peace, love, happiness & understanding 5 9 26
2026-05-09 - 2026-06-03
Julia, Rocky & Jeffrey at Portland Japanese Garden

THE OPEN ROAD
peace, love, happiness & understanding

May 9, 2026

THE ROCKY ROAD

First some thoughts from Jude about this new chapter in Rocky’s life. Then, some of Rocky’s impressions of what these last few weeks have been like:

Through the Eyes of Rocky

I have been thinking daily of our dear Rocky Hutchinson. I have been seeing The World through the Eyes of Rocky, and want to appreciate the world as if seeing it for the first time in seventeen years. What would it be like to stand under a flowering pink cherry tree, a pink dogwood tree, a maple tree shaking its leaves open from its small packets? To walk in a forest of dark green firs, to see the sunlight slicing through the quiet, towering trunks. To see the moon, not just a glimpse but waxing and waning from night to night. To sit quietly, happily at a meal—a good meal—-with beloved friends who have become like family. To walk and walk and walk, with no one to stop you, no one to make you stop. To visit with dogs, and cats, and chipmunks, and squirrels and robins and worms and ants.

To savor it all. To love life, the new life Rocky has. A life of peace, love, happiness, and understanding.

—Jude Russell
*

It was an early Spring morning in April. The end of Winter could be felt hanging on the face of Spring. That first day was like a wave of love that came from a warm Spring unending. I was surrounded by all the people that had come into my life to form a beautiful family. As the days went by, each and every one, all the stress and fear of the unknown quickly faded. In its place the tapestry of my life began to unfold, each and every fold came with acceptance, understanding and ease. All of my misconceptions soon faded.

At the same time, the beauty of the world, of nature, of people—the touch of it all so real, so potent, so big, was there. The world and all that it has to offer, all the things I meditated on in my prison cell, were there to never take for granted again. The movement of the city, the smells of food, the passing look of a woman, the ability to give and accept hugs from anyone—with no one there to dehumanize, to ridicule—just the love is there.

The ocean of seasons that we live in our lives changes with the tides, the vast amount of time that I swam to get to this hour is for me the sweetest Spring of my life. So much so that I can give it as a gift to others around me. Such a powerful emotion to feel when others around me can see it, feel it. I can feel it like electricity pulsing within me, the power of love and positivity.

I am grateful to have the room I now call home. It is so close to where I was removed from the world 17.5 years ago. Fate saw fit to place me back where I came from. I am able to see a reflection of my life—a reflection most will never see. The homeless and the addicts are still there. I used to be one of them, and it breaks my heart to see them. It puts a drive in me to never take things in my life for granted, to love the life I have to the fullest. For those who have lived a life full of trips down the wrong roads, there comes a time to choose. If you give in, and dive into the endless void of addiction and abuse, it is a weak and powerless act. Then, there is the other choice—a stance, a life decision that nothing can break through. I have had enough of the past, of the never-ending life of addiction. Getting to have that reflection in my face every day is a blessing. It hurts, too, to see them—not knowing that a change is there for them, and it is as simple as one choice. I have made that definite choice!

I have been out of prison less than a month and am still experiencing the wonders of it all. As I re-acclimatize to all that is life, I notice that all of the good qualities that I instilled within my heart, mind, and soul are strange and growing day by day. It matters the things we do within the walls. Those who tell you otherwise, (and they do and will), are wrong—very very wrong. I imagined the world full of new wonder and amazements and that is just what it is to me. Every walk I take is an adventure, every conversation with friends is deep and meaningful, every song I hear is more pleasant. The elegance of it all is right there in everything. That’s how I choose to live and be in the world. I don’t foresee that changing anytime soon, nor do I want that to change.

This moment in my life, this transition is important to me and I am sure it will be important to others too. Everything is a perspective for all of us. Coming from such confinement, it is easy for me to cut through and avoid snags that can appear in my daily life. For me, it’s all about my point of view on acceptance—there’s no reason to go against the grain. There is only enough time to do so much in a day in life. The ability to make my own choices to do what I know is right is a root of joy, not only for me but for everyone. That is a right of being human, being alive, being a speck of dust in the universe. According to Einstein, particles can change there alignments—and I am living proof. It is all possible. None of us are stuck, but I have had a tremendous amount of help in my life. The help is there for everyone. If anyone is truly trying to change, that will happen. The help will show up. That’s how it works—hands helping hands, love and life, friends and support.

April 29, 2026

Went to the Japanese garden today with some new friends that I met, Jeffrey & Julia. Johnny had brought us together long ago over the phone and through letters from over the years, so I am sure they know my heart. All I can hope for is that all can now see that in me as we become closer in person. As we traversed the paths of peacefulness and the unbelievable beauty the universe gifts to us all, I could feel the wonder of kindness and love that was reciprocating between us and all other living things in our spheres of life. The beauty of people and of myself is now a gift that can be shared between each of us. Being out only 14 days from the walls of confinement and having the chance to partake of such beauty is…something I want to take in and tread upon lightly. I want to leave the lightest of footprints upon it as a delicate gift that I know the meaning of. In my life I have not had the chance to have people whose purpose was to give and share the beauty of life. It feels so strange to just get to be, and to not be guarded. There is nothing I have to protect myself from.

As we took in the beauty offered to us I could not help but slip away in my mind—so much of me wanted to become a permanent part of it all. Knowing that my time here is fleeting is the key to truly seeing it, the beauty. The winding vines of the Japanese maples, the crawling moss, the babbling water whispering secrets that only are understood by my soul. I know that what beauty I understand in my waking mind is just a drop in the pool of endless wonder.

