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DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20200920T150000
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SUMMARY:Bibliophiles Unanimous!: PRISON THEATRE Book Tour with Ashley Lucas
DESCRIPTION:On Sunday\, September 20th\, we hosted a virtual book for Prison Theatre and the Global Crisis of Incarceration by Ashley Lucas. We had a good turnout on Zoom–Ashley was in Michigan\, Howard in New York\, Al and Nick in Seattle\, lots of friends in Portland and Carlos from Peru! Prison Theatre was published by Methuen Drama on September 3\, 2020. An interview with Ashley is featured in the September 3rd issue of the peace\, love\, happiness & understanding journal.  \n  \nThe fourth Shakespeare in Prisons Conference is highlighting Ashley’s book. Here are some links: \n  \nAshley being interviewed about her Prison Theatre book: \nhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76dfvyk_bB0&t=6s \nAshley talking with returned citizens who have performed in plays in prison: \nhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28mGM-3t30g \nConversation between Ashley and prison theatre directors. (Note. I’m in this one (JS)): \nhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGYQEqUIUdQ \n 
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/bibliophiles-unanimous-prison-theatre-book-tour-with-ashley-lucas/
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DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20200917
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20200924
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SUMMARY:peace\, love\, happiness & understanding  9/17/20
DESCRIPTION:The Platters \n  \nTHE OPEN ROAD \npeace\, love\, happiness & understanding \n  \nSeptember 17\, 2020 \n  \nIt’s smoky. For the past week\, Portland has had the worst air quality of any major city on the planet. And there’s a lot of competition! But\, for now\, our air is worse than the air in Delhi\, India or Shanghai\, China. Nancy and I have been joking about meeting in smoky places\, like in the song by the Corsairs (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGDvR-7ughY). And then\, of course\, there’s the Platters’ hit: “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2di83WAOhU). And we can’t forget Smokey Robinson (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mv9cWgkpIZ4). My friend Nick Eldredge is a fan of Smokey Stover. Notary sojack. \n  \nAaron Gilbert wrote that he has been fighting fires. Kim Stafford sent me an email on Monday: \n  \nThis morning early\, reading about inmates on the fire lines\, it came to this. \n  \n                     Inmate Fights Fire  \n  \nWhen it gets really bad\, they want me out—out there \non that fire-line\, sweating sparks\, staring down flames \nI look up to as I dig like some fiend. Dollar an hour \nto be a crispy critter to save somebody’s home. Yeah\, they \nfigure the same jinx of brave and stupid got me convicted \nmight make me right to stand my ground for fire.  \n  \nLike these boots? Like this hickory handle I flick \nback and forth so my shovel slashes dirt\, leaves \nno food fire can eat? I like leaning back to see \nthat red sun staring through these skeleton trees \nlike bars in my cellblock window. And the wind \nbrings me smoke for free. Free?  \n  \nWhen my sentence ends\, you think I’ll walk free? \nYou think they’ll look at me to say\, “He’s good”? \nThey plot their own fire-line to keep me on the dark side. \nGot it? Like my face tattoo says “Bad Man. Don’t Hire.” \nYou can walk out the prison gate\, but try walking through \nthe reputation wall to freedom after they call you felon.  \n  \nI served my time. Serious good behavior. And after? \nGive me a chance. Or shall I say\, I’ve been burned. \n  \n—Kim Stafford \n* \n  \nPart of that poem reminded me of Randall Brown’s song “One Second Chance.” I met Randall in the Arts In Prison group at Columbia River Correctional Institution. At one point in his life he was living in Nashville and earning his living writing songs. Just as Kim adopted a persona for his poem\, Randall\, who never imagined he would actually go to prison\, wrote a song about a guy who has just gotten out of prison. Here are the lyrics: \n  \nIt says here you’re from Houston \nAnd you’re certified to drive a truck \nBut it doesn’t say what you’ve been doin’ \nFor the last five years \nThen he watched his eyes keep readin’ \nThen he watched his eyes look up \nAnd he watched another job he needed just disappear \n  \n‘Cause when they get to the line \nHave you been convicted of a crime \nThey say thanks for comin’ and they don’t call you back \nI ain’t askin’ for every job under the sun \nI just want one \nSecond chance \n  \nOn August 22nd  \nLittle Jacob’s turnin’ nine \nBut his momma moved him \nA half a state away \nI left another message \nOn her phone at home last night \nAnd she finally had her lawyer \nCall today \n  \nShe knows he can’t afford  \nTo take this thing to court \nAnd I’m tryin’ hard to make her understand \nI’m not askin’ for every weekend of every month \nI just want one \nSecond chance \n  \nI was young and I was stupid \nI regret it everyday \nI ain’t saying I didn’t do it \nBut I’ve paid for my mistakes \nIt’s a lost and empty feeling when they don’t want you around \nI’ve finally got my freedom but what good is it now \n  \nThere’s some day’s when it feels like it’s been a 100 years \nSometimes it seems like only yesterday \nWe were painting Jacob’s nursery \nCounting days until he was here \nNext thing I knew I’d thrown it all away \nNow I know I can’t go back \nTo the life I used to have \nWhen I still held the whole world in my hands \nI had a job I had a wife I had a son \nNow I just want one \nSecond chance \n  \n—Randall Brown \n* \nRandall says:  \n  \nI’ve been out almost 2 years. My current job is foreman for a construction company. I’ve just accepted a position as an operations manager for a commercial construction company in Portland.  \nWhen I got out I was nervous because of the stigma we get as inmates. But my reentry to society went great. I was able to find work within a few days. I did get divorced while in\, but I’ve found a woman who accepts me for me and not my past.  \n* \n  \nThinking about smoke and fires\, I naturally thought of Gary Snyder’s “Smokey the Bear Sutra”: \n  \nSMOKEY THE BEAR SUTRA \n  \nOnce in the Jurassic about 150 million years ago\, the Great Sun Buddha in this corner of the Infinite Void gave a discourse to all the assembled elements and energies: to the standing beings\, the walking beings\, the flying beings\, and the sitting beings–even the grasses\, to the number of thirteen billion\, each one born from a seed\, assembled there: a Discourse concerning Enlightenment on the planet Earth. \n“In some future time\, there will be a continent called America. It will have great centers of power called such as Pyramid Lake\, Walden Pond\, Mt. Rainier\, Big Sur\, Everglades\, and so forth; and powerful nerves and channels such as Columbia River\, Mississippi River\, and Grand Canyon. The human race in that era will get into troubles all over its head\, and practically wreck everything in spite of its own strong intelligent Buddha-nature.” \n“The twisting strata of the great mountains and the pulsings of volcanoes are my love burning deep in the earth. My obstinate compassion is schist and basalt and granite\, to be mountains\, to bring down the rain. In that future American Era I shall enter a new form; to cure the world of loveless knowledge that seeks with blind hunger: and mindless rage eating food that will not fill it.” \nAnd he showed himself in his true form of \nSMOKEY THE BEAR \n     A handsome smokey-colored brown bear standing on his hind legs\, showing that he is aroused and watchful. \n     Bearing in his right paw the Shovel that digs to the truth beneath appearances; cuts the roots of useless attachments\, and flings damp sand on the fires of greed and war; \n     His left paw in the mudra of Comradely Display–indicating that all creatures have the full right to live to their limits and that of deer\, rabbits\, chipmunks\, snakes\, dandelions\, and lizards all grow in the realm of the Dharma; \n     Wearing the blue work overalls symbolic of slaves and laborers\, the countless men oppressed by a civilization that claims to save but often destroys; \n     Wearing the broad-brimmed hat of the west\, symbolic of the forces that guard the wilderness\, which is the Natural State of the Dharma and the true path of man on Earth: all true paths lead through mountains— \n     With a halo of smoke and flame behind\, the forest fires of the kali-yuga\, fires caused by the stupidity of those who think things can be gained and lost whereas in truth all is contained vast and free in the Blue Sky and Green Earth of One Mind; \n     Round-bellied to show his kind nature and that the great earth has food enough for everyone who loves her and trusts her; \n     Trampling underfoot wasteful freeways and needless suburbs\, smashing the worms of capitalism and totalitarianism; \n     Indicating the task: his followers\, becoming free of cars\, houses\, canned foods\, universities\, and shoes\, master the Three Mysteries of their own Body\, Speech\, and Mind; and fearlessly chop down the rotten trees and prune out the sick limbs of this country America and then burn the leftover trash. \nWrathful but calm. Austere but Comic. Smokey the Bear will Illuminate those who would help him; but for those who would hinder or slander him… \nHE WILL PUT THEM OUT. \nThus his great Mantra: \n     Namah samanta vajranam chanda maharoshana  \n     Sphataya hum traka ham mam \n     “I DEDICATE MYSELF TO THE UNIVERSAL DIAMOND  \n     BE THIS RAGING FURY DESTROYED” \nAnd he will protect those who love the woods and rivers\, Gods and animals\, hobos and madmen\, prisoners and sick people\, musicians\, playful women\, and hopeful children: \nAnd if anyone is threatened by advertising\, air pollution\, television\, or the police\, they should chant SMOKEY THE BEAR’S WAR SPELL: \nDROWN THEIR BUTTS \nCRUSH THEIR BUTTS \nDROWN THEIR BUTTS \nCRUSH THEIR BUTTS \nAnd SMOKEY THE BEAR will surely appear to put the enemy out with his vajra-shovel. \nNow those who recite this Sutra and then try to put it in practice will accumulate merit as countless as the sands of Arizona and Nevada. \n  \nWill help save the planet Earth from total oil slick. \nWill enter the age of harmony of man and nature. \nWill win the tender love and caresses of men\, women\, and beasts. \nWill always have ripened blackberries to eat and a sunny spot under a pine tree to sit at. \n  \nAND IN THE END WILL WIN HIGHEST PERFECT ENLIGHTENMENT \nthus we have heard. \n  \n(may be reproduced free forever)  \n  \n—Gary Snyder \n* \nThat reminds me of a joke… \n  \nWhat do Alexander the Great and Smokey the Bear have in common? \nSame middle name. \n  \nAnd now it’s time to sing along to the Smokey the Bear Song with Eddy Arnold: \n  \nhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Myz93sXW66Y \n  \npeace & love \n  \n—Johnny
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/peace-love-happiness-understanding-9-17-20/
END:VEVENT
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DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20200915
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20201015
DTSTAMP:20260426T104856
CREATED:20200915T225612Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20211130T020006Z
UID:1274-1600128000-1602719999@openroadpdx.com
SUMMARY:Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue
DESCRIPTION:Open Road Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue \n  \nSeptember 15\, 2020 \n  \nWelcome to our first meditation and mindfulness dialogue! The numbers below refer to passages from the book Your True Home by Thich Nhat Hanh. (JS) \n  \n#159  A Healing Mantra \nAlthough I myself am locked within walls & a structure of rules\, the cosmos still sustains me and it still nourishes me. I am isolated yet I feel no alienation from the world. I cannot touch a tree or a cloud\, but yet I still feel them. I know they are there for me just outside the walls. For now\, my friends & my family are the light of the sun\, and the door of my heart is filled with love\, light & sun from theirs. Being stripped to the simplest form of oneself will allow you to be filled full of all the beauty that the cosmos has to offer. Empty yourself to be filled with the wonders of life. \n—Rocky Hutchinson \n* \n#49 – What is a leaf? \nIs one of my favorites! In segregation we have paintings that are of different scenes. At first it was cool\, then I and others got over it. But since putting this wisdom of Thich Nhat Hanh in perspective you see more than a painting. For it opens my eyes to the time\, the painter\, the painter’s years of art skills\, everything down to what makes paint…paint. There are so many miracles that came together to make these paintings! It’s amazing. Now I try to be mindful of what miracles come into place to make people I meet\, foods I eat. Being conscious of what had to come together to create your best friend or your favorite food gives you much more appreciation for how they come to be in your life. \nThank you for giving me a chance\, Johnny. I’m really working on myself. My goal is day by day. (Today be less ego-oriented.) Trying to not care who judges me for being me. Because that’s not my problem\, I am happy and peaceful. It’s been a sacrifice\, but as I’m learning sacrifice is the way to a peaceful life! \nPeace Love Happiness \n—Jake Green \n* \nOriginally\, I had no intention of sharing this\, as it was written by inspiration to myself as though it were a summation of what I see as the core of my soul\, for lack of better words\, and also like a mantra and daily meditation. Here it is: \n  \nI am the good man. \nI am the good decisions that I make. \nI am compassion\, I do not fake. \nI am kindness\, I am love. \nI am by choice\, not by chance. \nI am intent\, not happenstance. \nI am in servitude of good. \nI am alive and I am living. \nI am grateful I am. \n  \n—Joseph Opyd \n* \n#6  Concentration \nConcentration is an interesting concept in prison—Why should I want to concentrate on my situation being what it is? But as I’ve grown spiritually\, I’ve come to realize how useful concentration can be.  \nThere is a lot to complain about in life\, but there is also a lot to enjoy! Concentration\, or focusing on what I think as I’m thinking it\, and what I feel as I’m feeling it\, has taught me that my life is richer if I concentrate on the “good” and the “bad”—accepting both for what they are and their role in my life. The passage in the book (#6) talks of the power of concentration in creating happiness at any time. I do think this is important\, however the more useful aspect of concentration for me is being able to be fully—(or as close as I can come for now)—aware of the situations that I find myself in\, and what ripples I make in that environment. Concentration\, or mindfulness\, has also helped me embrace the “bad” parts of life. By being mindful of the roots of my reactions and feelings when a “bad” thing happens I have learned to cope\, embrace and/or overcome these situations\, while gaining a little more skill in mindfulness. \nMy point is that by being mindful I have learned that there is value in all situations. While I suffer I learn\, while I’m happy I learn. Mindfulness is our tool to dig through the layers of our minds and be really truly in the moment\, allowing us to remove reaction and embrace each event for what it is truly worth\, “good\,” or “bad.” \n—Cody Dalton \n* \nI find myself\, my soul\, my beliefs and my being saturated in belonging—belonging to a love so deep\, so real\, so unreal. Coming from a life of nothing and going to a life full of love I never knew I could be a part of. A love that I knew was there\, there for others\, but for me…well\, it was only window shopping. \nNow I long to be drenched in the core of my soul\, always and forever drowning in this love\, this love that has pierced my cosmic veil. This love for all\, for beauty\, for the ones who opened so many doors into and onto the mind\, heart and truth that dwells within my being. \n  \n#191  Love is Understanding \nWhen we do not understand things we fear them. There was a time for myself\, and not too long ago\, when I was fearful of myself. Fearful of who I used to be\, and fearful of the things I had done. Fearful of what I was capable of. I did not fully understand myself\, because I was hiding from myself. When I opened up and allowed someone in\, someone who is truly there for me—only then did I have the strength to face myself and understand why I did what I did\, who I am\, and who I was. Only then did I find the compassion to forgive my demons\, and leave them\, and forgive myself. Love is understanding not just our own faults\, but the faults of others—loving them and loving ourselves. \n—Rocky Hutchinson \n* \n#4  Ambassador of the Cosmos \nI love Thich Nhat Hanh’s word “interbeing” and what it suggests to my imagination—the interdependence and interconnectedness of everyone and everything! In this passage he doesn’t use the word\, but he describes how when he looks deeply into a piece of bread\, he sees the sunshine\, the rain and the earth without which there would be no bread. Some people imagine that they are somehow “independent\,” but with every breath we take\, oxygen revitalizes our blood\, and we exhale carbon dioxide which nourishes the trees\, which produce oxygen… I’m glad I get to be part of this whole miraculous process that has no beginning or end. \n—Johnny Stallings \n* \nWhat is it that you really know? Not just what you have been told or what you think or have read or surmise but something that you deeply know. And how is that different from the other kind of knowing where you think it or have heard it? I think starting with what your base understanding is one of the most crucial steps in meditation. Knowing your own inner ground….and what you don’t know. Write it down. And maybe a few months or years from now you can come back to it and see if anything has changed. \n  \nWhat Do I Know? \n  \nClosing my eyes\, \na silent darkness\, \nlight \nat the edges. \nMy breath moves \nup and down\,  \nholding each moment\, \ninhalation \nthen release. \nThe human heart \nis quixotic\, \nmalleable\, \nalmost like a berry \nin the palm of my hand. \nIn my ears\, \na deeper space \nthat stretches out\, \na disappearing \nreverberation. \nWe touch nothingness. \n  \n—Deborah Buchanan\, from Layers of Sediment \n* \nWhen I invited people who don’t live in prison to be part of our new meditation and mindfulness community\, I included Jake Green’s meditations on “What is a Leaf?” Scott Teitsworth was reminded by Jake’s “sweet words” of a passage from a book he edited by his guru\, Nitya Chaitanya Yati. (JS) \nEven when you do something as simple as sip a cup of coffee or tea\, think about what you are doing. Your morning tea begins in some far-off land\, where very poor people get up at four o’clock. They crowd onto a battered bus\, then walk to the plantation where ripe leaves are waiting to cut into their fingers. Leeches climb on them to drink their blood. All day long they fill their baskets\, then they go home to a meager supper. The tea leaves are hauled to huge mills employing hundreds of people\, where they are cleaned\, dried\, and made into the kind of blend you want. Then it is put in tins or boxes\, and sent by truck down the mountains and out to the coast. The shipyard is filled with more poor laborers\, who load the tea onboard ships. Then across the ocean it comes to your port.The distributors parcel and package it and send it to your local market\, where you buy it and take it home. Thus the whole world participates in one cup of tea. If you like sugar with your tea\, there is another world of production and distribution behind that spoonful of white grains you tip into the cup. So should you not look into the numinous aspect of just a cup of tea? \nIf you become sensitive to the numinous aspect of life\, gratitude will naturally fill your whole being. Each time you put a morsel of food in your mouth or sip your tea or coffee\, you will become so grateful to the corporate life of mankind for giving you so much for so little effort. You will see nothing but the unity underlying the many forms of the world. Great will be your joy to share\, to give\, to receive. Then you won’t fight. The belligerency comes in where you see only your own personal interests—“my home\,” “my family\,” or just“my self.” The superficial form of your self interest should be subsumed in the ocean of the general interest\, and you should feel the world is your country\, your home. That humanity is your family\, filled with your brothers and sisters. \nThe Guru* wants us to really feel this: to stand united\, to find peace and become peacemakers. We have to first be peacemakers in our own lives. We bring peace to ourselves. By putting all the peaces together\, we make peace with the world.If you fragment it\, you lose it. So let us gather all the peaces together in one meaning\, in one divine thread of love and compassion and understanding. \n  \n—from That Alone: The Core of Wisdom by Nitya Chaitanya Yati pp. 140-141 \n*Narayana Guru (1856-1928). This book is a long commentary inspired by a philosophical poem by Narayana Guru\, Ātmopadeśa Shatakam. \n—Scott Teitsworth \n* \n#7   Why we suffer \nThich Nhat Hanh reminds me that all things change\, and I will suffer if I refuse this truth\, like a stone in the river trying to stop water’s journey\, I will be rolled and all my rough edges worn away. When he speaks of the river\, I remember a time we went to a back channel and wandered along in a canoe\, and I entered a kind of trance of well-being as the river flowed and sunlight splashed everything alive. When I suffer sometimes\, when I wake at night and remember my failures\, I go back to the river in my mind\, and try to see it for what it is: \n  \nCall me the scruffy hermit of willow islands. \nCall me the skipping stone eager to squander all \nfor a few joyful episodes of buoyancy. I could be \ncounting money? I could be a hero of fame? \nCall me one lost to water’s wonders\, far gone \ndown a back channel gaping at water beads \ndripping brilliant from the paddle’s blade.  \n  \n—Kim Stafford \n* \nI look through my study cards. Today’s contemplation is “Observation of the Mind.” Do I have solid mindfulness established\, or is my mind more of the scattered quality? To what degree are desire/lust\, anger\, and confusion present or absent in my mind? This is not about judgement; as humans\, we spend so much time with these mental qualities that we might as well use them as meditation tools. This is more like a checklist\, is a quality present or absent? The card reminds me: all mental contents arise and pass away. Can I observe that right now? Can I see that my thoughts now are different than my thoughts 10 minutes ago? Bonus points if I can train myself to have some awareness of others\, that other people also have rapidly changing mental qualities. “Your True Home” (YTH) speaks about this exercise at item 120\, “Mindfulness of the Mind.” Another exercise I can do with my mind\, and its contents\, is to ask if current thoughts are beneficial to my wellbeing and the wellbeing of those around me\, or if they detract from wellbeing. Again\, this is not about judgement or criticism\, it is about taking inventory of the mind. Flipping through YTH\, I find this in item 47. \n—Shad Alexander \n* \nSpaciousness \nIt is 4:45 am. A small glimmer of light in the eastern sky\, but a mass of stars still predominates in the dome above. My favorite time of the day: mornnight. My mind is rested and fresh\, still empty. \nI have two and a half days of precious spaciousness. My husband is away for a couple days of bike riding while I had planned to go away camping with women friends. My outing was cancelled because of high winds\, falling trees and fire danger. David said\, “Oh well\, I won’t go if you’re going to be here alone.” I said\, with a duplicitous smile\, “Oh no\, you go ahead. You don’t want to disappoint your friends by not showing up. I’ll be fine.” \nDon’t get me wrong; I love my husband\, but he should know\, after 36 years\, that I treasure these infrequent\, but cherished times of aloneness. And this one is serendipitous spaciousness. I am never lonely being alone. I am filled with empty spaciousness. The house feels bigger. It is breathing and expanding\, and I breathe and expand\, in tandem\, like singing a harmonious duet. \nDuet. Round: In my family we played duets on the piano and sang rounds. “Go to Joan Glover and tell her I love her\, and by the light of the moon I will come to her.” Repeat one bar after the first has been sung. Etc. And\, “Orléans\, Beaugency\, Notre-Dame de Cléry\, Vendôme\, Vendôme…”  Sung as a round\, it sounds like cathedral bells tolling throughout the city. We sang dozens of rounds. \nSpaciousness allows my mind to remember things like this. My mind can rest or wander; either way\, it awakens refreshed\, mindful. \n—Jude Russell \n* \nReading some passages in Your True Home\, I was again impressed with how beautifully Thich Nhat Hanh expresses complex Buddhist concepts in clear\, easy to understand language. One of these concepts that touched me this morning was #9: I Have Arrived. So much of our lives are concerned with striving–we want to learn things\, we want to get better at things\, we want to excel\, we want to create. And this striving is wonderful: it has produced our art\, science\, architecture\, literature\, airplanes\, medicine…our civilization\, the civilizations that came before us and those that will come after us. But the most important thing about life–greater than any discovery\, creation\, or attainment– is the simple fact that we are alive. When we’re in great danger\, or facing a serious illness\, we often remember that nothing is more important than protecting our precious life. But the practice of meditation is taking time to appreciate this fact without the stimulus of danger. If we open our eyes and ears we can remember how fantastic it is\, how precious\, how exciting\, how beautiful\, how crazy it is that we are here. We have arrived. We are not only alive but we can be aware of our life and we can appreciate our life. Meditation practice is taking time to appreciate this amazing fact.  \n—Howard Thoresen \n* \nI’ve tried to learn meditation a few different times and I’ve never succeeded. My self-discipline is spotty\, my posture’s always off\, and I forget the proper hand positions. My body gets uncomfortable and my brain rebels against meditating. My thoughts increase instead of quieting down. Plus\, I’m not a very Buddhist-like person\, thanks to my intemperate ways. I gave up trying to meditate years ago.   \nAfter giving up\, though\, a funny thing started happening. I noticed that my mind would sometimes quiet down on its own\, without much effort from me. When I’m outside I get absorbed by the awesome fullness of life. When I sit in my house and pay attention I feel content with my heartbeat and the peace in my local airspace. When I let my thinking and my judgements be calm the outer and inner worlds do just fine. This balance doesn’t last indefinitely; there are things to do—groceries\, e-mails\, etc. But I can return pretty easily to what Alan Watts calls “sitting quietly\, doing nothing.”  I’ll leave the meditating to the pros. I’m simply grateful for the moment\, and being part of it\, and having people to share it with. \n—Bill Faricy \n* \n78  The Wounded Child \nI was planning on writing about another part of the book\, but I read this\, this morning\, and it kind of hit me like I needed to write about this instead. \nI guess a good question is: what is the child inside of us? I suppose it is part of us\, the child that is\, just because we grow into adulthood we don’t necessarily leave that child behind—he or she comes with us. I believe children are more susceptible\, at a young age\, especially to trauma. I think a traumatic experience as a child can have more of an effect than experiencing that same trauma at an older age. \nI sometimes struggle with a lack of self worth\, and have some insecurities. I am sure most people do\, and maybe being in prison just heightens them. For instance\, sometimes I struggle to even call my family. I will convince myself that they don’t want to hear from me and they have better things to do than talking to me. \nI have recently reconnected with a girlfriend from my past. Talking to her has been great\, but when she says\, “I love you\,” in my mind I say that doesn’t make sense. I have made so many mistakes. Am I worthy of Love? I feel I have worked very hard these last fourteen years to become a better human being. I try to be kind and compassionate to others. Is that enough? I don’t have much else. What if I screw up again? I think maybe that is the child inside of me that is scared. \nI think in these moments of insecurity if we are able to recognize the source\, and why we are feeling this way\, we can begin to heal them. I realize I have done some amazing things with my time in prison. I have met some amazing people along the way that have taught me so much about life and its true meaning. I am not angry anymore and have become a very patient\, understanding person. Maybe sometimes too patient—it may take me a couple days to answer someone’s  question sometimes. I want to make sure I understand what they are asking before I answer though. Geez! I do truly believe that all humans are worthy of being loved\, so I guess that includes myself. Dang it! I know the best thing I can do for myself is continue to live a healthy clean life\, love others\, and surround myself with like-minded people—and when she answers my call\, enjoy it for all it’s worth in the here and now. My hope is that someday I will be a successful productive member of society\, and when that child inside comes calling I can reassure him that we have the tools to live a healthy life\, and everything is going to be okay. \n—Aaron Gilbert \n* \nYour True Home: It is in the now\, the breath\, the fully aware moment. I can’t add to or take away from it. And\, if I hold on to it\, I get stuck because new “now” moments have begun piling up behind this one. If I touch it\, let it go—not holding on to anything—then I can flow from one now to the next\, feeling everything.  I see a connection to Kristen’s topic of “Contentment.” When I can be content with life as it is\, instead of wasting energy with how it was\, I have one less roadblock to the “now” moment.” When I can allow my guard down\, for myself at least (if not for others)\, I can enter that moment to begin the experience as it is. Then I can breathe and allow each “now” moment to come and go as they wish. \nIn spite of all this “now” mindfulness\, “in the moment” talk is that I can’t\, (won’t or don’t)\, just let go of ego\, barriers\, worries past and present\, judgements\, etc. Well\, not for as long as I think\, or tell myself I should. I tell myself that I “want” to do this. I attend the Zen practice sessions so I can practice being more skilled at this—sometimes I even succeed at something\, which leads me back to all that I judge. (Thanks\, Jake.) I “need” to let go. Once in a while\, I do somehow\, more by happy accident than skillful action\, manage to set everything down\, breathe\, and contentedly exist. The more often I struggle with this\, the more often I manage to stumble into aware\, conscious breathing\, where thoughts come and go without my bidding\, or following another white rabbit. Someday\, I want to arrive at my True Home. \nEven this work is plagued by ego\, self-aware judgement\, criticism\, worry about the opinions of others—that I don’t somehow measure up to some arbitrary standard. (All of this is more in my head than in reality.) It all comes from awareness that I am no expert\, guru\, or skilled practitioner of mindfulness\, but find myself at the beginning. Always At The Beginning!!—just like everyone else: breathing\, just breathing\, being gentle and kind when I see I have followed another wild hare off into some dark forest and away from my thoughtful breath. \n—Michel Deforge \n* \nThis is one of my favorite guided meditations from Thich Nhat Hanh.  \nIt begins with his signature meditation on being aware of our most basic source of life. \nTake three deep breaths then breathing normally\, gently\, follow someone saying to you the following\, or say to yourself:  \n  \n“Breathing in I am aware that I am breathing in.  Breathing out I am aware of breathing out.”  \nIn\, out. . . . . in\, out . . . .  \nIn\, out. . . . . in\, out . . . .  \nIn\, out. . . . . in\, out . . . .  \n  \nBreathing in\, I see myself as a flower. \nBreathing out\, I feel fresh. \nFlower/Fresh  (say this to yourself\, for three in and out breaths) \n  \nBreathing in\, I see myself as a mountain. \nBreathing out\, I feel solid. \nMountain/Solid \n  \nBreathing in\, I see myself as a mountain lake. \nBreathing out\, I reflect things as they are. \nWater/Reflecting \n  \nBreathing in\, I see myself as the sky or space. \nBreathing out\, I feel free. \nSpace/Free. \n  \nSome of my reflections on this practice. \nOn being a flower: \nWhen I sit and see myself as a plum blossom\, I feel delicate and careful\, I want to be aware of the subtle fragrance and the fresh air. I feel still and listen for the insects and the breeze in the tree.   \nLater\, when I want to thank someone\, like my yoga teacher or a friend that brings a gift\,  I remember feeling like a flower\, and I will put my palms together and offer a “flower bud” of thanks.  \nOn being a mountain: \nMoving from feeling like something delicate to feeling solid as a mountain\, grounds me and I feel a strength\,  and a knowing  that makes me feel more steady than any fleeting emotions.  \nOn being a mountain lake: \nThe water is still\, we can reflect what is aroud us\, like trees on the shore that are inverted but without distortion.  Such a sense of calm.   \nOn being the sky : \nThe feeling of spaciousness fills me with each breath.  Beyond judgement\, I feel space in and out\, and appreciate the space we need to give one another to be fully human and unique. \nThis simple meditation moves us through an expansive experience with just four images that are familiar to us all\, because we are alive on this planet.   \nThere is a song that goes along with this meditation\, that can help tune us up.   I will find a copy with the music and send it next time if you all are interested.  \nI hope you will find some peace\,  be well.   \nA plum blossom to you\,  Katie \n(I wish I could send you some plums that are growing now on the plum tree) \n—Katie Radditz \n* \nOur dialogue begins. Thank you. We’re off to a good start!  \nToday\, on September 15th\, I’m mailing this to just under a dozen people living in prison and emailing it to just under two dozen people who aren’t. It’s a conversation. Feel free to write and email me in response to something somebody shared. That will be the basis of the next letter\, which will go out on October 15th. Also\, between now and then\, please send me your ruminations on passages from Your True Home or other poems or texts. Or just your thoughts. Or a poem. \nMay all people be happy. \nMay we live in peace and love. \n  \n—Johnny
