Brian Doyle, from One Long River of Song: Notes on Wonder.

“We’re here for a little window. And to use that time to catch and share shards of light and laughter and grace seems to me the great story.”

—Brian Doyle

May we show up with a healthy and open heart to what comes next.

—Katie Radditz
*

Hope

Peace love happiness understanding…and hope. What’s the opposite of hope? At the least, resignation; at the most, despair. I am not willing to accept either resignation or despair; it’s not in my nature. And how can you experience and live in those four qualities of PLH and U without Hope? Not possible, I’d wager.

So how do I live in Hope? First I think of the men in prison. We talked a lot about hope, and they were inspirational to me. I’d ask them to describe or explain their visions of hope. Initially the talk was not so optimistic, with good reason. The more we all talked, however, the more beauty arose—more examples of the four qualities of peace, love, happiness and understanding…and compassion and gratitude and reciprocity and joy, and…you name it, every positive quality of life, of living rose to the surface as part of their mutual experiences. Those who were low on hope were lifted by others. I was lifted and illuminated by all the shared experiences. I was astonished and humbled; with my fortunate life compared to theirs, how could I be without hope?

I was reminded of the centuries-old German peasant song of revolt, “Die Gedanken Sind Frei,” “(My) Thoughts Are Free”:

My thoughts are free, I proudly profess them.
No fence can confine them,
No creed undermine them,.
They ring from on high:
Die Gedanken Sind Frei!”

I was reminded of Václav Havel: “Perhaps Hope is not something we search for, but something we let in.” and “Hope is a feeling that life and work have a meaning.”

Hope is the embodiment of peace, love, happiness and understanding, and just now we all need to let Hope into our lives.

And if all else fails to give you hope, just look outside right now at the snowdrops and daffodils, springing from the cold, dark earth into the light of day, again and again, year after year. That’s Hope.

—Jude Russell

¡Bibliophiles Unanimous! 3/16/25
2025-03-16 15:00 - 17:00
Naomi Shihab Nye

¡Beloved Bibliophiles!

On Sunday, March 16th, at 3 pm (PDT), our theme is POEMS!
Bring poems to read–your own poems, or favorite poems that other people wrote.

Here’s the Zoom link:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87614013058

I hope to see you there!

peace, love & poetry

Johnny

Indigo Small Press Month Reading 3/21/25
2025-03-21 19:00 - 20:30
BOLD Coffee & Books presents:

Indigo Small Press Month Reading

with Kristen Hall-Geisler, Andrew Shaffer & Johnny Stallings

Friday, March 21st, 7 p.m.
1755 SW Jefferson St., Portand

FREE Event

boldcoffeeandbooks.com & indigoediting.com

The Fabulous Deck Boys at Ross Island Grocery & Cafe 3/21/25
2025-03-21 19:00 - 21:00
Brad Price, KC Craine & Jeffrey Sher

¡Hey Everyone!

The FABULOUS DECK BOYS, featuring Jeffrey Sher, are playing at Ross Island Grocery & Cafe on Friday, March 21st!

3502 S Corbett Ave
7-9 p.m.
$5 Suggested

For more info about the DECK BOYS, click here:

https://www.deckboys.com/

peace, love & music

Johnny

WARPed or How I Graduated from the School for Phils 3/22/25
2025-03-22 15:00 - 17:00
“Your head’s a circus, Phil. You should sit back and enjoy it.
You’ve got the front seat.”

WARPed
or
How I Graduated from the School for Phils

Johnny Stallings tells hair-raising tales of performing the longest part in the longest play in the English language.

Saturday, March 22, 3 pm
Muir Hall at Taborspace, 5441 SE Belmont, Portland

this Open Road event is FREE

On the Rocky Road
2025-03-28 19:00 - 21:00
Open Road recommends…

Master Storyteller Will Hornyak presents:

ON THE ROCKY ROAD
in March Live and on Zoom

Dear Friends,

At a time when many of us feel estranged and alienated
within our own land, when people, careers and institutions
are banished daily without debate, I think it’s helpful
to consider the world’s oldest stories on the subject of
outcasts and exiles.

Myths speak to us from the extremes of the human
condition and offer ideas on how to navigate
difficult passages as individuals and societies. The outcast
and the exile are age-old conditions of the soul as well as
current troubles within the culture. There are some
cultures and people all too familiar with the archetype
of the outcast and the exile. Those voices and perspectives
are essential now as they see these troubled times with
a darkened eye and
understand what is required to journey beyond the
current wasteland and return with renewed vision, vitality
and possibility.
In that spirit, please join us for an evening of tales,
songs and poems inspired by wandering peddlers,
itinerant musicians, landless outcasts and banished poets
on Ireland’s long and rocky road of exile. A celebration
of St. Patrick, Druid’s Day and the countless gods and
goddesses of the Celtic Pantheon.

Slainte!
William Kennedy Hornyak

Friday March 28 7 p.m.
Doors at 6:30 p.m.
Taborspace Copeland Commons
5441 SE Belmont Portland
$20.00 Cash/Check/Venmo/Paypal at the Door
Reservations Recommend: hornyak.will@gmail.com
For Information: hornyak.will@gmail.com or
503 697-5808

peace, love, happiness & understanding 4/3/25
2025-04-03 - 2025-04-30
THE OPEN ROAD
peace, love, happiness & understanding

April 3, 2025

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) is best known for his essays. Here’s a lecture he gave in 1838. It’s worth taking the time to read. He is confident that “war is on its last legs.” It’s funny—I had the same confidence at the age of 18, in 1969. He wonders: “Cannot love be, as well as hate?….Cannot peace be, as well as war?” I’ve been wondering the same thing for 56 years.

War

It has been a favorite study of modern philosophy, to indicate the steps of human progress, to watch the rising of a thought in one man’s mind, the communication of it to a few, to a small minority, its expansion and general reception, until it publishes itself to the world by destroying the existing laws and institutions, and the generation of new. Looked at in this general and historical way, many things wear a very different face from that they show near by, and one at a time, and, particularly, war. War, which, to sane men at the present day, begins to look like an epidemic insanity, breaking out here and there like the cholera or influenza, infecting men’s brains instead of their bowels, when seen in the remote past, in the infancy of society, appears a part of the connection of events, and, in its place, necessary.