It is an unspoken language between all of us—“indescribable wonder” I think is the best description any of us can utter. We just know it for what it is—BEAUTY & WONDER—to share it with all who can understand it for its truth is a gift all in itself. It’s a simple understanding: we are all parts of it and of each other—all are one.

April 30, 2026
(Day 15)
How amazing it feels to wake up in this new world, one filled with new friends, trees, rivers, options. Part of me feels very lost and bewildered, things are so new. I know this world and I remember what role I had in it before. That is not who I am now. I am new. Things move different—not fast, but in waves. Blessed is the path I am on, a hard-won gift born out of many battles that were fought on every front a person has.

As I walk out of my room every day I remember where I am and what I am thankful for, the joy I have to tread so lightly and take for granted as little as possible. To simply smile to anyone, to a friend, and receive one back is amazing. To talk to others that I have never met or seen is quite a gift too.

Day 15. April 30, 2026 (continued)

We had group today and the wealth of knowledge and love in the group is truly a shining gift. If only that group of people were guiding the course of mankind…

I find myself becoming endeared to each of them as time goes on, and I want to sit with each of them and talk of the human condition and of ages past—to see through their eyes. To me it is like placing bricks on the golden paths we all walk. That is what has been missing in my life for many many years. I find myself not drinking from the fountain, but drowning in it.

I am wondering if there are other groups like that that I can go to as well. It seems to me that I am loving the ability to just talk to people. That is very different to what I used to be like. Before I went into prison, I detested people. That was due to so many social walls and bridges of ruin. All of that seems to have been worked out. As I see the world now, many people are simply beautiful and I can see that in them—a kindness, a glow, a sort of purity that is of the unseen, registering with the mind’s eye and the heart.

I took a walk down to the waterfront tonight and wanted to give an offering. A sort of personal sacrifice of the last of the old me. There are things we all as humans have as traits within us. I have set most of them to rest, but, like everyone, I still battle. What a gift is death when it comes!—a hard reset of oneself to start anew, fresh and clean. If only we could keep some of ourselves! In a way, we do. But all that will come in life’s natural cycle.

It is only 16 days since my release and I am seeing happy couples in their union, and am longing for that in my life. I have been alone long enough. In time I am certain that will change. My soul is just hungry to love and find companionship. Human hands were meant to hold each other, that is why they fit together like they do. It is a sacred bond to have another being to care for and to love. The ground has the sky. The ocean has the shore. The tree has the soil. All things have their duality.

My first room, the Medford Hotel

It is a humble place, one not to forget. Here I take my first steps into a world, and it is now the future. Difficult to explain. At times I find myself feeling like the time traveler from H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine. As I stepped out of the machine I was in I see the changes the world has undergone. Just as he did, I, as he, ask questions and people look at me a little strangely. I know that they know something is a little off with me. It is okay because I am kind and friendly, personable. As I sit here in my room I am thankful. Thankful to have just what I need to live and to be me. This is a kindness, a gift of love.

In the corner stands a large wardrobe out of times past, like me. The room is old and that is fine, it is cozy. Small, humble, like me too. I am lucky to have it. Out on the street is the drunk, the junky, the hooker, the hard, sad, lost and broken, the me before I was awoken. A man duct-taping his life together. He needs to run a thousand miles an hour on the streets. He has not yet awoke from his addictions, neither has she. Her beauty screaming out as it is sacrificed by its owner. It hangs from her face. I see what she could be…if only. I know their drive, their hopeless, endless ride in nothing in the end.

In my room I have a bed, a blanket, a pillow, rest. I have so much now. Just beyond the 10 inches of wall…always a wall of separation in my life. Sitting in this room, knowing I never want to forget—here, where I left. Now I am starting, I am going…but never forgetting. I came from here, I was all of them. And now I am me. I made it back and will never go back to the walls that kept me in for so long. And in this room, my first room, I must keep walking the path away from and into the next room that has not yet come. This room will never be forgotten. Nothing will ever be forgotten.

May 8, 2026

Sitting at the Lotus Bean, which has become me favorite morning coffee shop, knowing that it’s a whole new day full of many positive forward possibilities. Josh and I have a show to go to tonight—Puscifer! That is a good show for my first big show since I have been out. I love the Golden Path that I am on. There are a few things that I need to fix about myself, and reel myself back in from the temptations the world is placing in my path.

The day is a beautiful one—gray with the promise of Spring sun. 7:30 a.m. is a wonderful time in the morning to be out in the city. The sidewalks are somewhat clean and the streets seem to be content from the night before—peaceful, and a vibe that feels calm. It will be a good Friday night—my first one where I have plans to do something amazing. Sitting here listening to some Led Zeppelin, knowing that things so far have turned out alright. These little things point the way of my life. It’s a strange thing to have changed so much and to be back where I used—but as a different person. I am thankful for my crazy life.

—Rocky Hutchinson

Book Signing!: My Jedi Memoir by James Kahn
2026-05-16 18:30 - 20:30 (America/Los_Angeles)
Open Road Recommends!:

J is doing a reading from My Jedi Memoir, and signing it along with some of his early sci-fi works at:

Parallel Worlds Bookshop

2639 NE Alberta St., in Portland

Saturday, May 16th, 6:30-9:30 pm

Come one, come all, and tell your friends!