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/meditation-mindfulness-dialogue/
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20200910
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20200917
DTSTAMP:20260426T104856
CREATED:20200910T203440Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250718T120632Z
UID:1258-1599696000-1600300799@openroadpdx.com
SUMMARY:peace\, love\, happiness & understanding  9/10/20
DESCRIPTION:THE OPEN ROAD \npeace\, love\, happiness & understanding \n  \nSeptember 10\, 2020 \n  \nThe Paradise of Books \n  \nCervantes says that Don Quixote stayed up day and night reading books until he fried his brain and went completely mad. The hero of Salman Rushdie’s latest novel\, Quichotte\, has watched so much television that he can’t tell what’s real from what’s not. \nSince June 7th\, I have been hosting a Zoom gathering on Sunday afternoons at 3 pm\, Bibliophiles Unanimous! \n  \n (https://openroadpdx.com/event/bibliophiles-unanimous/). \n  \n We’ve been having a lot of fun with it. It’s not like a “regular book club\,” where each month everyone agrees to read the same book and then talk about it. I think the impetus for that kind of book group is that we all hunger for more connection with each other\, especially a shared cultural framework that is not limited to Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad. It’s why\, when we’ve just read a book or seen a movie\, we say to all our friends and to anyone who will listen: You must read this book! (Or see this movie!) \n  \nOur weekly Zoom gathering is a meandering dialogue. Topics have ranged from poetry\, to books with pictures\, to oddball books\, to books that changed the way you see and experience the world.  \n  \nOur house is filled with books. The bookshelves are filled to overflowing. I’m sitting in a nest of books. I think of many of the books and their authors as my friends. Even though I’m just sitting here\, I can easily imagine myself to be walking along the open road with Walt Whitman by my side. On my life journey\, he has taught me so many things! Like this one: “I am not contained between my hat and boots.” And: “All truths wait in all things.” And: “Seeing\, hearing\, feeling are miracles\, and each part and tag of me is a miracle.” It’s good to know these things. \n  \nThings I read are constantly changing my inner landscape. Want to see the world in a new way? Try this: \n  \nIn the Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge\, it is written that animals are divided into:  \n  \n\nthose that belong to the Emperor\,\nembalmed ones\,\nthose that are trained\,\nsuckling pigs\,\nmermaids\,\nfabulous ones\,\nstray dogs\,\nthose included in the present classification\,\nthose that tremble as if they were mad\,\ninnumerable ones\,\nthose drawn with a very fine camelhair brush\,\nothers\,\nthose that have just broken a flower vase\,\nthose that from a long way off look like flies.\n\n  \n—from Other Inquisitions\, by Jorge Luis Borges \n* \n  \nAs a young man\, Jack Kerouac’s books On the Road and The Dharma Bums gave me permission to explore the big world\, follow my heart’s desire\, and live a life relatively free of societal constraints. \n  \nAnd then there were books that furthered my exploration of the nature and meaning of my human existence. The Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda\, inspired me to become a vegetarian\, and to begin meditating in quest of samādhi—“the peace which passeth understanding.” J. Krishnamurti spoke of “freedom from the known\,” and other radical ideas. The I Ching\, Tao Te Ching\, and the poems of Han Shan were a window into the ancient Chinese ways of seeing and being. More recently\, I’ve added the Hsin Hsin Ming of Seng Ts’an to that list. Shunryu Suzuki’s Zen Mind\, Beginner’s Mind taught many hippies of my generation about Zen meditation. I’ve learned about Haiku\, Zen and Japanese Culture from R. H. Blyth. My favorite books by him are Zen in English Literature and Oriental Classics and Volume 1 of his four-volume series\, Haiku\, titled Eastern Culture. \n  \nI learned about Advaita Vedanta from the Bhagavad Gita\, Talks With Ramana Maharshi\, the Vivekachudāmani of Shankara and The Philosophy of the Upanishads by Paul Deussen. Aldous Huxley’s Perennial Philosophy shows how the world’s religions express the same fundamental truths. Joseph Campbell’s vast knowledge of world mythology also illuminates how “Elementary Ideas” are given different costumes or masks in different cultures. (I enjoy listening to talks he gave more than reading his books—they bring out his lively mind and engaging personality better.) \n  \nFor now\, I’ll mention just a few books that gave me a better understanding of the world in which we live. Woman and Nature by Susan Griffin woke me up to the centuries of oppression of women by men\, and gave me a sense of the importance of listening to women’s voices and helping to co-create a more just world. Magical Child and Evolution’s End by Joseph Chilton Pearce\, and For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty In Childrearing and the Roots of Violence by Alice Miller gave me unforgettable lessons in how our systematic physical\, emotional and psychological abuse of children thwarts human potential and sows seeds for every kind of violence—from suicide to genocide. In my view\, the one thing that the world needs most is more lovingkindness. \n* \n  \nSome poems came my way this week. Josh Barnes sent me this sonnet: \n  \nSonnet #1 \n  \nEach snowdrift piles higher than the last\, \nThe ground’s surface has long frozen over; \nA frigid picture—Nature’s wild past \nThat beckons the heart—taunting\, Come closer; \nBut as times change the beauty is melted\, \nLeaving a dreadful Silence in its stead\, \nFor the ones that would’ve truly felt it \nAre lying inside their graves\, long dead; \nBut beauty shed need not mean beauty lost\, \nAnd life has many a surprise in store\, \nLike rivers that spring from ‘neath the frost\, \nThen freely flow from the glaciers to pour; \nEndless the stream of life in its beauty\, \nThe circle of life doing its duty. \n  \n—Joshua Barnes \n* \n  \nDoug Marx shared some poems from his “Sheltering In Place” series. He prefaced his reading by saying that the poems are not his voice\, but the voice of a persona. He said it’s as if these poems are being dictated to him. Here’s one: \n  \nSheltering in Place #12   \n  \nThe crows are freaking out about the mask. \nWe’re not speaking.  \n  \nNow they squawk \nand flee me when they see me coming up the walk \nin my orange and yellow \ntie-dye pandemic disguise.   \n  \nI can’t blame them. \nThey can’t see what I’m hiding from \nand neither can I.  \nThey don’t know the real me anymore \nand neither do I.  \n  \nI don’t ask why\, I just don’t want to die.  \n  \nHow explain four million \nnine hundred and eighteen thousand \nfour hundred and twenty  \ndown\,  \n  \nor one hundred and sixty thousand \ntwo hundred and ninety \ngone.  \n  \nTheir world isn’t falling apart right now. \nThe spider webs are still holding.  \n  \nFlashbacks of the old life come at me \nlike phantom reds and blues  \nin the mind of a man five months blind.  \n  \nSome humans freak out about the mask too  \nand would as soon kill you as wear one.  \n  \nI can’t explain anything to them either. \nThe death look in their eyes terrifies me.  \n  \nWhen I see one coming I squawk \nand cross the street.  \n  \nWelcome to the masquerade. \nYou are on your own. \n  \n—Doug Marx \n* \n  \nDear Readers:  \n  \nPlease send me your poems and short writings\, or poems and short writings you love\, and which have inspired you\, that were written by somebody else. \nWe’ll end this issue with a poem that Nick Eldredge wrote. It hangs on his wall as a reminder… \n  \n¡Gracias! \n  \nJuanito \n  \nYARD SALE  \nsat & sun 9 to 4 \neverything I know \nmust go \nslightly used certainties \npreowned philosophies \nrefurbished realities \nbargains galore \n  \n 
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/peace-love-happiness-understanding-9-10-20/
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20200903
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20200910
DTSTAMP:20260426T104856
CREATED:20200903T165355Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20200903T165606Z
UID:1233-1599091200-1599695999@openroadpdx.com
SUMMARY:peace\, love\, happiness & understanding  9/3/20
DESCRIPTION:After The Winter’s Tale at Two Rivers prison in 2014: Ashley Lucas and Jeffrey Sanders.  \nTHE OPEN ROAD \npeace\, love\, happiness & understanding \n  \n  \nSeptember 3\, 2020 \n  \nInterview with Ashley Lucas \n  \nJohnny Stallings.  Your book Prison Theatre and the Global Crisis of Incarceration comes out today\, published by Methuen Drama. Can you tell our readers what it’s about and how you came to write it? \n  \nAshley Lucas.  I traveled to ten different countries to see as much theatre inside prisons as I could. When I started\, I thought the book might be more focused on how theatre in prisons gets made\, which is certainly something the book discusses\, but I realized when I really started talking to incarcerated people about their work that what I most wanted to know was why theatre matters to them. The vast majority of people I met in my research had little to no relationship to theatre prior to their incarceration\, yet somehow once they started doing theatre inside the walls\, it became deeply important to them. I wanted to find out what that was about. Most of these folks didn’t see themselves as training to become professional theatre makers after their release from prison. They told me stories that revealed that they were using the theatre to accomplish other things besides the staging of plays. They were building communities\, developing professional skills\, creating social change\, and maintaining hope as a way to survive the harsh world of the prison. The book endeavors to make the people that I met feel alive and present to readers who likely will never get to meet the extraordinary folks I encountered in prisons. \n  \nThe process of how I came to write the book is multifaceted. On a very practical level\, back in 2013\, Methuen Drama invited me to write a book about theatre in prisons around the world\, but in a certain sense I had begun this journey long before that invitation arrived to mark the official start of my research. My father spent twenty years in Texas prisons\, and in a sense I grew up in prison visiting rooms. I started acting in community theatre productions when I was in middle school\, just a few years before my father’s incarceration began. In that sense\, both theatre making and visiting prisons have been major cultural practices that shaped my life from adolescence. Nearly a decade into my father’s incarceration\, I was in graduate school working on my Ph.D. in theatre and ethnic studies when I decided to write an interview-based play about people who have family members in prisons. When I started performing my play Doin’ Time: Through the Visiting Glass as a one-woman show\, I started getting invited into prisons to share it with incarcerated audiences. People began introducing me to other folks who made theatre in prisons\, and that was how I came to realize that theatre was actually happening inside these facilities. My work as a scholar shifted to follow my artistic practice\, and I began to research prison theatre companies. That led me to a job at the University of Michigan\, which recruited me to teach theatre and also become the Director of the Prison Creative Arts Project (PCAP). (I’m now the Former Director and continue to teach in the program\, while the fabulous Nora Krinitsky serves as the current Director.) My work as a playwright/performer\, administrator of a prison arts program\, teacher of students who facilitate theatre workshops in prisons\, and scholar who studies such programs informs how and why I wrote this book. Fundamentally\, my experiences as the daughter of someone who served two decades in prison shapes my approach to writing this book more than anything else. \n  \nJohnny.  Before asking my next questions\, I want to mention that the Prison Creative Arts Project is the largest prison arts organization on Planet Earth. So\, my next questions… After seven years of travel and work on the book\, are you excited that it’s coming out today? Who do you hope will read it? What do you hope the book will do to them? \n  \nAshley.  I am so grateful that I was able to finish all of my research travels as planned before the advent of the global pandemic. It would have made me so sad to miss out on meeting any of the extraordinary theatre companies and artists I had the honor to meet in my journeys. I am both excited and a little overwhelmed that the book is finally coming out. At the PCAP we’re just starting new correspondence programming in lieu of the work we have always done in prisons in person. It’s very sad not to be able to be physically present with all of the people we care about inside prisons\, but the fact that we are being allowed to start this new correspondence programming gives us the ability to send books into prisons for the first time in PCAP’s thirty-year history. We’re sending all participants in our theatre workshops a copy of my book\, and I pray that the men and women who receive it will find it both a consolation and an inspiration in this terribly difficult time. It’s always really tough to be in prison\, but the pandemic adds layers of pain\, fear\, and physical torment that are not always part of an incarcerated person’s daily life. Good books have helped me through the hardest moments of my life (and are helping me now). I pray that my book can be a layer of support for people on both sides of prison walls who really need it right now. I think Prison Theatre has the potential to do this for folks because it’s full of stories of people who have used their artistic talents as mechanisms for survival in very trying circumstances.  \n  \nJohnny.  I get the impression from your book that you are also making a case to prison administrators and the general public that theatre in prison is more than just a way for prison residents to while away the time. It has value. You’ve already said that prison theatre helps to build community\, develop professional skills\, create social change\, and maintain hope. Let’s talk about love. In your travels\, in 2014\, you visited Open Hearts Open Minds’ production of Shakespeare’s Winter’s Tale  at Two Rivers prison in Umatilla\, Oregon\, and you write about that experience in your book. What happened in the Visiting Room where the play was performed? \n  \nAshley.  Yes\, I hope that the book has many audiences. I hope that prison administrators with open hearts who truly wish for the world to be a safer place rather than a more punitive one will read the book and see how much theatre programming can do to improve the lives of everyone inside the prison—the incarcerated folks and the staff—and the lives of those connected to them in the outside world (ie. their families and the general public coming to see the plays). \n  \nI am so happy that you brought up love! I find that people are terrified to talk about the concept of love in connection with prisons. There seems to be an automatic assumption that the only kind of love that can happen in prisons is sexual\, romantic\, or aggressive\, and of course\, the truth is that because people in prison are complex human beings\, just like the rest of us\, all forms of love and affection exist inside prisons. We love our friends\, our mentors\, the people who become our chosen families. A prison that recognizes the humanity of the people inside it and actually wants them to be empathetic and driven to make positive contributions to the lives of others should actually cultivate a broad range of opportunities for safe and loving relationships among people\, in much the same ways that a good school\, religious congregation\, or community organization would. The theatre is an extraordinary vehicle for emotional openness\, vulnerability\, and love. If we can’t enable one another to be vulnerable in safe ways\, then we are cultivating a culture of isolation and aggression. Since the vast majority of people in prison will live again in freedom some day\, we need to invest in their emotional wellbeing and stability. People cannot be well if they do not feel that they are loved\, admired\, and appreciated for their unique gifts and abilities. \n  \nI hope that the chapter I wrote in Prison Theatre about the Open Hearts Open Minds production of Winter’s Tale helps readers to feel in some measure the magic of that production. The acting\, costumes\, music\, and sets were all absolutely beautiful\, but the incredible joy and love that that performance brought to everyone in the room really altered the world of the prison. The visiting room where the performance was held was full of families and children. I was blessed to sit by a woman named Sharon Lemm whose son Joseph Opyd was in the cast. She had been at Two Rivers prison for the Open Hearts Open Minds production the year before\, and when she realized that a number of men in the cast had no families there to support them—indeed some no longer had contact with their families at all—she promptly adopted the entire theatre troupe and became known as Momma Sharon. Her extraordinary spirit exemplifies something larger that was happening at Two Rivers that day. All kinds of human connections were forming. Families were mixing with one another to celebrate the cast. The prison staff were engaged and even proud of the work they’d seen the incarcerated men do. Audience members like me who were until that day strangers to almost everybody in the room were welcomed with open arms—literally\, there were people hugging all over that prison visiting room! It was such a glorious evening\, a celebration of life in spite of the prison in which we found one another. That play helped break down all kinds of barriers that divide people and helped us all to see what we shared in our common humanity.    \n  \nJohnny.  One thing that keeps people away from theatre is money. Not charging admission means that more family members\, and even small children\, come to see the plays. By making the play free it is a pure gift from actors to audience. What we discovered is that\, in the case of our prison productions\, the gift was reciprocal. It means so much to the actors that family and strangers have traveled a long way\, and come inside a prison(!)\, to see them\, and to appreciate them with thunderous applause. For the volunteers with Open Hearts Open Minds programs\, volunteering in prison is not some kind of noble act of charity. It’s a profound reciprocal giving. Have you noticed something similar in your work supervising college students who go into prisons in Michigan? \n  \nAshley.  Yes\, absolutely! Many people I meet want to talk about what a great thing our program is doing for folks in prisons\, but in truth the most demonstrable growth I can see\, as someone whose worked with the program for years\, is in the college students. Most of them have never set foot in a prison prior to joining PCAP and don’t believe they have any connection to the carceral system. Then they spend a semester collaborating with incarcerated people and come to love and respect those folks in a way that reshapes their entire world view. The experience of meaningful and prolonged interaction with people who live in very different circumstances than you do expands your understanding of how things like state power\, structural inequality\, racism\, and social justice work. My students and the currently and formerly incarcerated folks with whom we work also come to see the arts as active forces that can help us to build coalitions\, address problems\, and create opportunities. Fundamentally\, my students are not going into prisons to teach or to provide social services. Our mission is to equalize power dynamics as much as the prisons will allow us to do so and approach one another as collaborators with a shared stake in the community and artistic outcomes of our projects. In this way\, we all learn and grow together. My students will often tell me that going to prison is the best part of their week\, and none of them like prisons. Being in community with other people who take you and your artistic gifts seriously is an incredible joy\, a great blessing—one that can be harder to find in the outside world where our presence in a classroom or other public space is often taken for granted. People in prison treasure their time with people from the free world\, and they remind us of what a gift it is to be truly present with others. \n  \nJohnny.  Thank you so much\, Ashley\, for taking the time to share with our readers. Congratulations on completing this vast project! It’s going to make the world a kinder place. How can people order your book?    \n  \nAshley. Thank you\, Johnny! I’m so grateful that this book project enabled me to get to know you better and to meet the extraordinary folks at Open Hearts Open Minds. I hope very much to return to visit you and the incarcerated folks with whom you work. \n  \nMy book is available from all major booksellers\, and I encourage you to support local and independent bookstores when ordering. My favorite independent bookstore is Literarity Book Shop in my hometown of El Paso\, Texas: https://www.facebook.com/LiterarityBooks/. My friend Bill Clark who owns it has my book in stock and ships anywhere in the United States. You can reach him through the store’s Facebook page or by emailing him directly to order: bclark@literarity.com. Local bookstores sustain our communities\, and they need our support! \nYou can also order directly from the publisher’s website: https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/prison-theatre-and-the-global-crisis-of-incarceration-9781472508416/. \n  \nNote to our readers:  Ashley will be doing a virtual book tour\, which includes being the special guest of The Open Road’s Bibliophiles Unanimous! Zoom gathering on Sunday\, September 20th\, at 3 pm\, Pacific Time. Here’s the link:   \n  \n https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82169567543 \n  \nI hope you’ll join us! \n  \nAnd to clarify a couple of points… I’m no longer doing theatre inside Oregon prisons. Open Hearts Open Minds is moving forward under the leadership of the amazing Carla Grant as Executive Director. To learn more about what they’re doing\, here’s a link to their website: www.openheartsopenminds.net.  \n  \nI do have a lot of prison pen pals\, and The Open Road (openroadpdx.org) has a Prison Education Project and a Meditation & Mindfulness Project for people who live in prison and for those who don’t. This “peace\, love\, happiness & understanding” journal is mailed every week to 33 friends inside prison walls and emailed to 130 friends on the outside. \n  \npeace & love \n  \n—Johnny
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/peace-love-happiness-understanding-9-3-20/
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DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20200827
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20200903
DTSTAMP:20260426T104856
CREATED:20200827T164937Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250718T120527Z
UID:1207-1598486400-1599091199@openroadpdx.com
SUMMARY:peace\, love\, happiness & understanding  8/27/20
DESCRIPTION:  \nTHE OPEN ROAD \npeace\, love\, happiness & understanding \nAugust 27\, 2020 \n  \nMeditation & Mindfulness \n  \nAnd when he was demanded of the Pharisees\, when the kingdom of God should come\, he answered them and said\, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: \nNeither shall they say\, Lo here! or\, lo there! for\, behold\, the kingdom of God is within you. \n  \n—Luke 17: 20-21\, King James Version \n* \n  \nThe Open Road is inaugurating a Meditation & Mindfulness Project for people who live in prison and for those who don’t. We aren’t promoting any religious tradition\, we just want to support and encourage each other to be more peaceful\, loving\, happy and free. It seems to me that whatever one’s religious beliefs\, and for atheists and agnostics as well\, meditation and mindfulness are a doorway to the Golden World—a feeling of perfect well-being. Everyone experiences these perfect moments. Meditation and mindfulness are ways to nurture and strengthen the feeling that our life on earth is a blessing and a miracle. Meditation and mindfulness can be enjoyed by anyone. \n* \n  \n“…Our blessedness\, like His\, is infinite. \nHis glory endless is and doth surround \nAnd fill all worlds without or end or bound. \nWhat hinders then but we in Heaven may be \nEven here on Earth did we but rightly see?” \n  \n—Thomas Traherne (1636-1674)\, from “Thoughts—IV” \n* \n  \nTo people in our society\, where working hard\, making money\, high achievement and getting things done are considered so important\, to sit still and do nothing seems like a big waste of time. \n* \n  \nGoing nowhere\, as Leonard Cohen would later emphasize for me\, isn’t about turning your back on the world; it’s about stepping away now and then so that you can see the world more clearly and love it more deeply. \n  \n—Pico Iyer\, from The Art of Stillness \n* \n  \nWalt Whitman spoke to his friend Ellen O’Connor of his ability to stop thinking at will\, and to make his brain “negative”: \n  \nThere is that in me—I do not know what it is—but I know it is in me…. \nI do not know it—it is without name—it is a word unsaid\, \nIt is not in any dictionary\, utterance\, symbol. \n  \n—Walt Whitman\, from “Song of Myself” \n* \n  \nI began practicing meditation at the age of nineteen. That was fifty years ago! I can’t imagine my life without it. I’m certain I would have suffered a LOT more.  Ninety-nine per cent of our suffering is self-inflicted. Here’s a little poem I wrote: \n  \nwhen you see how simple it is to be happy \nyou’ll kick yourself \nfor spending so much time being miserable \n  \n—Johnny Stallings\, from everything I touch \n* \n  \nNautilus Hall Press has just published three chapbooks by Deborah Buchanan: “Layers of Sediment\,” “The World A Well\,” and “Moment Before.” The covers are beautifully illustrated by Andrew Larkin. They are grouped as a set\, “Like Fluttering Silk\,” and can be ordered from Deborah by emailing her at dlbadger@gmail.com. The cost of the set is $25\, plus $5 for shipping and handling. Here’s a poem from “Layers of Sediment”: \n  \nEarly Morning Hours \n  \nFrom the house silence flows \nto the ebony lawn \nglittering like a river. \nA small candle flickers\, \nmirroring the moon \nsliding down night’s curve. \nFir branches stand against the sky\, \nthe hours’ tall sentinels\, \nand the hum inside silence \nfills each shadowed crevice\, \nthe world inundated. \n  \n—Deborah Buchanan \n* \n  \nThe word “meditation” can mean a lot of different things. It can mean sitting still with your back straight. Other things that give us a feeling of inner peace can also be ways of meditating: going for a walk\, listening to music\, or playing music\, drinking that first cup of coffee in the morning\, reading. Even thinking and talking can be done in a meditative way. \n* \n  \nAsk the world to reveal its quietude— \nnot the silence of machines when they are still\, \nbut the true quiet by which birdsongs\, \ntrees\, bellworts\, snails\, clouds\, storms \nbecome what they are\, and are nothing else. \n  \n—Wendell Berry from Given \n* \n  \nWhy meditate? One reason is: “to stay sane.” The noise inside our heads can actually drive us completely mad. Here’s what Aldous Huxley says about it: \n  \nUnrestrained and indiscriminate talk is morally evil and spiritually dangerous….If we pass in review the words we have given vent to in the course of the average day\, we shall find that the greater number of them may be classified under three main heads: words inspired by malice and uncharitableness towards our neighbours; words inspired by greed\, sensuality and self-love; words inspired by pure imbecility and uttered without rhyme or reason\, but merely for the sake of making a distracting noise.  These are idle words; and we shall find\, if we look into the matter\, that they tend to outnumber the words that are dictated by reason\, charity or necessity.  And if the unspoken words of our mind’s endless\, idiot monologue are counted\, the majority for idleness becomes\, for most of us\, overwhelmingly large. \n  \n—Aldous Huxley\, from The Perennial Philosophy \n* \n  \nWhat is mindfulness? Thich Nhat Hanh says: \n  \nMindfulness is when you are truly there\, mind and body together. You breathe in and out mindfully\, you bring your mind back to your body\, and you are there. When your mind is there with your body\, you are established in the present moment. Then you can recognize the many conditions of happiness that are in you and around you\, and happiness just comes naturally. \n  \n—Thich Nhat Hanh\, from Your True Home\, #218 \n  \nHe’s fond of saying: “The present moment is a wonderful moment.” \n* \nKim Stafford sent this: \n  \nFinding Deep Calm \n  \nI have a Palestinian friend named Gheed living in Gaza City\, where life is hard and much of each day is spent trying to be safe. Most days\, power is only on for four hours\, and then darkness. Food is hard to come by. There is often danger in the streets. \nI know how in prison\, some are put in “segregation\,” in solitary. But in Gaza\, the whole country is in segregation\, surrounded by walls\, razor wire\, under frequent attack. \nBut my friend Gheed seeks beauty\, anyway. She takes photographs of her cup of coffee…of a flower…of light at the window. And she sent this message to the world\, in Arabic: \n  \nعظيمٌ هذا الهدوء العميق الذي أحيا فيه وأنمو ضدّ هذا العالم، هدوءٌ أحصدُ فيهِ ما ليس في استطاعةِ أحدٍ أنْ ينتزعه مني، ولو بقوة الحديد والنار ..” \n— غوتة \n  \nI was able to find a translation\, and it turns out she has been reading Goethe\, a writer in Germany in the early 19th century. This is what she has translated into Arabic from Goethe: \n  \nGreat is this deep calm in which I live and grow against this world\, a calm in which I reap what no one can take away from me\, even by the power of iron and fire. \n– Goethe \n  \nI love to think of my friend in the danger and difficulty of Gaza finding deep calm. And I love to think that this calm can be sought by anyone anywhere. It is our right to feel this. And it is possible. \n  \n—Kim Stafford \n* \n  \nPeople who live in prison who want to participate in the Open Road Meditation and Mindfulness Project can write to me at this address: \n  \nJohnny Stallings \nThe Open Road \nPMB 268 \n4110 SE Hawthorne Blvd. \nPortland\, OR  97214 \n  \nPeople who don’t live in prison\, who want to be part of our merry band of mindful meditators can email me at stallingsjohnny@gmail.com\, or contact me through the Open Road website (openroadpdx.org). \n* \n  \nMeditation and mindfulness can be very simple. Hafiz says: \n  \nAnd at times\, when we really need to know \nsomething about perfection \n  \nthe movement of your breath might do\, or the \nbeating of our hearts. \n  \n—Hafiz  (1320-1389)\, version by Daniel Ladinsky \n* \n  \nSeng Ts’an says: \n  \nwhen the mind is still \nall views disappear \n  \nand \n  \nempty\, clear\, your light shines \nwithout mental effort \n  \n–Sent Ts’an (529-606 A.d.)