As far as history has preserved to us the slow unfoldings of any savage tribe, it is not easy to see how war could be avoided by such wild, passionate, needy, ungoverned, strong bodied creatures. For in the infancy of society, when a thin population and improvidence make the supply of food and of shelter insufficient and very precarious, and when hunger, thirst, ague, and frozen limbs universally take precedence of the wants of the mind and the heart, the necessities of the strong will certainly be satisfied at the cost of the weak, at whatever peril of future revenge. It is plain, too, that, in the first dawnings of the religious sentiment, that blends itself with their passions, and is oil to the fire. Not only every tribe has war-gods, religious festivals in victory, but religious wars.

The student of history acquiesces the more readily in this copious bloodshed of the early annals, bloodshed in God’s name too, when be learns that it is a temporary and preparatory state, and does actively forward the culture of man. War educates the senses, calls into action the will, perfects the physical constitution, brings men into such swift and close collision in critical moments that man measures man. On its own scale, on the virtues it loves, it endures no counterfeit, but shakes the whole society, until every atom falls into the place its specific gravity assigns it. It presently finds the value of good sense and of foresight, and Ulysses takes rank next to Achilles. The leaders, picked men of a courage and vigor tried and augmented in fifty battles, are emulous to distinguish themselves above each other by new merits, as clemency, hospitality, splendor of living. The people imitate the chiefs. The strong tribe, in which war has become an art, attack and conquer their neighbours, and teach them their arts and virtues. New territory, augmented numbers, and extended interests call out new virtues and abilities, and the tribe makes long strides. And, finally, when much progress has been made, all its secrets of wisdom and art are disseminated by its invasions. Plutarch, in his essay “On the Fortune of Alexander,” considers the invasion and conquest of the East by Alexander as one of the most bright and pleasing pages in history; and it must be owned, he gives sound reason for his opinion. It had the effect of uniting into one great interest the divided commonwealths of Greece, and infusing a new and more enlarged public spirit into the councils of their statesmen. It carried the arts and language and philosophy of the Greeks into the sluggish and barbarous nations of Persia, Assyria, and India. It introduced the arts of husbandry among tribes of hunters and shepherds. It weaned the Scythians and Persians from some cruel and licentious practices, to a more civil way of life. It introduced the sacredness of marriage among them. It built seventy cities, and sowed the Greek customs and humane laws over Asia, and united hostile nations under one code. It brought different families of the human race together, to blows at first, but afterwards to truce, to trade, and to intermarriage. It would be very easy to show analogous benefits that have resulted from military movements of later ages.

Considerations of this kind lead us to a true view of the nature and office of war. We see, it is the subject of all history; that it has been the principal employment of the most conspicuous men; that it is at this moment the delight of half the world, of almost all young and ignorant persons; that it is exhibited to us continually in the dumb show of brute nature, where war between tribes, and between individuals of the same tribe, perpetually rages. The microscope reveals miniature butchery in atomies and infinitely small biters, that swim and fight in an illuminated drop of water; and the little globe is but a too faithful miniature of the large.

What does all this war, beginning from the lowest races and reaching up to man, signify? Is it not manifest that it covers a great and beneficent principle, which nature had deeply at heart? What is that principle?” It is self-help. Nature implants with life the instinct of self-help, perpetual struggle to be, to resist opposition, to attain to freedom, to attain to a mastery, and the security of a permanent, self-defended being; and to each creature these objects are made so dear, that it risks its life continually in the struggle for these ends.

But whilst this principle, necessarily, is inwrought into the fabric of every creature, yet it is but one instinct; and though a primary one, or we may say the very first, yet the appearance of the other instincts immediately modifies and controls this; turns its energies into harmless, useful, and high courses, showing thereby what was its ultimate design; and, finally, takes out its fangs. The instinct of self-help is very early unfolded in the coarse and merely brute form of war, only in the childhood and imbecility of the other instincts, and remains in that form, only until their development. It is the ignorant and childish part of mankind that is the fighting part. Idle and vacant minds want excitement, as all boys kill cats. Bull-baiting, cockpits, and the boxer’s ring, are the enjoyment of the part of society whose animal nature alone has been developed. In some parts of this country, where the intellectual and moral faculties have as yet scarcely any culture, the absorbing topic of all conversation is whipping; who fought, and which whipped? Of man, boy, or beast, the only trait that much interests the speakers is the pugnacity. And why? Because the speaker has as yet no other image of manly activity and virtue, none of endurance, none of perseverance, none of charity, none of the attainment of truth. Put him into a circle of cultivated men, where the conversation broaches the great questions that besiege the human reason, and he would be dumb and unhappy, as an Indian in church.

To men of a sedate and mature spirit, in whom is any knowledge or mental activity, the detail of battle becomes insupportably tedious and revolting. It is like the talk of one of those monomaniacs, whom we sometimes meet in society, who converse on horses; and Fontenelle expressed a volume of meaning, when he said, “I hate war, for it spoils conversation.”

Nothing is plainer than that the sympathy with war is a juvenile and temporary state. Not only the moral sentiment, but trade, learning, and whatever makes intercourse, conspire to put it down. Trade, as all men know, is the antagonist of war. Wherever there is no property, the people will put on the knapsack for bread; but trade is instantly endangered and destroyed. And, moreover, trade brings men to look each other in the face, and gives the parties the knowledge that these enemies over sea or over the mountain are such men as we; who laugh and grieve, who love and fear, as we do. And learning and art, and especially religion, weave ties that make war look like fratricide, as it is. And as all history is the picture of war, as we have said, so it is no less true that it is the record of the mitigation and decline of war. Early in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the Italian cities had grown so populous and strong, that they forced the rural nobility to dismantle their castles, which were dens of cruelty, and come and reside in the towns. The Popes, to their eternal honor, declared religious jubilees, during which all hostilities were suspended throughout Christendom, and man had a breathing space. The increase of civility has abolished the use of poison and of torture, once supposed as necessary as navies now. And, finally, the art of war what with gunpowder and tactics has made, as all men know, battles less frequent and less murderous.

By all these means, war has been steadily on the decline; and we read with astonishment of the beastly fighting of the old times. Only in Elizabeth’s time, out of the European waters, piracy was all but universal. The proverb was,”No peace beyond the line;” and the seamen shipped on the buccaneer’s bargain, “No prey, no pay.” In 1588, the celebrated Cavendish, who was thought in his times a good Christian man, wrote thus to Lord Hunsdon, on his return from a voyage round the world: “Sept. 1588. It hath pleased Almighty God to suffer me to circumpass the whole globe of the world, entering in at the Strait of Magellan, and returning by the Cape of Buena Esperanca; in which voyage, I have either discovered or brought certain intelligence of all the rich places of the world, which were ever discovered by any Christian. I navigated along the coast of Chili, Peru, and New Spain, where I made great spoils. I burnt and sunk nineteen sail of ships, small and great. All the villages and towns that ever I landed at, I burned and spoiled. And had I not been discovered upon the coast, I had taken great quantity of treasure. The matter of most profit to me was a great ship of the king’s, which I took at California,” &c. and the good Cavendish piously begins this statement, “It hath pleased Almighty God.”