Elevate Him Coffee Day Fundraiser 5/19/26
2026-05-19

Song of Myself 5/31/26
2026-05-31 14:00 - 16:00
painting of Walt Whitman by Rick Bartow

Song of Myself

To celebrate Walt Whitman’s 207th birthday, Rocky Hutchinson & Johnny Stallings will read from Walt’s masterpiece.
There will be a birthday cake!

Sunday, May 31, at 2 p.m.
Artspace Room at Taborspace, 5441 SE Belmont

this Open Road event is free

FREE ART IN THE PARK! 6/2/26-7/30/26
2026-06-02 - 2026-07-30
FREE ART IN THE PARK (ORR). LARRY YES is the ebullient host for artists of all descriptions. Everyone is an artist!!!
Tuesdays & Thursdays in June and July, from 11:30 to 1:30
Pioneer Square, in Portland

peace, love, happiness & understanding 6/4/26
2026-06-03 - 2026-07-01
Larry Yes & his Radical Positivity installation

THE OPEN ROAD
peace, love, happiness & understanding

The day will come when we all agree
that we should live in harmony
and we will know and we will see
how we’re all connected. We’re all family.
All the people, the plants, the animals, the birds, the seas.

—from the song “Live in Harmony” on the album “Everyone on This Planet Is Family” by Larry Yes

June 4, 2026

Ken Margolis gave me a copy of the Spring 2026 issue of “Emergency Horse,” which contained an article by David Turnbull on the Republic of Užupis. Užupis is a “micro-nation” or “artistic republic,” occupying about two and-a-half square miles in the center of Vilnius, which I’m sure you know is the capital of Lithuania. Ken and I both fully endorse the Constitution of Užupis which, when translated into English, reads:

Everyone has the right to live by the River Vilnelė, and the River Vilnelė has the right to flow by everyone.
Everyone has the right to hot water, heating in winter and a tiled roof.
Everyone has the right to die, but this is not an obligation.
Everyone has the right to make mistakes.
Everyone has the right to be unique.
Everyone has the right to love.
Everyone has the right not to be loved, but not necessarily.
Everyone has the right to be undistinguished and unknown.
Everyone has the right to be idle.
Everyone has the right to love and take care of the cat.
Everyone has the right to look after the dog until one of them dies.
A dog has the right to be a dog.
A cat is not obliged to love its owner, but must help in time of need.
Sometimes everyone has the right to be unaware of their duties.
Everyone has the right to be in doubt, but this is not an obligation.
Everyone has the right to be happy.
Everyone has the right to be unhappy.
Everyone has the right to be silent.
Everyone has the right to have faith.
No one has the right to violence.
Everyone has the right to appreciate their unimportance.
No one has the right to have a design on eternity.
Everyone has the right to understand.
Everyone has the right to understand nothing.
Everyone has the right to be of any nationality.
Everyone has the right to celebrate or not celebrate their birthday.
Everyone shall remember their name.
Everyone may share what they possess.
No one can share what they do not possess.
Everyone has the right to have brothers, sisters and parents.
Everyone may be independent.
Everyone is responsible for their freedom.
Everyone has the right to cry.
Everyone has the right to be misunderstood.
No one has the right to make another person guilty.
Everyone has the right to be individual.
Everyone has the right to have no rights.
Everyone has the right to not to be afraid.
Do not defeat
Do not fight back
Do not surrender

*

The Constitution of Užupis reminded me of Eduardo Galeano’s “The Right to Dream.” Eduardo Galeano is author of the astonishing, beautiful, heartbreaking and inspiring 3- volume history of Latin America, Memory of Fire.

The Right to Dream

In 1948 and again in 1976, the United Nations proclaimed long lists of human rights, but the immense majority of humanity enjoys only the rights to see, hear and remain silent. Suppose we start by exercising the never-proclaimed right to dream? Suppose we rave a bit? Let’s set our sights beyond the abominations of today to divine another possible world:

the air shall be cleansed of all poisons except those born of human fears and human passions;
in the streets, cars shall be run over by dogs;
people shall not be driven by cars, or programmed by computers, or bought by supermarkets, or watched by televisions;
the TV set shall no longer be the most important member of the family and shall be treated like an iron or a washing machine;
people shall work for a living instead of living for work;
written into law shall be the crime of stupidity, committed by those who live to have or to win, instead of living just to live like the bird that sings without knowing it and the child who plays unaware that he or she is playing;
in no country shall young men who refuse to go to war go to jail, rather only those who want to make war;
economists shall not measure living standards by consumption levels or the quality of life by the quantity of things;
cooks shall not believe that lobsters love to be boiled alive;
historians shall not believe that countries love to be invaded;
politicians shall not believe that the poor love to eat promises;
earnestness shall no longer be a virtue, and no-one shall be taken seriously who can’t make fun of himself;
death and money shall lose their magical powers, and neither demise nor fortune shall make a virtuous gentleman of a rat;
no-one shall be considered a hero or a fool for doing what he believes is right instead of what serves him best;
the world shall wage war not on the poor but rather on poverty, and the arms industry shall have no alternative but to declare bankruptcy;
food shall not be a commodity nor shall communications be a business, because food and communication are human rights;
no-one shall die of hunger, because no-one shall die of overeating;
street children shall not be treated like garbage, because there shall be no street children;
rich kids shall not be treated like gold, because there shall be no rich kids;
education shall not be the privilege of those who can pay;
the police shall not be the curse of those who cannot pay;
justice and liberty, Siamese twins condemned to live apart, shall meet again and be reunited, back to back;
a woman, a black woman, shall be president of Brazil, and another black woman shall be president of the United States; an Indian woman shall govern Guatemala and another Peru;
in Argentina, the crazy women of the Plaza de Mayo shall be held up as examples of mental health because they refused to forget in a time of obligatory amnesia;
the Church, holy mother, shall correct the typos on the tablet of Moses and the Sixth Commandment shall dictate the celebration of the body;
the Church shall also proclaim another commandment, the one God forgot: You shall love nature, to which you belong;
clothed with forests shall be the deserts of the world and of the soul;
the despairing shall be paired and the lost shall be found, for they are the ones who despaired and lost their way from so much lonely seeking;
we shall be compatriots and contemporaries for all who have a yearning for justice and beauty, no matter where they were born or where they lived, because the borders of geography and time shall cease to exist;
perfection shall remain the boring privilege of the gods, while in our bungling, messy world every night shall be lived as if it were the last and every day as if it were the first.

