Bibliophiles Unanimous!: Poetry's Task with Kim Stafford 12/20/20
2020-12-20 15:00 - 17:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
Dear Bibliophiles!

On December 20th, at 3 pm, our Zoom gathering will be hosted by Kim Stafford, who recently completed two years as Oregon’s Poet Laureate. Here’s the (new) link:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81054571039

December 12, 2020

As I sat still this morning at my writing desk, before turning on the light, in the darkness and silence the weather in my mind began to clear from yesterday’s worries and conundrums, something began to come into focus. In time, I turned on the light, and wrote down this thought:

A loss is first a pang, then a memory. Then , by writing or telling, it may become a story. Then, if told with curiosity and courage, the sorrow becomes a possession, an element of identity, and finally a treasure, a smudge of wisdom.

Then, as my habit each morning early, I explored this thought by shaping it into something like a poem:

Schooling Sorrow

When a sorrow’s young, it’s pure—stunned
pang at breakup, betrayal, failure, death.
You weep, rant, brood, slump. And then

in the morning, sorrow starts its epic
journey into memory, becomes an island
in your archipelago of sufferings.

Then, if you are strong, and lucky to have
a listener—you begin to apprehend its quirks,
to tell it, shape it, watch it grow into a story.

And if you tell your story well, with curiosity
and courage, it then becomes a possession,
and in time a treasure, a smudge of wisdom.

This can be your gift, your offering—but
if you don’t school your sorrow into story
it can never be your friend.

—Kim Stafford

peace, love, happiness & understanding 12/24/20
2020-12-24 - 2021-01-06
THE OPEN ROAD
peace, love, happiness & understanding

December 24, 2020

I believe the soggy clods shall become lovers and lamps…

—Walt Whitman, from Song of Myself
*

Since water still flows, though we cut it with swords,
And sorrow returns, though we drown it with wine,
Since the world can in no way satisfy our cravings,
Let us loosen our hair tomorrow and go fishing.

—Li Po (701-762 A.D.)
*

Found Kin

Ardent champions of comradery,
our found kin hold a cherished place
inside the chest cavity.
Stumble into our lives when we
need you most.
Battle back the self-doubt with
Deeds, Words, Actions, Presence.
Blood being equally without consequence
or measured sacred.
Embrace me found kin with gentle
acts of friendship.
Keep the wolves at bay, my hearth fire
heart stoked.
Against the oppressing laden storm of
Breathing upon this mortal stage
Found kin, I love you.

—Jeff Kuehner
*

Elemental Thoughts

Storm grey clouds frequent windy days,
Shedding their sadness on the land
Before moving on.
I watch them through my window pane,
Wishing they would stay awhile
or maybe take me with them;
For a storm grey cloud at heart I’ve become,
In need of a good wind to push me—
Until I too shed my sadness.

—Joshua Barnes
*

THE MEANING OF THIS

We are a feather
made of wings made of birds

No boos
cheers or other
interruptions

On our way up

Yes our body has fallen
apart

But finally we are floating

Like this & this
is what we wished for
relishing in our not
expecting it

Here is the inverted valley
& every blade
of grass on the godhead asking

What are you
& who is your name

—Alex Tretbar
*

I do hope you enjoyed my depressing poem. Here is another attached to this letter. It’s a piece I’m working on, but it has been hiding from my attempts at trying to bring it to paper. Where do all these words hide, anyway? Maybe it really is in between the blank spaces of every page and sentence. I wish I knew!

Hindsight (2020)

Hold your breath a little while
The reaper’s hounds are on the loose,
Trailing along their invisible chains
Extinguishing life like a hangman’s noose.

Hindsight: Speaking of history, history’s made
Though the irony remains in man’s surprise;
For we’ve opened the door to find again
A trojan horse in a man disguise.

The questions now—Will we learn?
Will these lessons keep and pass?
Or will the hounds come again
When comfort blinds us of our past?

But worry not, just hold your breaths,
For now just try to dodge the noose;
And watch the hounds’ chains grow taut
When pharma bears its golden goose.

—Joshua Barnes
*

Think Twice

If you think once, that’s good—
you’re ahead of the game. But do
yourself a favor, and think again.

Think for yourself, for number 1.
Then think for others, and see
how you are woven into we.

Think for today, necessity.
Then think for what comes soon,
and after, all that rich unfolding.

Think for your allies, then for “enemies.”
Think for the human, then for Earth.
Think for comfort, then for deepening spirit.

When anyone demands an answer, say,
“I am of two minds. Give me a moment.”

—Kim Stafford

Your Sovereignty

By law, your house is your castle—unless they have
a warrant to enter, sift through your stuff, is your
fortress, unless the bank holds the deed, or you rent
at a landlord’s whim, unless it’s a tent by the river
waiting for the sweep, a doorway with a blanket,
a place to stand by the road with your sign, a park
bench bed claimed at dusk, unless you are an inmate
in solitary concrete cell with stories behind closed eyes
your treasure, unless you flee, a refugee running by night
with only your coat and muttered clutch of words for
water, please, bread, prayer, brother, sister, home,
unless you are a tribe, your usual and accustomed places
torn away by someone’s treaty, one who never saw
dawn come over a prairie, forest, camas meadow,
unless you are a wren, your home thickets
skinned, plowed, paved, and you are made
to move, adapt, or die, so just before you fly,
on a wire you sing a last ravishing run,
the song your shred of sovereignty.

—Kim Stafford
*

Winter Feet

Early morning walk
Down Broadway
Inner city sidewalk
Still dark
Still cold

Ezra, a man I’ve come to know,
Sleeps in a doorway
His blue tennis shoes neatly placed
Next to his head

His bare feet
Extend out from the heavy blanket

I walk on
Then turn around
Gently pull the blanket over his feet

Ezra whispers a sleepy thank you
I start to leave
He kicks the blanket off

Feet once again bare
To the bitter cold
Life as he lives it
Exposed

—Esther Elizabeth

Daily Bread

Another Vet with little means
has found ways to appreciate slices of life
He goes by many names
I call him Joseph
He waits outside the café in his
electric wheel chair
with his dog Buffy snuggling on his lap,
four stuffed animals in the basket behind him—
two dogs, one monkey, one cat
On each side two
decorative colorful wind whirls

I leave the café with leftovers
What do you have for me today
Hash browns, chicken sausage,
whole wheat toast

This is better than last week’s donut,
laughs Joseph
This is a real feast, thank you
Now let me offer you a blessing
before you walk on

I weep now remembering his words, the
sincerity with which they were spoken

Dear God as I know you
Bless this servant—
As she offers me this day my daily bread
I ask you to offer her whatever she needs,
for we are all in these troubling times together
serving one another in love
Amen

Amen Joseph
Amen indeed

—Esther Elizabeth, two poems from Encounter: Poems of Engagement

Esther asked me to include her email address. Here it is:

estherwelizabeth@gmail.com
*

What Issa Heard

Two hundred years ago Issa heard the morning birds
singing sutras to this suffering world.

I heard them too, this morning, which must mean,

since we will always have a suffering world,
we must also always have song.

—David Budbill
*

I hope these poems keep you warm.

May all people be happy.
May we live in peace & love.

Johnny

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus
2020-12-25
DEAR EDITOR:
I am 8 years old.
Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus.
Papa says, ‘If you see it in THE SUN it’s so.’
Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?

VIRGINIA O’HANLON.
115 WEST NINETY-FIFTH STREET.

VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You may tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

—Francis Pharcellus Church, Editor of The Sun, September 21, 1897

Bibliophiles Unanimous!: Favorite Women Poets with Deborah & Katie
2021-01-03 - 2021-01-16
Dear Bibliophiles
On Sunday, January 3rd, Deborah Buchanan and Katie Radditz hosted a conversation about Favorite Women Poets on Zoom. We had a good turnout. It’s a big subject! They began talking about Japanese women poets:

Tankas from 4th – 19th century Japan
Ono no Komachi
While, waiting for you,
My heart is filled with longing,
The autumn wind blows—
As if it were you—
Swaying the bamboo blinds of my door.