Indeed, our American annals have preserved the vestiges of barbarous warfare down to more recent times. I read in Williams’s History of Maine, that “Assacombuit, the Sagamore of the Anagunticook tribe, was remarkable for his turpitude and ferocity above all other known Indians; that, in 1705, Vaudreuil sent him to France, where he was introduced to the king, When he appeared at court, he lifted up his hand, and said, ‘This hand has slain a hundred and fifty of your majesty’s enemies within the territories of New England.’ This so pleased the king, that he knighted him, and ordered a pension of eight livres a day to be paid him during life.” This valuable person, on his return to America, took to killing his own neighbors and kindred with such appetite, that his tribe combined against him, and would have killed him, had he not fled his country for ever.

The scandal which we feel in such facts certainly shows, that we have got on a little. All history is the decline of war, though the slow decline. All that society has yet gained is mitigation: the doctrine of the right of war still remains.

For ages (for ideas work in ages, and animate vast societies of men) the human race has gone on under the tyranny shall I so call it? of this first brutish form of their effort to be men; that is, for ages they have shared so much of the nature of the lower animals, the tiger and the shark, and the savages of the water-drop. They have nearly exhausted all the good and all the evil of this form: they have held as fast to this degradation, as their worst enemy could desire; but all things have an end, and so has this. The eternal germination of the better has unfolded new powers, new instincts, which were really concealed under this rough and base rind. The sublime question has startled one and another happy soul in different quarters of the globe. Cannot love be, as well as hate? Would not love answer the same end, or even a better? Cannot peace be, as well as war?

This thought is no man’s invention, neither St. Pierre’s nor Rousseau’s, but the rising of the general tide in the human soul, and rising highest, and first made visible, in the most simple and pure souls, who have therefore announced it to us beforehand; but presently we all see it. It has now become so distinct as to be a social thought: societies can be formed on it. It is expounded, illustrated, defined, with different degrees of clearness; and its actualization, or the measures it should inspire, predicted according to the light of each seer.

The idea itself is the epoch; the fact that it has become so distinct to any small number of persons as to become a subject of prayer and hope, of concert and discussion, that is the commanding fact. This having come, much more will follow. Revolutions go not backward. The star once risen, though only one man in the hemisphere has yet seen its upper limb in the horizon, will mount and mount, until it becomes visible to other men, to multitudes, and climbs the zenith of all eyes. And so, it is not a great matter how long men refuse to believe the advent of peace: war is on its last legs; and a universal peace is as sure as is the prevalence of civilization over barbarism, of liberal governments over feudal forms. The question for us is only, How soon?

That the project of peace should appear visionary to great numbers of sensible men; should appear laughable, even, to numbers; should appear to the grave and good-natured to be embarrassed with extreme practical difficulties, is very natural. “This is a poor, tedious society of yours,” they say: “we do not see what good can come of it. Peace! why, we are all at peace now. But if a foreign nation should wantonly insult or plunder our commerce, or, worse yet, should land on our shores to rob and kill, you would not have us sit, and be robbed and killed? You mistake the times; you overestimate the virtue of men. You forget, that the quiet which now sleeps in cities and in farms, which lets the wagon go unguarded and the farm-house unbolted, rests on the perfect understanding of all men; that the musket, the halter, and the jail stand behind there, perfectly ready to punish any disturber of it. All admit, that this would be the best policy, if the world were all a church, if all men were the best men, if all would agree to accept this rule. But it is absurd for one nation to attempt it alone.”

In the first place, we answer, that we never make much account of objections which merely respect the actual state of the world at this moment, but which admit the general expediency and permanent excellence of the project. What is the best must be the true; and what is true that is, what is at bottom fit and agreeable to the constitution of man must at last prevail over all obstruction and all opposition. There is no good now enjoyed by society, that was not once as problematical and visionary as this. It is the tendency of the true interest of man to become his desire and steadfast aim.

But, farther, it is a lesson, which all history teaches wise men, to put trust in ideas, and not in circumstances. We have all grown up in the sight of frigates and navy yards, of armed forts and islands, of arsenals and militia. The reference to any foreign register will inform us of the number of thousand or million men that are now under arms in the vast colonial system of the British empire, of Russia, Austria, and France; and one is scared to find at what a cost the peace of the globe is kept. This vast apparatus of artillery, of fleets, of stone bastions and trenches and embankments; this incessant patrolling of sentinels; this waving of national flags; this reveille and evening gun; this martial music, and endless playing of marches, and singing of military and naval songs, seem to us to constitute an imposing actual, which will not yield, in centuries, to the feeble, deprecatory voices of a handful of friends of peace.

Thus always we are daunted by the appearances; not seeing that their whole value lies at bottom in the state of mind. It is really a thought that built this portentous war-establishment, and a thought shall also melt it away. Every nation and every man instantly surround themselves with a material apparatus which exactly corresponds to their moral state, or their state of thought. Observe how every truth and every error, each a thought of some man’s mind, clothes itself with societies, houses, cities, language, ceremonies, newspapers. Observe how every truth and every error, each a thought of some man’s mind, clothes itself with societies, houses, cities, language, ceremonies, newspapers. Observe the ideas of the present day, orthodoxy, skepticism, missions, popular education, temperance, anti-masonry, anti-slavery; see how each of these abstractions has embodied itself in an imposing apparatus in the community; and how timber, brick, lime, and stone have flown into convenient shape, obedient to the master-idea reigning in the minds of many persons.

You shall hear, some day, of a wild fancy, which some man has in his brain, of the mischief of secret oaths. Come again, one or two years afterwards, and you shall see it has built great houses of solid wood and brick and mortar. You shall see an hundred presses printing a million sheets; you shall see men and horses and wheels made to walk, run, and roll for it: this great body of matter thus executing that one man’s wild thought. This happens daily, yearly about us, with half thoughts, often with flimsy lies, pieces of policy and speculation. With good nursing, they will last three or four years, before they will come to nothing. But when a truth appears, as, for instance, a perception in the wit of one Columbus, that there is land in the Western Sea; though he alone of all men has that thought, and they all jeer, it will build ships; it will build fleets; it will carry over half Spain and half England; it will plant a colony, a state, nations, and half a globe full of men.