—Eduardo Galeano (born: September 3, 1940; died: April 13, 2015)
*

Eduardo Galeano’s “The Right to Dream” reminded me of Larry Yes’ song “Live in Harmony” and I thought I might include the lyrics in this issue, but then I wondered if I had already done that in a previous issue. I had. I found it by going to the Open Road website, clicking on EVENTS, and typing in “Live in Harmony.” In the 2025 June issue—exactly one year ago—you can find the lyrics to two of Larry’s songs, “Live in Harmony” and “Free: Everyone on This Planet is Family.” In that same issue, there are more inspiring words from Nick Swift, Dustin Jamison, Rocky Hutchinson, Ken Margolis and Jude Russell. (Since that time, both Rocky and Dustin have gotten out of prison. Hooray!!!) Here’s a link to that issue:

https://openroadpdx.com/event/peace-love-happiness-understanding-6-5-25/

The whimsy in these lists—“A dog has a right to be a dog” and “in the streets, cars shall be run over by dogs”—reminds me of the whimsy of Borges’ Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge, an “ancient Chinese encyclopedia,” where animals are divided into the following categories:

a) those that belong to the Emperor
b) embalmed ones
c) those that are trained
d) suckling pigs
e) sirens (or mermaids)
f) fabulous ones
g) stray dogs
h) those included in the present classification
i) those that tremble as if they were mad
j) innumerable ones
k) those drawn with a very fine camelhair brush
l) others
m) those that have just broken a flower vase
n) those that from a long way off look like flies

—Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986)
*

…which, by a mysterious alchemy in my brain, reminds me of…

Ode to things

I have a crazy,
crazy love of things.
I like pliers,
and scissors.
I love
cups,
rings,
and bowls –
not to speak, or course,
of hats.
I love
all things,
not just
the grandest,
also
the
infinite-
ly
small –
thimbles,
spurs,
plates,
and flower vases.

Oh yes,
the planet
is sublime!
It’s full of pipes
weaving
hand-held
through tobacco smoke,
and keys
and salt shakers –
everything,
I mean,
that is made
by the hand of man, every little thing:
shapely shoes,
and fabric,
and each new
bloodless birth
of gold,
eyeglasses
carpenter’s nails,
brushes,
clocks, compasses,
coins, and the so-soft
softness of chairs.

Mankind has
built
oh so many
perfect
things!
Built them of wool
and of wood,
of glass and
of rope:
remarkable
tables,
ships, and stairways.

I love
all
things,
not because they are
passionate
or sweet-smelling
but because,
I don’t know,
because
this ocean is yours,
and mine;
these buttons
and wheels
and little
forgotten
treasures,
fans upon
whose feathers
love has scattered
its blossoms,
glasses, knives and
scissors –
all bear
the trace
of someone’s fingers
on their handle or surface,
the trace of a distant hand
lost
in the depths of forgetfulness.

I pause in houses,
streets and
elevators
touching things,
identifying objects
that I secretly covet;
this one because it rings,
that one because
it’s as soft
as the softness of a woman’s hip,
that one there for its deep-sea color,
and that one for its velvet feel.

O irrevocable
river
of things:
no one can say
that I loved
only
fish,
or the plants of the jungle and the field,
that I loved
only
those things that leap and climb, desire, and survive.
It’s not true:
many things conspired
to tell me the whole story.
Not only did they touch me,
or my hand touched them:
they were
so close
that they were a part
of my being,
they were so alive with me
that they lived half my life
and will die half my death.

—Pablo Neruda (1904-1973)

¡Bibliophilia!
2026-06-13 14:00 - 16:00
Read any good books lately? What are your favorite books of all time? What books changed the way you understand and experience the world? Join Johnny for a lively dialogue about books

It’s gonna be FUN!.

¡Bibliophilia! Johnny Stallings hosts a conversation about books. There will be snacks.
Saturday, June 13, 2 pm
Artspace Room at Taborspace, 5441 SE Belmont
This Open Road event is free!