Tanka stresses the beauty of life and nature, but there is a strong feeling of yearning in many tanka. The shortness of life, the transient nature of seasons and love.
First known poetry perhaps is the tanka written as letters between women in Japan who were basically imprisoned at home. They started writing letters to one another in simple haiku with hidden messages, the recipient would write back in two lines. Forming a tanka from the Haiku.
Izumi Shikibu. author of The Diary of Izumi Shikibu and was considered to be the finest poet of the time. She also wrote The Tale of Genji considered the first novel. It is full of hundreds of Tankas.

“To the lonely nights
when a robe comes between us,
would you then, you say,
have me add more layers yet
to keep us further apart?”

“Without showing a change in colour
The thing that fades
In this world
Is the flower
Called the human heart.”

“The colour of the cherry blossom
Has faded vainly
In the long rain
While in idle thoughts
I have spent my life.”

“Without a thought
For my black hair’s disarray
I throw myself down,
Already longing for the one
Who ran his fingers through it.“

“On the bamboo leaves
A fine ice fall
Patters and patters.
How bitter
To try to sleep alone!”

Then, Deborah and Katie talked about Emily Dickinson. They read this poem:

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant –
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth’s superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind –

Johnny recited one of his favorite Emily Dickinson poems:

The Infinite a sudden Guest
Has been assumed to be —
But how can that stupendous come
Which never went away?

Deborah talked about Diane Di Prima and read this poem by her:

Poem in Praise of My Husband

I suppose it hasn’t been easy living with me
either,
with my piques, and ups and downs, my need for
privacy
leo pride and weeping in bed when you’re
trying to sleep
and you, interrupting me in the middle of a
thousand poems
in the middle of our drive over the nebraska
hills and
into colorado, odetta singing, the whole world
singing in me
the triumph of our revolution in the air
me about to get that down, and you
you saying something about the carburetor
so that it all went away
but we cling to each other
as if each thought the other was the raft
and he adrift alone, as in this mud house
not big enough, the walls dusting down around us, a fine dust rain
counteracting the good, high air, and stuffing
our nostrils
we hang our pictures of the separate worlds:
new york college and san francisco posters
set out our japanese dishes, chinese knives
hammer small indian marriage cloths into
the adobe
we stumble thru silence into each other’s gut
blundering thru from one wrong place to the
next
like kids who snuck out to play on a boat
at night
and the boat slipped from its moorings, and
they look at the stars
about which they know nothing, to find out
where they are going.

Deborah and Katie shared this poem by Naomi Shihab Nye:

Shoulders
A man crosses the street in rain,
stepping gently, looking two times north and south,
because his son is asleep on his shoulder.
No car must splash him.
No car drive too near to his shadow.
This man carries the world’s most sensitive cargo
but he’s not marked.
Nowhere does his jacket say FRAGILE,
HANDLE WITH CARE.
His ear fills up with breathing.
He hears the hum of a boy’s dream
deep inside him.
We’re not going to be able
to live in this world
if we’re not willing to do what he’s doing
with one another.
The road will only be wide.
The rain will never stop falling.

Nancy Yeilding read this poem by Barbara Crooker:

It’s Monday Morning

mid-November, the world turned golden,
preserved in amber. I should be doing more
to save the planet—plant a tree, raise
a turbine, put solar panels on the roof
to grab the sun and bring it inside. Instead,
I’m sitting here scribbling, sitting on a wrought
iron chair, the air cold from last night’s frost,
the thin sunlight sinking into the ruined
Appalachians of my spine. I know it’s all
about to fall apart; the signs are everywhere.
But on this blue morning, the air bristling
with crickets and birdsong, I do the only thing
I can: put one word in front of the other,
and see what happens when they rub up against
each other. It might become something
that will burst into flame.

Dave Duncan read the first two stanzas of “The Cry of the Children” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning:

Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers,

Ere the sorrow comes with years ?

They are leaning their young heads against their mothers, —
And that cannot stop their tears.
The young lambs are bleating in the meadows ;
The young birds are chirping in the nest ;
The young fawns are playing with the shadows ;
The young flowers are blowing toward the west—
But the young, young children, O my brothers,
They are weeping bitterly !
They are weeping in the playtime of the others,
In the country of the free.

Do you question the young children in the sorrow,
Why their tears are falling so ?
The old man may weep for his to-morrow
Which is lost in Long Ago —
The old tree is leafless in the forest —
The old year is ending in the frost —
The old wound, if stricken, is the sorest —
The old hope is hardest to be lost :
But the young, young children, O my brothers,
Do you ask them why they stand
Weeping sore before the bosoms of their mothers,
In our happy Fatherland ?

Here’s a poem from Wisława Szymborska that Katie and Deborah chose:

Possibilities
I prefer movies.
I prefer cats.
I prefer the oaks along the Warta.
I prefer Dickens to Dostoyevsky.
I prefer myself liking people
to myself loving mankind.
I prefer keeping a needle and thread on hand, just in case.
I prefer the color green.
I prefer not to maintain
that reason is to blame for everything.
I prefer exceptions.
I prefer to leave early.
I prefer talking to doctors about something else.
I prefer the old fine-lined illustrations.
I prefer the absurdity of writing poems
to the absurdity of not writing poems.
I prefer, where love’s concerned, nonspecific anniversaries
that can be celebrated every day.
I prefer moralists
who promise me nothing.
I prefer cunning kindness to the over-trustful kind.
I prefer the earth in civvies.
I prefer conquered to conquering countries.
I prefer having some reservations.
I prefer the hell of chaos to the hell of order.
I prefer Grimms’ fairy tales to the newspapers’ front pages.
I prefer leaves without flowers to flowers without leaves.
I prefer dogs with uncropped tails.
I prefer light eyes, since mine are dark.
I prefer desk drawers.
I prefer many things that I haven’t mentioned here
to many things I’ve also left unsaid.
I prefer zeroes on the loose
to those lined up behind a cipher.
I prefer the time of insects to the time of stars.
I prefer to knock on wood.
I prefer not to ask how much longer and when.
I prefer keeping in mind even the possibility
that existence has its own reason for being.

And here’s a poem by Wisława Szymborska that Jude Russell read:

The Three Oddest Words

When I pronounce the word Future,
the first syllable already belongs to the past.
When I pronounce the word Silence,
I destroy it.
When I pronounce the word Nothing,
I make something no non-being can hold.

Jeffrey Sher read a poem by Mary Oliver:

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Here a poem by Ada Limon:

The Raincoat

When the doctor suggested surgery
and a brace for all my youngest years,
my parents scrambled to take me
to massage therapy, deep tissue work,
osteopathy, and soon my crooked spine
unspooled a bit, I could breathe again,
and move more in a body unclouded
by pain. My mom would tell me to sing
songs to her the whole forty-five minute
drive to Middle Two Rock Road and forty-
five minutes back from physical therapy.
She’d say, even my voice sounded unfettered
by my spine afterward. So I sang and sang,
because I thought she liked it. I never
asked her what she gave up to drive me,
or how her day was before this chore. Today,
at her age, I was driving myself home from yet
another spine appointment, singing along
to some maudlin but solid song on the radio,
and I saw a mom take her raincoat off
and give it to her young daughter when
a storm took over the afternoon. My god,
I thought, my whole life I’ve been under her
raincoat thinking it was somehow a marvel
that I never got wet.

Nancy Yeilding didn’t know if she could get through this poem by Denise Levertov without crying. She was encouraged to give it a try:

The Fountain

Don’t say, don’t say there is no water
to solace the dryness at our hearts.
I have seen

the fountain springing out of the rock wall
and you drinking there. And I too
before your eyes
found footholds and climbed
to drink the cool water.