We surround ourselves always, according to our freedom and ability, with true images of ourselves in things, whether it be ships or books, or cannons or churches. The standing army, the arsenal, the camp, and the gibbet do not appertain to man. They only serve as an index to show where man is now; what a bad, ungoverned temper he has; what an ugly neighbor he is; how his affections halt; how low his hope lies. He who loves the bristle of bayonets, only sees in their glitter what beforehand he feels in his heart. It is avarice and hatred; it is that quivering lip, that cold, hating eye, which builded magazines and powder-houses.

It follows, of course, that the least change in the man will change his circumstances; the least enlargement of his ideas, the least mitigation of his feelings, in respect to other men; if, for example, he could be inspired with a tender kindness to the souls of men, and should come to feel that every man was another self, with whom he might come to join, as left hand works with right. Every degree of the ascendancy of this feeling would cause the most striking changes of external things: the tents would be struck; the men-of-war would rot ashore; the arms rust; the cannon would become street-posts; the pikes, a fisher’s harpoon; the marching regiment would be a caravan of emigrants, peaceful pioneers at the fountains of the Wabash and the Missouri. And so it must and will be: bayonet and sword must first retreat a little from their present ostentatious prominence; then quite hide themselves, as the sheriff’s halter does now, inviting the attendance only of relations and friends; and then, lastly, will be transferred to the museums of the curious, as poisoning and torturing tools are at this day.

War and peace thus resolve themselves into a mercury of the state of cultivation. At a certain stage of his progress, the man fights, if he be of a sound body and mind. At a certain higher stage, he makes no offensive demonstration, but is alert to repel injury, and of an unconquerable heart. At a still higher stage, he comes into the region of holiness; passion has passed away from him; his warlike nature is all converted into an active medicinal principle; he sacrifices himself, and accepts with alacrity wearisome tasks of denial and charity; but, being attacked, he bears it, and turns the other cheek, as one engaged, throughout his being, no longer to the service of an individual, but to the common soul of all men.

Since the peace question has been before the public mind, those who affirm its right and expediency have naturally been met with objections more or less weighty. There are cases frequently put by the curious,â€”moral problems, like those problems in arithmetic, which in long winter evenings the rustics try the hardness of their heads in ciphering out. And chiefly it is said, “Either accept this principle for better, for worse, carry it out to the end, and meet its absurd consequences; or else, if you pretend to set an arbitrary limit, a “Thus far, no farther,” then give up the principle, and take that limit which the common sense of all mankind has set, and which distinguishes offensive war as criminal, defensive war as just. Otherwise, if you go for no way, then be consistent, and give up self-defence in the highway, in your own house. Will you push it thus far ? Will you stick to your principle of non-resistance, when your strong-box is broken open, when your wife and babes are insulted and slaughtered in your sight? If you say yes, you only invite the robber and assassin; and a few bloody-minded desperadoes would soon butcher the good.

In reply to this charge of absurdity on the extreme peace doctrine, as shown in the supposed consequences, I wish to say, that such deductions consider only one half of the fact. They look only at the passive side of the friend of peace, only at his passivity; they quite omit to consider his activity. But no man, it may be presumed, ever embraced the cause of peace and philanthropy, for the sole end and satisfaction of being plundered and slain. A man does not come the length of the spirit of martyrdom, without some active purpose, some equal motive, some flaming love. If you have a nation of men who have risen to that height of moral cultivation that they will not declare war or carry arms, for they have not so much madness left in their brains, you have a nation of lovers, of benefactors, of true, great, and able, men. Let me know more of that nation; I shall not find them defenceless, with idle hands springing at their sides. I shall find them men of love, honor, and truth; men of an immense industry; men whose influence is felt to the end of the earth; men whose very look and voice carry the sentence of honor and shame; and all forces yield to their energy and persuasion. Whenever we see the doctrine of peace embraced by a nation, we may be assured it will not be one that invites injury; but one, on the contrary, which has a friend in the bottom of the heart of every man, even of the violent and the base; one against which no weapon can prosper; one which is looked upon as the asylum of the human race, and has the tears and the blessings of mankind.

In the second place, as far as it respects individual action in difficult and extreme cases, I will say, such cases seldom or never occur to the good and just man; nor are we careful to say, or even to know, what in such crises is to be done. A wise man will never impawn his future being and action, and decide beforehand what he shall do in a given extreme event. Nature and God will instruct him in that hour.

The question naturally arises, How is this new aspiration of the human mind to be made visible and real? How is it to pass out of thoughts into things?

Not, certainly, in the first place, in the way of routine and mere forms, the universal specific of modern politics; not by organizing a society, and going through a course of resolutions and public manifestoes, and being thus formally accredited to the public, and to the civility of the newspapers. We have played this game to tediousness. In some of our cities, they choose noted duellists as presidents and officers of antiduelling societies. Men who love that bloated vanity called public opinion, think all is well if they have once got their bantling through a sufficient course of speeches and cheerings, of one, two, or three public meetings, as if they could do any thing: they vote and vote, cry hurrah on both sides, no man responsible, no man caring a pin. The next season, an Indian war, or an aggression on our commerce by Malays; or the party this man votes with, have an appropriation to carry through Congress: instantly he wags his head the other way, and cries, Havoc and war!

This is not to be carried by public opinion, but by private opinion, by private conviction, by private, dear, and earnest love. For the only hope of this cause is in the increased insight, and it is to be accomplished by the spontaneous teaching, of the cultivated soul, in its secret experience and meditation ”that it is now time that it should pass out of the state of beast into the state of man; it is to hear the voice of God, which bids the devils, that have rended and torn him, come out of him, and let him now be clothed and walk forth in his right mind. Nor, in the next place, is the peace principle to be carried into effect by fear. It can never be defended, it can never be executed, by cowards. Every thing great must be done in the spirit of greatness. The manhood that has been in wax must be transferred to the cause of peace, before war can lose its charm, and peace be venerable to men.

The attractiveness of war shows one thing through all the throats of artillery, the thunders of so many sieges, the sack of towns, the jousts of chivalry, the shock of hosts, this namely, the conviction of man universally, that a man should be himself responsible, with goods, health, and life, for his behaviour; that he should not ask of the State, protection; should ask nothing of the State; should be himself a kingdom and a state; fearing no man; quite willing to use the opportunities and advantages that good government throw in his way, but nothing daunted, and not really the poorer if government, law, and order went by the board; because in himself reside infinite resources; because he is sure of himself, and never needs to ask another what in any crisis it behoves him to do.