Monica Faricy! 6/16/26-8/23/26
2026-06-16 - 2026-08-23

A Midsummer Night's Dream
2026-06-18 - 2026-06-28

Consider This: Naomi Shihab Nye 6/18/26
2026-06-18 19:00 - 21:00
Open Road Recommends: Consider This. Naomi Shihab Nye reads from her work.
Thursday, June 18, 7 pm
Alberta Rose Theater
Tickets and info: https://albertarosetheatre.com/calendar (Sold Out)

An Artist Responds to War (film screening online) 6/20/26-7/12/26
2026-06-20 - 2026-07-12
Click here to get tickets for an opportunity–(between June 20th & July 12th)–to watch this 45-minute film online:

https://kinema.com/events/AN-ARTIST-RESPONDS-TO-WAR-bmyjsw

peace & love

Johnny

Naomi Shihab Nye & Kim Stafford: A Reading and Conversation 6/20/26
2026-06-20 18:30 - 20:00
Naomi Shihab Nye & Kim Stafford: A Reading and Conversation
Saturday, June 20, 2026, 6:30pm

Sanctuary Hall, First Congregational UCC (1126 SW Park Ave, Portland)
General Admission $15 | Student $8
Book signing to follow | ASL interpretation provided

Join two beloved voices in American poetry for an evening of reading and conversation rooted in legacy, humanity, and the power of language.Beloved poet Naomi Shihab Nye returns to Portland for a public reading, drawing from her expansive body of work. She is joined by past Oregon Poet Laureate Kim Stafford for an onstage conversation about poetry as daily practice, influence, and how creativity can sustain us in uncertain times.This special evening is presented by The Stafford Challenge and Wild Poet Events in partnership with Oregon Humanities and Lewis & Clark College.
Tickets: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/wildpoetevents/2066199

As You Like It
2026-06-26 - 2026-07-19
Howard Thoresen founded the Portland Actors Ensemble in 1970–along with Keith Scales, Alan Benditt, Aaron Smith & Hal Slater.
Free Shakespeare in the parks–what a wonderful idea!
Covid tried to put an end to it–but it’s back!
HOORAY!!!

Will Hornyak upcoming performances
2026-06-26 - 2026-07-24
Nothing currently scheduled.

Will Hornyak at Hotel Zags 6/26-7/24
2026-06-26 - 2026-07-01
Dear Friends,

I’ve got a fun and free (!) storytelling gig I wanted to let you know about. I’m at the Hotel Zags in downtown Portland the next five Friday evenings from 7-9 p.m. I’ll be in their spacious outdoor seating area sharing stories with whomever drops by. They have several gas fire places, comfortable seating areas and a full restaurant and bar. Happy hour runs from 6-8 p.m. So, stop by for a drink, some vittles and a story or two. This is a very informal event so I’ll be drawing from a variety of tales, songs and poems to suit the moment and the audience. I’ve had three evenings at the Zags so far and they’ve gone well, but I’d love to have some of my own friends attend. Hope you can stop by.

All the best,
Will

Will at Hotel Zags:

515 SW Clay St., Portland, OR 97201

Fridays, June 26-July 24, 7-9 p.m.

peace, love, happiness & understanding 7/2/26
2026-07-02 - 2026-08-05
THE OPEN ROAD
peace, love, happiness & understanding

July 2, 2026

Jill wrote:

I have often mentioned that if you want a master class in noticing the magic in the ordinary take a walk with a two-year old. Here are some details that might bring that to light:

We got down the front stairs at Eliot and Britt’s house and paused so Edie could snap the buttons of her raincoat. She got them off at first and redid them. Then we opened the yellow duck-handle umbrella and I crouched down so she could put it over my head. At the sidewalk we noticed some crows socializing so we cawed to them.

First Block

At the alley we looked both ways and Edie certified there were no cars so we turned in. There was a grate so she walked back and forth over it several times and bent over to look at the leaves trapped below.
The pockets with snaps on her coat caught her attention and she felt inside to see if anything was in them. Crows chasing each other across the alley distracted her and we watched them settle on the telephone line above. Then Edie found some mud to step in until a bee flew by and we watched it disappear into a jasmine bush.
More mud play since she has her sparkle boots on today.
A pile of black dirt on a crack suggested ants so we watched that for a while but no ants emerged. Turns out they were a little ways down the alley, or a few were so we gave them our attention.
Bees/ants/mud for the next block. And squatting down for pinecones, exclaiming over bugs in gravel, picking the gravel up and watching it drop, riffling through it, finding a stone, wiping sandy hands on me, and greeting dogs and their walkers.
Then we came to a street, checked both ways, held hands and crossed.

Second block

In the first bush we checked for spider webs. Then Edie ran ahead, looking for puddles, but didn’t find any.
At the end of the alley we checked one backyard to see if the chickens were out. No chickens but a monster truck was parked close by!