The woman of that place, shading her eyes,
frowned as she watched-but not because
she grudged the water,
only because she was waiting
to see we drank our fill and were
refreshed.
Don’t say, don’t say there is no water.
That fountain is there among its scalloped
green and gray stones,
it is still there and always there
with its quiet song and strange power
to spring in us,
up and out through the rock.

Here’s a poem by Gabriela Mistral, the first Latin American to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature:

Riches

I have a faithful fortune
and a fortune lost.
One’s like a rose,
the other a thorn.
What was taken from me
I still possess:
the faithful fortune
and the fortune lost,
and I’m rich in purple
and unhappiness.
Oh how I love the rose
and how the thorn loves me!
Like round twin apples
after the frost:
the faithful fortune,
the fortune lost.

(tr. Ursula K. Le Guin)

Here’s a poem by our current national Poet Laureate, Joy Harjo:

Perhaps the world ends Here

The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live.

The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it will go on.

We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe at the corners. They scrape their knees under it.

It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human. We make men at it, we make women.

At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts of lovers.

Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms around our children. They laugh with us at our poor falling-down selves and as we put ourselves back together once again at the table.

This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun.

Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place to hide in the shadow of terror. A place to celebrate the terrible victory.

We have given birth on this table, and have prepared our parents for burial here.

At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. We pray of suffering and remorse. We give thanks.

Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite.
*

Nancy Yeilding also recommends:

“Late August” by Mary Chivers
“For a Friend Lying in Intensive Care Waiting for Her White Blood Cells to Rejuvenate After a Bone Marrow Transplant” by Barbara Crooker
“A Gift” and “Witness” by Denise Levertov

Deborah and Katie also recommend:

“A New National Anthem” by Ada Limon
“Sweetness,” “Give Me Your Hand” and “Song of Death” by Gabriela Mistral
“Some People” by Wisława Szymborska
“The Burying Beetle” by Ada Limon

Deborah asked me to add this:

Also please add that we only skimmed the wealth of African American poets:
Gwendolyn Books (first black woman to win the Pulitzer), Lucille Clifton, June Jordan and now a whole bevy of current ones: Tracy K. Smith, Nikki Finney, Claudine Rankin, Natasha Tretheway.

And for American Indian women poets, there are, in addition to the stellar Joy Harjo:
Natalie Diaz (her breakout book, When My Brother Was an Aztec), and Oregon’s own Elizabeth Woody.

There were lots more poems! You shoulda been there! Maybe you were.

Deborah recently published three books of poetry: The World A Well, Layers of Sediment and Moment Before. You can order them from her at: dlbadger@gmail.com.

We ended our Zoom gathering with Deborah reading one of her unpublished poems:

Unannounced

The grass moved
inhalation exhalation
as the animal slept
still but for breath
covered by the sky’s night
wind in the orchard
deeper shadows under dark firs

We find the grass bowl
in early morning, still warm
stalks flattened not by wind
but impress of being
a nest one might say
yet in soil not air
a vibrant emptiness

While we slept unaware
another life another world
passed by
inextricably connected
yet unknown
how many each moment
these transparent threads

Breathing the same air
walking so closely

peace, love, happiness & understanding 1/7/21
2021-01-07 - 2021-01-20
THE OPEN ROAD
peace, love, happiness & understanding

January 7, 2021

I sent some of Thomas Traherne’s poems to Alex Tretbar, who was inspired by the poem “Wonder” to write “DUST.” First Traherne, then Tretbar:

Wonder

How like an Angel came I down!
How bright are all things here!
When first among His works I did appear
O how their Glory me did crown!
The world resembled His Eternity,
In which my soul did walk;
And every thing that I did see
Did with me talk.

The skies in their magnificence,
The lively, lovely air;
Oh how divine, how soft, how sweet, how fair!
The stars did entertain my sense,
And all the works of God, so bright and pure,
So rich and great did seem,
As if they ever must endure
In my esteem.

A native health and innocence
Within my bones did grow,
And while my God did all his Glories show,
I felt a vigour in my sense
That was all Spirit. I within did flow
With seas of life, like wine;
I nothing in the world did know
But ’twas divine.

Harsh ragged objects were concealed,
Oppressions, tears and cries,
Sins, griefs, complaints, dissensions, weeping eyes
Were hid, and only things revealed
Which heavenly Spirits, and the Angels prize.
The state of Innocence
And bliss, not trades and poverties,
Did fill my sense.

The streets were paved with golden stones,
The boys and girls were mine,
Oh how did all their lovely faces shine!
The sons of men were holy ones,
In joy and beauty they appeared to me,
And every thing which here I found,
While like an angel I did see,
Adorned the ground.

Rich diamond and pearl and gold
In every place was seen;
Rare splendours, yellow, blue, red, white and green,
Mine eyes did everywhere behold.
Great wonders clothed with glory did appear,
Amazement was my bliss,
That and my wealth was everywhere:
No joy to this!

Cursed and devised proprieties,
With envy, avarice
And fraud, those fiends that spoil even Paradise,
Flew from the splendour of mine eyes,
And so did hedges, ditches, limits, bounds,
I dreamed not aught of those,
But wandered over all men’s grounds,
And found repose.

Proprieties themselves were mine,
And hedges ornaments;
Walls, boxes, coffers, and their rich contents
Did not divide my joys, but all combine.
Clothes, ribbons, jewels, laces, I esteemed
My joys by others worn:
For me they all to wear them seemed
When I was born.

—Thomas Traherne (1636-1674)
*

DUST

I came down like an angel
from a gestative mountain

I have no memory
of

Since then loved
ones have told me

About the two
a.m. arrival

The usual bawling
& slap-shock of the other

Side of eternity
since then there have been

So many thens that now
seem second-hand

Like universal lullabies
whispered into the unconscious

Ears of babies my life
is just a transparent bead

On an endless
abacus

But you are there too
& you & you & you

And it seems fitting to me now
that abacus comes from the Hebrew word

For dust

—Alex Tretbar
*

Poetry Lovers: On Sunday, January 3rd, Katie Radditz and Deborah Buchanan hosted a Zoom gathering on the theme of “Favorite Women Poets.” Here’s a link to the web page on the Open Road website, where you will find poems to inspire you and whet your appetite for more:

https://openroadpdx.com/event/bibliophiles-unanimous-favorite-women-poets-with-deborah-katie/

In the last Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue, Joshua Barnes wrote about duality and oneness. He got me thinking about different things, including Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, from Book VII of The Republic. Socrates is doing most of the talking. The other speaker is Glaucon. You may be familiar with it, but it’s one of those things that is worth revisiting and pondering from time to time. So, here it is (in the Benjamin Jowett translation):

BOOK VII.