What makes to us the attractiveness of the Greek heroes? of the Roman? What makes the attractiveness of that romantic style of living, which is the material of ten thousand plays and romances, from Shakspeare to Scott; the feudal baron, the French, the English nobility, the Warwicks, Plantagenets? It is their absolute self-dependence. I do not wonder at the dislike some of the friends of peace have expressed at Shakspeare. The veriest churl and Jacobin cannot resist the influence of the style and manners of these haughty lords. We are affected, as boys and barbarians are, by the appearance of a few rich and wilful gentlemen, who take their honor into their own keeping, defy the world, so confident are they of their courage and strength, and whose appearance is the arrival of so much life and virtue. In dangerous times, they are presently tried, and therefore their name is a flourish of trumpets. They, at least, affect us as a reality. They are not shams, but the substance of which that age and world is made. They are true heroes for their time. They make what is in their minds the greatest sacrifice. They will, for an injurious word, peril all their state and wealth, and go to the field. Take away that principle of responsibleness, and they become pirates and ruffians.

This self-subsistency is the charm of war; for this self. subsistency is essential to our idea of man. But another age comes, a truer religion and ethics open, and a man puts himself under the dominion of principles. I see him to be the servant of truth, of love, and of freedom, and immoveable in the waves of the crowd. The man of principle, that is, the man who, without any flourish of trumpets, titles of lordship, or train of guards, without any notice of his action abroad, expecting none, takes in solitude the right step uniformly, on his private choice, and disdaining consequences,”does not yield, in my imagination, to any man. He is willing to be hanged at his own gate, rather than consent to any compromise of his freedom, or the suppression of his conviction. I regard no longer those names that so tingled in my ear. This is a baron of a better nobility and a stouter stomach.

The cause of peace is not the cause of cowardice. If peace is sought to be defended or preserved for the safety of the luxurious and the timid, it is a sham, and the peace will be base. War is better, and the peace will be broken. If peace is to be maintained, it must be by brave men, who have come up to the same height as the hero, namely, the will to carry their life in their hand, and stake it at any instant for their principle, but who have gone one step beyond the hero, and will not seek another man’s life; “men who have, by their intellectual insight, or else by their moral elevation, attained such a perception of their own intrinsic worth, that they do not think property or their own body a sufficient good to be saved by such dereliction of principle as treating a man like a sheep.

If the universal cry for reform of so many inveterate abuses, with which society rings, if the desire of a large class of young men for a faith and hope, intellectual and religious, such as they have not yet found, be an omen to be trusted; if the disposition to rely more in study, and in action on the unexplored riches of the human constitution, if the search of the sublime laws of morals and the sources of hope and trust in man, and not in books, in the present, and not in the past, proceed; if the rising generation can be provoked to think it unworthy to nestle into every abomination of the past, and shall feel the generous darings of austerity and virtue; then war has a short day, and human blood will cease to flow.

It is of little consequence in what manner, through what organs, this purpose of mercy and holiness is effected. The proposition of the Congress of Nations is undoubtedly that at which the present fabric of our society and the present course of events do point. But the mind, once prepared for the reign of principles, will easily find modes of expressing its will. There is the highest fitness in the place and time in which this enterprise is begun. Not in an obscure corner, not in a feudal Europe, not in an antiquated appanage where no onward step can be taken without rebellion, is this seed of benevolence laid in the furrow, with tears of hope; but in this broad America of God and man, where the forest is only now falling, or yet to fall, and the green earth opened to the inundation of emigrant men from all quarters of oppression and guilt; here, where not a family, not a few men, but mankind, shall say what shall be; here, we ask, Shall it be War, or shall it be Peace?

—Ralph Waldo Emerson, lecture delivered in March, 1838 in Boston

HANDS OFF! Mass Mobilization in Portland, Saturday, April 5th, noon to 4
2025-04-05 12:00 - 16:00
The Open Road invites all our friends to join us for a BIG demonstration in Portland to demand:
HANDS OFF!
Social Security, Our Bodies, Libraries, Immigrants & Refugees,
Free Speech, Medicare, Schools, Clean Air, Greenland, etc.

Saturday, April 5th, from noon to 4 pm
Japanese American Historical Park – Tom McCall Waterfront Park

Here are the general plans:

Open Road friends are meeting at Skidmore Fountain, between 11:30 and 11:45. Please join us!

There will be a kid and teen zone a craft zone as well as tabling from other organizations.

12:00-1:00 speakers with ASL interpreters

There will be upfront seating for those who are elderly or disabled, including spaces for wheelchairs.

1:00-2:00 there are 3 options:

1) Stay and dance to music or do activities at the Japanese American Historical Plaza.

2) Walk a just under 1 mile ADA accessible and flat route down and back.

3) Walk a 2.2 mile walk. Although it is ADA accessible there is elevation gain a slightly steep ramp we walk down and one section of a foot of grating to pass over.

Both routes will be available to view around 11:30.

We will have guides, and de-escalators with each group.

2:00-3:00 more speakers and performances

3:00-4:00 Dance party

Check out other organizations, or do activities like making a quilt square for our quilt.

OUR HANDS OF RUIN reading of a play by Casey Wood 4/12/25
2025-04-12 14:00 - 17:00
Edwin Booth as Iago, 1863

OUR HANDS OF RUIN

a play by Casey Wood

In this darkly satirical drama, iconic Shakespearean villains are trapped in a contemporary prison, where the weight of past crimes collide in a ruthless battle for control, forcing each character to confront their own downfall and the corrupting nature of authority.

Our Hands of Ruin. (ORE) Reading of a new play by Casey Wood. Shakespeare’s villains find themselves in prison. Prospero is the warden.
Saturday, April 12, 2-5 pm
Artspace Room at Taborspace, 5441 SE Belmont, in Portland

This Open Road Event is free.

The Fabulous Deck Boys This Friday 4/18/25
2025-04-18 19:00 - 21:00
Brad Price, KC Craine & Jeffrey Sher

¡Hey Everyone!

The Fabulous Deck Boys are playing this Friday night!