Crossing to the park

Alberta Park had more rocks/gravel to pick up and watch drop. Sometimes Edie holds up her hands with little bits of something on them and I say she can rub her hands on my raincoat. I’m never sure what makes those bits bothersome since often she’ll happily play in dirt, get her hands dirty, and not notice.
As we walked on the sidewalk Edie ran ahead and found a big leaf to wave and used this fan to wave at cars and make a breeze for me. We cawed at more noisy crows. She dawdled behind and yelled for me to wait.
We found some sticky sap on the trees we were passing but didn’t touch it, remembering when we did and it was hard to get off.
We found a pole with stickers and used our knuckles to make a rhythmic beat.
We went up and down the embankment four times. Edie picked a tiny ground cover daisy-like flower and gave it to me. Then took it and rubbed the petals and yellow middle. She held it out in front of her and said, three times, “Here bees, I have a flower for you.”
We noticed some folks setting up for a garage sale, passed a doggie that scared Edie so she avoided it by going up the embankment, and after I followed her we walked to a baseball diamond. No one was there. We climbed on the bleachers.
I sat on a dry part and Edie told me to get up. When I said no we began a refrain of “No” “Yes” “No” “Yes” and I noticed her voice was getting higher, like it was a song. Then she slid over and tried to push me off but got bored and swung her legs instead. Then told me “That’s my side” and hit the aluminum seat with a big bang. It made a very satisfying sound. She flipped over and laid on her tummy and swung her legs. Explored the bleachers. Smelled dog poo. We wondered where it was and looked at the trash can, which had a metal top that made great sounds – a bit like a steel drum. Edie climbed up and down the bleachers, had me swing her off, got back on her tummy to swing her legs, noticed trucks passing by, and made use of her boots to clomp noisily on the aluminum seats.
Then it was time to continue and we went down the slope to the sidewalk – sideways since it was steep. We followed safe protocol checking on cars as we crossed Ainsworth Street. On the final part home we noticed the dogwoods were parched and I lifted her up to feel and hear the leaves. Passing a Corvette in a driveway she rubbed the headlight and hit the hood to hear the sound, which was pronounced a good one.
Finally we were on our block and checking out the bees in Caroline’s yard. Mostly bumblebees, busy gathering pollen except we noticed some seemed to be napping on the flower heads. Edie took a flower and waved it back and forth to disperse the water in its pockets but I mentioned it would wake the bee resting nearby. We admired Caroline’s daisies and how they were a bigger version of the tiny one she had picked earlier.
One final check as we crossed Cramer Street to our house and we were home, an hour after our adventure began.

—Jill Littlewood
*
Symmetry

Every morning I walk Wags up on the irrigation canal. Sometimes it’s a rambunctious romp, but more often it’s a mesmerizing, rhythmic, calming time of wonder and discovery. Lately I’ve been struck by symmetry: the beautiful chevron patterns on a clover leaf, the tessellated bark of an oak, the bilateral blue of the butterfly wings, feathers on a duck’s back, veins on a leaf, a fern…

And then there’s the miraculous Fibonacci Sequence. I remember being told about the Fibonacci Sequence and the Golden Ratio when my mom and dad explained it to me at twelve years old. Some parents give their kids the sex talk when they’re that age; mine told me about THE FIBONACCI SEQUENCE! and THE GOLDEN RATIO! I imagine you all know about it, but I remember being blown away, thinking, Really??? Wow!!! Are you sure??? Well, yes, it’s pretty amazing and wonderful. The pine cone, the pineapple, sunflower, snail shell, flower petals…the list goes on.

And what does that have to do with Peace Love Happiness and Understanding? I just know that when I’m paying attention to these small and wondrous things, I feel all of the above.

—Jude Russell
*

My Hauntings

I am arrested by the beautiful,
Stopped in my tracks by every
hummingbird or honeybee veering
in a blur through the somber conduct
of the modern world, by spring trees
spilling their light in a war zone, buds
bright on splintered branches, a spindle
of sunlight through storm cloud cover
that touches down on the wreckage we
have made of earth. What can I do
to recover honorable despair when
confronted by the stubborn kindness
of strangers, or the way a moth
keeps flying toward the moon?
Very soon I must get serious
but first this sip of old delight.

—Kim Stafford
*

Recently, I decided to immerse myself in the subject of Beauty. It’s been wonderful! One of the inspirations for this project has been Kathleen Raine’s essay “The Use of the Beautiful.” Here are the first two paragraphs:

What do we, at the present time, ask of poetry? I may be mistaken about precisely what is asked, but I think I am not mistaken in the conclusion that the present times does not ask — or receive — enough. Much verse published seems to set itself no goal beyond description, sometimes pleasing, but just as often of displeasing things seen or felt. I doubt if anything is to be learned from such descriptions or from the self-expression of the subjective states reflected in so much current verse. Far from expanding our consciousness, we have often, on the contrary, in order to understand such states to make ourselves smaller, like Alice, before we can get inside such mean rooms as are opened to us. Perhaps the poet gains by articulating and objectifying his neurosis (though I question whether that is the cure for souls it is said to be) but what the reader can hope to gain I fail to see. Does not the confusion at the present time come from the fact that many now writing, and writing about verse, are genuinely unaware that what they are writing about, is not, properly speaking, poetry at all — not in any way related to, or comparable with, the art as practiced and understood by those on whose account poets are, in all civilized societies, honored? It would be absurd to say that there should be no such thing as satirical verse, or descriptive, narrative, or occasional verse; what is deplorable is the confusion of mind which has arisen, even among those who claim to be poets: an ignorance of the order of things to which their own work purports to belong, a forgetting, a deliberate turning away from the recognition that they share neither the ends, the means, nor the knowledge, of what I cannot but call real poets.

There is one word for which we may look in vain in the writings of contemporary critics: the word beauty and the idea of the beautiful, has ceased to count for anything. Why is this? Has this age discovered something better or have we simply failed to understand a concept which to other civilizations has seemed inseparable from any consideration of the arts? I will not labour the obvious fact that this is a beautiless society. Does this matter? In losing beauty have we lost anything vital to our arts or indeed to our lives? No need to enumerate the material advantages of hygiene, transport, television, frozen vegetables and so on, not enjoyed by ages whose typical expressions were the sculptures and paintings, cathedrals and liturgy of the Christian religion; yet in terms of happiness, our exchange might be harder to defend, and in terms of the quality of our lives, harder still. George Russell, the Irish sage who wrote on the relation of what he called ‘the politics of time’ to ‘the politics of eternity’ observed that “One of the very first symptoms of the loss of the soul is the loss of the sense of beauty.” Is what our society has lost perhaps its soul?