And now, I said, let me show in a figure how far our nature is enlightened or unenlightened:—Behold! human beings living in an underground den, which has a mouth open towards the light and reaching all along the den; here they have been from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot move, and can only see before them, being prevented by the chains from turning round their heads. Above and behind them a fire is blazing at a distance, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised way; and you will see, if you look, a low wall built along the way, like the screen which marionette players have in front of them, over which they show the puppets.
I see.
And do you see, I said, men passing along the wall carrying all sorts of vessels, and statues and figures of animals made of wood and stone and various materials, which appear over the wall? Some of them are talking, others silent.
You have shown me a strange image, and they are strange prisoners.
Like ourselves, I replied; and they see only their own shadows, or the shadows of one another, which the fire throws on the opposite wall of the cave?
True, he said; how could they see anything but the shadows if they were never allowed to move their heads?
And of the objects which are being carried in like manner they would only see the shadows?
Yes, he said.
And if they were able to converse with one another, would they not suppose that they were naming what was actually before them?
Very true.
And suppose further that the prison had an echo which came from the other side, would they not be sure to fancy when one of the passers-by spoke that the voice which they heard came from the passing shadow?
No question, he replied.
To them, I said, the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images.
That is certain.
And now look again, and see what will naturally follow if the prisoners are released and disabused of their error. At first, when any of them is liberated and compelled suddenly to stand up and turn his neck round and walk and look towards the light, he will suffer sharp pains; the glare will distress him, and he will be unable to see the realities of which in his former state he had seen the shadows; and then conceive some one saying to him, that what he saw before was an illusion, but that now, when he is approaching nearer to being and his eye is turned towards more real existence, he has a clearer vision,—what will be his reply? And you may further imagine that his instructor is pointing to the objects as they pass and requiring him to name them,—will he not be perplexed? Will he not fancy that the shadows which he formerly saw are truer than the objects which are now shown to him?
Far truer.
And if he is compelled to look straight at the light, will he not have a pain in his eyes which will make him turn away to take refuge in the objects of vision which he can see, and which he will conceive to be in reality clearer than the things which are now being shown to him?
True, he said.
And suppose once more, that he is reluctantly dragged up a steep and rugged ascent, and held fast until he is forced into the presence of the sun himself, is he not likely to be pained and irritated? When he approaches the light his eyes will be dazzled, and he will not be able to see anything at all of what are now called realities.
Not all in a moment, he said.
He will require to grow accustomed to the sight of the upper world. And first he will see the shadows best, next the reflections of men and other objects in the water, and then the objects themselves; then he will gaze upon the light of the moon and the stars and the spangled heaven; and he will see the sky and the stars by night better than the sun or the light of the sun by day?
Certainly.
Last of all he will be able to see the sun, and not mere reflections of him in the water, but he will see him in his own proper place, and not in another; and he will contemplate him as he is.
Certainly.
He will then proceed to argue that this is he who gives the season and the years, and is the guardian of all that is in the visible world, and in a certain way the cause of all things which he and his fellows have been accustomed to behold?
Clearly, he said, he would first see the sun and then reason about him.
And when he remembered his old habitation, and the wisdom of the den and his fellow-prisoners, do you not suppose that he would felicitate himself on the change, and pity them?
Certainly, he would.
And if they were in the habit of conferring honours among themselves on those who were quickest to observe the passing shadows and to remark which of them went before, and which followed after, and which were together; and who were therefore best able to draw conclusions as to the future, do you think that he would care for such honours and glories, or envy the possessors of them? Would he not say with Homer,
‘Better to be the poor servant of a poor master,’
and to endure anything, rather than think as they do and live after their manner?
Yes, he said, I think that he would rather suffer anything than entertain these false notions and live in this miserable manner.
Imagine once more, I said, such an one coming suddenly out of the sun to be replaced in his old situation; would he not be certain to have his eyes full of darkness?
To be sure, he said.
And if there were a contest, and he had to compete in measuring the shadows with the prisoners who had never moved out of the den, while his sight was still weak, and before his eyes had become steady (and the time which would be needed to acquire this new habit of sight might be very considerable), would he not be ridiculous? Men would say of him that up he went and down he came without his eyes; and that it was better not even to think of ascending; and if any one tried to loose another and lead him up to the light, let them only catch the offender, and they would put him to death.
No question, he said.
This entire allegory, I said, you may now append, dear Glaucon, to the previous argument; the prison-house is the world of sight, the light of the fire is the sun, and you will not misapprehend me if you interpret the journey upwards to be the ascent of the soul into the intellectual world according to my poor belief, which, at your desire, I have expressed—whether rightly or wrongly God knows. But, whether true or false, my opinion is that in the world of knowledge the idea of good appears last of all, and is seen only with an effort; and, when seen, is also inferred to be the universal author of all things beautiful and right, parent of light and of the lord of light in this visible world, and the immediate source of reason and truth in the intellectual; and that this is the power upon which he who would act rationally either in public or private life must have his eye fixed.

Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue 1/15/21
2021-01-15 - 2021-02-14
Open Road Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue

January 15, 2020

Welcome to our fifth meditation and mindfulness dialogue! The numbers below refer to passages from the book Your True Home by Thich Nhat Hanh. (JS)
*

WITHOUT

Picture nothing.

Nothing is pictured.

And then everything food sex stoplight
yoga mat grocery bag little gnat—

as through a valve
in the middle of that pictured
nothing:

it all comes rushing
like sparks
jetting in the void.

The ocean goes back in the bottle
only when you ignore it.

I flit from station to station,
knowing nothing of meditation.

And I seek out mute buttons
as if there are more than one,
as if it is something that exists

without.

—Alex Tretbar
*

Mr. Barnes, in the December issue you said you wrote the paper (letter) six times over, but know, more times than not, the first writing is always the best, since when re-written over and over you can lose the essence of your writing. Don’t overthink it. The first edition was your rawest, which tends to be most true and to the heart. I find that in journaling, when I go back to read previous entries, I think I should have said it this way or that, but in reality it is its most true and rawest, honest to who you are.

I also would give you this thought in regards to what you wrote about how we all were born upon a set of scales that started to tip in one direction or the other since our birth. I understand your concept of the scale relating to one side being good, while the other is bad. But… Have you considered that there is no scale? In reading #312 None Other Than Enlightenment in Your True Home it seemed to me that the basic premise is that through enlightenment there is no scale. You can see the truth in all things, that truth being the good and bad in all things. Good and bad are one thing: the flower in the garbage and the garbage in the flower.

Mr. Gilbert, so many things this year have showed us that society is in dire need of a change, and that we all need a little more enlightenment. There is a lot of me me me, hate, blame for this or that, or: since you don’t believe what I believe I hate you. I briefly touched on this in November’s issue of M & M, but I will write a little more. On 11/2/20 I read #346 What Separates Us in our book Your True Home. In the message, it talks about labels. Putting labels on people is hurtful and destructive. Labels are what’s currently wrong in society. It’s us vs. them. Labels are something that hurts every one of us. Society uses labels to dehumanize, to separate us into groups, and if we can eliminate labels there can be peace in the world. We are all people on this planet, one society, one human race, and until we get that our society will not be able to heal. Be the one! On society, one human race, one world together.

What I want to write about for myself is about something that really affected me to the point of tears forming when I started journaling. I debated even writing this in the newsletter because of how it affected me and how personal it is to me, but after writing to my friend Jacob Green about what happened, I started to feel empowered to include what happened for everyone in the newsletter. On 12/2/20 I read #316 The Smile of Nonfear in Your True Home. This passage for some reason stirred something inside me. It’s the word “afflictions” that woke this thought, but really the whole bottom half spoke to me. Afflictions have been something I have been struggling with for a large part of my prison sentence. I’ve seen that what I had done to land me in prison these 18 years was an affliction. I concentrated on that “perceived” affliction for those first years, trying to correct where I went wrong. It took many many years to find my path to better and correct who I am, and to this point I, in some ways, didn’t know how I got there, or where I am today. But now, in reading #316, I may have a little more of an idea. I recognized early on that a big part of what I did was founded on a deluded mind and thought pattern that needed correcting if I was to live a life outside these fences. If I couldn’t succeed in correcting my deluded mind, thought pattern and affliction, I didn’t deserve a life outside the fence, or maybe even a life at all. What I saw in myself was only a deluded mind and thoughts, and in doing so I could only see the afflictions within myself.

Somehow, over the years, a slow chip away happened. I found my true mind, and in doing so I no longer only saw my afflictions, but saw much more. Call it enlightenment. I no longer concentrated on my deluded mind or thoughts, which in turn, I suppose, allowed me to truly heal my affliction that got me here to prison. I am still not perfect by far, none of us are, but I truly believe I have healed enough now to start my next chapter in life. A life outside these fences. A life as me and who I am. A life that will allow me to continue to heal and better who I am, the person I know I am and want to be.

Above is what I wrote in my journal. I know that many guys in prison struggle with their afflictions that caused and/or contributed to their incarceration. Some feel they don’t deserve forgiveness, and forgiveness from those you hurt may never come, but forgiveness of yourself is possible. It happens with internal healing and the enlightenment that you don’t need to run away from your afflictions, because with a true mind the afflictions are no longer there. And without afflictions there is only enlightenment; through enlightenment you will see much more within yourself.

Thanks for listening. May peace, love, harmony and mindfulness be with you all.