Ross Island Grocery & Cafe
3502 S Corbett Ave
April 18; May 16
7 p.m.
$5 Suggested

For more info about the DECK BOYS, click here:

https://www.deckboys.com/

peace, love & music

Johnny

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever: a reading of the English Romantic poets by Johnny Stallings
2025-04-19 15:00 - 17:00
River of Life painting by William Blake

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever
The English Romantic Poets

Johnny Stallings reads from the poetry of Shakespeare, Blake, Burns, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Keats and Yeats—“the unacknowledged legislators of the World.”

Saturday, April 19 th, 3 pm
Artspace Room at Taborspace, 5441 SE Belmont, in Portland

This Open Road event is free.

A Midsummer Night's Dream in Prison at Portland Panorama Film Festival 4/19/25
2025-04-19 17:30 - 19:00
A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Prison, a film by Bushra Azzouz, will screen at the Hollywood Theatre, as part of the Portland Panorama Film Festival, on Saturday, April 19th, at 5:30 pm.

¡Bibliophiles Unanimous! 4/20/25
2025-04-20 15:00 - 17:00
¡Beloved Bibliophiles!

On Sunday, April 20th, at 3 pm (PDT), our theme is NOVELS!
What have you read recently? What are some of your all-time favorites?

Here’s the Zoom link:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87614013058

I hope to see you there!

peace & love

Johnny

peace, love, happiness & understanding 5/1/25
2025-05-01 - 2025-06-04
the inimitable Dick Willis

THE OPEN ROAD
peace, love, happiness & understanding

May 1, 2025

Dick Willis is a Notorious Do-Gooder. He’s always looking for and finding ways to help people. He would be a candidate for sainthood, were it not for the fact that he sits on the fence between Atheism and Agnosticism. He turned 80 on April 15th. He wrote this for his grandkids, but generously agreed to share it with us:

Eighty Things I’ve Learned in Eighty Years

I regret that my young self didn’t write down my grandparents’ reflections on their lives. Still, I’ve embraced their wisdom throughout my life.
All that I began with, was an accident of birth. All that I am today, is what I did with it.
My lifelong precept has been… “Ease their way.”
Every religion attempts to control its believers. Unless it can control the government, it has no power over non-believers.
My Principia Intelligentia states: It’s a statistical fact that half of any large population possesses below-average intelligence.
Corollary 1: The lower half is usually the louder half.
Corollary 2: The lower half possesses most of the means of, and tendencies toward, violence and/or chaos.
Corollary 3: In all populations there are pockets of intelligence and empathy, and pockets of stupidity and cruelty.
Self-expression can often be felt by others as disrespect. Be careful to always read the room.
I stopped worrying about what people thought of me when I realized how little they thought of me at all.
I’ve only been a member of one ‘country club’… this one. Club dues are taxes and public service. Until recently, I always paid my dues gladly.
I was never religious, but I’ve always been Christian… and Muslim and Jewish and Hindu and Buddhist and Pagan and…
We’re all in this together. Matthew 25:35-40 is the only rationale I need, to explain why all of us are here.
The more I’ve acknowledged my defects, the more benign and sympathetic I’ve been toward the defects of others.
I abhor those who salute the stupid as patriots, and diminish the worth of intelligence and competence.
Excellence is the process of making fewer and less obvious mistakes.
I strive only to be trustworthy, not trusted. Trust is delicate, and lives in the mind of the other.
I am a dog person. Dogs know this.
If it’s urgent, I do it now! If it’s important, I do it next. Unless I’m procrastinating.
Hate causes pain. It never heals it.
In this country, too many people treat politics as either a sport (mostly football) or a religion. It is neither. It is far, far more important.
I’m an addict. When I do something beneficial for someone, I get an opioid high. (Naturally, from endorphins.)
My generosity enhances my vitality with little effort on my part. When I give, it feels like an essential and natural part of being alive.
Stinginess is exhausting. It promotes a sense of scarcity and makes generosity seem like a sacrifice.
If we had taken seriously any one of three women, we wouldn’t be in this mess. Hillary Clinton, Liz Cheney and Kamala Harris all warned us.
I am an introvert. I’m not anti-social. I’m simply pro-quiet.
My best partners held my interests as theirs. They shared in my successes, and delighted in our mutual good fortune.
Joy touches the eternal. It connects us with the cosmos, as well as with the subconscious.
Birds are brilliant mathematicians. To go from 30 MPH to zero in an instant and grab a thin branch, requires some serious real-time calculus.
Certainty is not a virtue. Speaking assertively is not a proxy for thinking deeply.
Refusing to accept opinions as facts is key to my maintaining common sense.
I’ve learned to be careful when reading between the lines. Most of the time, I was just guessing.
The most important reason for me to treat others with respect is not what I get in return. It’s who I’ve become as a result.
I treat my opinions like worn clothes. Some I’m comfortable with, the rest I need to get rid of.
Sometimes, my walking away from a losing effort was not a failure of conviction. It was a triumph of wisdom.
Thanks to a proctor in my military training, I learned that the best way to prove myself was to im-prove myself.
A healthy disagreement isn’t about me being right. It’s about both of us feeling understood.
I can dislike someone without disrespecting him. It’s simply an exercise in mature judgment.
Key to my integrity is adherence to principle. I will oppose anyone who challenges my ethics or threatens my responsibilities.
Take care of your teeth and your feet. They take a beating, and you’ll need them your entire life.
An employer, a company, a business… is not a family. Families forgive. Families love.
Hesitation is inconclusive. A decision is clearest when it’s either “Hell yes!” or “Hell no!”.
I’ve never been defeated. Either I won, or I learned.
When you’re dead, you don’t know you’re dead. All the pain is felt by others. The same thing happens when you’re stupid.
In the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king. Beware the one-eyed man.
Failing is simply part of learning. On the other hand, being a failure is a painful state of ignorance.
I happily accept both my virtues and my admitted flaws. They’re my shield. No one can use them against me.
Cannabis showed me that I’m blessed with a cosmic sense of humor. Beneath it all, everything is funny.
As my grandparents used to say: “Too soon old. Too late smart.”
I bow to all mothers. If we males were the ones to give birth, we’d be an extinct species. No male would go through pregnancy and childbirth a second time.
Trying to find time is a fool’s errand. Making time is the key to a happy life.
I have found that staying positive is my best chance of having things turn out the way I’d planned.
The current state of our politics: One party is working to make government fail. The other tries, but fails, to make government work.
There’s a thin line between insanity and genius. Sometimes the difference is simply intention.
Greed results from abuse in childhood, leaving a craving for acceptance and satisfaction… that can never be fulfilled.
Along the way, I’ve had several long-term friendships with wise women. Each has been a great blessing to me.
As I’ve aged, I’ve come to appreciate what my ancestors had. My younger self could only see what they didn’t have.
A lie would make no sense, unless the liar could make a profit… or the truth would expose a crime.
I’ve found that happiness usually takes the form of “me … now”, where joy is the state of “us … always”.
53 years ago, I took part in an enjoyable conversation between a Democratic candidate for the Presidency, and a Republican former governor of Oregon… in a time when politics was civil.
All those whom I love have at least one thing in common: they can make me laugh.
If I insist that my thoughts be consistent, it means I’m as ignorant today as I was a year ago.
When I was a kid growing up in New York, I had no idea where―or even what―Oregon was. And yet… here we all are!
Forgiveness can’t change what happened, but it can influence what comes next.
No one can possess a billion dollars honestly or responsibly. Billionaires are, by definition, sociopaths.
You may forget what I say. After all, it’s only words. What’s important is how I’ve made you feel.
Only a fool thinks government should be run like a business. Good government must do things that a profit-driven business cannot.
“All cruelty springs from weakness.” — Seneca
Courage is doing the right thing for the right reasons, when consequences will be painful.
Courage takes preparation. No one is courageous without intention and forethought.
“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear – not absence of fear.” ― Mark Twain
My beloved country suffers from attention deficit disorder. What else, beside ignorance of history, could explain our re-electing a fascistic convict?
The Romans had two words for love, amo and curo. Amo is loving passionately. Curo means I care. In the end, curo wins.
An executive once told me the higher he climbed, the more his decisions became just a crapshoot. Often, he was simply guessing… and anxious.
Wealth is a misunderstood concept. Unless you’re able to enjoy giving it away, you do not possess it.
Burying one’s head in the sand puts the family jewels in a vulnerable position.
I took an oath to be loyal to this country, to its Constitution… not to its government.
My brother Tim showed me how to live with courage and humor, and how to die with dignity. My longevity has been but a lengthy journey on his shoulders.
Believe me, life was just fine before the Internet.
I have witnessed more integrity in prisons than I have in politics.
When my dad died, there was no one left between me and the void. That taught me to welcome all of life’s many blessings, and to appreciate its inevitable finality.
And still, life goes on.