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/peace-love-happiness-understanding-8-27-20/
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20200820
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20200827
DTSTAMP:20260426T104856
CREATED:20200820T184655Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20200820T185436Z
UID:1155-1597881600-1598486399@openroadpdx.com
SUMMARY:peace\, love\, happiness & understanding  8/20/20
DESCRIPTION:Sal Dale as Hermia\, Steve Jamison as Lysander\, Allen Mills (hidden) as Puck\, Bradley Foote as Oberon\, Zeb Harrington as Demetrius and Aaron Gilbert as Helena in the 2010 production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Two Rivers prison in Umatilla\, Oregon. \n  \n  \nTHE OPEN ROAD \npeace\, love\, happiness & understanding \n  \nAugust 20\, 2020 \n  \nKim Stafford and I were talking about those moments when life feels perfect. He had written a poem that morning\, which he read to me and then sent in an email: \n         \n          Practical Illusions  \n  \nWhen I lose track of time\, I feel free \nfor a little while. And when I feel free\,  \nI can tackle the impossible. I can break \na miracle down to a series of steps\, \nso magic begins to enter\, beauty intrudes\, \nthen I’m in thrall to curiosity and wonder\,  \nfriendship with the future returns\, and all \nmy regrets fill a basket of quirky souvenirs.  \n  \nI’ve lived in exile from joy\, daunted by \nmortality\, taking what they call a realistic view \nby counting up my hours and days of failure. \nThere’s no shortage there\, and I’m expert \non musing\, dwelling\, brooding on my losses. \nBut then the turning comes as I lean close in \nto creation\, something out of nothing. It begins  \nwith surrender to anything I love to do. \n  \n—Kim Stafford \n* \n  \nLast year\, about this time\, I wrote this poem: \n  \nKim Stafford\, Ace Reporter \n  \nhe carries a tiny notebook around with him \never on the alert \nlooking\, listening \nwords are spoken\, inspiration strikes\, events unfold \nhe takes out his little notebook\, jots things down \nhe’s collecting all the latest news \nlater\, he will file his next report— \nWhat’s Going On Here On Planet Earth \n  \n–Johnny Stallings \n* \n  \nKatie responded to Aaron Gilbert’s letter in last week’s issue of “peace\, love\, happiness & understanding”: \n  \nThis is fantastic\, Johnny. It’s amazing for me to read what Aaron wrote about his blossoming. So articulate and open and still on his quest to love and forgive. It takes me back to my own blossoming that came from seeing A Midsummer Night’s Dream in prison. Like in Shakespeare’s time the men had to play all the roles\, of course. Incredible to see them though. In a fantastic costume from the Portland Opera\, here came Aaron playing Helena in all her loveliness. I happened to be sitting next to his mom\, who had traveled hundreds of miles to see the play and was proud and astonished and happy to be there. Along with the rest of us\, she got to see Aaron transformed through this role he had mastered. It made me realize the power of literary art and embodying a character in a play. We were all uplifted and transported into some other possible realm. The prison walls even became precious for providing such a container and program for learning and listening and trusting one another enough to produce such a work of art together. The best part was the post-play reflection\, hearing the men talk about their experience through the whole process—the accomplishment of reading\, memorizing\, acting\, actually getting to touch another person\, coordinating the action. But most of all loving each other and being loved by each other and by their director and costumer. It was heartbreaking to see the men leave by one door back to their cells. We walked out the gates\, moved by tears and laughter\, transformed\, as they were\, and dedicated to returning again and again\, till they too walk out as free men. I’m grateful to you\, Johnny\, for imagining and following your heart to create such an experience for us all.  \n  \n—Katie Radditz \n* \n  \nOn my birthday\, or around New Year’s Day\, I often read through my journal for the previous year to remind myself of things that happened. This morning I was doing that and found something that ties into what Aaron wrote for last week’s issue and to Katie’s response. I had copied a letter to Howard Thoresen into my journal. Here’s what I wrote to him: \n  \nseptember 8\, 2019 \n  \n¡howardito! \n  \nnancy is with her mom this weekend\, so i went out to two rivers by myself yesterday \ni brought up the subject of julius caesar and the men talked about how awesome it was and how good it is to have a way to form strong bonds of friendship \nthen i told them that october 5th will be my last day facilitating the dialogue group \ncarl alsup (brutus) told me what a big impact i have had on the lives of many men there \nthen stuart morton (cassius) got the bright idea that we should go around the circle and everyone should say something to me \n(this is a thing we’ve done a few times \ni got the idea from jack kornfield \nthe chosen person listens while everyone says what they most admire\, etc.\, about him \ni think it can be a kind of medicine for people who are suffering from feelings of worthlessness\, et cetera) \nanyhow\, they really gave me the full treatment \nwhen you were here you said that you can’t take a compliment \ni don’t know\, but i think 40 minutes of something like this would overcome your resistance and do something to you \njust thinking about the experience is making me cry \nit seems that my ability to see their innate goodness and beauty has helped many of the men to see it in themselves and in others \nto feel loved and to love \nfor many of the men\, and for me\, this represents a profound change in the way we experience our human life on earth \nit’s a gift we have given to each other \nwell\, that’s about it for now \n  \njake merriman is coming over shortly \nthe men report that during the final performance he cried through the whole play \nwhich gladdens my heart \n  \npeace\, love & happiness \njuanito \n* \n  \nWalt Whitman said: \n  \nThis minute that comes to me over the past decillions\, \nThere is no better than it and now. \n* \n  \nI have a hunch that when Kim began writing the poem “Practical Illusions” he didn’t know how it would end. He begins with the freedom he feels when he loses track of time\, then\, like a beachcomber\, he picks things up and examines them\, and ends by speaking of surrendering to anything he loves to do. One of the things he loves to do is write poems. He gets pleasure from taking us on this journey and we get pleasure from accompanying him. Walt Whitman asks:  \n  \nWho wishes to walk with me? \n  \nThe end of the poem calls to my mind the idea of following your heart’s desire. When an opportunity arises to give free advice to young people\, that’s what I say: “Follow your heart’s desire.” When I was young\, my dad said to me with great seriousness\, as if imparting important wisdom: “John\, sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to do.” I didn’t say anything to him at the time\, but I remember thinking: “Not me! That’s not how I’m gonna live my life.” I never came up with a plan of what I want to do with my life. Like a hummingbird\, I just go from one flower to the next. Today is my 69th birthday. I’m eating a red pear from our red pear tree. I’m the happiest man on earth. \n  \nThomas Traherne (1636-1674) said this about a defect in his university education: \n  \n“There was never a tutor that did professly teach Felicity\, though that be the mistress of all other sciences.” \n  \n(Thomas Traherne\, from Centuries of Meditations\, Third Century\, number 37) \n* \n  \nMay all people be happy. \nMay we live in peace & love. \n  \n—Johnny
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/peace-love-happiness-understanding-8-20-20/
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20200813
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20200820
DTSTAMP:20260426T104856
CREATED:20200813T161044Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20200813T162907Z
UID:1125-1597276800-1597881599@openroadpdx.com
SUMMARY:peace\, love\, happiness & understanding  8/13/20
DESCRIPTION:Aaron Gilbert as Sir Toby Belch in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night (Two Rivers prison\, 2011) \n  \nTHE OPEN ROAD \npeace\, love\, happiness & understanding \n  \nMy mind started to blossom… \n  \nAugust 13\, 2020 \n  \nRecently I suggested to Aaron Gilbert that he might write about what he’s learned about love while in prison. This is what he wrote: \n  \nJuly 26\, 2020 \nDear Johnny \n  \n….I have been contemplating on expanding on my ideas from my last letter and what I have learned about Love while in prison. Wow! There is just so much to it. I think of one thing\, then it expands into so many different ideas. I will just try to keep it simple and hit the points that have truly meant the most. \n  \nBefore I came to prison\, I had a very narrow view of what love was. When you get to a place like this\, you have two choices\, you can either cling to positive things in your life or go down a very dark lonely path. I asked myself how did this happen\, how did I get here? The answer was quite simple\, it was because I didn’t care about anyone or anything\, including myself. Through self-reflection\, I started to try to figure out: why? Then I met Johnny. \n  \nI was very skeptical at first about what this man was all about. I just wanted to be in the play\, but first we had to sit through this “dialogue group.” We would\, or they would\, talk about these foreign topics: Mythos\, Identity\, Silence\, Love\, etc. I just wanted it to be over so we could get on with rehearsals. I don’t know how long it took\, but I remember exactly when it happened for me. I began to hear other people speak and the biggest thing I heard was the silence. Someone would have something to say and I remember wondering what Johnny was doing when he got that look on his face\, then it hit me at once\, he was LISTENING! I began to realize that he was truly caring for us just by listening to us. My mind started to blossom\, I started to see the things I had been contemplating about love become something real. He volunteered a huge portion of his life to come and listen to us when most of the rest of society had written us off. This is one of the most pure forms of love I have ever felt and I wanted more. \n  \nFor the first time in my life\, I became engaged with people around me. At the end of class\, Johnny would say “be kind to yourself.” I started to work on self-forgiveness and ask for forgiveness from the people I hurt. This love was transforming my life and I started to feel like a person of value. \n  \nThe question then became: is it truly possible to love everyone? It is very complicated and I have a lot of work to do in this category\, but I believe the answer is “yes\, it is possible.” I have been in prison for almost fourteen years now\, I have many friends that have committed the worst possible crimes\, and they will never go home. When you know these guys without that stigma over their head\, you realize that they are human as well\, with the same basic needs as the rest of us\, to love\, to be loved and have companionship with others. You realize they are no less human than anyone else is\, even though society wants us to think otherwise. These “lifers” are some of the most respectful caring people I have met in my life\, not only on the inside. Most of these guys are doing good things for others\, trying to make their environment a healthier place to live. \n  \nThis is where I struggle because there are many people I don’t know that I may still be holding judgment against. I believe Love says if you forgive one person’s transgressions\, you should be able to forgive them all. As I said\, Love is a work in progress. \n  \nI have learned most everything I know about love from being in prison. It doesn’t seem right\, but it is true. Mostly because one man was able to help my mind flower and start to soak in all the light of Love. The best part about it is I am not the only person he touched. I know of many more in the few short years I was part of Group Dialogue. I can’t imagine how many others have felt some of that love as well. I was reading The Heart of Buddha’s Teaching by Thich Nhat Hanh recently\, and something that stood out\, I am just paraphrasing\, but he was saying of love “we can’t expect to fit people into our own little world about what we feel love is. We should truly try to understand them for who they are\, even if they have wronged us we should try to understand why.” Imagine if we can all just take a little piece of that compassion\, understanding\, and listening and spread it\, it has to make the world a better place\, right? \n  \nMaybe next time I can expand a little more on the journey of life and what it means to me. This is just the most important thing I could say today. I do want to thank Johnny for you just being you. This world needs people like you in it now more than ever I believe. I know the impact you have had on me and many others has forever transformed us into better humans\, so thank you for all that love…. \n  \nLove & Respect \nAaron G. \n* \n  \nAaron was in the dialogue group at Two Rivers prison from April of 2010 to May of 2013\, when he transferred to the Oregon State Penitentiary. He’s serving the end of his sentence at South Fork Forest Camp. While at Two Rivers\, he played Helena in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream\,” Sir Toby Belch in “Twelfth Night” and Juror Number Six in “Twelve Angry Men.” In real life he’s a nice guy\, but as a juror he wanted to convict the defendant quickly so he could go to a baseball game! (Just kidding\, Aaron.) \n  \nIt is kind of Aaron to say so many nice things about be.  I\, too\, learned a lot about love in prison. One thing I learned is that the circle is a good shape for us humans. Everyone has an equal place in a circle. That’s important. In 2015\, when I started going to Two Rivers once a month\, instead of once a week\, other people came forward to facilitate the dialogue group discussions and to direct the plays. I think we all have had a similar experience to what Aaron is talking about. Being in a circle with 16 or 20 people\, sometimes talking\, always listening\, is a transformative experience. We get to know each other in a deep way and we get to know ourselves better too. I don’t know where the love comes from\, but we all have felt it getting stronger and stronger. This world can be seen as a School for Love. When it is\, even prison is a home for The Nonstop Love-In. As Aaron says\, we all have the same basic needs: “…to love\, to be loved and have companionship with others.” \n  \nKim taught a poetry class at Coffee Creek prison. And wrote a poem about it: \n  \n  Poetry Class     \n     at the Women’s Prison \n  \nPut chairs in a circle. “Where \nis everyone?” “Oh\, they’re all \nwatching ‘Love after Lock-Up.’ \nIt’s fake\, but addicting.” \n  \nOn every chair\, put a notebook \nand a pen. “You know what? \nIn this class I’m not an inmate\, \nI’m a person.” “Every time \n  \nthat door opens\, and another \njoins our circle\, we’re stronger.” \n“It’s not so much what we write — \nit’s how we listen.” Finally\, the show \n  \nover\, the room resonant\, \nwe are the full twelve writing \nin a ring\, as onto scribbled pages \nwe bow to pray hard stories. \n  \n—Kim Stafford \n* \n  \nHere’s a poem that Katie Radditz shared: \n  \nA Blessing \n  \nJust off the highway to Rochester\, Minnesota\, \nTwilight bounds softly forth on the grass. \nAnd the eyes of those two Indian ponies \nDarken with kindness. \nThey have come gladly out of the willows \nTo welcome my friend and me. \nWe step over the barbed wire into the pasture \nWhere they have been grazing all day\, alone. \nThey ripple tensely\, they can hardly contain their happiness \nThat we have come. \nThey bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other. \nThere is no loneliness like theirs. \nAt home once more\, \nThey begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness. \nI would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms\, \nFor she has walked over to me \nAnd nuzzled my left hand. \nShe is black and white\, \nHer mane falls wild on her forehead\, \nAnd the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear \nThat is delicate as the skin over a girl’s wrist. \nSuddenly I realize \nThat if I stepped out of my body I would break \nInto blossom. \n  \n—James Wright
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/peace-love-happiness-understanding-8-13-20/
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20200806
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20200813
DTSTAMP:20260426T104856
CREATED:20200806T155641Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250718T120354Z
UID:1101-1596672000-1597276799@openroadpdx.com
SUMMARY:peace\, love\, happiness & understanding  8/6/20
DESCRIPTION:  \n  \nTHE OPEN ROAD \npeace\, love\, happiness & understanding \n  \nAugust 6\, 2020 \n  \nSome Thoughts On Culture That Nurtures \n  \nAll human beings live inside cultures. Our language\, our customs\, the things we make\, the way we interact\, the stories we tell all help to co-create our culture. Our culture is supposed to help us understand ourselves and the complex\, mysterious world in which we live. Culture is supposed to nurture us—help us to be confident\, happy\, imaginative\, loving and kind. It should nurture our genius\, help us to realize our fullest potential. Each of us is unique and has much to give to others which no one else can. \n  \nIf we turn on the TV\, we may find that many of the messages we get from the programs and from the commercials are unhelpful. They don’t make us wiser or kinder\, happier or more free. They can make us more fearful and angry and depressed. We are taught who we should hate. \n  \nThere are old and new stories about Paradise. It either happened a long time ago\, or may happen sometime in the future. I try each day to tune myself to the Paradise that is already here. In this newsletter\, I’m looking for things that will inspire\, delight\, enlighten\, or in some way help the reader to bless this day. \n  \nSometimes we need consolation: \n  \nConsolation \n  \nDarwin. \nThey say he read novels to relax\, \nBut only certain kinds: \nnothing that ended unhappily. \nIf anything like that turned up\, \nenraged\, he flung the book into the fire. \n  \nTrue or not\, \nI’m ready to believe it. \n  \nScanning in his mind so many times and places\, \nhe’d had enough of dying species\, \nthe triumphs of the strong over the weak\, \nthe endless struggles to survive\, \nall doomed sooner or later. \nHe’d earned the right to happy endings\, \nat least in fiction \nwith its diminutions. \n  \nHence the indispensable \nsilver lining\, \nthe lovers reunited\, the families reconciled\, \nthe doubts dispelled\, fidelity rewarded\, \nfortunes regained\, treasures uncovered\, \nstiff-necked neighbors mending their ways\, \ngood names restored\, greed daunted\, \nold maids married off to worthy parsons\, \ntroublemakers banished to other hemispheres\, \nforgers of documents tossed down the stairs\, \nseducers scurrying to the altar\, \norphans sheltered\, widows comforted\, \npride humbled\, wounds healed over\, \nprodigal sons summoned home\, \ncups of sorrow thrown into the ocean\, \nhankies drenched with tears of reconciliation\, \ngeneral merriment and celebration\, \nand the dog Fido\, \ngone astray in the first chapter\, \nturns up barking gladly \nin the last. \n  \n—Wisłowa Szymborska \n* \n  \nI like happy endings. If I get into a conversation with friends where we talk about how terrible things are or how bleak the future looks I always try to end our talk on a positive note. Hopelessness and despair accomplish nothing—except to make us feel miserable. Life is short. This day is precious. I want to enjoy it. \n  \nKirk Bromley shared this poem with Howard Thoresen\, who sends it to all of us: \n  \nThe Tuft of Flowers \n  \nI went to turn the grass once after one \nWho mowed it in the dew before the sun. \n  \nThe dew was gone that made his blade so keen \nBefore I came to view the levelled scene. \n  \nI looked for him behind an isle of trees; \nI listened for his whetstone on the breeze. \n  \nBut he had gone his way\, the grass all mown\, \nAnd I must be\, as he had been\,—alone\, \n  \n‘As all must be\,’ I said within my heart\, \n‘Whether they work together or apart.’ \n  \nBut as I said it\, swift there passed me by \nOn noiseless wing a ‘wildered butterfly\, \n  \nSeeking with memories grown dim o’er night \nSome resting flower of yesterday’s delight. \n  \nAnd once I marked his flight go round and round\, \nAs where some flower lay withering on the ground. \n  \nAnd then he flew as far as eye could see\, \nAnd then on tremulous wing came back to me. \n  \nI thought of questions that have no reply\, \nAnd would have turned to toss the grass to dry; \n  \nBut he turned first\, and led my eye to look \nAt a tall tuft of flowers beside a brook\, \n  \nA leaping tongue of bloom the scythe had spared \nBeside a reedy brook the scythe had bared. \n  \nI left my place to know them by their name\, \nFinding them butterfly weed when I came. \n  \nThe mower in the dew had loved them thus\, \nBy leaving them to flourish\, not for us\, \n  \nNor yet to draw one thought of ours to him. \nBut from sheer morning gladness at the brim. \n  \nThe butterfly and I had lit upon\, \nNevertheless\, a message from the dawn\, \n  \nThat made me hear the wakening birds around\, \nAnd hear his long scythe whispering to the ground\, \n  \nAnd feel a spirit kindred to my own; \nSo that henceforth I worked no more alone; \n  \nBut glad with him\, I worked as with his aid\, \nAnd weary\, sought at noon with him the shade; \n  \nAnd dreaming\, as it were\, held brotherly speech \nWith one whose thought I had not hoped to reach. \n  \n‘Men work together\,’ I told him from the heart\, \n‘Whether they work together or apart.’ \n  \n—Robert Frost \n* \n  \nHere’s a poem Kim Stafford sent our way: \n  \n      The Fact of Forgiveness  \n  \nIt is a given you have failed. \nIt goes without saying you were hurt          \n      and so you hurt some others. \nOf course you alone could have saved someone          \n      or something you did not. \nThe midnight court of the sleepless mind          \n      has reached its verdict: Life Sentence. \nLife will be long and hard\, but also mysterious          \n      in how you are condemned to live           \n      by beauty all the same. \nThrough the bars of your cell\, you must watch           \n      the moon grow full and generous. \nA tune made for others will arrive at evening\,          \n      smuggled into your mind as if for you. \nThe world can’t keep its treasures from you—          \n      no matter how little you deserve\,         \n      you have it all: \nMoon\, Sun\, Sleep\, Waking\, Water\, Air—         \n      a bird dancing away out of sight          \n      leaving the print of its flight          \n      and a filament of song           \n      for you. \n  \n—Kim Stafford \n* \n  \nKim’s poem reminded me of this passage from Shakespeare: \n  \nHamlet:  What have you\, my good friends\, deserved at the hands of Fortune that she sends you to prison hither? \nGuildenstern:  Prison\, my lord? \nHamlet:  Denmark’s a prison. \nRosencrantz:  Then is the world one. \nHamlet:  A goodly one\, in which there are many confines\, wards and dungeons.  Denmark being one o’ th’ worst. \nRosencrantz:  We think not so\, my lord. \nHamlet:  Why then\, ‘tis none to you\, for there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.  To me it is a prison. \nRosencrantz:  Why then your own ambition makes it one; ‘tis too narrow for your mind. \nHamlet:  O God\, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space— were it not that I have bad dreams. \n  \nThat’s it for now. \n  \nMay all people be happy. \nMay we live in love. \n  \n–Johnny
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/peace-love-happiness-understanding-8-6-2/
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20200730
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20200806
DTSTAMP:20260426T104856
CREATED:20200730T170704Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250718T120243Z
UID:1075-1596067200-1596671999@openroadpdx.com
SUMMARY:peace\, love\, happiness & understanding  7/30/20
DESCRIPTION:Cartoon by Gary Larson \n  \nTHE OPEN ROAD \npeace\, love\, happiness & understanding \n  \nOh no! Not another Humor Issue! \n  \nJuly 30\, 2020 \n  \nA three-legged dog walks into a bar and says: “I’m lookin for the man who shot my paw.” \n  \nWhy did the hipster burn his mouth? \nHe drank his coffee before it was cool. \n  \nI told my wife she was drawing her eyebrows too high. \nShe looked at me surprised. \n  \nI got my daughter a fridge for her birthday. \nI can’t wait to see her face light up when she opens it. \n  \nWhat did the pirate say when he became an octogenarian? \nAye matey. \n  \nA sandwich walks into a bar. The bartender says\, “Sorry\, we don’t serve food here.” \n  \nWhy did the yogurt go to the art exhibition? \nBecause it was cultured. \n  \nHow do you throw a space party? \nYou planet. \n  \nWhat did one hat say to the other? \nYou stay here. I’ll go on ahead. \n  \nA horse walks into a bar. The bartender asks what he’d like. The horse doesn’t reply because it’s a horse and obviously can’t speak or understand English. Several people get up and leave\, sensing the danger in having a large live animal in an enclosed space. \n* \nA young boy enters a barber shop and the barber whispers to his customer\, “This is the dumbest kid in the world. Watch while I prove it to you.” \nThe barber puts a dollar bill in one hand and two quarters in the other\, then calls the boy over and asks\, “Which do you want\, son?” The boy takes the quarters and leaves. \n“What did I tell you?” said the barber. “That kid never learns!” \nLater\, when the customer leaves\, he sees the same young boy coming out of the ice cream parlor. “Hey\, son! May I ask you a question? Why did you take the quarters instead of the dollar bill?” \nThe boy licked his cone and replied: “Because the day I take the dollar the game is over!” \n* \nAn American businessman was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellowfin tuna. The American complimented the fisherman on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them. The fisherman replied that it only took a little while. The American then asked why didn’t he stay out longer and catch more fish. The fisherman said he had enough to support his family’s immediate needs. \nThe businessman then asked\, “But what do you do with the rest of your time?” \nThe fisherman said\, “I sleep late\, fish a little\, play with my children\, take siesta with my wife\, Maria\, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos. I have a full and busy life\, señor.” \nThe businessman scoffed. “I am a Wharton MBA and could help you. You should spend more time fishing and with the proceeds\, buy a bigger boat. With the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats. Eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the processor\, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product\, processing and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City\, then L.A.\, and eventually New York City\, where you will run your expanding enterprise.” \nThe fisherman asked\, “But how long will this all take?” \nTo which the businessman replied\, “Fifteen or 20 years.” \n“But what then?” \nThe businessman laughed and said\, “That’s the best part. When the time is right you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich. You would make millions.” \n“Millions? Then what?” \nThe businessman said\, “Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late\, fish a little\, play with your kids\, take siesta with your wife\, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your friends.” \n* \nA guy said to God\, “God\, is it true that to you a billion years is like a second?” \nGod said\, “Yes.” \nThe guy said\, “God\, is it true that to you a billion dollars is like a penny?” \nGod said\, “Yes.” \nThe guy said\, “God\, can I have a penny?” \nGod said\, “Sure\, just a second.” \n* \nA string bean took his friend\, an eggplant\, to the hospital. \nString Bean: How is he\, Doc? Can you save his life? \nDoctor: I have good news and bad news. The good news is I can save his life. The bad news is he’ll be a vegetable the rest of his life. \n* \nTwo young salmon are swimming along one day. As they do\, they are passed by a wiser\, older fish coming the other way. \nThe wiser fish greets the two as he passes\, saying\, “Morning\, boys! How’s the water?” \nThe other two continue to swim in silence for a little while\, until the first one turns to the other and asks\, “What’s water?” \n  \n—“Borrowed” from the Internet and joke books by Johnny Stallings \n* \nOne day the first grade teacher was reading the story of Chicken Little to her class. She came to the part of the story where Chicken Little tried to warn the farmer.  \nShe read\, “…. and so Chicken Little went up to the farmer and said\, “The sky is falling\, the sky is falling!” \nThe teacher paused\, then asked the class\, “And what do you think that farmer said?” \nOne little girl raised her hand and said\, “I think he said: ‘I’ll be darned! A talking chicken!’” \n—Will Weigler \n* \n  \nFor an extra bit of fun you might try this video of people singing and dancing on top of a train in India. (I’ve ridden in this train\, but not on it.): \n  \nhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQmrmVs10X8 \n  \nMay all people be happy! \n  \nJohnny
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/peace-love-happiness-understanding-7-30/
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20200723
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20200730
DTSTAMP:20260426T104856
CREATED:20200723T041150Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20200723T041525Z
UID:1053-1595462400-1596067199@openroadpdx.com
SUMMARY:peace\, love\, happiness & understanding  7/23/20