—Joshua Underhill
*

A meditative mind is silent. It is not the silence which thought can conceive of; it is not the silence of a still evening; it is the silence when thought—with all its images, its words and perceptions—has entirely ceased. This meditative mind is the religious mind—the religion that is not touched by the church, the temple or by chants.

The religious mind is the explosion of love. It is this love that knows no separation. To it, far is near. It is not the one or the many, but rather the state of love in which all division ceases. Like beauty, it is not of the measure of words. From this silence alone the meditative mind acts.

from Meditations by J. Krishnamurti
*

(Here are a few of Michel Deforge’s many meditations from December:)

December 2 #47 The Mind of Enlightenment

It is amazing what a few days of not mindfully breathing, or purpose (practicing) can do to my mental state—more mercurial and more affected by influences. (grrr) It’s my own doing. I can’t blame anyone. Maybe…I can just relax, breathe; and let it be what it is…? (Breathing…) How funny. Today is about bodhichitta and a “goal” of practice—to, ultimately, be able to aid/relieve the suffering of others. Wow! It’s funny because I see myself, right now, being very deep in my own mud/suffering. Getting better, or anything positive, is so far from my experience of now. And, forget about being of help or benefit …Yet, even now, I may learn, and from my learning, another may derive a benefit. If I waste my “now” on later—how/if I’ll be anything—then I’ll miss my lesson on how perfect today’s “mud”-bath really is. (I don’t know why I’m “in” mud today. It’s a metaphor for suffering, being human—made of the same mud as all other humans.) Even when I don’t “like” my now, it really is perfect. Now, where’s my snorkel? I think I lost a shoe! Oh well. It’s perfectly placed for now. (Better?) (Yes!)

December 3 #48 Enjoy a Moment of Nothing

(Taking a moment…) This is the essence of Buddhism, for me. To sit and enjoy doing “nothing.” But, it’s not nothing—(I’m channeling my inner Pooh Bear)—it’s a very wonderful something. It’s sitting. It’s being. It’s breathing. It’s often mind wandering and coming back; then wandering off again. It’s learning to enjoy me, now, in this moment. Breathing and existing (being) in a mindful moment/experience of each now, as the moments pass. Enjoying nothing can allow all the moments of something a little more presence and mindful enjoyability, if I want.

December 7 #49 What is a Leaf?

Thây points out how everything, including me and you, is made from other things. A leaf is composed of so many things, and so many things were critical to the growth of a particular leaf. Life is interdependent. When some say, “We’re all in this together,” I believe this is a deeper meaning behind a rallying cry for some cause. We do all exist in the same world. We share the same air, the same soil, the same clouds, rain, etc. We’re all made of the same elements—reduced to base elements, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, etc. With so much sameness, how can I accept you as different from me? I do…

This is where I see the ego come in. Something tells me that I am special, unique, and unlike everyone and everything else; that there’s no connection whatsoever to anything or anyone else. Yet, if I take away all the parts of me (good or bad) that come from someone else or something else, “I” cease to exist entirely. Without you, there is no me: both in the realm of duality and, also, in the realm of inter-dependence. “I” also can’t continue to exist (survive) without “you.” Too often I attempt to behave as if I am all that is. I think that it is only when I embrace otherness (or others) that I truly begin to live. This is not easy. It requires compassion for weaknesses, mine too. It requires seeing “other” as same—not different or separate from.

Here on paper it is so easy to lay out, contemplate and visualize. In the realm of action/reaction (reality?)—ego, fear, duality, separateness—disconnect happens. I become guarded from you, forgetting how much I need each and every other “you” out there, so “I” can survive too. That’s my journey: finding my way to compassion, vulnerability and interdependence (not co-dependence…).

December 10 #51 Subtle Gestures

I find myself slowing down while reading and snacking—mindlessly. Yet, as I read, and felt my breath I un-deliberately (un-intentionally) slowed down and savored my moments… The sensations aren’t profound, but noticing them seems slightly so. That’s kinda neat; catching all the subtleties, flavor, muscles working, crunching, tasting, breathing, hearing…and then…like that *! (snap) It’s all over. I often find that life’s “best” moments come from those subtle gestures, and they’re often done without guile or deliberateness—they have intent of kindness, but it is a life state not as much as an effort to set out to do a kind act. Words fail to describe ideas fully, the thought carries on all the same.

December 16 #54 Rites of Life

….I have experienced a few of those key moments—ones where flow happened, or where I was perfectly attuned (although I do not recall them, due to lacking focused awareness.) I imagine that by having awareness I could experience the moments completely as they exist in time—maybe learn a lesson of life from the moment, create a deep etched memory, or simply exist in the perfection of that moment, watching as it passes to the next perfect moment—maybe even departing from “time.”

Is life a string of moments haphazardly strung together with no rhyme or reasoning? Can there be more than that, accessed by simply being mindful and aware? I don’t think it needs to be a BIG production, or some fantastic event(s). I like the idea of simple awareness, exercised through each moment—not just on the cushion….

—Michel Deforge
*

#314 Melt the Ice of Knowledge

Often in my experience of living in prison there have been “rules” or “discriminating views” on this or that person. There is an atmospheric influence that enforces racial segregation and fuels hate amongst others. It’s follow the rules, or the road. (As of late, the Road is wide open and lovely. Join me?) Harboring one train of thought as truth, and not having an open heart and open mind, blurs the hidden beauty of truth in others—obstructed by societal upbringings, social media, and other major influences. Abandonment of views, or opinions, is an ice pick of relief, chipping away the cold ice of hate, oppression, single-mindedness, and when you can finally free yourself from the icy blur of lies and deceit, you will find that what you thought was truth was an obstacle holding you from seeing the beauty in the soul of everyone/everything. Having an open heart, open mind, and leaving the views you’ve been taught, you will learn so much, and be able to see life, and live life, with deeper meaning, and understanding.

I send all the Open Road/M & M family and the world Peace Love Happiness and Good Vibes. You all are beautiful and deserve the most!

Till next time

Jake Green
*

Phone Call to Ancient Times

Out on the lawn, under the aspen tree
where I can get good cell reception,
I took a call from Johnny, who began
telling about a friend in prison, in
the hole again for some infraction,
and I stood so still, listening, from
the blackberry thicket a rabbit
crept under the fence to nibble grass
at my feet, a lolloping fist of fur
with whiskers and little ears, with
an inquisitive tremble, amiable ghost
from the lost world we shared
when there was enough for all.

—Kim Stafford
*

I have some thoughts about the “perfect moments” Michel wrote about in his meditations on December 14th and 16th. He mentioned slowing down. I have found that when I’m preparing a meal, if, instead of doing it fast, I slow down, I get great pleasure from cutting the vegetables. This is true for eating the meal, doing the dishes—for any activity, even walking across the room.

Joseph Campbell and many others say that eternity is not a long time, it’s timelessness. We have all experienced countless perfect moments. We don’t remember most of them because they leave no trace. It’s not a problem. We don’t need to remember them. The next one is coming soon. Maybe this is it.

—Johnny Stallings
*

#361: Offering Flowers to the Buddha

This is about impermanence and how we should and should not view it. Impermanence is constant. Often viewed as negative, as decay and death, as loss, and T N Hanh tells us we should enjoy things in their present moment instead of bemoaning their impermanence.

Agreed. But I take it a step further. Impermanence is death in one sense, but also seeds of life in another. Let’s look at nature, my favorite example for everything.

Most people see spring as birth, rebirth, life, growth; summer as lushness, abundance, profusion, light, sun…life.

They tend to view fall as one of dying, decay, shutting down, going dark. And winter? Ah, the ultimate death: dark, cold, still…hibernation (from hibernus, Latin for wintry. And ‘hiver,’ French for winter, etc.)