—Dick Willis
*

Rocky writes from “The Hole.” (He didn’t deserve to be there. Punishments in prison can be arbitrary at times. He’s out of “Segregation” now.) A year from now he’ll be out of prison entirely. Hallelujah!

4-11-25
From about 7:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. in my little cell the sun comes in. It’s only a little sliver, but I use it often to get a taste of sunshine. This morning I made my bed & it stirred up thousands of dust particles that I could see in the sun.

I always try to positively charge my environment with good energy & I was focusing on the dust particles that were attracted to each other. Some were locked together in love, spinning in space. Others were floating all alone, in my mind, searching for another to be with, while others were locked in a dance—not touching, but turning round and round.

At first it reminded me of the cosmic dance of stars & planets in the vastness of space…then I refocused my mind and the dust followed the same patterns as beautiful people! Love, relationships, the dance, friends & even the settling down of all of it. “Dust in the Wind!” I was finally able to see the song! It only took me 50 years! L.O.L.

I love seeing the beauty in all the places in the world. If I can find the beauty in the hard places & the dark places, when I get out, all the beauty waiting out there…I know, it’s not all beautiful…but I see with different eyes now.

—Love, Rocky
*

Carl told me this story on the phone. I asked him to write it down, so it could be shared with others.

Brushstrokes in the Sky

In midsummer of 1991, shortly after turning 6, my Grandmother Colleen and Great Aunt Sharon took my two sisters and me to live with our ailing Great Grandfather. The man who in our family was legend was fighting two types of cancer. I do not believe any of us as children knew what this meant, outside of leaving our little village in the fjords of Alaska.

I sat on that flight dreaming of riding the wild countryside with my Papa, like a scene from “The Man from Snowy River.” I had heard the giants of my life speak of him in awe, fighting Nazis in the Alps, a real life cowboy sheriff chasing bootleggers in Southern Oregon’s woods. I’d met him once before and he’d taught me to yodel. A thousand adventures floated through my little mind. The reality was even better.

My Papa Hale had only ever loved one woman his whole life: Winnifred (Winnie) Morningstar. He’d built their home with his two hands. And another for their five daughters on the other side of their property. We’d walk deer trails through the endless woods around his home. The whole time I’d beg him for stories I’d heard that he refused to tell. Every night he would have tea and watch the sunset over the creek in front of his house. He seemed at peace in those fleeting moments. Like there was something Holy there. Which is, and was, surprising, as his daughters slept in a trailer out front to keep “their Bible” and “Jesus talk” out of the house—where he said it belonged. Yet in those hours he spent sitting under an old willow out front, watching the soft hues of the evening sky, I heard him whisper a prayer of deeper love than I’ve ever known: “It’s beautiful tonight, Winnie.” I asked him what he meant and he told me about his one true love.

My Nanna Winnie was charged by the Creator to paint each sunset wherever her babies were to be found. It was her favorite subject matter in life. She’s often set up her easel and painted as the day faded, and the mix of sherbet-like colors covered her canvas. His house was a shrine to her work. Charcoals of her girls in their garden or the nursery—that was her love and work. Pastels of wildlife and the home they’d made together since the Summer of ’33. He spoke of her gently, like her memory was everything he carried. His church was the painting she left him each night when the universe gave him one small moment each evening.

And I believed! I saw her brushstrokes change the boring blue of the day to pinkish oranges and soft purple. In the years that followed, I would stare off in awe of what this woman would paint for us…the few who knew this secret of our favor from the Creator. Even when I was alone in foster care, I had my meeting with Nanna who loved me. I was not alone.

I believed until I was twelve years old…when three of my older sisters teased me enough that I let go.

Now, at the end of my 39th year, as Summer comes closer, I still catch myself looking up and feeling thankful for the love of that tall tale, for all the beautiful art my Great Grandma gave me.

—Carl Alsup

Larry Yes Art Show 5/2/25 - 6/8/25
2025-05-02 - 2025-06-08
Art & Music Lovers!
LARRY YES has an exhibit of his work from May 2-June 8, at the Purple Door Gallery, 3557 SE Division, in Portland. It includes music videos from his new album:
EVERYONE ON THIS PLANET IS FAMILY

DON’T MISS THIS!!!