DESCRIPTION:THE OPEN ROAD \npeace\, love\, happiness & understanding \n  \nJuly 23\, 2020 \n  \n“The world is a Dancer; it is a Rosary; it is a Torrent; it is a Boat; a Mist; a Spider’s Snare: it is what you will; and the metaphor will hold\, and it will give the imagination keen pleasure.  Swifter than light the world converts itself into the thing you name\, and all things find their right place under this new and capricious classification.  Must I call the heaven and the earth a maypole and country fair with booths\, or an anthill\, or an old coat\, in order to give you the shock of pleasure which the imagination loves and the sense of spiritual greatness?  Call it a blossom\, a rod\, a wreath of parsley\, a tamarisk-crown\, a cock\, a sparrow\, the ear instantly hears and the spirit leaps to the trope.”   \n  \n(The Journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson\, edited by Linscott\, pp. 197-198\, (1841)) \n* \n  \nBattle or Picnic? \n  \nLife has often been described as a battle. Perhaps the most famous example is the Bhagavad Gita. Just as a great battle is about to begin\, the warrior-prince Arjuna asks his charioteer and guru\, the god Krishna\, to drive their chariot between the two armies. Time stops. Filled with pity\, and unwilling to kill his kinsmen who are on the opposing side\, Arjuna refuses to fight. Krishna urges Arjuna to do his duty\, to stand up and fight like a man. He teaches Arjuna that the highest liberation comes from the realization that one’s self is the unborn and undying Self of all—not other than God. Arjuna decides to join the fight\, the battle begins\, and everyone on both sides is slaughtered. \n  \nThe Bhagavad Gita is a complex wisdom text which is located in the middle of a story about war. It is essentially about yoga and how to live a life of inner peace and freedom\, but the plot of the epic in which it is set requires Arjuna to fight in the war. So\, a central metaphor suggests that life is a battle\, and the honorable thing is to boldly do what is required of you. \n  \nWe are often reminded that life is a struggle or a battle. Darwin’s idea of the survival of the fittest is used to support this idea. Our economic system is predicated on the idea of a fierce competition which many people will inevitably lose. Too bad for them. \n  \nI like the Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh. In one of his talks at a meditation retreat\, he began by saying: “Some people think that a meditation retreat is a kind of picnic…” When someone is an expert in a field\, he usually warns newcomers that such expertise requires years of discipline and hard work. So\, I was expecting Thich Nhat Hanh to continue by saying\, “…but it’s not.” He surprised me by next saying: “I love picnics!” And I thought to myself: “I love picnics\, too! Everyone loves picnics! Picnics are lovely!” \n  \nAnd it occurred to me that rather than thinking of life as a struggle\, as some kind of ordeal\, as a battle to be fought\, I would think of my life as a picnic. Why not? As we learn from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s entertaining journal entry that I am using as the epigram for this essay\, we can say anything we want. I have the feeling that life is everything-at-once. But I can’t imagine everything-at-once. So\, for now\, I’m going with “picnic.” \n  \nIt’s a picnic to which everyone is invited. A gathering. A feast. Little kids are running around. Maybe there’s a softball game. There’s potato salad. Sandwiches. Lemonade. There might be pie. Ants. At a picnic\, everyone has the feeling that life is good. \n  \nSince we’re here just a little while\, doesn’t that sound good? As a metaphor\, isn’t it preferable to a scene of chaos\, confusion and carnage? \n  \nIn the UNESCO Constitution\, signed in November of 1945\, it says: “…wars begin in the minds of men…” We should choose our metaphors wisely. \n  \n—Johnny Stallings  (11/14/19) \n* \n  \nNaomi Shihab Nye really goes to town with metaphors in this poem: \n  \nSifter \n  \nWhen our English teacher gave \nour first writing assignment of the year\, \nBecome a kitchen implement \nin 2 descriptive paragraphs\, I did not think \nbutcher knife or frying pan\, \nI thought immediately \nof soft flour sifting through the little holes \nof the sifter and the sifter’s pleasing circular \nswishing sound\, and wrote it down. \nRhoda became a teaspoon\, \nRoberto a funnel\, \nJim a muffin tin \nand Forrest a soup pot. \nWe read our paragraphs out loud. \nAbby was a blender. Everyone laughed \nand acted giddy\, but the more we thought about it\, \nwe were all everything in the whole kitchen\, \ndrawers and drainers\, \nsinging teapot and grapefruit spoon \nwith serrated edges\, we were all the \nempty cup\, the tray. \nThis\, said our teacher\, is the beauty of metaphor. \nIt opens doors. \nWhat I could not know then \nwas how being a sifter \nwould help me all year long. \nWhen bad days came \nI would close my eyes and feel them passing \nthrough the tiny holes. \nWhen good days came \nI would try to contain them gently \nthe way flour remains \nin the sifter until you turn the handle. \nTime\, time. I was a sweet sifter in time \nand no one ever knew. \n  \n—Naomi Shihab Nye \n* \n  \nHoward Thoresen has often recommended to me the book Metaphors We Live By by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson.  \n  \nJeff Kuehner sent a couple poems: \n  \nThe Panther \n  \nHis vision\, from the constantly passing bars\, \nhas grown so weary that it cannot hold \nanything else. It seems to him there are \na thousand bars; and behind the bars\, no world. \n  \nAs he paces in cramped circles\, over and over\, \nthe movement of his powerful soft strides \nis like a ritual dance around a center \nin which a mighty will stands paralyzed. \n  \nOnly at times\, the curtain of the pupils \nlifts quietly—. An image enters in\, \nrushes down through the tensed\, arrested muscles\, \nplunges into the heart and is gone. \n  \n—Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926)\, translated from the German by Stephen Mitchell \n* \n  \nThere Will Come Soft Rains \n  \n(War Time) \n  \nThere will come soft rains and the smell of the ground\, \nAnd swallows circling with their shimmering sound; \n  \nAnd frogs in the pools singing at night\, \nAnd wild plum trees in tremulous white\, \n  \nRobins will wear their feathery fire \nWhistling their whims on a low fence-wire; \n  \nAnd not one will know of the war\, not one \nWill care at last when it is done. \n  \nNot one would mind\, neither bird nor tree \nIf mankind perished utterly; \n  \nAnd Spring herself\, when she woke at dawn\, \nWould scarcely know that we were gone. \n  \n—Sara Teasdale (1884-1933) \n* \n  \nHere’s a link to a short (12 minutes) film on “Sacred Economics” featuring Charles Eisenstein: \n  \nhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEZkQv25uEs \n  \nThat’s it for this issue of “peace\, love\, happiness & understanding.” Tune in next week for another exciting episode. \n  \n—Johnny Stallings
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/peace-love-happiness-understanding-7-23-20/
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20200716
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20200723
DTSTAMP:20260426T104856
CREATED:20200716T171508Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20200717T003510Z
UID:1038-1594857600-1595462399@openroadpdx.com
SUMMARY:peace\, love\, happiness & understanding  7/16/20
DESCRIPTION:Three amigos bringing in the New Year at Alma del Sol in Guanajuato\, Mexico: Johnny Stallings\, Hugo Anaya & Kim Stafford. \n  \nTHE OPEN ROAD \npeace\, love\, happiness & understanding \n  \nJuly 16\, 2020 \n  \nI asked Kim Stafford if he would write something for our newsletter about his experience as Poet Laureate. Like the generous writer and human being described in his essay\, he said “Yes.” \n* \n  \nTo Be a Better Person \nMy 100 poetry events as Oregon’s 9th Poet Laureate \n  \nWhen I met the Poet Laureate of Linn-Benton Community College I learned what my work as a poet is really about. This student poet\, chosen by his teachers to serve as a writer and reader of poems at various campus events for a year\, was telling me about his work teaching writing at the juvenile detention center as a volunteer\, sharing poems with fellow students\, opening meetings with a poem\, and other acts of generous incantation. Then he said it: “I don’t write poems to become a better poet. I write poems to become a better person.” \n  \nThat’s it! That’s what poetry is for—the writing of it\, the reading of it\, teaching\, sharing\, posting\, publishing\, handing off to a friend in need of lyric buoyancy. It’s not just a literary activity. It’s a human activity\, a way to become more awake\, more human\, humane\, compassionate\, alive\, and connected. \n  \nI wish I could remember that student’s name\, but I will never forget what he taught me. And maybe something like that will be the legacy of my own work as wandering bard in Oregon. Years after I’m gone\, people in little towns will say\, “This guy came and told us the great thing about poetry is you can’t make money doing it—so you are completely free in how you do it. I can’t remember his name\, but he said a poem could save your life. He said a poem could make you live at a deeper level\, closer to community\, more ready to take hard things in life as they come\, and to help others with gentle words.” \n  \nAs Oregon’s 9th Poet Laureate from May 2018 through May 2020\, I was a sitting duck\, but a willing one. There was an “event request form” on the website of the Oregon Cultural Trust\, and it took about five minutes for anyone—a librarian\, teacher\, writer\, reader\, or other individual—to fill out the form\, it would come to me\, and I could not say no. Would I drive to the Alvord Desert to read poems as part of an open air piano concert (with Hunter Noack of www.inalandscape.org)? Yes! Would I drive to Klamath Falls to read poems…to Gold Beach…to Astoria…to Madras\, Stayton\, Astoria\, the Umatilla Reservation at Tamástslikt Cultural Center? Oh yes. Would I write with veterans for the V.A. Hospital? Would I work with inmates at Coffee Creek Women’s Prison\, Columbia River Correctional Institution\, at the Two Rivers Correctional Institution? Yes\, of course. Would I do an assembly for 120 primary students…for seventeen immigrants becoming citizens…for the Oregon House of Representatives…for a winery\, a business association\, a city council? Absolutely. Would I meet with one young writer full of fury and eloquence to help her onto the path of poetry? Yes. \n  \nThe job was a two-year rush of such encounters where all kinds of people wrote all kinds of things\, and I traveled to meet with them and together raise the human spirit.  \n  \nNow that the torch has been passed to a new Oregon Poet Laureate\, Anis Mojgani (his event-request form is here: https://culturaltrust.org/oregon-poet-laureate/calendar/)\, I still feel I have the calling of poet as servant of the people. Since my official term ended in May\, I’ve taught a class online in Scotland\, done a radio interview with a station in Newport\, put poetry prompts and other writer resources on my website (www.kimstaffordpoet.com)\, given several poetry readings online\, and hatched public service projects with other artists for individuals and families sheltering at home. \n  \nIn a way\, the job of a poet laureate is the same as the job of any writer: Something came to my page that I would love to share with you. It’s about discovery\, generosity\, and connection: \n  \nDew & Honey \nSip by sip in thimble cup \nthe meadow bees will drink it up \nthen ferry home to bounty’s hive \nby flowers’ flavor hum and thrive \nto show us how through word and song \nby gesture small and patience long \nin spite of our old foolish ways \nwe may fashion better days. \n  \nSo\, my friend\, come sip and savor \nsyllables as crumbs of pleasure. \nBy sunrise\, in our conversations\, \nwe begin a better nation. \n  \n—Kim Stafford \n* \nBefore visiting our dialogue group at Two Rivers prison\, Kim wrote this poem and brought it with him as a gift for the men in the group: \n  \nTwo Rivers \n  \nOne river flows above ground— \neveryone can see it shining \nacross the land\, following the valley \nand shaping the valley\, never at rest. \n  \nAnd some people say\, I know who \nyou are…I know what you’ve done… \nwhat you lost…where you came from… \nwhere you are going. I know. \n  \nBut what do they know of you\, really? \nFor another river flows below all that\, \ninvisible\, at the speed of a dream \ninside you—intuitive\, curious\, innocent. \n  \nAnd you say\, I know who I want to be… \nI know what I’ve learned…I know what I love… \nI need to know who I really am. So you remember\, \nyou wonder\, you write\, you shape story\, \n  \nand you say to yourself on the page\, \nHidden river\, spill your secrets \nat the wellspring. I hold forth \nmy cup no one else can see. \n  \n—Kim Stafford \n* \n  \nThe ending of his poem reminds me of this brief quote from Sylvia Plath: \n  \nSo many people are shut up tight inside themselves like boxes\, yet they would open up\, unfolding quite wonderfully if only you were interested in them. \n  \n—Sylvia Plath \n* \n  \nIn the spirit of Kim’s essay\, here’s some life advice from Walt Whitman: \n  \nThis is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals\, despise riches\, give alms to every one that asks\, stand up for the stupid and crazy\, devote your income and labor to others\, hate tyrants\, argue not concerning God\, have patience and indulgence toward the people\, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men\, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families\, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life\, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book\, dismiss whatever insults your own soul\, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body. \n  \nfrom the preface to the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman \n* \n  \nRecently\, I was listening to a talk Cornel West gave at the University of Oregon on April 26\, 2019 called “What It Means to Be Human.” It’s always a joy to be enlivened by his lively mind! Here’s a link:  \n  \nhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aekb3ppKm5w&t=480s \n  \nI was talking with Kim about “the poet’s job.”  A short time later he sent me some of his aphorisms on the subject. Here they are: \n  \nIt is the poet’s job to turn fact into food\, loss into learning\, and pain into song.  \n  \nThe poet’s work is to be the Eric Snowden of the inner life: All shall be revealed. \n  \nAll a writer can do is compose clues to what can never be spoken\, footnotes to the inexpressible. \n  \nA poet’s remedy for myriad troubles: Cook up a feast of words\, and see what you learn. \n  \nLike a bird lifting from a twig\, the poet steps away from all freight. Even as you plod the road\, your soul is in flight. \n  \nA poet’s work is to compose a filmed parade of images with a sound track of percussive words. \n  \nPoetry is the moonlight of the interior life—waxing and waning\, causing the soul to flood and ebb. \n  \nEveryone should compose their own text for the tee shirt they wear along the summer avenue—so we could be known by what we are willing to say. \n  \n—Kim Stafford \n* \n  \nAnd he sent some quotes from other poets: \n  \nThe poet’s job is to put into words those feelings we all have that are so deep\, so important\, and yet so difficult to name\, to tell the truth in such a beautiful way\, that people cannot live without it. \n  \n—Jane Kenyon \n* \n  \nPoetry isn’t a profession\, it’s a way of life. It’s an empty basket; you put your life into it and make something out of that. \n  \n—Mary Oliver \n* \n  \nWant to take workshop from Kim? Go to his website\, click on workshops\, and sign up for one. Here’s the link: \n  \nwww.kimstaffordpoet.com \n* \n  \nI recently read Susan Griffin’s long essay “The Eros of Everyday Life” again. I read it with the kind of pleasure I’ve been getting from standing in the backyard in the summer sun\, picking blackberries\, putting them into my mouth one at a time and crushing them between my tongue and the top of my mouth. Here’s a quote: \n  \nEverything I encounter permeates me\, washes in and out\, leaving a tracery\, placing me in that beautiful paradox of being by which I am both a solitary creature and everyone\, everything. \n  \n—Susan Griffin \n* \nThat’s it for now\, y’all. Until next time… \n  \n—Johnny
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/peace-love-happiness-understanding-7-16-20/
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20200709
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20200716
DTSTAMP:20260426T104856
CREATED:20200708T173254Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20200708T173510Z
UID:1016-1594252800-1594857599@openroadpdx.com
SUMMARY:peace\, love\, happiness & understanding  7/9/20
DESCRIPTION:THE OPEN ROAD \npeace\, love\, happiness & understanding \n  \nJuly 9\, 2020 \n  \nlove is a place \n& through this place of \nlove move \n(with brightness of peace) \nall places \n  \nyes is a world \n& in this world of \nyes live \n(skilfully curled) \nall worlds \n  \n—e.e. cummings \n* \n  \nCan I see another’s woe\, \nAnd not be in sorrow too? \nCan I see another’s grief\, \nAnd not seek for kind relief? \n  \nCan I see a falling tear\, \nAnd not feel my sorrow’s share? \nCan a father see his child \nWeep\, nor be with sorrow filled? \n  \nCan a mother sit and hear \nAn infant groan\, an infant fear? \nNo\, no! never can it be! \nNever\, never can it be!… \n  \n—from “On Another’s Sorrow” by William Blake \n* \n  \nLonnie Glinksi\, who was in our dialogue and theater groups at Two Rivers prison—(he played Ophelia in our 2015 production of “Hamlet”)—sent me a letter on June 4th. With his permission\, I’m sharing a slightly edited version: \n  \nDear Johnny \n  \nIn recent days I have suffered a loss of a dear man who has moved on. He turned 91 last month. With a few adaptations he loved to play ping pong\, though spending most of the day in a wheelchair. \nHe is an artist that draws wonderful pictures. He spent much energy writing poems\, telling stories of his life\, and trying to write songs\, but he never quite got the hang of that. \nWe would argue over topics\, would fight over the songs. We would laugh at each other for no reason at all. And while he was here\, he was the person I could talk to about topics and feelings of which I now write. \nWith the recent Supreme Court decision regarding unanimous verdicts\, it appears he will be going home or for re-trial. No one will tell me where he moved on to; I only know he is not here. \nWhile that spark of joy for him remains alive in my heart\, the waves of grief that wash through my body repeatedly attempt to drown out that joy. The experience of having the spark and the grief of his leaving at the same time is new for me. \nI had a pen-pal through the U.U. outreach by that I could write to about such things\, but he came down with cancer. He promised to write if he could\, but has not written. The grief of that loss is different than the current one. \nAlthough uncomfortable\, I am not attempting to make it go away. Instead I just watch it\, feel it\, know it is there. Repeatedly\, it washes through me like a wave when I look at the place where he used to sit. \nLee was hard of hearing and had to see your lips for conversations. Since he couldn’t hear himself he spoke really loudly\, irritating those without that challenge. Now I expect to hear that voice while I’m in my cell\, through the multiple voices and dayroom noises\, and it isn’t there. Another wave. \nThen I feel the spark\, the joy for his experience and what he has to look forward to. So I watch this spark\, feel this spark\, and like the wave\, I leave it be. \n  \n—Lonnie Glinski \n* \n  \nI was Zooming with some friends this morning (7/3)\, and the subject came up of “All the Problems in the World”—a familiar theme in our conversations. All of us were feeling that the problems are so many and so old and so big that\, for each of us\, our efforts to make the world a better place were puny and woefully inadequate. One friend said: “Homelessness. I have a spare bedroom: I should be letting a homeless person sleep here.” And I remembered my friend Nick. Lonnie’s letter makes me think that I should do the laptop equivalent of putting pen to paper and say a few things about Nick. I’m terrible at remembering dates. How long ago was it that he died? I pulled up his obituary: \n  \nConsoletti\, Nick\, May 10\, 1947 to May 31\, 2012. Nick Consoletti\, Ph.D.\, passed away at home in Hillsboro on May 31\, 2012\, at the age of 65. Nick was a philosopher\, scholar\, musician\, brilliant conversationalist and poet\, dedicated traveler and a tremendously kind\, loving and loyal friend. Our authentic and gentle friend is greatly loved and missed. \n  \nI met Nick in the late Seventies. In a coffee shop\, of course. Most of the people who knew him probably met him in a coffee shop. This one was in the basement of an old brick building on the Portland State University campus. In addition to coffee shops\, Nick liked college campuses and libraries—places you could meet people who liked to talk about “All the Problems in the World\,” and how they could be solved. His two favorite authors were Buckminster Fuller—a man who had practical solutions for All the Problems in the World—and J. Krishnamurti\, who also had ideas about how the world could be transformed. According to him\, we just needed to be free of fear\, free of ideas of past and future\, free from authorities (inner and outer)\, free from ambition and ideologies and nationalism\, free from our opinions\, from “the known\,” from our carefully constructed autobiographies. Here’s a Krishnamurti quote: “Thought is always old; thought is never new; thought can never be free.” \n  \nBut back to Nick. He had a heavy backpack\, which included a sleeping bag\, books\, and maybe a tent. In coffee shops and on college campuses\, Nick would meet people who might offer him a couch to crash on. Over a period of 30 years or so\, Nick probably stayed with me\, on average\, one or two nights a month. He hitchhiked from one end of the country to the other\, but mostly up and down the West Coast\, from the Bay Area to Seattle\, with stops in Eugene and Portland. Once a year\, he would go all the way down to Ojai\, in Southern California for Krishnamurti’s annual talks.  \n  \nNick didn’t smoke\, drink\, take drugs or eat meat. He never asked for money\, but if given five or ten bucks\, he would quietly put it in his pocket. He played the dulcimer in coffee shops with a nearby hat for possible donations. He was a walking encyclopedia. He attended LOTS of conferences that featured cutting-edge thinkers. He wanted to hear them in person: Gregory Bateson\, David Bohm\, Erich Jantsch—it was a very long list! Whatever topic you might mention\, Nick would instantly tell you the name of an article or book that would educate you further on the subject.  \n  \nHis main interest was in “appropriate technology\,” or how we humans can live in a sustainable way on this planet\, without relentlessly destroying the health of the ecosphere. He was baffled by the fact that so much was known about how we could live more sustainably\, and yet we persist in living in ways which indicate a lack of concern for future generations. Nick would have loved Greta Thunberg! \n  \nIn the brief obituary\, you might notice that he had a Ph.D. degree and that he died at home. Nick didn’t have a “home”—his own apartment—until the last year of his life: after his kidneys failed and he had to stay in one place for his twice-weekly dialysis treatments.  \n  \nInspired by David Bohm’s ideas about dialogue\, Nick—without money and without a home—earned his doctorate by facilitating a dialogue group and writing a dissertation about it. After he got his degree\, he applied to some colleges\, but was never offered a job. He continued to be an exemplary Coffee Shop Philosopher right up until the end. When I decided to “do something” at Two Rivers prison in 2006\, maybe it was Nick’s example that inspired me to start a dialogue group\, rather than “teach a class.” I learned a lot from Nick. I miss him. \n  \n—Johnny Stallings
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/peace-love-happiness-understanding-7-9-20/
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20200702
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20200709
DTSTAMP:20260426T104856
CREATED:20200702T170806Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250718T120031Z
UID:1001-1593648000-1594252799@openroadpdx.com
SUMMARY:peace\, love\, happiness & understanding 7/2/20
DESCRIPTION:THE OPEN ROAD \npeace\, love\, happiness & understanding \n  \nJuly 2\, 2020 \n  \nThis is a simple story I tell myself about our human life on Earth. We start out as perfect innocent beings. Then something happens to us. We become “adulterated.” We learn to think and talk. We learn and co-create stories about who we are and about the world in which we live and our relation to it. We become grownups. Which is great. But. We are now stuck with our stories\, which we repeat over and over. We have lost much of the spontaneous joy and wonder we had when we were very small. And the maps we have made of the world\, though useful and even necessary\, are an extreme over-simplification—(like this one)—of our life. \n  \nBut that is not the end of the story. Once we have achieved something like “well-adjusted normal\,” we want more. We want a life rich in meaning. We want happiness! Love! We want to live in such a way that we bless each day\, that our life gets better and better as it goes along\, until we are amazed at what a miracle it all is. \n  \nHere are two of William Blake’s poems of innocence: \n  \nInfant Joy \n  \n“I have no name: \nI am but two days old.” \nWhat shall I call thee? \n“I happy am\, \nJoy is my name.” \nSweet joy befall thee! \n  \nPretty joy! \nSweet joy but two days old\, \nSweet joy I call thee: \nThou dost smile\, \nI sing the while\, \nSweet joy befall thee \n* \n  \nLaughing Song \n  \nWhen the green hills laugh with the voice of joy\, \nAnd the dimpling stream runs laughing by; \nWhen the air does laugh with our merry wit\, \nAnd the green hill laughs with the noise of it; \n  \nWhen the meadows laugh with lively green\, \nAnd the grasshopper laughs in the merry scene\, \nWhen Mary and Susan and Emily \nWith their sweet round mouths sing “Ha\, Ha\, He!” \n  \nWhen the painted birds laugh in the shade\, \nWhere our table with cherries and nuts is spread\, \nCome live & be merry\, and join with me\, \nTo sing the sweet chorus of “Ha\, Ha\, He!” \n* \n  \nBut then something happens to these innocent children: \n  \nThe School Boy \n  \nI love to rise in a summer morn \nWhen the birds sing on every tree; \nThe distant huntsman winds his horn\, \nAnd the sky-lark sings with me. \nO! what sweet company. \n  \nBut to go to school in a summer morn\, \nO! it drives all joy away; \nUnder a cruel eye outworn\, \nThe little ones spend the day \nIn sighing and dismay. \n  \nAh! then at times I drooping sit\, \nAnd spend many an anxious hour\, \nNor in my book can I take delight\, \nNor sit in learning’s bower\, \nWorn thro’ with the dreary shower. \n  \nHow can the bird that is born for joy \nSit in a cage and sing? \nHow can a child\, when fears annoy\, \nBut droop his tender wing\, \nAnd forget his youthful spring? \n  \nO! father & mother\, if buds are nip’d \nAnd blossoms blown away\, \nAnd if the tender plants are strip’d \nOf their joy in the springing day\, \nBy sorrow and care’s dismay\, \n  \nHow shall the summer arise in joy\, \nOr the summer fruits appear? \nOr how shall we gather what griefs destroy\, \nOr bless the mellowing year\, \nWhen the blasts of winter appear? \n* \n  \nThe GARDEN of LOVE \n  \nI went to the Garden of Love\, \nAnd saw what I never had seen: \nA Chapel was built in the midst\, \nWhere I used to play on the green. \n  \nAnd the gates of this Chapel were shut\, \nAnd “Thou shalt not” writ over the door; \nSo I turn’d to the Garden of Love \nThat so many sweet flowers bore; \n  \nAnd I saw it was filled with graves\, \nAnd tomb-stones where flowers should be; \nAnd Priests in black gowns were walking their rounds\, \nAnd binding with briars my joys & desires. \n* \n  \nHere’s William Wordsworth’s account: \n  \nOde on Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood \n  \nThere was a time when meadow\, grove\, and stream\, \nThe earth\, and every common sight \n                 To me did seem \n            Apparelled in celestial light\, \nThe glory and the freshness of a dream. \nIt is not now as it hath been of yore;— \n             Turn wheresoe’er I may\, \n              By night or day\, \nThe things which I have seen I now can see no more. \n            The rainbow comes and goes\, \n            And lovely is the rose; \n            The moon doth with delight \n     Look round her when the heavens are bare; \n            Waters on a starry night \n            Are beautiful and fair; \n     The sunshine is a glorious birth; \n     But yet I know\, where’er I go\, \nThat there hath past away a glory from the earth. \nNow\, while the birds thus sing a joyous song\, \n     And while the young lambs bound \n            As to the tabor’s sound\, \nTo me alone there came a thought of grief: \nA timely utterance gave that thought relief\, \n            And I again am strong. \nThe cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep\,— \nNo more shall grief of mine the season wrong: \nI hear the echoes through the mountains throng. \nThe winds come to me from the fields of sleep\, \n            And all the earth is gay; \n                Land and sea \n     Give themselves up to jollity\, \n            And with the heart of May \n     Doth every beast keep holiday;— \n                Thou child of joy\, \nShout round me\, let me hear thy shouts\, thou happy \n        Shepherd-boy! \n                 Ye blesséd Creatures\, I have heard the call  \n     Ye to each other make; I see \nThe heavens laugh with you in your jubilee; \n     My heart is at your festival\, \n       My head hath its coronal\, \nThe fulness of your bliss\, I feel—I feel it all. \n         O evil day! if I were sullen \n         While Earth herself is adorning \n              This sweet May-morning; \n         And the children are culling \n              On every side \n         In a thousand valleys far and wide \n         Fresh flowers; while the sun shines warm\, \nAnd the babe leaps up on his mother’s arm:— \n         I hear\, I hear\, with joy I hear! \n         —But there’s a tree\, of many\, one\, \nA single field which I have look’d upon\, \nBoth of them speak of something that is gone: \n              The pansy at my feet \n              Doth the same tale repeat: \nWhither is fled the visionary gleam? \nWhere is it now\, the glory and the dream? \nOur birth is but a sleep and a forgetting; \nThe Soul that rises with us\, our life’s Star\, \n          Hath had elsewhere its setting \n               And cometh from afar; \n          Not in entire forgetfulness\, \n          And not in utter nakedness\, \nBut trailing clouds of glory do we come  \n               From God\, who is our home: \nHeaven lies about us in our infancy! \nShades of the prison-house begin to close \n               Upon the growing Boy\, \nBut he beholds the light\, and whence it flows\, \n               He sees it in his joy; \nThe Youth\, who daily farther from the east \n     Must travel\, still is Nature’s priest\, \n          And by the vision splendid \n          Is on his way attended; \nAt length the Man perceives it die away\, \nAnd fade into the light of common day… \n* \n  \nThis is about the first third of Wordsworth’s poem. For the complete poem\, click this link: \n  \nhttps://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45536/ode-intimations-of-immortality-from-recollections-of-early-childhood  \n  \nHe is sad that he has lost something that he vividly remembers having as a child: “There hath past away a glory from the earth.” William Blake and Thomas Traherne were able to find it\, or something like it\, in the later part of their lives. Here is Thomas Traherne’s poem “Innocence\,” along with a link: \n  \nInnocence \n\n\n\n  \nBut that which most I wonder at\, which most \nI did esteem my bliss\, which most I boast\, \nAnd ever shall enjoy\, is that within \nI felt no stain\, nor spot of sin. \n\nNo darkness then did overshade\, \n      But all within was pure and bright\, \nNo guilt did crush\, nor fear invade \n      But all my soul was full of light. \n\nA joyful sense and purity \n      Is all I can remember; \n   The very night to me was bright\, \n      ’Twas summer in December. \n\nA serious meditation did employ \nMy soul within\, which taken up with joy \nDid seem no outward thing to note\, but fly \nAll objects that do feed the eye. \n\nWhile it those very objects did \n      Admire\, and prize\, and praise\, and love\, \nWhich in their glory most are hid\, \n      Which presence only doth remove. \n\n      Their constant daily presence I \nRejoicing at\, did see; \n      And that which takes them from the eye \nOf others\, offer’d them to me. \n\nNo inward inclination did I feel \nTo avarice or pride: my soul did kneel \nIn admiration all the day. No lust\, nor strife\, \nPolluted then my infant life. \n\nNo fraud nor anger in me mov’d\, \n      No malice\, jealousy\, or spite; \nAll that I saw I truly lov’d. \n      Contentment only and delight \n\n      Were in my soul. O Heav’n! what bliss \nDid I enjoy and feel! \n      What powerful delight did this \nInspire! for this I daily kneel. \n\nWhether it be that nature is so pure\, \nAnd custom only vicious; or that sure \nGod did by miracle the guilt remove\, \nAnd make my soul to feel his love \n\nSo early: or that ’twas one day\, \n      Wherein this happiness I found; \nWhose strength and brightness so do ray\, \n      That still it seems me to surround; \n\nWhat ere it is\, it is a light \n      So endless unto me \nThat I a world of true delight \n      Did then and to this day do see. \n\nThat prospect was the gate of Heav’n\, that day \nThe ancient light of Eden did convey \nInto my soul: I was an Adam there \nA little Adam in a sphere \n\nOf joys! O there my ravish’d sense \n      Was entertain’d in Paradise\, \nAnd had a sight of innocence \n      Which was beyond all bound and price. \n\nAn antepast of Heaven sure! \n      I on the earth did reign; \nWithin\, without me\, all was pure; \n      I must become a child again. \n  \n\n–Thomas Traherne \n\n\n  \n https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45414/innocence.)  \n  \nHere’s what Hamlet had to say. I’ve used it in a previous newsletter (4/23/20)\, but\, hey!\, some things are worth reading more than once. Hamlet knows intellectually that the world is beautiful and people are glorious\, but he just can’t feel it: \n  \nHamlet.  \nI have of late\, but wherefore I know not\, lost all my mirth\, foregone all custom of exercises\, and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame the earth seems to me a sterile promontory\, this most excellent canopy\, the air\, look you\, this brave o’erhanging firmament\, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire—why it appears nothing to me but a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors.  What a piece of work is a man\, how noble in reason\, how infinite in faculties\, in form and moving how express and admirable\, in action how like an angel\, in apprehension how like a god\, the beauty of the world\, the paragon of animals—and yet\, to me\, what is this quintessence of dust?  Man delights not me.  No\, nor woman\, neither. \n* \n  \nI have the nutty idea that every child is an incarnation of the Divine. Recently\, I had the good fortune to meet Zak and Rina’s daughter Nina\, who was born on May 6th. She proved once again—(like every baby I’ve ever met)—that Augustine was wrong. We are born in innocence\, not in sin. Our job is to welcome each new arrival on this planet and to co-create a culture that nurtures their well-being. \n  \n—Johnny
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/peace-love-happiness-understanding-7-2-20/
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20200625
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20200702
DTSTAMP:20260426T104856
CREATED:20200625T153328Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250718T115933Z
UID:984-1593043200-1593647999@openroadpdx.com
SUMMARY:peace\, love\, happiness & understanding  6/25/20
DESCRIPTION:THE OPEN ROAD \npeace\, love\, happiness & understanding \n  \nJune 25\, 2020 \n  \nJon Roush sent this poem: \n  \nIf I can stop one Heart from breaking \nI shall not live in vain \nIf I can ease one Life the Aching \nOr cool one Pain \n  \nOr help one fainting Robin \nUnto his Nest again \nI shall not live in Vain. \n  \n—Emily Dickinson \n* \n  \nA short time after I got the poem from Jon\, I got a letter from Josh Underhill (5/30/20). He seems to be thinking along the same lines as Emily. After some preliminaries\, here’s what he had to say: \n  \nI am not sure if I agree with your words “I don’t feel like I have much influence on the world\, but I create my world…” I do however agree each of us lives and creates our world from moment to moment and we choose whether or not to live in hell or paradise. Because I believe that\, and you seem to also\, our own moment to moments\, and our own choice in living in hell or paradise I believe influences the world. Everything we do from moment to moment\, our hell or paradise\, all has a ripple effect in the world. Even a smile to someone passing on the sidewalk may transform their day\, causing them to not flip-off the car that cuts them off that would have ended up in a road rage and loss of life. You can not say you haven’t changed our lives in Group Dialogue\, changed our world\, and in that changed the way we address the world\, in turn changing the world of those around us\, our friends and families. The ripple effect. I have something on this subject that I’ll see if I can find to include with this letter\, which maybe you can put in an upcoming newsletter. We all on this world are connected\, interdependent of one another and without others around us changing the world\, our world withers and dies. So see\, everything you do influences the world. \nThe thing that scares me about this belief is those things done in wrong or hurt\, what many of us are guilty of\, and has sent some to prison for. Those things we each have done\, what ripple effect did it have on the world? That is something I will not get into right now\, and in some ways don’t want to think about. Guess that’s the choice of living in hell or paradise. \n  \nJosh appended this quote to his letter: \n  \nThe life that I touch for good or ill will touch another life\, and that in turn another\, until who knows where the trembling stops or in what far place and time my touch will be felt. \n  \n—Frederick Buechner \n* \n  \nAfter reading Josh’s letter\, I wondered what exactly I had written to him (4/20/20). Here are a few excerpts: \n  \nIt’s a beautiful Spring day today. We have bright yellow goldfinches and bright red house finches flying around our back yard. I enjoyed your quote from Mr. Shin about being present to what you are doing in the moment. Moments are important. We are so busy thinking about the past and imagining the future that we need to be reminded to pay attention to where we are and to what’s happening within us and around us…. \nFor me\, meditation and mindfulness have been very helpful for my well-being. My mind is not as noisy as it once was. I can easily find my way to what I call “The Golden World….” \nHave you finished reading Ishmael yet? The stories we tell ourselves shape the world in which we live. This is true individually and collectively. When we change our stories\, we change our world—and to some extent we even change the world. I don’t feel like I have much influence on “the world\,” but I create “my world” from moment to moment\, and whether I live in a paradise or in a hell is more-or-less up to me. Outside factors impinge on my happiness\, but how I process my experience and knowledge makes a big difference in whether I am enjoying my life or am miserable. \nIshmael is about the stories we have been telling ourselves collectively that have brought us to a situation where we are destroying the ecological health of our beautiful planet. In order to live in ways that are not so destructive\, we will need new stories. \nWilliam Blake said: “every thing that lives is Holy.” That’s a good start. \nMay all people be happy. \nMay we be peaceful and at ease. \nMay we be well in body and mind. \nMay we live in love. \n* \nWhen I wrote to Josh to ask his permission to publish excerpts from our exchange of letters in this newsletter\, he said “yes\,” and asked me to also include some things I wrote (6/9/20) in reply to his letter. I’m including a couple sentences in square brackets\, although Josh\, who is modest\, didn’t ask me to : \n  \nEverything has a ripple effect—good things and bad things. The Big World—what I was calling “the world”—has a LOT of forces in play. I think there are way more good deeds than bad deeds being done right now everywhere in the world. Basically\, people are good and want to be helpful to each other. The good deeds are often subtle\, like the example you gave\, of smiling at someone as you pass on the sidewalk. But the wrong and hurtful things that you mention in your letter sometimes create more of a wave than a ripple…. \nA man in our dialogue group who was serving a life sentence once said that he could never undo the deed or make amends to the loved ones of the person he killed. He said he hoped that by living a good life\, he would be able to help so many people that in the balance\, at the end of his life\, the good would outweigh the bad…. \nI think it is wise of you not to dwell on the negative ripples that went out from what you’ve done in the past…. Shame and guilt don’t help you or anyone else…. \n[You have nurtured and strengthened what is best in you—your kindness and generosity\, your thoughtfulness toward others. You are living the life of a good man\, and that not only benefits others with a ripple effect\, it benefits you every hour of every day of your life….] \nBe kind to yourself. Don’t engage in negative self-talk. Don’t put yourself down or belittle yourself. Don’t engage with shame or guilt. Don’t dwell in the past. Love everyone!—including Josh Underhill. That beautiful innocent person you were when you were three years old is still who you are in essence. You are worthy to love and be loved. \nYes\, there are ripple effects that result from our negative thoughts and actions. But your job and my job is to:  \nAccentuate the positive\,  \nEliminate the negative\,  \nLatch on to the affirmative\, \nAnd don’t mess with Mr. In-Between! \n* \n  \n(Note: Josh and I and other actors sang this Johnny Mercer song together after one of the plays we did at Two Rivers prison.)  \n  \nLet’s close with more Emily: \n  \nA letter is a joy of Earth — \nIt is denied the Gods — \n  \n& \n  \nThe Infinite a sudden Guest \nHas been assumed to be — \nBut how can that stupendous come \nWhich never went away? \n  \n  \n—This issue was co-edited by Josh Underhill & Johnny Stallings
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/peace-love-happiness-understanding-6-25-20/
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20200618
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20200625
DTSTAMP:20260426T104856
CREATED:20200618T153659Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250718T115824Z
UID:964-1592438400-1593043199@openroadpdx.com
SUMMARY:peace\, love & happiness  6/18/20
DESCRIPTION:When the Morning Stars Sang Together by William Blake \n  \nTHE OPEN ROAD \npeace\, love & happiness newsletter \n  \n  \nJune 18\, 2020 \n  \nThe tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing which stands in the way. \n  \n—from William Blake’s letter to John Trusler\, August 16\, 1799 \n* \n  \n“I always say to myself: What is the most important thing we can think about at this extraordinary moment?” \n  \n—R. Buckminster Fuller\, from I Seem To Be a Verb \n* \n  \nNancy and I have been worrying about the men and women who are in prisons and jails at this difficult time. I was telling Kim about a conversation I had with Rocky Hutchinson—that I was touched to learn that Rocky was worrying about us. The next day\, while my coffee buddies and I were having Zoom fellowship\, this poem from Kim arrived in my email box: \n  \nInmate Calls Home  \n  \nMom\, I been all night worried— \nthis virus thing\, they say it gets everywhere. \nSo don’t go out\, okay? Get food\, sit tight. \nRead. Just read. You like that. Make calls.  \nNot great\, I know. You love those friends.  \nNights\, I hear you tell them things.  \nMom\, I been worried—cabin fever. Yeah\,  \non the inside we’re used to that. Lots of practice. \nTime just turns like a silly dancer\, you watch it. \nBut Mom\, what you gonna do with all that time?  \nNo visits\, no go where you want\, no bench \nin that park you like.   \nNights\, Mom\, no worry. No worry\, \nokay? Me\, I’m good. I’m so good. \n  \n—Kim Stafford \n* \n  \nHoward Thoresen sent a couple of poems: \n  \nLife-and-Death \n  \nWater isn’t formed by being ladled  \ninto a bucket \nSimply the water of the whole Universe has been ladled \nInto a bucket \nThe water does not disappear because it has been \nScattered over the ground \nIt is only that the water of the whole Universe \nHas been emptied into the whole Universe  \nLife is not born because a person is born \nThe life of the whole Universe has been ladled \nInto the hardened “idea” called “I” \nLife does not disappear because a person dies \nSimply\, the life of the whole Universe has \nBeen poured out of this hardened “idea” of “I” \nback into the Universe. \n  \n—Uchiyama Roshi   \n* \n  \nIt Is I Who Must Begin \n  \nIt is I who must begin. \nOnce I begin\, once I try — \nhere and now\, \nright where I am\, \nnot excusing myself \nby saying things \nwould be easier elsewhere\, \nwithout grand speeches and \nostentatious gestures\, \nbut all the more persistently \n— to live in harmony \nwith the “voice of Being\,” as I \nunderstand it within myself \n— as soon as I begin that\, \nI suddenly discover\, \nto my surprise\, that \nI am neither the only one\, \nnor the first\, \nnor the most important one \nto have set out \nupon that road. \nWhether all is really lost \nor not depends entirely on \nwhether or not I am lost. \n   \n— Václav Havel  \n* \n  \nReminders from Walt: \n  \nI…peruse manifold objects\, no two alike and every one good\, \nThe earth good and the stars good and their adjuncts all good…. \n  \nDazzling and tremendous how quick the sun-rise would kill me\, \nIf I could not now and always send sun-rise out of me. \n  \n—from “Song of Myself by Walt Whitman \n* \n  \nAnd a very short story: \n  \nA woman went to see her therapist\, who was also a woman.  “I have a problem\,” she began.   \n“Yes?” the therapist said\, in that way that therapists do.   \n“It’s my husband\,” the woman said.   \n“I don’t see your husband here\,” said the therapist.   \n“He’s not here\,” said the woman.   \n“Where is your problem?” asked the therapist.   \n“In my mind\,” the woman said\, and suddenly realized highest perfect enlightenment. \n  \n—Johnny Stallings
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/peace-love-happiness-6-18-6-24-20/
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20200611
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20200618
DTSTAMP:20260426T104856
CREATED:20200611T175044Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250718T115733Z
UID:935-1591833600-1592438399@openroadpdx.com
SUMMARY:peace\, love & happiness 6/11/20
DESCRIPTION:painting of George Floyd by Lukas Carlson \n  \nTHE OPEN ROAD \npeace\, love & happiness newsletter \n  \n  \nJune 11\, 2020 \n  \nThe black revolution is much more than a struggle for the rights of Negroes. It is forcing America to face all its interrelated flaws—racism\, poverty\, militarism\, and materialism. It is exposing the evils that are rooted deeply in the whole structure of our society. It reveals systemic rather than superficial flaws and suggests that radical reconstruction of society itself is the real issue to be faced. \n  \n—Martin Luther King\, Jr. \n* \n  \nI recently posted this on my FaceBook page: \n  \nAt the root of racism\, injustice and violence are ignorance\, fear\, and a lack of imagination and love. \n  \nMay all people be happy. \nMay we live in love. \n* \n  \nI also posted a link to Martin Luther King’s sermon “Loving Your Enemies” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=522wcqUlS0Y)\, along with these “comments”: \n  \nLove is creative understanding goodwill for all men. \n  \n—from Martin Luther King’s sermon “Loving Your Enemies” \n* \n  \nIn this world\, \nhate never yet dispelled hate. \nOnly love dispels hate. \nThis is the law\, \nancient and inexhaustible. \n  \n—Buddha\, from the Dhammapada \n* \n  \nWho loves not\, knows not God; for God is love. \n  \n1 John 4:8 \n* \n  \nLove to faults is always blind\, \nAlways is to joy inclin’d\, \nLawless\, wing’d & unconfin’d\, \nAnd breaks all chains from every mind. \n  \n—William Blake \n* \n  \nBlake also said: \n  \nEvery thing that lives is Holy \n  \nand: \n  \nChildren of the future Age \nReading this indignant page\, \nKnow that in a former time \nLove! sweet Love! was thought a crime. \n  \nand: \n  \nArt Degraded Imagination Denied War Governed the Nations \n* \n  \nHere are some more thoughts: \nthere is one human family \nwe all belong \nwe need each other more than we know \nwe came here to love and be loved \nat the core of every human being is something radiantly beautiful \nThich Nhat Han speaks of “interbeing” \nat the most fundamental level\, we are not separate from each other \nor from the flowing river of life \n  \nAgain\, Blake: \n  \nCan I see another’s woe \nAnd not be in sorrow too? \nCan I see another’s grief\, \nAnd not seek for kind relief?…. \nNo no never can it be\, \nNever\, never can it be. \n* \n  \nIn 1855\, Walt Whitman said: \n  \nOf every hue and caste am I\, of every rank and religion…. \n  \nIn all people I see myself\, none more\, and not one a barley-corn less…. \n  \nI speak the password primeval\, I give the sign of democracy\, \nBy God! I will accept nothing which all cannot have their counterpart of on the same terms. \n  \n—from “Song of Myself” \n* \n  \nOne of the best books I’ve read in recent years is Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates. Written as a letter to his son\, it’s powerful and poignant. Highly recommended! If you’d like to learn more about the racist dimension of our society\, especially in relation to the criminal justice system\, you might read The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander and watch the documentary “13th\,” by Ava DuVernay.  \nHere’s a link to Cornel West speaking about love and justice:  \n  \nhttps://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2020/06/10/cornel-west-george-floyd-cooper-ac360-vpx.cnn \n  \nI’ll close this issue with passages from Martin Luther King’s sermon “Loving Your Enemies”: \n  \nWe must discover the power of love\, the power\, the redemptive power of love. And when we discover that\, we will be able to make of this old world a new world. We will be able to make men better. Love is the only way…. \nSo this morning\, as I look into your eyes\, and into the eyes of all my brothers in Alabama and all over America and over the world\, I say to you\, “I love you. I would rather die than hate you.” And I’m foolish enough to believe that through the power of this love somewhere\, men of the most recalcitrant bent will be transformed. And then we will be in God’s kingdom. \n  \n—delivered at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church\, Montgomery Alabama\, November 17\, 1957\, from the book A Knock at Midnight
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/peace-love-happiness-6-11-6-17-2020/
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20200607
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20200608
DTSTAMP:20260426T104856
CREATED:20200603T191633Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240616T193251Z
UID:901-1591488000-1591574399@openroadpdx.com
SUMMARY:Bibliophiles Unanimous!: the Open Road Literary Salon
DESCRIPTION:  \n  \n \n  \n“The real joy of a book lies in reading it over and over again\, and always finding it different\, coming upon another meaning\, another level of meaning.” \n–from Apocalypse by D. H. Lawrence \n  \n¡Beloved Bibliophiles! \n  \nOn June 16th\, our topic will be Books That Give You Something New Every Time You Read Them. \n  \nHere’s the Zoom link:  \n  \nhttps://us02web.zoom.us/j/87614013058 \n  \n  \nI hope to see you there!  \n  \npeace\, love & happiness  \nJohnny \n  \n  \n \n  \nFrom the back cover: \n  \nIf you know Johnny\, you will love this book. If you don’t\, after reading\, you will want to meet him—by reading this book. Who else can provide such a good-humored\, big-hearted\, modern Socratic quest into the nature of human happiness\, and the myriad paths to finding joy? Johnny lived in India—and in the remote Eastern Oregon town of Ashwood. He’s spent years in prison—as a generous visitor creating dialog circles to bring lively thought to shadowed lives. And all the time he was writing these zesty morsels of insight\, poem\, story\, meditation\, and manifesto just for you. \n  \n—Kim Stafford\, author of As the Sky Begins to Change  \n  \n  \n\n\n\nIf you missed our 2021 Valentine’s Day Special\, you can enjoy the poems we read by clicking on this phrase: Valentine’s Day Special! LOVE POEMS. Or you could get inspiration from the STORY POEMS we shared on Sunday\, March 28th. Or: MYSTICAL POETRY & PROSE from Animist\, Polytheist\, Hindu\, Taoist\, Buddhist\, Jewish\, Christian & Muslim mystics (4/11/21). Or Poetry (9/25/22). Or American Indian Authors and Culture (11/20/22).\n\n\n  \nWe had a lovely group reading on Zoom of Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself” on his birthday (May 31\, 2020)\, and have been carrying on a lively literary salon ever since on Sunday afternoons at 3 p.m. You’re invited! \nI know that in our busy world not everyone can come every week\, or stay for the whole thing\, but if this sounds like fun to you\, please join us this Sunday or some other Sunday. \nDon’t worry\, this is not a college class! It’s non-competitive. There’s no homework. No one is expected to know anything\, learn anything or improve in any way. It’s just a way to get together and enjoy each other’s company–a locus for the Nonstop Love-In that is happening always and everywhere. \n  \nHere’s the a list of the topics we’ve used so far: \n  \n\nPoetry Corner (favorite poems old and new) 6/7/20\nCan a book change the way you see and experience the world? (give examples) 6/14\nThe Quintessential Hippie Library (you could start with the Whole Earth Catalog and The Teachings of Don Juan by Carlos Castaneda and go from there—some of you surely know what I’m talking about) 6/21\nWhat are your five all-time favorite novels? or six? or whatever? 6/28\nReligion and Spirituality (what sacred-mystic-poetic texts have most enriched your life?) 7/5\nWhat writers taught you most about the way the world works—sociologically\, politically\, economically\, ecologically\, philosophically\, mythologically\, psychologically\, anthropologically\, scientifically\, aesthetically\, fundamentally? 7/12\nBooks With Pictures in Them (this would include art books as well as illustrated books and children’s books) (another question: what are the most gorgeous books you own\, or wish you owned?) 7/19\nfeatured poet: William Blake  7/26\nOddball Books (books found off the beaten path\, books the other people probably haven’t heard of\, books that are unlike other books\, books that explore non-mainstream ways of seeing and understanding the world\, y’know: oddball books)  8/2\nIdea Books (nonfiction books that you learned something from that has stayed with you)  8/9\nWell-Written Books (what writers write in a way that thrills you?)  8/16 \nBooks About Books (literary criticism\, books about reading\, writing\, writers\, words\, the alphabet\, libraries\, et cetera) 8/23 \nFilms Based on Books: which are the best?  8/30\nPoetry Corner. Read us poems you’ve written\, or some of your favorites from other writers.  9/6\nMulticultural. Books not written in English and/or not written by white guys. Fiction or nonfiction  9/13\nGuest Author: Ashley Lucas.  This was a Special Event–a Virtual Book Tour. Ashley’s new book\, Prison Theatre and the Global Crisis of Incarceration had just been published. Ashley (in Michigan) read from her book\, answered questions and hosted a conversation. Howard joined us from New York\, Al and Nick from Seattle\, lots of Oregonians\, and Carlos from Peru! You might want to read this Interview with Ashley Lucas.  9/20\nNature\, Ecology & the Environmental Crisis. 9/27\nNo Bibliophiles Unanimous on 10/4.\nPositive Futures\, Utopian Visions. Mainly thinking nonfiction here\, but novels that give a positive vision of the future would also be good (if there are any.)  10/11\nThe Bible. What does this book mean to you? What have you learned from it? What is its role in our society? What is its role in Western Literature? Considered as a myth (sacred story)\, what does it say about us\, our world\, and our relationship to the Divine?  10/18\nShakespeare.  10/25\nKids Books. For Children of All Ages. Bring kids’ books to read. Bring kids if you can. What were your favorites when you were a kid?  11/1\nIrish Writers  11/8\nEconomics  11/15  Know of any well-written books that have helped to illuminate this arcane subject for you?\nRead any good books lately? A favorite question of bibliophiles  11/22\nMythology with Will Hornyak. Any authors\, books\, articles that have drawn you closer to the world of myth? What myths do you live by? 12/6\nPoetry’s Task with Kim Stafford.  12/20/20\nFavorite Women Poets with Deborah Buchanan & Katie Radditz. 1/3/21\nSPECIAL EVENT!!!: A Play Reading with Howard Thoresen\, Alan Benditt & Andrew Larkin. This is gonna be F-U-N! Contact Johnny for details.  1/17/21\nIdentity & Mythos: The Stories We Tell Ourselves.  1/31/21\nValentine’s Day Special! LOVE POEMS.  1/14/21\nFACTORY by Antler. Group Poetry Reading!  2/28/21\nPoems & Books About Work. We’ll talk about Antler’s poem “Factory\,” share poems about work\, talk about books on the subject of work\, and regale each other with some of our own work experiences.  3/14/21\nStory Poems. Homer\, Dante\, Shakespeare\, Edward Lear\, Robert Service–y’know\, Story Poems. Poems that tell a story.  3/28/21\nMYSTICAL POETRY & PROSE from Animist\, Polytheist\, Hindu\, Taoist\, Buddhist\, Jewish\, Christian & Muslim mystics.  4/11/21\nSHAKESPEARE’S 457th BIRTHDAY!!! Bring along some of your favorite passages from the Immortal Bard.  4/25/21\nALL THINGS GREEK. Stratis Panourios\, our hierophant\, from Athens\, led a dialogos about Greek drama. 5/16/21\nAnnual Group Reading of SONG OF MYSELF to celebrate Walt Whitman’s 202nd birthday!  5/30/21\nBloomsday Celebration!  6/13/21\nPLAYS!: Plays you’ve read\, plays you’ve seen\, plays you’ve performed.  6/27/21\nWhat are your favorite 50 books from the past 50 years?  (Books published since 1971.)  7/11/21\nWhat are Your Favorite Documentary Films?  7/25/21\nPoetry Corner!  8/8/21\nWhat Do You Read?\, How Do You Read? & Why Do You Read?  8/22/21\nWomen’s Liberation!  9/5/21\nBooks With Pictures In Them with Special Guest Professor Andrew D. Larkin  9/19/21\nLooking Glass Bookstore with Special Guests Bill Kloster and Katie Radditz  10/3/21\nPoems That Are Funny  10/17/21\nNature  10/31/21\nNature Poetry  11/14/21\nMythology  11/28/21\nGroup Reading of “A Christmas Carol” 12/12/21\nRead Any Good Books Lately?  1/9/22\nFavorite Fictional Characters  2/27/22\nFor Women’s History Month: Women Writers and Characters  3/13/22\nWar & Peace & Spring!  3/27/22\nGary Snyder & Friends  4/10/22\nOf Strange Shadows: TheMysteries of Shakespeare’s Sonnets with Keith Scales (Celebrating William Shakespeare’s 458th Birthday)  4/24/22\nWhat Shaped Your Worldview (Including Books)?  5/8/22\nAnnual Group Reading of Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself”  5/29/22\nBloomsday Celebration  6/16/22\nA Conversation With Susan Griffin  6/26/22\nAuthors & Writings That Make You Happy!  7/10/22\nAuthors & Writings That Make You Happy!  7/24/22\nRead Any Good Books Lately?  8/28/22\nRead Something You Wrote  9/11/22\nPOETRY  9/25/22\nMore Poems  10/9/22\nNeruda\, Mistral\, García Márquez\, et cetera  11/6/22\nAmerican Indian Authors and Culture  11/20/22\nSilence  12/4/22\nAnnual Group Reading of A Christmas Carol  12/18/22\nSong Lyrics1/1/2023\nHope  1/15/23\nKeith Scales Reads T. S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets  1/29/23\nValentine’s Day Special: “What have you learned about love from books & plays & poems?” 2/12/23\nSnowed In! 2/26/23\nMemorize a Poem!  3/12/23\n“sweet spring…  4/9/23\nShakespeare’s Birthday Extravaganza!!!  4/23/23\nPsychology  5/7/23\nFavorite Women Authors  5/21/23\nPoetry Reading: Featured Poets are Elizabeth Domike & Alex Tretbar  6/4/23\nVisions of Utopia & Paradise  6/18/23\nWhat’s Going On?  7/30/23\nWhat Are Your Top Ten (or Fifteen) Favorite Novels of All Time? 8/13/23\nMother Goose & Friends  9/10/23\nBlack Elk’s Vision  9/24/23\nSPECIAL EVENT!: Mythic Ireland with Will Hornyak  10/8/23\nPeace & War  10/22/23\nWisdom  12/3/23\nA Child’s Christmas in Wales read by Keith Scales  12/17/23\nWhat are the best books you read in 2023 & what books are you looking forward to reading in 2024?  12/31/23\nHistories!  1/14/23\nWho do you admire\, and why?  2/25/24\nWorld Literature  3/10/24 \nBook Launch for The Nonstop Love-In by Johnny Stallings  3/23/24\nMysteries!  4/7/24\nSci-Fi!  5/5/24\nOld Poems!  5/19/24\nSong of Myself  6/2/24\n102.  Books That Give You Something New Every Time You Read Them  6/16/24\n\n\n  \nI hope to see you at our next Sunday Zoom gathering! \npeace & love \nJohnny \n 