But when fall comes, I feel most alive, alert, sharp, eager, ready to get-to-work. Nature agrees: bushy, brilliant trees shed their leaves exposing lean, bare, shining, black limbs, looking like they’ve pushed up their sleeves to get ready to work. Their lean or muscular trunks stand sturdily in agreement. And now, without all that busy foliage, we have views beyond, to the hills, the sky. Views ahead. And what lies ahead? More life! Bare limbs, branches, and twigs house and host hundred of birds, perching, hopping about, twittering, swooping down to fetch seeds, insects, worms… Worms! What’s going on in all those fallen leaves, anyway? Life, in the form of worms! Millions of dark red, wriggling creatures burrowing, chomping, aerating their way into and through piles of leaves. Creating mulch! And mulch = life! My garden loves that decayed, death-like stuff. It eats it up! It brings me the biggest, leafiest, fattest, brightest vegetables you can imagine.

What else is happening when all the extravagance of spring and summer is gone? I’ll tell you what: Fungi, that’s what!

Whoa, that creepy, sneaky dark stuff that smells funky and looks weird? You bet!

Mushrooms, lichens, molds, all sorts of fungi = Life! Look at bread, wine, beer, cheese. All created with the indispensable help of fungi. (And what’s pizza without mushrooms, anyway?) And look at penicillin and other antibiotics; ergot, or LSD; fungi chemicals that produce statins! Life savers!

Finally, is winter really death-like? Is it the end of life? Well, are we dead when we sleep each night? Of course not. A good night’s sleep is purely restorative, and a good winter is nothing less. Can you imagine never sleeping but just going full-bore 24/7? Day in/day out, year in/year out? You wouldn’t make it past day two or three. Seasons are nature’s parallel; fall and winter are rest and sleep, but always with restoration and life at the core.

And then we die. Is that the end of it all? Not on your life! I will be cremated and my daughter knows just which mountain wildflower meadow to scatter me in. I will be bone meal for the Avalanche lilies, the valerian, the paintbrush, and they will love me for the strength and life I’ve brought to them.

So (really) finally, all these things produced by the ostensible death of stuff are nothing less that LIFE for the world.

—Jude Russell (alive and well)
*

The Hsin Hsin Ming reminds me of the Dhammapada, a collection of poetry that summarizes early Buddhist teachings. I find the Dhammapada to be very inspirational.

Taking ownership for my biases, I do not understand the representation of Zen Buddhism as it appears in American culture. The Buddha gifted us with clear and concise instructions for training the mind, often referred to as the Noble Eightfold Path. Meditation, lifestyle changes, and challenging our beliefs about “how the world works.” If you read the Buddha’s sermons in a “thematically progressive” order, a very clear instruction manual emerges. Personally, I need that. I’ve never really had a mind for philosophy or theology. But American Zen really advocates this message of “do nothing.” Don’t meditate. Don’t make lifestyle changes. Don’t challenge your beliefs, because all beliefs are false. It is as though the Eightfold Path was completely cancelled out by Zen masters several hundreds of years ago. But I have a friend who ordained and studied at Venerable Thay’s Plum Village, that is a very rigorous study and meditation practice. And people who went to study Chan in China also report: “study and meditation.” I visited a traditional Japanese Zen monastery in Washington, and the monastics there lived and practiced in a very similar manner to the Ajahn Chah monasteries I am familiar with. So, my bias, my prejudice, is I don’t understand American Zen. Traditional Zen uses the same meditation “manual” as my Vipassana meditation practice, the Satipatthana Sutta, “The Four Bases of Mindfulness.” Venerable Thay [Thich Nhat Hanh] is an expert scholar of the Satipatthana Sutta in all of the ancient languages in which it was preserved, and I have a lot of respect for his teaching. End of the day, “their” practices are more similar than dissimilar to what I’m familiar with.

—Shad Alexander
*

Thank you Thich Nhat Hanh, Johnny Stallings
and your wonderful friends!

I am here
I see (or hear or touch) some thing
I know it
Yes (tiny smile) I am meditating
My knowing it
My seeing
and my being here
are somehow
related Yes (chuckle to myself) I am ok
somehow divisions
are eased
can I “feel”
how you also
are breathing
can I deeply
understand
that the
water from a
cloud
is my relation?
the light and gray
colors from
that cloud
come all the
way here
luminous here
can these hard
lines
these
seeming forever
walls
be continually
“eased” “understood”
“held” like a child
I am dissatisfied
crying inside like
a wailing child
or a crazy politician
can I remember
what I said
above
I am here
my fear my dissatisfaction
is here also
but I am holding (embracing) it
like my own mother
like my own niece
like my own beloved lover
I am not
killing my fear my dissatisfaction
my crying child
I am embracing them
breathing a long side
belly and fear
are not unrelated
are they?
Forever
smile
laugh (to yourself – don’t let them
know you are crazy)
I can even
start to
think of your
breathing your
thinking
your pain
as my relation
although these sentences are calming
can you
sit here
for a few seconds
or a short time
without reading
these sentences
just sit here
with the satisfaction
breathing
then with the dissatisfaction
breathing
the pain of the
world is also
yours
smile you are Good
continue forever
make up your
own writing your own
song of the open
let it in form us and
you
how to dance our
loving meditating

—Alan Benditt
(roughly November 14, 2020)

Bibliophiles Unanimous! A PLAY READING with Howard, Alan & Andy 1/17/21
2021-01-17 15:00 - 18:00
On Sunday, January 17, 2021, at 3 p.m., Bibliophiles Unanimous! will feature a SPECIAL EVENT: A PLAY READING with Howard Thoresen, Alan Benditt and Andy Larkin! I can’t say too much about it, but it’s going to be FUN! Here’s the Zoom link:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81054571039

DON’T MISS THIS!!!

peace, love & happiness
Johnny

peace, love, happiness & understanding 1/21/21
2021-01-18 - 2021-02-03
THE OPEN ROAD
peace, love, happiness & understanding

January 21, 2021

Martin Luther King was born on January 15, 1929. This year, Martin Luther King Day is celebrated on January 18th. He believed in the power of Love to change our world. Here is one of his sermons:

Loving Your Enemies
So I want to turn your attention to this subject: “Loving Your Enemies.” It’s so basic to me because it is a part of my basic philosophical and theological orientation: the whole idea of love, the whole philosophy of love. In the fifth chapter of the gospel as recorded by Saint Matthew, we read these very arresting words flowing from the lips of our Lord and Master: “Ye have heard that it has been said, ‘Thou shall love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy.’ But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you; that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven.”
Certainly these are great words, words lifted to cosmic proportions. And over the centuries, many persons have argued that this is an extremely difficult command. Many would go so far as to say that it just isn’t possible to move out into the actual practice of this glorious command. They would go on to say that this is just additional proof that Jesus was an impractical idealist who never quite came down to earth. So the arguments abound. But far from being an impractical idealist, Jesus has become the practical realist. The words of this text glitter in our eyes with a new urgency. Far from being the pious injunction of a utopian dreamer, this command is an absolute necessity for the survival of our civilization. Yes, it is love that will save our world and our civilization, love even for enemies.
Now let me hasten to say that Jesus was very serious when he gave this command; he wasn’t playing. He realized that it’s hard to love your enemies. He realized that it’s difficult to love those persons who seek to defeat you, those persons who say evil things about you. He realized that it was painfully hard, pressingly hard. But he wasn’t playing. And we cannot dismiss this passage as just another example of Oriental hyperbole, just a sort of exaggeration to get over the point. This is a basic philosophy of all that we hear coming from the lips of our Master. Because Jesus wasn’t playing; because he was serious. We have the Christian and moral responsibility to seek to discover the meaning of these words, and to discover how we can live out this command, and why we should live by this command.
Now first let us deal with this question, which is the practical question: How do you go about loving your enemies? I think the first thing is this: In order to love your enemies, you must begin by analyzing self. And I’m sure that seems strange to you, that I start out telling you this morning that you love your enemies by beginning with a look at self. It seems to me that that is the first and foremost way to come to an adequate discovery to the how of this situation.
Now, I’m aware of the fact that some people will not like you, not because of something you have done to them, but they just won’t like you. I’m quite aware of that. Some people aren’t going to like the way you walk; some people aren’t going to like the way you talk. Some people aren’t going to like you because you can do your job better than they can do theirs. Some people aren’t going to like you because other people like you, and because you’re popular, and because you’re well-liked, they aren’t going to like you. Some people aren’t going to like you because your hair is a little shorter than theirs or your hair is a little longer than theirs. Some people aren’t going to like you because your skin is a little brighter than theirs; and others aren’t going to like you because your skin is a little darker than theirs. So that some people aren’t going to like you. They’re going to dislike you, not because of something that you’ve done to them, but because of various jealous reactions and other reactions that are so prevalent in human nature.
But after looking at these things and admitting these things, we must face the fact that an individual might dislike us because of something that we’ve done deep down in the past, some personality attribute that we possess, something that we’ve done deep down in the past and we’ve forgotten about it; but it was that something that aroused the hate response within the individual. That is why I say, begin with yourself. There might be something within you that arouses the tragic hate response in the other individual.
This is true in our international struggle. We look at the struggle, the ideological struggle between communism on the one hand and democracy on the other, and we see the struggle between America and Russia. Now certainly, we can never give our allegiance to the Russian way of life, to the communistic way of life, because communism is based on an ethical relativism and a metaphysical materialism that no Christian can accept. When we look at the methods of communism, a philosophy where somehow the end justifies the means, we cannot accept that because we believe as Christians that the end is pre-existent in the means. But in spite of all of the weaknesses and evils inherent in communism, we must at the same time see the weaknesses and evils within democracy.
Democracy is the greatest form of government to my mind that man has ever conceived, but the weakness is that we have never touched it. Isn’t it true that we have often taken necessities from the masses to give luxuries to the classes? Isn’t it true that we have often in our democracy trampled over individuals and races with the iron feet of oppression? Isn’t it true that through our Western powers we have perpetuated colonialism and imperialism? And all of these things must be taken under consideration as we look at Russia. We must face the fact that the rhythmic beat of the deep rumblings of discontent from Asia and Africa is at bottom a revolt against the imperialism and colonialism perpetuated by Western civilization all these many years. The success of communism in the world today is due to the failure of democracy to live up to the noble ideals and principles inherent in its system.
And this is what Jesus means when he said: “How is it that you can see the mote in your brother’s eye and not see the beam in your own eye?” Or to put it in Moffatt’s translation: “How is it that you see the splinter in your brother’s eye and fail to see the plank in your own eye?”3 And this is one of the tragedies of human nature. So we begin to love our enemies and love those persons that hate us whether in collective life or individual life by looking at ourselves.
A second thing that an individual must do in seeking to love his enemy is to discover the element of good in his enemy, and every time you begin to hate that person and think of hating that person, realize that there is some good there and look at those good points which will over-balance the bad points.
I’ve said to you on many occasions that each of us is something of a schizophrenic personality. We’re split up and divided against ourselves. And there is something of a civil war going on within all of our lives. There is a recalcitrant South of our soul revolting against the North of our soul. And there is this continual struggle within the very structure of every individual life. There is something within all of us that causes us to cry out with Ovid, the Latin poet, “I see and approve the better things of life, but the evil things I do.” There is something within all of us that causes us to cry out with Plato that the human personality is like a charioteer with two headstrong horses, each wanting to go in different directions. There is something within each of us that causes us to cry out with Goethe, “There is enough stuff in me to make both a gentleman and a rogue.” There is something within each of us that causes us to cry out with Apostle Paul: “I see and approve the better things of life, but the evil things I do.”
So somehow the “isness” of our present nature is out of harmony with the eternal “oughtness” that forever confronts us. And this simply means this: That within the best of us, there is some evil, and within the worst of us, there is some good. When we come to see this, we take a different attitude toward individuals. The person who hates you most has some good in him; even the nation that hates you most has some good in it; even the race that hates you most has some good in it. And when you come to the point that you look in the face of every man and see deep down within him what religion calls “the image of God,” you begin to love him in spite of. No matter what he does, you see God’s image there. There is an element of goodness that he can never slough off. Discover the element of good in your enemy. And as you seek to hate him, find the center of goodness and place your attention there and you will take a new attitude.
Another way that you love your enemy is this: When the opportunity presents itself for you to defeat your enemy, that is the time which you must not do it. There will come a time, in many instances, when the person who hates you most, the person who has misused you most, the person who has gossiped about you most, the person who has spread false rumors about you most, there will come a time when you will have an opportunity to defeat that person. It might be in terms of a recommendation for a job; it might be in terms of helping that person to make some move in life. That’s the time you must do it. That is the meaning of love. In the final analysis, love is not this sentimental something that we talk about. It’s not merely an emotional something. Love is creative, understanding goodwill for all men. It is the refusal to defeat any individual. When you rise to the level of love, of its great beauty and power, you seek only to defeat evil systems. Individuals who happen to be caught up in that system, you love, but you seek to defeat the system.
The Greek language, as I’ve said so often before, is very powerful at this point. It comes to our aid beautifully in giving us the real meaning and depth of the whole philosophy of love. And I think it is quite apropos at this point, for you see the Greek language has three words for love, interestingly enough. It talks about love as eros. That’s one word for love. Eros is a sort of, aesthetic love. Plato talks about it a great deal in his Dialogues, a sort of yearning of the soul for the realm of the gods. And it’s come to us to be a sort of romantic love, though it’s a beautiful love. Everybody has experienced eros in all of its beauty when you find some individual that is attractive to you and that you pour out all of your like and your love on that individual. That is eros, you see, and it’s a powerful, beautiful love that is given to us through all of the beauty of literature; we read about it.
Then the Greek language talks about philia, and that’s another type of love that’s also beautiful. It is a sort of intimate affection between personal friends. And this is the type of love that you have for those persons that you’re friendly with, your intimate friends, or people that you call on the telephone and you go by to have dinner with, and your roommate in college and that type of thing. It’s a sort of reciprocal love. On this level, you like a person because that person likes you. You love on this level, because you are loved. You love on this level, because there’s something about the person you love that is likeable to you. This too is a beautiful love. You can communicate with a person; you have certain things in common; you like to do things together. This is philia.
The Greek language comes out with another word for love. It is the word agape, and agape is more than eros. Agape is more than philia. Agape is something of the understanding, creative, redemptive goodwill for all men. It is a love that seeks nothing in return. It is an overflowing love; it’s what theologians would call the love of God working in the lives of men. And when you rise to love on this level, you begin to love men, not because they are likeable, but because God loves them. You look at every man, and you love him because you know God loves him. And he might be the worst person you’ve ever seen.