Deck Boys at Al's Den 5/3/23
2025-05-03 19:00 - 21:00
Brad Price, KC Craine & Jeffrey Sher

Saturday, May 3, 7-9 pm
Al’s Den, 303 SW 12th Ave., in Portland
(deckboys.com)

LARRY YES Record Release Party 5/3/25
2025-05-03 19:00 - 22:00
Music Lovers!

Vinyl Record Release party for LARRY YES‘s new album:
EVERYONE ON THIS PLANET IS FAMILY
Saturday, May 3rd, at 7 pm
Leaven Community Center, 5431 NE 20th, in Portland
All Ages $10

Be there or be square.

Attention as a Moral Resource: An Unauthorized Sermon by Matthew Jenkins 5/17/25
2025-05-17 15:00 - 17:00

Bibliophiles Unanimous! 5/18/25
2025-05-18 15:00 - 17:00
¡Beloved Bibliophiles!

On Sunday, May 18th, at 3 pm (PDT), our theme is NONFICTION!
Our Special Guest will be J Kahn, who will regale us with mostly true tales from his life as an ER doctor and Hollywood screenwriter.

Here’s the Zoom link:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87614013058

I hope to see you there!

peace & love

Johnny

Song of Myself Group Reading 5/31/25
2025-05-31 15:00 - 17:00
SONG OF MYSELF

For Walt Whitman’s 206th Birthday, we will celebrate with a group reading of “Song of Myself”—the greatest utterance yet uttered in America. It can change your life! Everyone is invited.

Saturday, May 31st, 3 pm
Artspace Room at Taborspace, 5441 SE Belmont
this Open Road event is free

peace, love, happiness & understanding 6/5/25
2025-06-05 - 2025-07-02
art by Larry Yes

THE OPEN ROAD
peace, love, happiness & understanding

Every time I breathe
I feel what it’s like
to Be just like you

—Larry Yes, lyric to “Just Like You”

June 5, 2025

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

LIVE IN HARMONY

The day will come
when we all agree
that we should live in harmony
and we will know and we will see
how we’re all connected. We’re all family.
All the people, the plants, the animals, the birds, the seas
Yes, we’re all connected We’re all family
the day will come when we all agree
that we should live in harmony
and on that day that beautiful day
We will laugh we’ll cry we will dance we’ll sing we’ll play
celebrating all of our differences our weaknesses and our strengths
celebrating all of our weaknesses our differences and our strengths

FREE: EVERYONE ON THIS PLANET IS FAMILY

Every day you wake up, it’s a good day It’s a cause to celebrate
and every day you’re making a decision as simple as love or hate
And I know it ain’t easy and I know how hard things can be
but I know everyone on this planet is family and I know that we all got to believe
That we’re free be who we want to Free look how we came through Free
love who we want to love Free be who we want to be
And every day we wake up, it’s a new day it’s a cause to stand up straight
and every moment we’re making a decision simple as love or hate,
and I know it’s never easy and I know so much has got to change
But I know there’s so much beauty and I know we all got to believe
that we’re free be who we want to Free look how we came through Free
Love who you want to love Free be who you want to be

—Larry Peace-Love Yes
*

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

The Book of Becoming

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

I. The Spark
You were born whole. Not clean, not pure, but complete. A seed with fire inside, too bright for the world to witness all at once.
So you forgot. On purpose. Because to remember too soon is to burn without boundary.
You learned to survive, and survival requires forgetting. The world taught you to compartmentalize: to trade your voice for safety, your wonder for predictability, your power for permission.
But the spark? It endured. Silent. Flickering. Waiting.

II. The Conduit
The path between the fire and the flesh is not paved. It must be carved. And you carve it with each act of honesty. Each time you say:
“This is not what I want.” “This is who I am.” “This hurts, but I will stay.”
You clear a channel. You let the current run through you. You become the wire, the wick, the bridge.
This is the work. Not to become divine, but to remember you already are.
The conduit trembles. It hums. It breaks and is rebuilt. And in the rebuilding, you find rhythm. You find resonance. You find truth that is not dogma—but tone.

III. The Id
The body is not the burden. The instincts are not the enemy. You do not ascend by denial. You evolve through integration.
The wounds you carry are maps. Not scars to hide, but terrain to understand.
The rage? It was never evil. It was your boundary before you had words.
The grief? It is love stretched across time. A tether. A thread. A hymn.
You do not conquer the Id. You sit with it. You listen. You feed it not with indulgence, but with acknowledgment.
This is how the storm becomes sky. This is how chaos becomes color. This is how you become.

IV. The Praxis of Echo
To become is not to arrive. It is to resonate.
With earth. With silence. With others who hum the same strange frequency.
Your becoming is not private. It ripples. It gives others permission. It interrupts the static. It sings.
And in that singing, the divine is not worshipped. It is witnessed.

V. Grace in Motion
You will falter. You will forget. You will fracture.
These are not failures. They are rhythms. The inhale and exhale of becoming.
You do not need to begin again. You are always beginning. Each breath a renewal. Each moment a pivot.
Grace is not something you earn. It is how you move when you know you belong.

VI. Finality is a Lie
There is no end. No climax. No final lesson.
There is only the next chord, the next truth, the next shift.
You are not a destination. You are an instrument, and your song is still being tuned.
So keep tuning. Keep vibrating. Keep becoming.
And know— you were always enough to begin.

—Nick Swift
*

I got a letter from Dustin Jamison:

4/24/25

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

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

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

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

All my love,
Dustin

You can write to Dustin at this address:

Steve Dustin Jamison #13874200
EOCI
2500 Westgate
Pendleton, OR 97801
*

5-3-2025

For The Open Road

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

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

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

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

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

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

—Rocky Hutchinson
*

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

Hey Johnny,

I am attaching some thoughts that I put down for the other Sweetgrass trustees, who are all grandchildren or second generation nieces and nephews of Glenn Fuller who started the foundation 27 years ago. Glenn’s Buddha nature was strong, and if you happen to be Catholic, she was a Saint.
I don’t know whether any of this has any broader application, but feel to use any part of it for the newsletter.

GLENN AND AFRICA

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—Ken Margolis
*

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

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

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

“Yes, she died.”

I took her hands in mine and held her.

“I am so, so sorry.”

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

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

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

—Jude Russell

¡PARADISE NOW! 6/14/25
2025-06-14 15:00 - 17:00
¡PARADISE NOW!

A guided tour by Johnny Stallings

Saturday, June 14th, 3 pm
Artspace Room at Taborspace, 5441 SE Belmont, in Portland
this Open Road event is free