—Kathleen Raine, “The Use of the Beautiful” (1966), from Defending Ancient Springs

In my quest for Beauty, I came upon a wonderful interview with John O’Donohue on YouTube called “What Is Beauty?” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkUrv4jWipY&t=540s) Highly recommended!

Another delight-filled project has been making versions of some of Thomas Traherne’s meditations—which I’m planning to make into a book. It’s hard to pick, but here are some of them:

20
Love with all your heart—and be happy. This world is then a jewel. It is Paradise. Everything is here for your delight. Love all that is good and enjoy what you love. Love is our nature. When we love everyone and are loved by everyone we are happy.

27
You never enjoy the world aright, till you see that a grain of sand is a perfect miracle. Everything is here for your delight—not just because things are beautiful, or useful, but because our life is woven into the tapestry of all that is. Wine quenches more than our thirst when we feel it to be one of the countless miracles which are ours to enjoy, and give thanks. When the happiness of others makes us happy, life is good. To be grateful for all our blessings is to be blessed, to live in Paradise.

28
Your enjoyment of the world is never right till every morning you awake in Paradise—until you look upon the earth and sky with boundless joy. If you are grateful for everything, no one who ever lived has more reason to be happy than you.

29
You never enjoy the world aright, till the sea flows in your veins, till you are clothed with the heavens, and crowned with the stars—till you perceive yourself to be the sole heir of the whole world, and more than so, because people are in it who are every one sole heirs as well as you. Till you can sing and rejoice and delight in all of creation, as misers do in gold, you never enjoy the world.

81
Everywhere and at all times be ready to help others. Do it with infinite joy, knowing it is your duty. Since you have the privilege of enjoying the world, do your best to help others to find peace and love and happiness. In this way you are beautifying your life and perfuming the world. Every small charitable act benefits everyone everywhere.

82
There are virtuous people who are concealed like jewels. Dig for them! You will know them by their luster. Become virtuous, so that they may recognize you by your luster and desire and esteem you for your virtue. For as it is the glory of the sun that darkness cannot approach it, because it is always encompassed by its own beams, so lovers of virtue are always secure in their own light. Infuse yourself and your principles into beginners who desire to walk on the path of virtue. Mingle with those on the path as delightful companions. Those who are most sublime and perfect in the luster of their spirit will allure, protect, encourage, comfort, teach, honor and delight you. But you must be very good, for that is the way to find them. And very patient to endure some time, and very diligent to observe where they are.

83
Those you find of noble and benevolent natures—discreet and magnanimous, liberal and cheerful, wise and righteous—will be your greatest treasures. They will turn your world into a Paradise. They will give comfort and counsel to you, and in all tenderness, constancy, fidelity and love will share their life with your own. There are exceedingly few such friends. Yet some may doubtless be found. With half a dozen such as these, wisely chosen, we can entertain ourselves always with sublime dialogue and delight in our shared affection.

—Kathleen Raine, Thomas Traherne & Johnny Stallings

LARRY YES at Waterfront Blues Festival 7/2/26
2026-07-02 13:00 - 14:00
LARRY YES brings a massive amount of GOOD VIBES to Portland’s Waterfront Blues Festival

Larry Yes

(https://waterfrontbluesfest.com/) on July 2nd, at the River Rhythms Stage at 1:15 pm.

NOT TO BE MISSED!!!

Napping Tournament 7/12/26
2026-07-12 13:00 - 15:00

J and the Metaphors: Open Road Benefit Concert
2026-07-26 14:00 - 15:30

peace, love, happiness & understanding 8/6/26
2026-08-06 - 2026-09-02
THE OPEN ROAD
peace, love, happiness & understanding

August 6, 2026

Plumbing Project

Part One
When the plumber said
“Probably five to ten grand
To reroute the pipe and bypass
That leak in your concrete slab”
These dangerous
Oft-spoken words
Formed beneath my breath:
“I could probably do that myself.”
“That” being moving the water heater, cutting though three walls, three cast iron pipes
Running fifty feet of new plastic drain line
Dropping at a quarter inch per foot
Into a main four-inch plumbing stack
After moving the washer and dryer, office furniture, bookcases and desks.

Part Two
Perhaps it was
Ralph Waldo Emerson’s
Essay on Self Reliance
Or John Dewey’s further championing
The theme of “omni-competence”
That doomed countless men like myself
To years of wandering lumber yards
Aisles of hardware stores
Wearing bruised knuckles and
Bad backs as badges of honor
Confident that building, wiring, plumbing a house
Flushing a radiator, repairing a dishwasher
Or cooking meat on a grill
Would assure us a seat
At the table of manhood.
And although I am proud
To harbor informed opinions on
Carbide blades, framing lumber and
Exposed aggregate concrete
I also wonder how many languages
I might have learned
What musical instrument I could have mastered
Had my brain not become
A big box store of readily available facts
On positive drainage, adequate clearance and proper ventilation
And to what heights I might have ascended
Had I not so readily descended
Into beckoning crawl spaces and drainage ditches.