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/bibliophiles-unanimous/
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20200604
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20200611
DTSTAMP:20260426T104856
CREATED:20200604T160610Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250718T115606Z
UID:922-1591228800-1591833599@openroadpdx.com
SUMMARY:peace\, love & happiness  6/4/20
DESCRIPTION:THE OPEN ROAD \npeace\, love & happiness newsletter \n  \nJune 4\, 2020 \n  \nMost of the writing I’ve done in my life has been in journals and letters. I found this letter that I wrote in 2010 to a man serving time in a Texas prison. He was suffering from depression\, so I wrote this letter to him. (I have edited it slightly.) \n  \nJuly 29\, 2010 \n  \nDear E \n  \nSome thoughts on depression. \nI think a  lot of suffering comes from “bad mental habits.” I would estimate that 99% of our suffering is self-inflicted. \nIn my own life\, I find three practices very helpful. \nMeditation \nDialogue \nStudy \n  \nMeditation \nYou don’t need a meditation teacher or tradition. All you need to do is spend some time every day sitting quietly. Doing nothing. Paying attention. Watching your thoughts. Being still. Being calm. Breathing in and out. Forget about the past\, forget about the future. Forget about The Autobiography of E. \nThought and language give rise to concepts like “self” and “other.” “Inside” and “outside.” “Body” and “mind.” “Life” and “death.” In silence\, there are no such categories. In silence\, there are no problems. In silence\, there are no boundaries. \nDo not waste another minute of your precious human life in self-pity or regret. Go forward. \nCount your blessings. \nEverything you see is utterly miraculous. Your body is miraculous: your hands\, your eyes\, your brain\, your lungs\, your stomach\, your heart. \nYou are perfect. There is nothing wrong with you. You are basically good. Love\, happiness and freedom are your birthrights. \nEveryone you see around you is beautiful inside. Look for that beauty. \nWater the seeds inside you of peace\, love\, happiness and understanding. \nDo not water the seeds of fear\, anger\, regret\, sorrow\, self-pity. \nPrison is a great place to find the peace which passeth understanding. \nPrison is a great place to learn to love yourself and everyone else\, without exception. \nPrison is a great place to learn how to stop making yourself miserable and be happy. \nPrison is a great place to be free. \n  \nDialogue \nWe need each other more than we know. \nDialogue is a way of breaking out of our isolation\, getting out of our rut\, connecting with others. \nYou said that there is one person who you can have a really good conversation with\, and that he has helped you to see things in a better perspective. \nTake good care of that relationship. Honor it. Spend time with him. \nThere are other guys in prison whom you can have meaningful dialogue with if you are patient and make an effort. \nThe trick is to get below the superficial level where most conversation takes place and down to stuff that is more meaningful. \nMy prison dialogue group has taught me that everyone hungers for meaningful dialogue\, even if they don’t know it. \nWe all need to learn the art of giving expression to who we are below the surface\, and to eliciting that from others. \nI know that in prison especially people tend to “do their own time\,” and obviously you don’t want to naïvely open yourself up to someone who would take advantage of your openness in some way\, but the cost of not communicating authentically with others is loneliness and isolation. So\, it’s worth the effort. \nIt’s important to speak and to be heard\, to see and be seen\, and ultimately to love and be loved. \nIf we talk about the weather or about sports\, neither of us will learn anything that we don’t already know\, but if you ask “What is your story?” and really listen you will find that this other person is just as interesting as you are. You will learn things you didn’t know. \nNot just “Where did you go to high school?\,” but “Have you ever loved a woman?” Not “What are you in for?\,” but “What is your heart’s desire?” \nSo\, now I will ask you that question\, as par of our ongoing dialogue. \nWhat is your heart’s desire? \n  \nStudy \nI hated school. I don’t think it is an exaggeration to say that school felt like a prison to me. I spent the whole time looking out the window\, dreaming of escape. \nI feel like precious years of my life were stolen from me. I’m still angry at the world of adults that locked me up like that. \nWhat was my crime? \nMy parents expected me to go to college after high school\, but I dropped out after half a year. \nAt that point my education began. I started reading things I wanted to read\, following my curiosity. I never stopped doing that. \nI think that if I was in prison\, I would do my best to pretend that it was my monastery\, my university. \nPart of my approach to reading is that I mostly read things that I expect will change me\, open my heart or my mind\, or both. Of course sometimes I read for pure entertainment. Books that are funny lighten our mood. Stories feed our imagination. \nMostly\, I read to gain a better understanding of us human beings and the world in which we live. For me\, this kind of reading can be tremendously exciting and make my life more meaningful. It enlarges my world. \nHere are some of the books I have discovered on my lifelong reading journey: \nFirst of all\, there are foundational books. These are the classics—the books that have been most important to humanity—that people have read and re-read. Millions of people have used the spiritual classics as a guide to their lives. The spiritual classics include the Bible\, the Qur’an\, Bhagavad Gita\, Tao Te Ching\, I Ching\, Dhammapada\, and Buddhist sutras. \nIn addition to those basic spiritual texts\, there are the classics of literature\, from the Odyssey of Homer to Ulysses by James Joyce. The literary critic Harold Bloom puts William Shakespeare at the center of what he calls the Western Canon. \nI find I am especially nourished by the writings and sayings of various saints\, yogis\, prophets\, mystics\, poets\, and spiritual geniuses\, ancient and modern. What they all have in common is something that might be called “depth.” It’s a long list but here are some of my favorites: \nLao Tzu\, Seng Ts’an\, Han Shan\, Hafiz\, Shakespeare\, Traherne\, Blake\, Emerson\, Thoreau\, Whitman\, Dostoevsky\, Narayana Guru\, Ramana Maharshi\, R.H. Blyth\, J. Krishnamurti\, Shunryu Suzuki\, Martin Luther King\, Alan Watts\, Joseph Campbell\, Susan Griffin\, Wendell Berry and Thich Nhat Hanh. \nThese people—along with my close personal friends—profoundly affected the way I see\, experience and understand my life\, the world\, and their inseparability. \nI have more I want to write about books\, but I have to do some stuff right now\, so I think I’ll save it for another letter and get this in the mail to you. \npeace & love \nJohnny
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/peace-love-happiness-6-4-20-6-10-20/
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20200531T150000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20200531T170000
DTSTAMP:20260426T104856
CREATED:20200526T184434Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20200603T194117Z
UID:855-1590937200-1590944400@openroadpdx.com
SUMMARY:Song of Myself on Zoom!!!
DESCRIPTION:  \nWe had a very successful group reading of “Song of Myself” to celebrate Walt Whitman’s 201st Birthday on Sunday\, May 31st\, at 3 pm on Zoom.  \n  \nWe recorded it\, but haven’t uploaded it to YouTube yet. If you want to see it\, contact us through this website\, or email me if you know my email address. \n  \npeace & love  \nJohnny Stallings
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/celebrate-walts-201st-birthday-with-song-of-myself-on-zoom/
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20200528
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20200604
DTSTAMP:20260426T104856
CREATED:20200528T113524Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20220719T043219Z
UID:880-1590624000-1591228799@openroadpdx.com
SUMMARY:peace\, love & happiness 5/28/20
DESCRIPTION:painting by Charles Erickson \n  \nTHE OPEN ROAD \npeace\, love & happiness \nMay 28\, 2020 \n  \nIn 1681 William Penn\, an English Quaker\, was granted territory in North America by King Charles II. The land was named Pennsylvania. Penn planned to build the city of Philadelphia\, which means “brotherly love.” Before coming to America\, on August 18\, 1681\, he wrote this letter to the Native American chiefs: \n  \nMY FRIENDS\, There is a Great God and Power\, that hath made the world and all things therein\, to whom you and I and all people owe their being and well-being; and to whom you and I must one day give an account for all that we do in the world. This Great God hath written his Law in our hearts\, by which we are taught and commanded to love and help\, and do good to one another\, and not to do harm and mischief unto one another. Now this Great God hath been pleased to make me concerned in your part of the world\, and the king of the country where I live hath given me a great province therein; but I desire to enjoy it with your love and consent\, that we may always live together as neighbors and friends; else what would the Great God do to us? who hath made us not to devour and destroy one another\, but to live soberly and kindly together in the world. Now I would have you well observe that I am very sensible of the unkindness and injustice that hath been too much exercised towards you by the people of these parts of the world\, who have sought themselves\, and to make great advantages by you\, rather than to be examples of justice and goodness unto you\, which I hear hath been matter of trouble unto you\, and caused great grudgings and animosities\, sometimes to the shedding of blood\, which hath made the Great God angry. But I am not such a man\, as is well known in my own country. I have great love and regard towards you\, and I desire to win and gain your love and friendship by a kind\, just\, and peaceable life\, and the people I send are of the same mind\, and shall in all things behave themselves accordingly; and if in any thing any shall offend you or your people\, you shall have a full and speedy satisfaction for the same\, by an equal number of just men on both sides\, that by no means you may have just occasion of being offended against them. \n—William Penn (1644-1718) \n* \nAnother Seventeenth Century Englishman had this to say: \n  \n28 \nYour enjoyment of the world is never right\, till every morning you awake in Heaven; see yourself in your Father’s Palace; and look upon the skies\, the earth\, and the air as Celestial Joys: having such a reverend esteem of all\, as if you were among the Angels. The bride of a monarch\, in her husband’s chamber\, hath no such causes of delight as you.  \n  \n29 \nYou never enjoy the world aright\, till the Sea itself floweth in your veins\, till you are clothed with the heavens\, and crowned with the stars: and perceive yourself to be the sole heir of the whole world\, and more than so\, because men are in it who are every one sole heirs as well as you. Till you can sing and rejoice and delight in God\, as misers do in gold\, and Kings in sceptres\, you never enjoy the world.  \n  \n30 \nTill your spirit filleth the whole world\, and the stars are your jewels; till you are as familiar with the ways of God in all Ages as with your walk and table: till you are intimately acquainted with that shady nothing out of which the world was made: till you love men so as to desire their happiness\, with a thirst equal to the zeal of your own; till you delight in God for being good to all: you never enjoy the world. Till you more feel it than your private estate\, and are more present in the hemisphere\, considering the glories and the beauties there\, than in your own house: Till you remember how lately you were made\, and how wonderful it was when you came into it: and more rejoice in the palace of your glory\, than if it had been made to-day morning.  \n  \n31 \nYet further\, you never enjoyed the world aright\, till you so love the beauty of enjoying it\, that you are covetous and earnest to persuade others to enjoy it. And so perfectly hate the abominable corruption of men in despising it\, that you had rather suffer the flames of Hell than willingly be guilty of their error. There is so much blindness and ingratitude and damned folly in it. The world is a mirror of infinite beauty\, yet no man sees it. It is a Temple of Majesty\, yet no man regards it. It is a region of Light and Peace\, did not men disquiet it. It is the Paradise of God. \n  \n—Thomas Traherne (1636-1674) from Centuries of Meditations\, First Century\, also quoted by Aldous Huxley in The Perennial Philosophy\, pp. 67-68 \n* \nThis was written more recently: \n  \nKindness \n  \nBefore you know what kindness really is \nyou must lose things\, \nfeel the future dissolve in a moment \nlike salt in a weakened broth. \nWhat you held in your hand\, \nwhat you counted and carefully saved\, \nall this must go so you know \nhow desolate the landscape can be \nbetween the regions of kindness. \nHow you ride and ride \nthinking the bus will never stop\, \nthe passengers eating maize and chicken \nwill stare out the window forever. \nBefore you learn the tender gravity of kindness \nyou must travel where the Indian in a white poncho \nlies dead by the side of the road. \nYou must see how this could be you\, \nhow he too was someone \nwho journeyed through the night with plans \nand the simple breath that kept him alive. \nBefore you know kindness as the deepest thing inside\, \nyou must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.  \nYou must wake up with sorrow. \nYou must speak to it till your voice \ncatches the thread of all sorrows \nand you see the size of the cloth. \nThen it is only kindness that makes sense anymore\, \nonly kindness that ties your shoes \nand sends you out into the day to gaze at bread\, \nonly kindness that raises its head \nfrom the crowd of the world to say \nIt is I you have been looking for\, \nand then goes with you everywhere \nlike a shadow or a friend.    \n  \n—- Naomi Shihab Nye \n* \nHer poem reminded me of this line from Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself”: \n  \nWhoever walks a furlong without sympathy\, walks to his own funeral dressed in his shroud. \n  \nIt’s a good line\, but he’s just getting warmed up: \n  \nAnd I or you pocketless of a dime may purchase the pick of the earth\, \nAnd to glance with an eye or show a bean in its pod confounds the learning of all times\, \nAnd there is no trade or employment but the young man following it may become a hero\, \nAnd there is no object so soft but it makes a hub for the wheeled universe\, \nAnd I say to any man or woman\, Let your soul stand cool and composed before a million universes…. \n  \nI hear and behold God in every object\, yet understand God not in the least…. \n  \nWhy should I wish to see God better than this day? \nI see something of God each hour of the twenty-four\, and each moment then\, \nIn the faces of men and women I see God\, and in my own face in the glass\, \nI find letters from God dropt in the street\, and every one is signed by God’s name\, \nAnd I leave them where they are\, for I know that wheresoe’er I go\, \nOthers will punctually come for ever and ever. \n* \n  \nWalt’s 201st birthday is this Sunday\, May 31st. We’re going to have a group reading of “Song of Myself” at 3 pm (West Coast Time). To enjoy this exhilarating event\, go to the Zoom website and click on “Join a Meeting.” The meeting ID number is 892-8123-9555. Then\, the password is 623246. I hope to see you there! \n—Johnny Stallings
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/peace-love-happiness-newsletter-5-28-6-3-2020/
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20200521
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20200528
DTSTAMP:20260426T104856
CREATED:20200521T172314Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250718T030351Z
UID:846-1590019200-1590623999@openroadpdx.com
SUMMARY:peace\, love & happiness  5/21/20
DESCRIPTION:THE OPEN ROAD \npeace\, love & happiness \n  \nMay 21\, 2020 \n  \nThe Subject Tonight is Love \nThe subject tonight is Love \nAnd for tomorrow night as well\, \nAs a matter of fact \nI know of no better topic \nFor us to discuss \nUntil we all \nDie! \n  \n                                   —Hafiz\, version by Daniel Ladinsky \n* \nI wrote this essay last Fall: \n  \nThe Noble Ninefold Path \n  \n“If you have tears\, prepare to shed them now\,” he said. We did and we did. The actor who Marc Antony is 34 years old. He has spent the last 17 of those years in prison\, which is where Nancy and I were watching this production of Julius Caesar. After the performance\, the actors talked to the audience about how much they love each other\, and tried to express how much that means to them “in a place like this.” \nI didn’t direct this production\, but in 2008 I directed a production of Hamlet at Two Rivers prison in Umatilla\, Oregon\, and have directed a number of plays in prison since then—mostly by William Shakespeare. For thirteen years I went to prison more-or-less every week and facilitated meaning-of-life dialogues. After doing this for a number of months\, one day I mentioned the word “love.” It’s a word you are not supposed to say in prison. It is taboo outside of prison as well. But that’s another story. \nInviting men in prison to talk about love had a strange effect. We all began to love each other. Over the years this love deepened to the point where we could all feel it. It was palpable.  \nI’m not the first person to notice this\, but I’ve come to understand in a deep way that everyone needs to love and be loved. Like a puppy at the Humane Society\, we are all waiting for someone to take us home. \nWhat the men in prison taught me about living in love got me to thinking about how in philosophical traditions and in many spiritual traditions knowing is privileged over loving. I looked again at the noble eightfold path and it wasn’t there. There was no mention of love! \nI’m not a Buddhist and certainly not a scholar of Buddhism\, but I realized something had to be done about this and so\, with an utter lack of humility\, I would like to suggest a revision to one of the Buddha’s most fundamental teachings and propose to all and sundry the adoption of: \nThe Noble Ninefold Path \nright understanding \nright thinking \nright speech \nright action \nright living \nright effort \nright mindfulness \nright meditation \nright loving \nThis may sound like a joke\, but it’s not. I’m not suggesting that all the books on Buddhism be revised. What I’m suggesting is that if you use the noble eightfold path as a guide to your practice you could add one more thing to the list. And that it would be helpful to do so. It’s not a trivial addition.  \nOne could argue that the Mahayana tradition has already done something like this with the bodhisattva ideal of compassion for all beings. Fair enough. Many modern Buddhist teachers—I’m thinking at the moment of Thich Nhat Hanh\, Pema Chödrön and Jack Kornfield—put a big emphasis on love. This idea of adding one more item to the eightfold path is done\, I hope\, in that same spirit. \nPeace\, love and happiness—the hippie virtues—all tend to be scoffed at by “smart people”—maybe because these are arts which are not taught in school. \nOne meaning of nirvana is a kind of floating away from this world of cares—the world of samsara. But in later Buddhism\, the duality is abolished: samsara and nirvana are not two. \nFor “intellectuals” and intellectual traditions the head is more important than the heart. This is not surprising. That’s kind of what “intellectual” means. But it seems to me that being a whole human being is preferable to performing the role of Mr. Know-It-All. Love and understanding need each other. \nHead without heart leads to tragedy. In my lifetime\, a bunch of geniuses had all kinds of reasons why it was a good idea to drop jellied gasoline on families planting rice in paddies. Had they listened to their hearts\, the whole thing could never have happened. \nWhat is “right loving”? I don’t know. Like all the other “rights” of the noble ninefold path\, you do your best to figure it out as you go along. Love\, of course\, includes compassion. But love is much more than that. I love to see a beautiful flower. I don’t feel compassion for it. I love it because it’s beautiful. I love it without even knowing why I love it. Thich Nhat Hanh—that sweet man!—reminds us that we are all flowers. \nMy own aspiration is to love the heck out of everyone and every thing. “Unconditional love” means loving no matter what and for no reason. \nIn the Bible it says: “Who loves not\, knows not God; for God is Love.” \nWilliam Blake says: \nLove to faults is always blind\, \nAlways is to joy inclin’d\, \nLawless\, wing’d & unconfin’d\, \nAnd breaks all chains from every mind. \nA good way to end this little essay might be with the Meta Prayer: \nMay all beings be happy! \nMay we be peaceful and at ease! \nMay we be well in body and mind! \nMay we live in love! \n—Johnny Stallings \n* \n  \nI shared “The Noble Ninefold Path” with a few people. I sent a copy to Shad Alexander\, who lives at Two Rivers prison. He sent this reply\, which I am sharing with his permission: \n  \nRegarding the “Ninefold Path\,” (if I may indulge my inner nerd)… Love is not explicitly stated in the bulletpoint framework of the Eightfold Path because it is implicitly enmeshed throughout the entire path structure\, and each individual path factor. The whole thing is about love. Buddha challenged us to rise above romantic love\, or sexual love\, or selfishly focused love\, as it is commonly expressed (both then and now). He separated out the main characteristics of selfless love into qualities that each of us can strive to embody. Mettā is translated as “unconditional love\,” or “universal love\,” or “loving-kindness\,” but a better translation involves a flavor of wishing goodwill for all others. Karunā is usually translated as “compassion\,” but again the English falls flat. Karuna is the inspiration to take some action\, even a trivial or symbolic action\, to ease the suffering of others. If you see a homeless person panhandling\, metta is the wish that the person’s life conditions will improve\, karuna is giving the person a peanutbutter and jelly sandwich. Neither action will solve homelessness or hunger\, but together they are “drops in the bucket” which may someday result in a shift our culture and society at large. Muditā is translated as “vicarious joy\,” or perhaps the opposite of jealousy—this is the quality of feeling glad for someone else’s success. This is the cooperative and non-competitive quality of love. Upekkhā means equanimity or non-reactivity. As regards to love\, this is the unconditional aspect of love. (In a broader use of the term\, upekkhā is the Holy Grail of the entire practice\, not reacting with attachment to the ups and downs of life.) All four of these qualities together are Buddhist concept of “love.” Buddha called these “God’s Temple” or “Living Like God.”* (A quick side note: Buddha refused to acknowledge if he believed in God as a deity or not. But he taught his followers that they could become “like God” through the experience of love.) \nThe four qualities of love are both tools that can be used to achieve the final goal of liberation\, and they are side-effects of having achieved the final goal. Using Metta as an example: I still harbor a lot criticism towards others\, so my instructions are to pretend like I have a lot of metta towards others. If I pretend long enough\, it inevitably sinks in. (Buddha was the original person to coin the idea of “Fake it until you make it.”) On the other end of the spectrum\, enlightened meditation masters assure me that in advanced stages of meditation\, love for all beings is a natural expression from the realization that all living things are interconnected and interdependent. \nBringing this all back to the claim that the entire Eightfold path is about love… The Eightfold path begins and ends with “Right Understanding.” A beginner’s understanding is: “All living beings are terrified of punishment\, all fear death. Comparing oneself to others\, one should neither kill nor cause to kill. All living beings love life. Comparing oneself to others\, one should neither kill nor cause to kill.” (Dhammapada.) That novice understanding leads a person to train their mind towards thoughts of non-harm and cooperation (love); to train their speech towards words that promote love; to act with love; to choose a livelihood that does not harm others (love); to make earnest efforts to free themselves from harmful thoughts/actions and to engage in loving thoughts and actions. These efforts result in increasing mindfulness\, a living embodied awareness of of “Am I living with love?” or “Am I living absent of love?” Meditation is a tool to help us open up to the fullest potential of love\, but once that fullest potential is achieved\, meditation from a place of pure love tips the scales towards a more ultimate Right Understanding: all beings are interconnected and interdependent. To love myself is to love all others. \nOr so I have been told… \n(The word “sammā\,” we translate as “right\, proper\, perfect\,” as in Right Speech\, Right Thoughts\, etc. But what is meant by “right?” Samma has a nuance of “the absence of harmfulness” or the presence of metta/karuna/mudita/upekkha. So maybe a better translation would be “understanding with love\,” “thought with love\,” “speech with love\,” etc.) \n* The term is “Brahma-vihāra\,” God-Abiding. \n—Shad Alexander \n* \n  \nA bonus for people who get the email version of this newsletter—links to videos of two contemporary bodhisattvas\, Alokananda Roy and Fritzi Horstman: \n  \nhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OspzzO7gAiw&t=455s \n  \n  \n \n  \n  \n  \nhttps://vimeo.com/398088783?fbclid=IwAR3wrd-7igOwlGZo_R5jSI5IERo54Dld59nWAnXMSbTB11H8AEYK-RzRZRE \n  \nMay we live in love. \n—Johnny Stallings
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/peace-love-happiness-5-21-20-5-27-20/
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20200514
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20200521
DTSTAMP:20260426T104856
CREATED:20200515T033211Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250718T030013Z
UID:839-1589414400-1590019199@openroadpdx.com
SUMMARY:peace\, love & happiness newsletter  5/14/20