Part Three
Well, the plumbing is done now
Water flowing where
And as it should
Plus a new laundry sink, fresh paint
On basement ceiling and floor
Many hours remain
To mend the wounds in walls and return
Everything to its proper place.
But I’m ready now to
Learn a new language
Pick up a musical instrument
Howl at the full moon
(Rising tonight!)
And see if I can’t
Plumb a few words from
A few days of common labor.

Will Hornyak
July 2026
*

Dazzling and tremendous how quick the sun-rise would kill me,
If I could not now and always send sun-rise out of me.

—Walt Whitman, from “Song of Myself”

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…”

—Hamlet speaking, in William Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark

If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite.
For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro’ narrow chinks of his cavern.

—William Blake, from “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell”

(Speaking of caverns, you might want to re-visit Plato’s Allegory of the Cave in the January, 2021 issue of peace, love, happiness & understanding: https://openroadpdx.com/event/peace-love-happiness-understanding-1-7-21/.)

For the past couple years, I’ve been doing an “entertainment” of some kind more or less every month at Taborspace in Portland, or online. As a concession to my aging brain, I’ve been reading things, rather than trying to memorize them. My entertainments have featured Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, Whitman, Black Elk, Traherne, Cabeza de Vaca, Kalidasa & Stallings; I’ve explored topics like Eutopia, Zen, the English Romantic Poets, Humanism & Paradise Now! This month, on August 8th, I’m taking a look at Beauty.

Essays by Kathleen Raine, including “The Use of the Beautiful” (1966), inspired me to delve into the English Romantic poets, and now into Beauty. She says that beauty and the arts have been traditionally associated with each other, but with the advent of modernism—she’s talking mostly about poetry—beauty was no longer fashionable. She asks: “Have we found something better?” In her essay “A Defense of Shelley’s Poetry,” she makes this bold statement: “It might be said that the arts exist, finally, for no other end than the holding before us of images of Paradise.”

If you want to inquire into a topic like beauty, or love, or happiness, the first thing you discover is that it is endless. There are all kinds of beauty. The natural world is full of beauty. Human beings make beautiful music, paintings, sculptures, poems. We have beautiful ideas and imaginings. And there is something mysterious, which we call “inner beauty.” For my event on Saturday, I don’t want to talk about theories of beauty. Mostly, I want to give examples of things that I find beautiful—including music, works of art, poetry, pictures of happy children and hummingbirds, et cetera. Here are three of my favorite poems about beauty that are themselves beautiful:

Pied Beauty

Glory be to God for dappled things –
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.

—Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)
*

Ode on a Grecian Urn

Thou still unravish’d bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fring’d legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear’d,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unwearied,
For ever piping songs for ever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
For ever warm and still to be enjoy’d,
For ever panting, and for ever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy’d,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead’st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
What little town by river or sea shore,
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
Will silent be; and not a soul to tell
Why thou art desolate, can e’er return.

O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st,
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”

—John Keats (1795-1821)
*

Lapis Lazuli

I have heard that hysterical women say
They are sick of the palette and fiddle-bow,
Of poets that are always gay,
For everybody knows or else should know
That if nothing drastic is done
Aeroplane and Zeppelin will come out,
Pitch like King Billy bomb-balls in
Until the town lie beaten flat.

All perform their tragic play,
There struts Hamlet, there is Lear,
That’s Ophelia, that Cordelia;
Yet they, should the last scene be there,
The great stage curtain about to drop,
If worthy their prominent part in the play,
Do not break up their lines to weep.
They know that Hamlet and Lear are gay;
Gaiety transfiguring all that dread.
All men have aimed at, found and lost;
Black out; Heaven blazing into the head:
Tragedy wrought to its uttermost.
Though Hamlet rambles and Lear rages,
And all the drop scenes drop at once
Upon a hundred thousand stages,
It cannot grow by an inch or an ounce.

On their own feet they came, or on shipboard,
Camel-back, horse-back, ass-back, mule-back,
Old civilisations put to the sword.
Then they and their wisdom went to rack:
No handiwork of Callimachus
Who handled marble as if it were bronze,
Made draperies that seemed to rise
When sea-wind swept the corner, stands;
His long lamp chimney shaped like the stem
Of a slender palm, stood but a day;
All things fall and are built again
And those that build them again are gay.

Two Chinamen, behind them a third,
Are carved in Lapis Lazuli,
Over them flies a long-legged bird
A symbol of longevity;
The third, doubtless a serving-man,
Carries a musical instrument.

Every discolouration of the stone,
Every accidental crack or dent
Seems a water-course or an avalanche,
Or lofty slope where it still snows
Though doubtless plum or cherry-branch
Sweetens the little half-way house
Those Chinamen climb towards, and I
Delight to imagine them seated there;
There, on the mountain and the sky,
On all the tragic scene they stare.
One asks for mournful melodies;
Accomplished fingers begin to play.
Their eyes mid many wrinkles, their eyes,
Their ancient, glittering eyes, are gay.

—William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)

BEAUTY: A Vision 8/8/26
2026-08-08 15:00 - 17:00
BEAUTY: A Vision

Johnny Stallings looks at Beauty

Saturday, August 8, at 3 p.m.
Artspace Room at Taborspace, 5441 SE Belmont

this Open Road event is free

Amos Kilbright: his adscititious experiences 9/12/26
2026-09-12 12:00 - 14:00
Amos Kilbright: his adscititious experiences

Frank Stockton’s astonishing tale
read by Johnny Stallings

Saturday, September 12th, at noon
in the Artspace Room at Taborspace
5441 SE Belmont Street, in Portland

this Open Road event is free