DESCRIPTION:THE OPEN ROAD \npeace\, love & happiness \n  \nMay 14\, 2020 \n  \nA human being is part of the whole called by us “universe\,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself\, his thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. \nThis delusion is a kind of prison for us\, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. \nOur task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. \n—Albert Einstein \n* \nFather Gregory Boyle is the former pastor of Dolores Mission Church in Los Angeles. In 1992\, he founded Homeboy Industries\, which is is the largest and most successful gang rehabilitation and re-entry program in the world. \nhttps://homeboyindustries.org/our-story/father-greg/ \nHe is the author of the Tattoos on the Heart and is featured in the documentary film “G-Dog.” In a TED talk he gave in 2012\, he uses a similar image to Albert Einstein’s “circle of compassion.” In the context of this talk he is not talking about “all living creatures\,” but about “the easily despised.”  Here’s an excerpt from that talk: \n  \nWhat we all want to create and form is a community of kinship such that God\, in fact\, might recognize it. I suspect that Mother Teresa diagnosed the world’s ills correctly when she suggested that the problem in the world is that we’ve just forgotten that we belong to each other. So\, how do we stand against forgetting that? How do we create and imagine a circle of compassion\, and then imagine nobody standing outside that circle? And to that end\, what we hope to do—all of us\, I think—is to inch our way out to the margins\, so that we can stand with the poor and the powerless and the voiceless. That we can stand with those whose dignity has been denied\, with those whose burdens are more than they can bear. Occasionally\, you get very fortunate and blessed to be able to stand with the easily despised and the readily left out. With the demonized\, so that the demonizing will stop. And with the disposable\, so that the day will come when we stop throwing people away. I suspect that if kinship was our goal we would no longer be promoting justice\, we would\, in fact\, be celebrating it. For: no kinship\, no justice. No kinship\, no peace. \n—from Gregory Boyle’s TED talk on Compassion and Kinship \n* \nI don’t know how many times I’ve listened to this 20 minute talk. It makes me cry every time. Here’s a link: \n  \nhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipR0kWt1Fkc&t=208s \n  \n* \nBelow is a poem by Thich Nhat Hanh which I read regularly to remind me who I am. It’s followed by his story of how he came to write the poem. Its content is not unrelated to what Albert Einstein says in the quote that opens this newsletter. \n  \nPlease Call Me By My True Names \n  \nDo not say that I’ll depart tomorrow— \neven today I am still arriving. \nLook deeply: every second I am arriving \nto be a bud on a Spring branch\, \nto be a tiny bird\, with still-fragile wings\, \nlearning to sing in my new nest\, \nto be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower\, \nto be a jewel hiding itself in a stone. \nI still arrive\, in order to laugh and to cry\, \nto fear and to hope\, \nthe rhythm of my heart is the birth and death \nof all that are alive. \nI am the mayfly metamorphosing \non the surface of the river\, \nand I am the bird which\, when Spring comes\, \narrives in time to eat the mayfly. \nI am the frog swimming happily \nin the clear water of a pond\, \nand I am the grass-snake \nthat silently feeds itself on the frog. \nI am the child in Uganda\, all skin and bones\, \nmy legs as thin as bamboo sticks. \nAnd I am the arms merchant\, \nselling deadly weapons to Uganda. \nI am the twelve-year-old girl\, \nrefugee on a small boat\, \nwho throws herself into the ocean \nafter being raped by a sea pirate. \nAnd I am the pirate\, \nmy heart not yet capable \nof seeing and loving. \nI am a member of the politburo\, \nwith plenty of power in my hands. \nAnd I am the man who has to pay his \n“debt of blood” to my people \ndying slowly in a forced labor camp. \nMy joy is like Spring\, so warm \nit makes flowers bloom all over the Earth. \nMy pain is like a river of tears\, \nso vast it fills the four oceans. \nPlease call me by my true names\, \nso I can hear all my cries and laughter at once\, \nso I can see that my joy and pain are one. \nPlease call me by my true names\, \nso I can wake up \nand so the door of my heart can be left open\, \nthe door of compassion. \n* \nAfter the Vietnam War\, many people wrote to us in Plum Village. We received hundreds of letters each week from the refugee camps in Singapore\, Malaysia\, Indonesia\, Thailand\, and the Philippines\, hundreds each week. It was very painful to read them\, but we had to be in contact. We tried our best to help\, but the suffering was enormous\, and sometimes we were discouraged. It is said that half the boat people fleeing Vietnam died in the ocean; only half arrived at the shores of Southeast Asia. \nThere are many young girls\, boat people\, who were raped by sea pirates. Even though the United Nations and many countries tried to help the government of Thailand prevent that kind of piracy\, sea pirates continued to inflict much suffering on the refugees. One day\, we received a letter telling us about a young girl on a small boat who was raped by a Thai pirate. \nShe was only twelve\, and she jumped into the ocean and drowned herself. \nWhen you first learn of something like that\, you get angry at the pirate. You naturally take the side of the girl. As you look more deeply you will see it differently. If you take the side of the little girl\, then it is easy. You only have to take a gun and shoot the pirate. But we can’t do that. In my meditation\, I saw that if I had been born in the village of the pirate and raised in the same conditions as he was\, I would now be the pirate. There is a great likelihood that I would become a pirate. I can’t condemn myself so easily. In my meditation\, I saw that many babies are born along the Gulf of Siam\, hundreds every day\, and if we educators\, social workers\, politicians\, and others do not do something about the situation\, in twenty-five years a number of them will become sea pirates. That is certain. If you or I were born today in those fishing villages\, we might become sea pirates in twenty-five years. If you take a gun and shoot the pirate\, you shoot all of us\, because all of us are to some extent responsible for this state of affairs. \nAfter a long meditation\, I wrote this poem. In it\, there are three people: the twelve-year-old girl\, the pirate\, and me. Can we look at each other and recognize ourselves in each other? The title of the poem is “Please Call Me by My True Names\,” because I have so many names. When I hear one of the of these names\, I have to say\, “Yes.” \n—Thich Nhat Hanh \n* \nAnd one more poem: \n  \nA Little Stone in the Middle of the Road\, in Florida \n  \nMy son as a child saying \nGod \nis anything\, even a little stone in the middle of the road\, in Florida \nYesterday \nNancy\, my friend\, after long illness: \nYou know what can lift me up\, take me right out of despair? \nNo\, what? \nAnything. \n  \n—Muriel Rukeyser
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/peace-love-happiness-newsletter-5-14-20-5-20-20/
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20200507
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20200514
DTSTAMP:20260426T104856
CREATED:20200509T210805Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20220718T222044Z
UID:799-1588809600-1589414399@openroadpdx.com
SUMMARY:peace\, love & happiness newsletter  5/7/20
DESCRIPTION:THE OPEN ROAD \npeace\, love & happiness newsletter \n  \nMay 7\, 2020 \n  \nRobert G. Ingersoll (1833-1899) was a free thinker\, orator and essayist. He was a friend of Mark Twain. He gave the eulogy at Walt Whitman’s funeral. Below is an abridged version of an address he gave to the State Bar Association at Albany\, N.Y.\, on January 1st\, 1890: \n  \nCRIMES AGAINST CRIMINALS \nAll nations seem to have had supreme confidence in the deterrent power of threatened and inflicted pain. They have regarded punishment as the shortest road to reformation. Imprisonment\, torture\, death\, constituted a trinity under whose protection society might feel secure. \nIn addition to these\, nations have relied on confiscation and degradation\, on maimings\, whippings\, brandings\, and exposures to public ridicule and contempt. Connected with the court of justice was the chamber of torture. The ingenuity of man was exhausted in the construction of instruments that would surely reach the most sensitive nerve. All this was done in the interest of civilization—for the protection of virtue\, and the well-being of states. Curiously it was found that the penalty of death made little difference. Thieves and highwaymen\, heretics and blasphemers\, went on their way…. \nThe fact is that\, no matter how severe the punishments were\, the crimes increased. \nFor petty offences men were degraded—given to the mercy of the rabble. Their ears were cut off\, their nostrils slit\, their foreheads branded. They were tied to the tails of carts and flogged from one town to another. And yet\, in spite of all\, the poor wretches obstinately refused to become good and useful citizens. \nDegradation has been thoroughly tried\, with its maimings and brandings\, and the result was that those who inflicted the punishments became as degraded as their victims. \nOnly a few years ago there were more than two hundred offences in Great Britain punishable by death. The gallows-tree bore fruit through all the year\, and the hangman was the busiest official in the kingdom—but the criminals increased. \nCrimes were committed to punish crimes\, and crimes were committed to prevent crimes. The world has been filled with prisons and dungeons\, with chains and whips\, with crosses and gibbets\, with thumbscrews and racks\, with hangmen and headsmen—and yet these frightful means and instrumentalities and crimes have accomplished little for the preservation of property or life. It is safe to say that governments have committed far more crimes than they have prevented. \nIs it not true that the criminal is a natural product\, and that society unconsciously produces these children of vice? Can we not safely take another step\, and say that the criminal is a victim?… \nFor my part\, I sympathize sincerely with all failures\, with the victims of society\, with those who have fallen\, with the imprisoned\, with the hopeless\, with those who have been stained by verdicts of guilty\, and with those who\, in the moment of passion have destroyed\, as with a blow\, the future of their lives. \nHow perilous\, after all\, is the state of man. It is the work of a life to build a great and splendid character. It is the work of a moment to destroy it utterly\, from turret to foundation stone. How cruel hypocrisy is! \nIs there any remedy? Can anything be done for the reformation of the criminal?  \nHe should be treated with kindness. Every right should be given him\, consistent with the safety of society. He should neither be degraded nor robbed. The State should set the highest and noblest example. The powerful should never be cruel\, and in the breast of the supreme there should be no desire for revenge. \nA man in a moment of want steals the property of another\, and he is sent to the penitentiary—first\, as it is claimed\, for the purpose of deterring others; and secondly\, of reforming him. The circumstances of each individual case are rarely inquired into. Investigation stops when the simple fact of the larceny has been ascertained. No distinctions are made except as between first and subsequent offenses. Nothing is allowed for surroundings. \nAll will admit that the industrious must be protected. In this world it is necessary to work. Labor is the foundation of all prosperity. Larceny is the enemy of industry. Society has the right to protect itself. The question is\, Has it the right to punish?—has it the right to degrade?—or should it endeavor to reform the convict? \nA man is taken to the penitentiary. He is clad in the garments of a convict. He is degraded—he loses his name—he is designated by a number. He is no longer treated as a human being—he becomes the slave of the State. Nothing is done for his improvement—nothing for his reformation. He is driven like a beast of burden; robbed of his labor; leased\, it may be\, by the State to a contractor\, who gets out of his hands\, out of his muscles\, out of his poor brain\, all the toil that he can. He is not allowed to speak with a fellow-prisoner. At night he is alone in his cell. The relations that should exist between men are destroyed. He is a convict. He is no longer worthy to associate even with his keepers. The jailer is immensely his superior\, and the man who turns the key upon him at night regards himself\, in comparison\, as a model of honesty\, of virtue and manhood. The convict is pavement on which those who watch him walk. He remains for the time of his sentence\, and when that expires he goes forth a branded man. He is given money enough to pay his fare back to the place from whence he came…. \nThe men in the penitentiaries do not work for themselves. Their labor belongs to others. They have no interest in their toil—no reason for doing the best they can—and the result is that the product of their labor is poor. This product comes in competition with the work of mechanics\, honest men\, who have families to support\, and the cry is that convict labor takes the bread from the mouths of virtuous people. \nWhy should the State take without compensation the labor of these men; and why should they\, after having been imprisoned for years\, be turned out without the means of support? Would it not be far better\, far more economical\, to pay these men for their labor\, to lay aside their earnings from day to day\, from month to month\, and from year to year—to put this money at interest\, so that when the convict is released after five years of imprisonment he will have several hundred dollars of his own—not merely money enough to pay his way back to the place from which he was sent\, but enough to make it possible for him to commence business on his own account\, enough to keep the wolf of crime from the door of his heart? \nSuppose the convict comes out with five hundred dollars. This would be to most of that class a fortune. It would form a breastwork\, a fortress\, behind which the man could fight temptation. This would give him food and raiment\, enable him to go to some other State or country where he could redeem himself. If this were done\, thousands of convicts would feel under immense obligation to the Government. They would think of the penitentiary as the place in which they were saved—in which they were redeemed—and they would feel that the verdict of guilty rescued them from the abyss of crime. Under these circumstances\, the law would appear beneficent\, and the heart of the poor convict\, instead of being filled with malice\, would overflow with gratitude. He would see the propriety of the course pursued by the Government. He would recognize and feel and experience the benefits of this course\, and the result would be good\, not only to him\, but to the nation as well. \nIf the convict worked for himself\, he would do the best he could\, and the wares produced in the penitentiaries would not cheapen the labor of other men…. \nThose who are the fiercest to destroy and hang their fellow-men for having committed crimes\, are\, for the most part\, at heart\, criminals themselves. \nAs long as nations meet on the fields of war—as long as they sustain the relations of savages to each other—as long as they put the laurel and the oak on the brows of those who kill—just so long will citizens resort to violence\, and the quarrels of individuals be settled by dagger and revolver. \nIf we are to change the conduct of men\, we must change their conditions. Extreme poverty and crime go hand in hand. Destitution multiplies temptations and destroys the finer feelings. The bodies and souls of men are apt to be clad in like garments. If the body is covered with rags\, the soul is generally in the same condition. Selfrespect is gone—the man looks down—he has neither hope nor courage. He becomes sinister—he envies the prosperous—hates the fortunate\, and despises himself. \nAs long as children are raised in the tenement and gutter\, the prisons will be full. The gulf between the rich and poor will grow wider and wider. One will depend on cunning\, the other on force. It is a great question whether those who live in luxury can afford to allow others to exist in want. The value of property depends\, not on the prosperity of the few\, but on the prosperity of a very large majority. Life and property must be secure\, or that subtle thing called “value” takes its leave. The poverty of the many is a perpetual menace. If we expect a prosperous and peaceful country\, the citizens must have homes. The more homes\, the more patriots\, the more virtue\, and the more security for all that gives worth to life…. \nThe home\, after all\, is the unit of civilization\, of good government; and to secure homes for a great majority of our citizens\, would be to lay the foundation of our Government deeper and broader and stronger than that of any nation that has existed among men…. \nOf one thing we may be assured—and that is\, that criminals will never be reformed by being robbed\, humiliated and degraded. \nIgnorance\, filth\, and poverty are the missionaries of crime. As long as dishonorable success outranks honest effort—as long as society bows and cringes before the great thieves\, there will be little ones enough to fill the jails. \nAll the penalties\, all the punishments\, are inflicted under a belief that man can do right under all circumstances—that his conduct is absolutely under his control\, and that his will is a pilot that can\, in spite of winds and tides\, reach any port desired. All this is\, in my judgment\, a mistake. It is a denial of the integrity of nature. It is based upon the supernatural and miraculous\, and as long as this mistake remains the corner-stone of criminal jurisprudence\, reformation will be impossible. \nWe must take into consideration the nature of man—the facts of mind—the power of temptation—the limitations of the intellect—the force of habit—the result of heredity—the power of passion—the domination of want—the diseases of the brain—the tyranny of appetite—the cruelty of conditions—the results of association—the effects of poverty and wealth\, of helplessness and power. \nUntil these subtle things are understood—until we know that man\, in spite of all\, can certainly pursue the highway of the right\, society should not impoverish and degrade\, should not chain and kill those who\, after all\, may be the helpless victims of unknown causes that are deaf and blind…. \nWe do not know. Our ignorance should make us hesitate. Our weakness should make us merciful. \n—Robert G. Ingersoll\, Address delivered before the State Bar Association at Albany\, N. Y.\,  \nJanuary 1\, 1890 \n* \nIngersoll’s talk reminds me of these words of the Buddha: \n  \nIn this world \nHate never yet dispelled hate. \nOnly love dispels hate. \nThis is the law\, \nAncient and inexhaustible. \n* \nFor the full speech\, and all the writings and speeches of Ingersoll\, click this link: \n  \nhttps://www.gutenberg.org/files/38813/38813-h/38813-h.htm#Klink0005 \n  \n—Johnny Stallings
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/peace-love-happiness-newsletter-5-7-5-13/
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20200502T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20200502T203000
DTSTAMP:20260426T104856
CREATED:20200220T132223Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20200314T000113Z
UID:511-1588446000-1588451400@openroadpdx.com
SUMMARY:Storyteller William Kennedy Hornyak Presents: Erin's Daughters
DESCRIPTION:PERFORMANCES: \n  \nSaturday May 2  7:00 p.m.  \nImmersion Brewing Barrel Room   \n550 SE Industrial Way  S.  \nBend\, OR \nmusic by Peter Lepanto \n  \nSaturday May 16   7:30 p.m. \nArtichoke Music   2007 SE Powell Blvd.   Portland \n*Contact Artichoke music for res. and tickets \n  \nAll Shows $15.00 Cash at the Door Unless Otherwise Noted * \nReservations Recommended: hornyak.will@gmail.com or 503 697-5808 \n  \nSTORYTELLING WORKSHOPS: \nWell Told: Crafting Personal Narratives \nWe all have stories to tell and a unique voice and style with which to tell them.     Truly memorable personal stories have a mythic quality to them.  They provide a window to a larger world through the ordinary moments of our lives.  The work of telling personal narratives is often to distill the universal from the personal\, to find the common veins of meaning that connect to us all.      During this workshop we will write\, hear and tell stories from our lives and explore the varied threads of meaning that run through them.  We will use traditional folktales and myths as a backdrop for our own stories.  We will create a supportive environment to develop our own storytelling voices and styles of telling.        We will consider the basics of a well-told tale and the tools required for all storytellers\, be it for rendering personal narratives or traditional tales.  No previous storytelling experience is required. \n  \nBend  Sunday May 3 10 a.m.-2:30 p.m. \nPlace T.B.D.  $40.00 \n  \nPortland Sunday May 17  10 a.m. – 2:30 p.m. \nPlace T.B.D.    $40.00 \n  \nReservations: hornyak.will@gmail.com
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/storyteller-william-kennedy-hornyak-presents-erins-daughters/
LOCATION:Immersion Brewing Barrel Room\, 550 Industrial Way S.\, Bend\, OR
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DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20200430
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20200507
DTSTAMP:20260426T104856
CREATED:20200501T233930Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250718T023737Z
UID:765-1588204800-1588809599@openroadpdx.com
SUMMARY:peace\, love & happiness  4/30/20
DESCRIPTION:THE OPEN ROAD \npeace\, love & happiness \n  \nApril 30\, 2020 \nThe little tags on my Yogi Tea bags are reminding me that \nPeople who love are happy. \nand exhorting me to \nLive light\, travel light\, spread the light\, be the light. \n* \nThe baby beats the nurse\, and quite athwart  \nGoes all decorum. \n(from “Measure for Measure” by William Shakespeare\, Act 1\, scene 3) \n* \nI was taking a virtual tour of the Rijksmuseum [click on link] and came upon the wonderful painting “The Merry Family” by Jan Steen (1626-1679). The commentator on the painting said that this was supposed to be a kind of cautionary tale: if the adults get drunk\, horse around\, and play music they are setting a bad example for the children. To me the painting sends a different “message.” It is a picture of human happiness. It reminds me of a poem by one of my dad’s favorite poets\, Carl Sandburg: \n  \nHAPPINESS \nI asked professors who teach the meaning of life to tell me what is happiness. \nAnd I went to famous executives who boss the work of thousands of men. \nThey all shook their heads and gave me a smile as though I was trying to fool with them. \nAnd then one Sunday afternoon I wandered out along the Desplaines river \nAnd I saw a crowd of Hungarians under the trees with their women and children and a keg of beer and an accordion. \n—Carl Sandburg \n* \nShakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” is a celebration of earthly pleasures. The Fool’s name is Feste\, which suggests “festive” and “festival”—a joyful feast. Malvolio\, the Puritan\, wants everyone to stop drinking and dancing and singing and go to bed. He’s outnumbered. Sir Toby Belch sums up the play’s philosophy:  \n“Care’s an enemy to life.” \n* \nI love Louis Armstrong. I got to see him perform a couple times. His joy is sublime! \nI recently woke up with this song in my head\, “A Lot of Living to Do”: \nhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnvQDJXR85c \n* \nI’m no Oscar Wilde\, but in the course of my long life I’ve come up with an aphorism or two. Here’s one: \nHappiness is the art of not making yourself miserable. \n  \nWilliam Blake wrote many doozies. For example: \nThe soul of sweet delight can never be defiled. \n* \nHere’s the first poem in The Poetical Works of Thomas Traherne: \n  \nThe Salutation \n         These little limbs\, \n    These eyes and hands which here I find\, \nThese rosy cheeks wherewith my life begins\, \n    Where have ye been? behind \nWhat curtain were ye from me hid so long? \nWhere was\, in what abyss\, my speaking tongue? \n  \n         When silent I    \n    So many thousand\, thousand years \nBeneath the dust did in a chaos lie\, \n    How could I smiles or tears\, \nOr lips or hands or eyes or ears perceive? \nWelcome ye treasures which I now receive. \n  \n         I that so long \n    Was nothing from eternity\, \nDid little think such joys as ear or tongue \n    To celebrate or see: \nSuch sounds to hear\, such hands to feel\, such feet\, \nBeneath the skies on such a ground to meet. \n  \n         New burnished joys\, \n    Which yellow gold and pearls excel! \nSuch sacred treasures are the limbs in boys\, \n    In which a soul doth dwell; \nTheir organised joints and azure veins \nMore wealth include than all the world contains. \n  \n         From dust I rise\, \n    And out of nothing now awake; \nThese brighter regions which salute mine eyes\, \n    A gift from God I take. \nThe earth\, the seas\, the light\, the day\, the skies\, \nThe sun and stars are mine\, if those I prize. \n  \n         Long time before \n    I in my mother’s womb was born\, \nA God preparing did this glorious store \n    The world for me adorn. \nInto this Eden so divine and fair\, \nSo wide and bright\, I come His son and heir. \n  \n         A stranger here \n    Strange things doth meet\, strange glories see; \nStrange treasures lodged in this fair world appear\, \n    Strange all and new to me; \nBut that they mine should be\, who nothing was\, \nThat strangest is of all\, yet brought to pass. \n* \nOne of my favorite short poems by Walt Whitman is this one: \n  \nBEGINNING MY STUDIES \nBeginning my studies the first step pleas’d me so much\,  \nThe mere fact consciousness\, these forms\, the power of motion\, \nThe least insect or animal\, the senses\, eyesight\, love\, \nThe first step I say awed me and pleas’d me so much\, \nI have hardly gone and hardly wish’d to go any farther\, \nBut stop and loiter all the time to sing it in ecstatic songs. \n* \nAn Old Tale \nOnce there was a king who wanted to be happy. His wise counselors informed him that he needed to acquire the shirt of a happy man. So\, he sent his soldiers out in quest of such a shirt. One by one they returned empty-handed. None of them could find a happy man. Finally\, the last soldier returned.  \nThe king asked\, “Did you find a happy man?”  \n“Yes\,” the soldier said.  \n“Where’s his shirt?\,” asked the king.  \n“He didn’t have one.” \n* \nMay all people be happy. \n—Johnny Stallings \n* \nKim Stafford kindly shared this excerpt from his book-in-progress\, Writing for Happiness: \n  \nI invite you to use writing to live in accordance with the Dao\, to write in order to achieve fluent response to events\, to behave in synch with “happ\,” what happens. This is a different path to happiness than what I once understood\, because it does not avoid the difficult\, but by the hands-on process of writing\, incorporates the difficult into the search for equanimity. To be with happ is to be happ-y. That is\, to be honest\, a realist\, practical about the available dimensions of joy that exist within a matrix of complexity and difficulty.       \nThe pursuit of happiness may be an inalienable right\, but it is also a stern task. “You don’t get to the good life by living the good life\,” says the tough immigrant proverb\, and so it is with happiness. You don’t get to be truly happy by coasting along avoiding the difficult. Life is suffering\, after all\, and happiness can’t change that\, even as it flickers and is snuffed\, and flickers again.      \nBut the pursuit of happiness calls to us all the same. I believe that an enhanced definition of happiness makes the task possible—that to be “happy” is to live in accordance with what happens—and that the serious play of writing\, jotting\, scribbling\, composing can be a way to pursue—and attain—a responsible and generous kind of happiness. \n—Kim Stafford \n 
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/peace-love-happiness-newsletter-4-30-5-6/
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DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20200423
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20200430
DTSTAMP:20260426T104856
CREATED:20200423T171809Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20220719T041746Z
UID:757-1587600000-1588204799@openroadpdx.com
SUMMARY:peace\, love & happiness newsletter 4/23/20
DESCRIPTION:THE OPEN ROAD \npeace\, love & happiness newsletter \nApril 23\, 2020 \nWilliam Shakespeare Issue \n  \nWilliam Shakespeare’s birthday is celebrated on April 23rd. He turns 456 today. Alexandre Dumas said: “After God\, Shakespeare has created most.” It’s the general consensus that he is the greatest poet in the English language and the greatest playwright in any language.  \nActors have the great good fortune to enjoy Shakespeare in ways that readers\, teachers\, directors and scholars do not. We get to play the parts\, to live the life of the characters he created. But when it comes time to talk about what the plays mean\, we are dumb. \nI don’t know what the plays Hamlet or King Lear mean\, but I know what it feels like to be Hamlet\, to be Lear. Hamlet is in the dark about who he is\, and why he says and does the things he says and does\, just as you and I are ignorant of who we are and why we say and do the things we say and do. Hamlet says: “I have of late\, but wherefore I know not\, lost all my mirth.” The English professor will tell you why Hamlet has lost all his mirth\, but Hamlet doesn’t know. He feels that it is gone. \nAn actor doesn’t pretend to be other people\, he becomes them. When a play ends\, it’s like waking from a dream. \nWill Shakespeare breathed his own life into the characters he created\, and now when I breathe\, he breathes through me. Is this to consider too curiously?  \nWhen I\, as Lear\, speak the words…  \n“None does offend. None\, I say. None.” \n…I’m not standing outside or apart\, thinking\, “Well\, he’s mad\, you know.” I’m speaking the Truth. And because I’ve said it and meant it and felt it and believed it\, the Johnny Stallings character I pretend to be in “real life” is changed irrevocably. \n  \nWe are such stuff  \nAs dreams are made of\, and our little life \nIs rounded with a sleep. \n  \nThere’s not enough room in our little newsletter to include The Complete Works\, so I’ll just share a few of my favorite passages: \n  \nJaques. \nAll the world’s a stage\, \nAnd all the men and women merely players; \nThey have their exits and their entrances\, \nAnd one man in his time plays many parts\, \nHis acts being seven ages. At first\, the infant\, \nMewling and puking in the nurse’s arms. \nThen the whining schoolboy\, with his satchel \nAnd shining morning face\, creeping like snail \nUnwillingly to school. And then the lover\, \nSighing like furnace\, with a woeful ballad \nMade to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier\, \nFull of strange oaths and bearded like the pard\, \nJealous in honor\, sudden and quick in quarrel\, \nSeeking the bubble reputation \nEven in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice\, \nIn fair round belly with good capon lined\, \nWith eyes severe and beard of formal cut\, \nFull of wise saws and modern instances; \nAnd so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts \nInto the lean and slippered pantaloon\, \nWith spectacles on nose and pouch on side; \nHis youthful hose\, well saved\, a world too wide \nFor his shrunk shank\, and his big manly voice\, \nTurning again toward childish treble\, pipes \nAnd whistles in his sound. Last scene of all\, \nThat ends this strange eventful history\, \nIs second childishness and mere oblivion\, \nSans teeth\, sans eyes\, sans taste\, sans everything. \n  \n—As You Like It\, Act 2\, scene 7 \n* \nBottom. \nAnd most dear actors\, eat no onions  \nnor garlic\, for we are to utter sweet breath. \n  \n—A Midsummer Night’s Dream\, Act 4\, scene 2 \n* \nHamlet.  \n I have of late\, but wherefore I know not\, lost all my mirth\, foregone all custom of exercises\, and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame the earth seems to me a sterile promontory\, this most excellent canopy\, the air\, look you\, this brave o’erhanging firmament\, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire—why it appears nothing to me but a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors. What a piece of work is a man\, how noble in reason\, how infinite in faculties\, in form and moving how express and admirable\, in action how like an angel\, in apprehension how like a god\, the beauty of the world\, the paragon of animals—and yet\, to me\, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me. No\, nor woman\, neither. \n  \n—Hamlet\, Act 2\, scene 2 \n* \nDuke Senior.   \nAnd this our life\, exempt from public haunt\, \nFinds tongues in trees\, books in the running brooks\, \nSermons in stones\, and good in everything. \n  \n—As You Like It\, Act 2\, scene 1 \n* \nHamlet. \nAlexander died\, Alexander was buried\, Alexander returneth to dust\, the dust is earth\, of earth we make loam—and why of that loam\, whereto he was converted\, might they not stop a beer barrel? \n  \n—Hamlet\, Act 2\, scene 2 \n* \nProspero. \nOur revels now are ended. These our actors\,  \nAs I foretold you\, were all spirits and \nAre melted into air\, into thin air:  \nAnd\, like the baseless fabric of this vision\,  \nThe cloud-capp’d towers\, the gorgeous palaces\,  \nThe solemn temples\, the great globe itself\,  \nYea\, all which it inherit\, shall dissolve \nAnd\, like this insubstantial pageant faded\,  \nLeave not a rack behind. We are such stuff \n As dreams are made on\, and our little life  \nIs rounded with a sleep. \n  \n—The Tempest\, Act 4\, scene 1 \n* \nPortia.   \nThe quality of mercy is not strained. \nIt droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven \nUpon the place beneath. It is twice blessed: \nIt blesseth him that gives and him that takes. \n‘Tis mightiest in the mightiest. It becomes \nThe thronèd monarch better than his crown. \nHis scepter shows the force of temporal power\, \nThe attribute to awe and majesty \nWherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings\, \nBut mercy is above this sceptered sway. \nIt is enthronèd in the hearts of kings. \nIt is an attribute to God himself. \nAnd earthly power doth then show likest God’s \nWhen mercy seasons justice. Therefore\, \nThough justice be thy plea\, consider this- \nThat in the course of justice none of us \nShould see salvation. We do pray for mercy\, \nAnd that same prayer doth teach us all to render \nThe deeds of mercy. \n  \n—The Merchant of Venice\, Act 4\, scene 1 \n* \nJuliet. \nMy bounty is as boundless as the sea\, \nMy love as deep. The more I give to thee \nThe more I have\, for both are infinite. \n  \n—Romeo and Juliet\, Act 2\, scene 2 \n* \nFrom the sublime\, to the ridiculous: \n  \nOswald. \nWhere may we set our horses? \nKent. \nI’ the mire. \nOswald. \nPrithee\, if thou lovest me\, tell me. \nKent. \nI love thee not. \nOswald. \nWhy dost thou use me thus? I know thee not. \nKent. \nFellow\, I know thee. \nOswald. \nWhat dost thou know me for? \nKent. \nA knave; a rascal; an eater of broken meats; a base\, proud\, shallow\, beggarly\, three-suited\, hundred-pound\, filthy\, worsted-stocking knave; a lily-livered\, action-taking knave\, a whoreson\, glass-gazing\, super-serviceable finical rogue; one-trunk-inheriting slave; one that wouldst be a bawd\, in way of good service\, and art nothing but the composition of a knave\, beggar\, coward\, pandar\, and the son and heir of a mongrel bitch: one whom I will beat into clamorous whining\, if thou deniest the least syllable of thy addition. \n  \n—King Lear\, Act 2\, scene 2 \n* \nAnd back to the sublime: \n  \nLet me not to the marriage of true minds \nAdmit impediments. Love is not love \nWhich alters when it alteration finds\, \nOr bends with the remover to remove. \nO no! it is an ever-fixed mark \nThat looks on tempests and is never shaken; \nIt is the star to every wand’ring bark\, \nWhose worth’s unknown\, although his height be taken. \nLove’s not Time’s fool\, though rosy lips and cheeks \nWithin his bending sickle’s compass come; \nLove alters not with his brief hours and weeks\, \nBut bears it out even to the edge of doom. \nIf this be error and upon me prov’d\, \nI never writ\, nor no man ever lov’d. \n  \n—Sonnet 116 \n* \nHappy Birthday\, Will. Thanks for everything! I’ve spent a lot of my life pretending to be the people you imagined into being. \n  \n—Johnny Stallings
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/peace-love-happiness-newsletter-4-23-4-29/
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DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20200422
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20200515
DTSTAMP:20260426T104856
CREATED:20200329T010432Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20200423T003902Z
UID:648-1587513600-1589500799@openroadpdx.com
SUMMARY:Hamilton Cheifetz: Inside Chamber Music Classes
DESCRIPTION:Monday\, March 30 was scheduled to be the first of eight Inside Chamber Music classes\, and since they have been postponed\, Friends of Chamber Music and I are going to post some music and stories from last Spring’s classes.  Here is a recent one: \n  \n\n\nhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1Ui8k-16dY\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n–Hamilton
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/hamilton-cheifetz-inside-chamber-music-classes/
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20200416
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20200423
DTSTAMP:20260426T104856
CREATED:20200416T161955Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20220718T235426Z
UID:741-1586995200-1587599999@openroadpdx.com
SUMMARY:peace\, love & happiness newsletter 4/16/20
DESCRIPTION:photo by Prabu Muruganantham \n  \nTHE OPEN ROAD \npeace\, love & happiness newsletter \nApril 16\, 2020 \nSpring with Rumi \nGuest Editor: Prabu Muruganantham \n  \nAfter I read the Walt Whitman issue of the Open Road newsletter last week I suggested the idea of publishing an issue for Rumi’s poetry to Johnny and offered to collaborate with him on it. An hour later I received a reply: \n“Okay.\nNext week you can be Guest Editor.\nLet’s talk about it after you get off from work today.” \nI felt a bit nervous to say yes as I don’t have any experience as an editor. Also the guilt that I have not read that much Rumi\, despite two copies of The Essential Rumi by Coleman Barks sitting in my book shelf for over a year\, added to that nervousness. Then I asked myself why my mind immediately went to Rumi upon reading a few lines by Whitman. What could be the thread in my Indian mind that connects a 19th Century American poet with a 13th Century Persian poet? What is common between a transcendentalist and an Islamic mystic? The connection\, at least in my mind\, lies in their unitive vision of all beings.  \nA poet’s eye sees past this world of separateness that we inhabit. A poet’s words capture a few glimpses of their unitive vision. Through the poet\, our vision also becomes expansive. It elevates us from our ordinary existence. It is an ecstatic state of blooming\, of being born again by breaking open the shells that we have constructed for our selves. Whitman and Rumi’s poetry transport me to this ecstatic state. This is the association in my mind that made me think of one upon reading the other. I thought I will use Johnny’s invitation as an opportunity to expand my vision further.  \nOne of the first Rumi poems I ever read was “A Just Finishing Candle” . The imagery in this poem is so powerful that it has stayed with me since I first read those lines. Here is the poem: \n  \nA Just Finishing Candle  \nA candle light is made to become entirely flame.  \nIn that annihilating moment\nit has no shadow.\n \nIt is nothing but a tongue of light  \ndescribing a refuge.\n \nLook at this\nJust-finishing candle stub\nas someone who is finally safe  \nfrom virtue and vice\,  \nthe pride and the shame\nwe claim from those. \n\nThe wax of the candle has been completely melted and the candle is this bright tongue of light. It is serene at this annihilating moment. It illuminates the space with its whole life.  \nSpring is sprouting with life again. I take walks every day to greet the buds\, sprouts\, flowers and leaves. A few weeks ago was my birthday\, and I wanted to see a long time friend of mine. She is one of the first friends that I made when I migrated to Portland five years ago from India. In our busy world of appointments and schedules\, she is someone I can visit whenever I wanted company. I am always welcomed at her abode. She lives by the road side on the nearby hill\, but you would easily miss her from a car. I finished my work and started to hike up the hill.  \nIt was an early spring evening. The sun was going to hide behind the opposite side of the hill. His lights were slowly turning to become crimson. The slats thick cedar trunk was radiating red. Is it the sunlight or the redness of the bark that brings forth this glow? My mind started to ponder. From the depth of my memories rose a few lines of Rumi: \n  \nThe Sunrise Ruby\n \n…I’m like a ruby held up to the sunrise.  \nIs it still a stone or a world\nmade of redness? It has no resistance to sunlight. \n This is how Hallaj said\, I am God\,\nand told the truth! \nThe Ruby and sunrise are one.\nBe courageous and discipline yourself.  \nCompletely become hearing and ear\,  \nand wear this sun-ruby as earring. \nThe evening glow was at its zenith when I reached my friend’s abode. She wore her pink and purple gown to greet her guest. Her petal-like fingers waved at me. Magnolia is her name. Every time she greets me her smile is new and the same as freshness. I wondered at her magic. She moved the wind and whispered into my ears: \n  \n“You too are flowering  \nlike me\, anew\nevery spring\nof the year\,  \nevery day of\nthe spring\nand\nevery hour\nof the day.” \nSince then I have been struggling to express this flowering of my being\, that she so elegantly whispered into my ears\, through words. My words always fall short. \nWhenever I attempt to write about it I feel the urge to drop my pen and pick up a flute. This poem by Rumi beautifully expresses my feeling\,  \n  \nWhere Everything Is Music  \nDon’t worry about saving these songs!  \nAnd if one of the instruments breaks\,  \nit doesn’t matter. \n\nWe have fallen into the place  \nwhere everything is music. \n\nThe strumming and flute notes\nrise into the atmosphere\,\nand even if the whole world’s harp\nshould burn up\, there will still be\nhidden instruments playing. \n\nSo the candle flickers and goes out.\nWe have a piece of flint\, and a spark. \n\nThis singing art is a sea foam.\nThe graceful movements come from a pearl  \nsomewhere on the ocean floor. \n\nPoems reach up like spindrift and the edge  \nof driftwood along the beach\, wanting!  \nThey derive \nfrom a slow and powerful root\nthat we can’t see.  \nStop the words now.\nOpen the window in the center of your chest\,  \nand let the spirits fly in and out.  \n* \nWhat follows are some thoughts on Rumi from my friends Kim\, Johnny\, Nancy\, Katie and Bill. \nRumi’s Reach \nHow far does Rumi reach\, from all those centuries ago? How does he still bring spring to us with his arresting proposals for a whole new way to see things?      \nTwenty five years ago\, when I had first met Perrin\, who was to become my wife\, in our first phone conversation she read me a quote by  Rumi that was on her fridge. The same quotation was on my fridge. What else did we need to know?      \nI have a friend in Iran\, Alireza\, who told me he was in a cab in Tehran when he heard a sentence on the radio that arrested him. “That must be Rumi\,” he thought. But then he learned the sentence had been written by Thoreau. Who was this Thoreau? he wondered. And this began a  project that took him seven years–to translate Walden into Farsi so Iranian readers could know about Thoreau\, the Rumi of America.       \nOn my  journeys around Oregon as Poet Laureate\, people often asked me\, “What difference can poetry make for all our troubles. It’s just a little thing\, and our troubles are great.” I tried to answer\, but did not feel satisfied\, so I sent an email message to Alireza in Iran\, and asked him. This is what he wrote me: “The real question should be\, ‘What can violence do?’ The answer would be:  ‘Nothing.’ Violence can’t help  us. Only poetry can help us. Poetry is oxygen. It helps us live. A good poem will satisfy your thirst. But a great poem–like that of Rumi–will deepen your thirst. Then the only  remedy will be more poetry. More connection. More life.” \n—Kim Stafford \n* \nLong ago\, I had a very short stay in college\, but during that brief interlude I managed to find myself in classrooms at Portland State College where Nitya Chaitanya Yati was teaching the Bhagavad Gita and Nazeer El Azma taught a course in Sufism. Times have changed.  \nBack then\, I read Rumi’s mystical poetry in a translation by A. J. Arberry. Fast forward about 25 years\, and\, thanks to Coleman Barks\, this 13th Century Persian poet was the best-selling poet in America.  \nAt a reading in Manhattan\, Coleman Barks said that back in the day a bunch of people would sit around all day with Rumi. They would play music and dance\, and Rumi would periodically recite poems and stories off the top of his head that were written down by scribes. Hanging out with Coleman Barks in a bookstore for an hour and-a-half felt a little bit like that. With his help\, this is one of Rumi’s best known poems: \n  \nThe Guest House \nThis being human is a guest house.\nEvery morning a new arrival. \nA joy\, a depression\, a meanness\,\nsome momentary awareness comes\nas an unexpected visitor. \nWelcome and entertain them all!\nEven if they’re a crowd of sorrows\,\nwho violently sweep your house\nempty of its furniture\,\nstill\, treat each guest honorably.\nHe may be clearing you out\nfor some new delight. \nThe dark thought\, the shame\, the malice\,\nmeet them at the door laughing\,\nand invite them in. \nBe grateful for whoever comes\,\nbecause each has been sent\nas a guide from beyond. \n—Jelaluddin Rumi\, Translated by Coleman Barks \n  \n—Johnny Stallings \n* \nTwo Ways of Talking  \nWe have this way of talking\, and we have another.\nApart from what we wish and what we fear may happen\,  \nwe are alive with other life\, as clear stones\ntake form in the mountain.  \nRumi  \n“We have this way of talking\,” which is inherently practical. We use language to understand and relate with the world around us. Nouns signify and classify; verbs reflect the changing and changeable nature of ourselves as well as all that we perceive and interact with; adjectives and adverbs mirror continuous elaboration. The practical way of talking is a tool\, a skill\, an approach that serves us well\, enabling us to discover many things\, meet many needs\, satisfy many desires. This way of talking aids in our many activities aimed at obtaining “what we wish” and preventing “what we fear may happen.”  \nThe education children are given at home and at school is geared toward enhancing their facility in this way of talking\, fostering greater flexibility\, breadth\, and clarity in both comprehension and expression. Our pursuits as adults further develop our skills\, particularly in our chosen fields of interest\, vocational and recreational. Unfortunately\, the specifying nature of this way of talking also leads to difficulties in communication. When we are ignorant of another’s language\, whether of a different geographical area or a different field\, misunderstandings can easily arise\, creating a seedbed for conflict and hostility.  \n“This way of talking” is not sufficient expression or reflection of all that we are or all that the world is. So “we have another.” We have exercised it less\, explored it less\, listened to it less\, but it has always continued as an option for us all\, and the dynamic practice of a few. This language\, the mystical\, seeks to express the essential nature of life\, the “other life” we are alive with. We all have moments\, or more\, characterized by utter clarity\, where our blinders fall away and no particular thing is so real to us as an all-embracing unity in which all things and our own beingness merge. This expansion of our narrow sense of self brings a release of fear\, a sense of completeness which has the dynamic quality of love. Intuitively we know and we know what and how we know.  \nBut when we as individuals\, or collectively\, seek to convey that knowledge with our usual way of talking\, confusion reigns. Categorizing nouns\, acting verbs\, and elaborating adjectives and adverbs are inadequate to express unitive reality. Specificity violates the nature of that reality\, resulting in fractions between different religions and philosophies. And vagueness provides a context for delusion and illusion in which individuals and groups proffer and seek to acquire powers beyond the normal reach of human faculties\, pursuing exotic ways of manipulating “what we wish and what we fear may happen.”  \nHonest communication of the “other life we are alive with” requires another way of talking. The mystical has its own integrity and forms of expression where potent symbols are used to awaken another’s intuition of the same vibrant reality. Visual images and music are emphasized\, even when words are also used\, conveying to the reader far more than their surface meaning. When Rumi tells us “we are alive with other life\, as clear stones take form in the mountain\,” the inner brightness or encouragement we feel can’t be explained by a mere analysis of the words and symbols he uses. But in answer to his song and his vision\, an affirmation arises from the core of our being. It thrills us like the whisper of a great secret or the recovery of a buried treasure. Whenever we hear the musical compositions\, see the artistic creations\, or read the writings of mystics\, we are reminded of this other way of talking\, which we all have. The language may be foreign\, archaic\, obscure\, yet somehow it strikes a chord of familiarity in us\, as we resonate with their experience.  \nThis other way of talking does not attempt to manipulate or accomplish; it is simply an outpouring of love and wonder. In our practical words we ask\, “What is its purpose and value?” Like a tide\, it can carry us beyond the barriers which divide us from each other\, which hide our true nature from ourselves. We are reminded that we are more than our wishes and fears and the tangled web of actions they lead us to. We are alive with other life as clear stones take form in the mountain.  \n  \n—Nancy Yeilding (Originally published in Gurukulam Magazine\, 1987) \n* \nHi Prabu \nYour essay is inspiring and embraces what Rumi continually offers to us across time and landscape. So generous to walk us through your thought process and feelings along the way.   It’s wonderful to make the connection with Whitman and Kim with Thoreau through his Persian friend. \nBelow is my favorite Rumi poem.  i had forgotten that it even has Spring in the title and first line! When i walk alone in the Magnolia grove in Forest Park the last two lines always come to me.  Have you been there? \nThis is the high time for standing beneath that attic of purple blossoms.  I wish we could all meet up for a picnic there in its winter garden circle. \nMy Magnolia suddenly burst out with white blossoms just in time for Easter / Resurrection day.  \n  \nCOME TO THE ORCHARD IN SPRING \nCome to the orchard in spring. \nThere is light and wine and sweethearts \nin the pomegranate flowers. \nIf you do not come\, these do not matter. \nIf you do come\, these do not matter. \n  \n–poem by Rumi\, interpreted by Coleman Barks \n  \nI have stories of Coleman Barks\, who came often to Looking Glass Bookstore\, in the days when he was publishing his own books.  \nOnce\, he came with a dancer to PCC for a performance of dance\, song and poetry. Several of us had dinner together at a Persian Restaurant. We were with a friend from Iran who was writing a book about Darius and Persian history from a cultural perspective. Coleman struggled with the question of his worthiness to be the translator of Rumi’s poems. But Rumi spoke through him\, in that ecstatic way that he spoke with Shams\, with the beloved between them. That ecstatic conversation is called Sohbet in Fārsī; we don’t really have a comparable word\, except maybe “communing.”  When Coleman came over to talk with our friend—(both of these men\, burly\, bigger than life gentle souls\, who were strangers in a strange land)—he asked Coleman\, “If Rumi came back and was here now\, would you recognize him?” \nColeman bent and kissed his hand. \nHere is another Spring poem: \n  \nListening \nAnother year\, another Spring! \nThe fragrance of love arrives. \nSo dancy\, this new light on the ground\, and in the tree. \nThe one who heals us lets whatever hurts the soul \n dissolve to a listening intelligence\, where what we most deeply want\, union with eternity\, grows up around and inside us now! \n—Rumi\, translated by Coleman Barks \n  \n—Katie Radditz \n* \nOn a long relationship with Rumi \nMany years ago\, in reading through an anthology of sacred poetry\, I was drawn to the poems of Rumi. Though I had read a few of his poems before\, I was completely taken by what I read.  The images that he created and the reaction and insight they created for me were very affecting. Thus began a 30 year love affair with Rumi’s stories and poems that continues…. \nJelaluddin Rumi was born in 1207 and\, following in the footsteps of his father\, became the sheik in the dervish learning community in Konya\, Turkey. He was considered a great scholar and leader\, but his life changed when he met Shams of Tabriz\, a wandering sufi mystic. From this mysterious and esoteric friendship came a new depth of spiritual enlightenment. When Shams disappeared Rumi began his transformation from scholar to artist\, and his poems and stories that shifted fantastically—from theory to folklore to jokes and ecstatic poetry—began to flow. Rumi describes it himself in a poem: \n  \nIn your light I learn how to love\, \nIn your beauty\, how to make poems. \n You dance inside my chest\, \nWhere no one sees you\, \nBut sometimes I do\, \nAnd that sight becomes this art \n  \nReading Rumi’s poems often transports me to a magical\, mystical place. They are filled with passion\, insight and a connection with the divine which talk about everything from awe\, silence\, emptiness and love to the everyday infused with the deepest sense of God and wonder. \nOften his poems feel like they strike a nerve deep inside consciousness and some new insight or understanding or just the silence of the Self can be seen for a brief moment. And often they express so deeply our yearning to return to God. \nHow is it possible to describe the indescribable\, express the inexpressible\, within a few lines of poetry? A sudden image takes you deep inside\, to the core of your being. The ecstasy that Rumi experienced comes through in much of that poetry. That longing for union with God was so strong and his experience of that union so deep and ecstatic that it permeated every fiber of his being. \nOver the centuries\, enlightened masters have tried to give a glimpse of their experience of union\, but there are no words that can explain. So students and readers are left with a glimpse of what it might be like to achieve that union.  Rumi’s poems are often a gateway or glimpse into that reality that is unique to his poems. \nIt’s hard to pick just one or two poems\, but I’ll leave with one short favorite: \n  \nOut beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing\, \nthere is a field. I’ll meet you there. \nWhen the soul lies down in that grass\, \nthe world is too full to talk about. \nIdeas\, language\, even the phrase each other \ndoesn’t make any sense. \n  \n—Bill Hughes
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/peace-love-happiness-newsletter-4-16-4-22/
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DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20200409
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20200416
DTSTAMP:20260426T104856
CREATED:20200409T093045Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20220718T221814Z
UID:717-1586390400-1586995199@openroadpdx.com
SUMMARY:peace\, love & happiness: Walt Whitman Issue 4/9/20
DESCRIPTION:painting of Walt Whitman by Rick Bartow \n  \nTHE OPEN ROAD \npeace\, love & happiness newsletter \nApril 9\, 2020 \nThe Walt Whitman Issue \n  \nMiracles \n  \nWhy\, who makes much of a miracle? \nAs to me I know of nothing else but miracles\, \nWhether I walk the streets of Manhattan\, \nOr dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky\, \nOr wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge of the water\, \nOr stand under trees in the woods\, \nOr talk by day with any one I love\, or sleep in the bed at night with any one I love\, \nOr sit at table at dinner with the rest\, \nOr look at strangers opposite me riding in the car\, \nOr watch honey-bees busy around the hive of a summer forenoon\, \nOr animals feeding in the fields\, \nOr birds\, or the wonderfulness of insects in the air\, \nOr the wonderfulness of the sundown\, or of stars shining so quiet and bright\, \nOr the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in spring; \nThese with the rest\, one and all\, are to me miracles\, \nThe whole referring\, yet each distinct and in its place. \nTo me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle\, \nEvery cubic inch of space is a miracle\, \nEvery square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same\, \nEvery foot of the interior swarms with the same. \nTo me the sea is a continual miracle\, \nThe fishes that swim—the rocks—the motion of the waves—the ships with men in them\, \nWhat stranger miracles are there? \n  \n–Walt Whitman \n* \nThis issue is devoted to one of my best friends: Walt Whitman. I read “Song of Myself” when I was 18 or 19 years old and it changed my life. It continues to transform the way I experience and understand the world. I’ve been performing an abridged version of “Song of Myself” for many years. It’s written in the first person\, and if you recite it aloud\, and feel it and mean it as you say the words\, something good happens to you. If you do it often enough\, over time\, it changes you. A famous line is: \n“I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journeywork of the stars.” \nYou could read that line and think: “Walt Whitman thinks that a leaf of grass is no less than the journeywork of the stars…and that a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels.” Or you could say it and feel it and mean and believe it to be true. And it will be true for you in that moment. \nWhen I performed the poem in Marfa\, Texas\, a few years back\, I was interviewed on Marfa Public Radio. Here’s a link to that interview: \nhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0D6WmHaSE8&t=237s \nWalt Whitman has inspired a LOT of poets. Many have acknowledged their debt to him\, including Allen Ginsberg and Pablo Neruda. Here’s a poem I wrote in 2010: \n  \nTeach me to see\, Walt! \n  \nI was driving up Burnside \nand I saw a man standing\, waiting for the bus \nhe was not four feet tall \nmeanwhile\, I was listening to a Modern Scholar lecture\, “where great professors teach you!” \na lecture about Walt Whitman \nI was on my way to Romeo & Juliet rehearsal \nat Catlin Gabel High School \nthe small man is the center of his own world \nthere is such infinite variety! \neveryone I see is a world \nI noticed this man—his seriousness \nhe is a miracle \nand it is a miracle that I see him \nand I wished that\, like Walt\, I could be amazed by everyone I see \nI thought to myself: “I’ll write a poem called ‘Teach me to see\, Walt!’” \nI scrawled a note to myself\, while driving\, to remind me \nthat was yesterday \nI just looked at the note \nand was reminded of a moment that I had forgotten \na moment where I saw this man \nand felt something that I wanted to find words for \nmore than six billion people on this earth (we are told) \neach one amazing \neach one with their own subjectivity \nlooking out at the world \nseeing it\, feeling it \neach understanding it in her or his own way \nand the world itself—vast! \nendless variety \nthe trees standing \nthe clouds floating and changing \nthe frantic swimmers in a drop of blood seen through a microscope \nthe stars in the night sky \nWalt\, you taught me a lot about wonder \nbut I’m still learning how to see \nbecause if I knew how to look at the world with my eyes open and my heart open \nif I wasn’t such a sleepwalker \nsuch a daydreamer \nwouldn’t my cheeks be always wet with tears? \n  \nsitting on the couch now \nwriting down these words \na little while ago a squirrel sat poised on a branch of the old pear tree in the back yard and scratched its head \nthe squirrel is gone now \nthose squirrels stay busy! \nI guess that’s enough for this poem \n  \n—Johnny Stallings \n* \nI’ll close my portion of the newsletter with some great quotes from “Song of Myself”: \n  \nAll truths wait in all things. \n* \nI believe in the flesh and the appetites\, \nSeeing\, hearing\, feeling\, are miracles\, and each part and tag of me is a miracle. \nDivine am I inside and out\, and I make holy whatever I touch or am touch’d from\, \nThe scent of these arm-pits\, aroma finer than prayer\, \nThis head more than churches\, bibles\, and all the creeds. \n* \nWhoever degrades another degrades me\, \nAnd whatever is done or said returns at last to me. \n* \nDazzling and tremendous how quick the sun-rise would kill me  \nIf I could not now and always send sun-rise out of me. \n* \nIn all people I see myself\, none more and not one a barley-corn less. \n* \nThis minute that comes to me over the past decillions\, \nThere is no better than it and now. \n* \nEach moment and whatever happens thrills me with joy. \n* \nWhy should I wish to see God better than this day? \nI see something of God each hour of the twenty-four\, and each moment then\, \nIn the faces of men and women I see God… \n* \nPerrin Kerns sent a link to an amazing website for a film called Whitman\, Alabama: \nhttps://whitmanalabama.com \nIn it\, many of the sections of “Song of Myself” are read by a wonderful array of human beings. The accompanying texts about the people are deeply moving. \n* \nHere’s a story from Oregon’s Poet Laureate\, Kim Stafford: \n  \nHow could I not love Whitman\, as his poetry saved my father’s life? It was the spring of 1942\, and my dad was interned as a conscientious objector in a small town in western Arkansas. One Sunday\, he and two pacifist friends were surrounded by a mob\, threatened for their perceived “support of Hitler\,” and someone shouted “Get a rope!” As the sentiment that these three “slackers” should be strung up rippled through the crowd\, the decision turned–improbably–on whether poetry had to rhyme. One piece of evidence seized by a hothead in the crowd was a poem written by my dad’s friend Chuck\, was a poem Chuck had written–which didn’t rhyme. “That’s not a poem\,” the hothead shouted. “It doesn’t rhyme!”      \n“And you\, what are you holding there!” My father held out his copy of Leaves of Grass\, which he had been reading.      \n“I’ll show you what poetry sounds like\,” the hothead shouted\, and he open the book to read a passage at random…but soon his voice trailed off. “Well I don’t know what that is\, but it aint poetry\,” he muttered.      \nThis pause allowed time for someone in the crowd (“a saint\,” my father said) to shout “Call the Sheriff!” And when the sheriff arrived\, he cooled things down\, and drove my father and his friends away to safety.      \nSo\, if Whitman’s poetry had rhymed\, my father would have become a statistic\, and I would not be here\, reading the story of this encounter in my father’s book\, Down in My Heart: Peace Witness in Wartime. \n–Kim Stafford
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/peace-love-happiness-walt-whitman-issue-4-9-4-15/
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