And this is what Jesus means, I think, in this very passage when he says, “Love your enemy.” And it’s significant that he does not say, “Like your enemy.” Like is a sentimental something, an affectionate something. There are a lot of people that I find it difficult to like. I don’t like what they do to me. I don’t like what they say about me and other people. I don’t like their attitudes. I don’t like some of the things they’re doing. I don’t like them. But Jesus says love them. And love is greater than like. Love is understanding, redemptive goodwill for all men, so that you love everybody, because God loves them. You refuse to do anything that will defeat an individual, because you have agape in your soul. And here you come to the point that you love the individual who does the evil deed, while hating the deed that the person does. This is what Jesus means when he says, “Love your enemy.” This is the way to do it. When the opportunity presents itself when you can defeat your enemy, you must not do it.
Now for the few moments left, let us move from the practical how to the theoretical why. It’s not only necessary to know how to go about loving your enemies, but also to go down into the question of why we should love our enemies. I think the first reason that we should love our enemies, and I think this was at the very center of Jesus’ thinking, is this: that hate for hate only intensifies the existence of hate and evil in the universe. If I hit you and you hit me and I hit you back and you hit me back and go on, you see, that goes on ad infinitum. It just never ends. Somewhere somebody must have a little sense, and that’s the strong person. The strong person is the person who can cut off the chain of hate, the chain of evil. And that is the tragedy of hate, that it doesn’t cut it off. It only intensifies the existence of hate and evil in the universe. Somebody must have religion enough and morality enough to cut it off and inject within the very structure of the universe that strong and powerful element of love.
I think I mentioned before that sometime ago my brother and I were driving one evening to Chattanooga, Tennessee, from Atlanta. He was driving the car. And for some reason the drivers were very discourteous that night. They didn’t dim their lights; hardly any driver that passed by dimmed his lights. And I remember very vividly, my brother A. D. looked over and in a tone of anger said: “I know what I’m going to do. The next car that comes along here and refuses to dim the lights, I’m going to fail to dim mine and pour them on in all of their power.” And I looked at him right quick and said: “Oh no, don’t do that. There’d be too much light on this highway, and it will end up in mutual destruction for all. Somebody got to have some sense on this highway.”
Somebody must have sense enough to dim the lights, and that is the trouble, isn’t it? That as all of the civilizations of the world move up the highway of history, so many civilizations, having looked at other civilizations that refused to dim the lights, and they decided to refuse to dim theirs. And Toynbee tells that out of the twenty-two civilizations that have risen up, all but about seven have found themselves in the junkheap of destruction. It is because civilizations fail to have sense enough to dim the lights.8 And if somebody doesn’t have sense enough to turn on the dim and beautiful and powerful lights of love in this world, the whole of our civilization will be plunged into the abyss of destruction. And we will all end up destroyed because nobody had any sense on the highway of history. Somewhere somebody must have some sense. Men must see that force begets force, hate begets hate, toughness begets toughness. And it is all a descending spiral, ultimately ending in destruction for all and everybody. Somebody must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate and the chain of evil in the universe. And you do that by love.
There’s another reason why you should love your enemies, and that is because hate distorts the personality of the hater. We usually think of what hate does for the individual hated or the individuals hated or the groups hated. But it is even more tragic, it is even more ruinous and injurious to the individual who hates. You just begin hating somebody, and you will begin to do irrational things. You can’t see straight when you hate. You can’t walk straight when you hate. You can’t stand upright. Your vision is distorted. There is nothing more tragic than to see an individual whose heart is filled with hate. He comes to the point that he becomes a pathological case. For the person who hates, you can stand up and see a person and that person can be beautiful, and you will call them ugly. For the person who hates, the beautiful becomes ugly and the ugly becomes beautiful. For the person who hates, the good becomes bad and the bad becomes good. For the person who hates, the true becomes false and the false becomes true. That’s what hate does. You can’t see right. The symbol of objectivity is lost. Hate destroys the very structure of the personality of the hater. And this is why Jesus says hate [does damage to the self]… [Recording interrupted.]
…The way to be integrated with yourself, and the way to be integrated with yourself is be sure that you meet every situation of life with an abounding love. Never hate, because it ends up in tragic, neurotic responses. 9Psychologists and psychiatrists are telling us today that the more we hate, the more we develop guilt feelings and we begin to subconsciously repress or consciously suppress certain emotions, and they all stack up in our subconscious selves and make for tragic, neurotic responses. And may this not be the neuroses of many individuals as they confront life that that is an element of hate there. And modern psychology is calling on us now to love. But long before modern psychology came into being, the world’s greatest psychologist who walked around the hills of Galilee told us to love. He looked at men and said: “Love your enemies; don’t hate anybody.” It’s not enough for us to hate your friends because—to to love your friends—because when you start hating anybody, it destroys the very center of your creative response to life and the universe; so love everybody. Hate at any point is a cancer that gnaws away at the very vital center of your life and your existence. It is like eroding acid that eats away the best and the objective center of your life. So Jesus says love, because hate destroys the hater as well as the hated.
Now there is a final reason I think that Jesus says, “Love your enemies.” It is this: that love has within it a redemptive power. And there is a power there that eventually transforms individuals. That’s why Jesus says, “Love your enemies.” Because if you hate your enemies, you have no way to redeem and to transform your enemies. But if you love your enemies, you will discover that at the very root of love is the power of redemption. You just keep loving people and keep loving them, even though they’re mistreating you. Here’s the person who is a neighbor, and this person is doing something wrong to you and all of that. Just keep being friendly to that person. Keep loving them. Don’t do anything to embarrass them. Just keep loving them, and they can’t stand it too long. Oh, they react in many ways in the beginning. They react with bitterness because they’re mad because you love them like that. They react with guilt feelings, and sometimes they’ll hate you a little more at that transition period, but just keep loving them. And by the power of your love they will break down under the load. That’s love, you see. It is redemptive, and this is why Jesus says love. There’s something about love that builds up and is creative. There is something about hate that tears down and is destructive. So, love your enemies.
I think of one of the best examples of this. We all remember the great president of this United States, Abraham Lincoln—these United States rather. You remember when Abraham Lincoln was running for president of the United States, there was a man who ran all around the country talking about Lincoln. He said a lot of bad things about Lincoln, a lot of unkind things. And sometimes he would get to the point that he would even talk about his looks, saying, “You don’t want a tall, lanky, ignorant man like this as the president of the United States.” He went on and on and on and went around with that type of attitude and wrote about it. Finally, one day Abraham Lincoln was elected president of the United States. And if you read the great biography of Lincoln, if you read the great works about him, you will discover that as every president comes to the point, he came to the point of having to choose a Cabinet.10 And then came the time for him to choose a Secretary of War. He looked across the nation, and decided to choose a man by the name of Mr. Stanton. And when Abraham Lincoln stood around his advisors and mentioned this fact, they said to him: “Mr. Lincoln, are you a fool? Do you know what Mr. [Edwin M.] Stanton has been saying about you? Do you know what he has done, tried to do to you? Do you know that he has tried to defeat you on every hand? Do you know that, Mr. Lincoln? Did you read all of those derogatory statements that he made about you?” Abraham Lincoln stood before the advisors around him and said: “Oh yes, I know about it. I read about it. I’ve heard him myself. But after looking over the country, I find that he is the best man for the job.”
Mr. Stanton did become Secretary of War, and…later, Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. And if you go to Washington, you will discover that one of the greatest words or statements ever made by, about Abraham Lincoln was made about this man Stanton. And as Abraham Lincoln came to the end of his life, Stanton stood up and said: “Now he belongs to the ages.” And he made a beautiful statement concerning the character and the stature of this man. If Abraham Lincoln had hated Stanton, if Abraham Lincoln had answered everything Stanton said, Abraham Lincoln would have not transformed and redeemed Stanton. Stanton would have gone to his grave hating Lincoln, and Lincoln would have gone to his grave hating Stanton. But through the power of love Abraham Lincoln was able to redeem Stanton.
That’s it. There is a power in love that our world has not discovered yet. Jesus discovered it centuries ago. Mahatma Gandhi of India discovered it a few years ago, but most men and most women never discover it. For they believe in hitting for hitting; they believe in an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth; they believe in hating for hating; but Jesus comes to us and says, “This isn’t the way.”
And oh this morning, as I think of the fact that our world is in transition now. Our whole world is facing a revolution. Our nation is facing a revolution, our nation. One of the things that concerns me most is that in the midst of the revolution of the world and the midst of the revolution of this nation, that we will discover the meaning of Jesus’ words.
History unfortunately leaves some people oppressed and some people oppressors. And there are three ways that individuals who are oppressed can deal with their oppression. One of them is to rise up against their oppressors with physical violence and corroding hatred. But oh this isn’t the way. For the danger and the weakness of this method is its futility. Violence creates many more social problems than it solves. And I’ve said, in so many instances, that as the Negro, in particular, and colored peoples all over the world struggle for freedom, if they succumb to the temptation of using violence in their struggle, unborn generations will be the recipients of a long and desolate night of bitterness, and our chief legacy to the future will be an endless reign of meaningless chaos. Violence isn’t the way.
Another way is to acquiesce and to give in, to resign yourself to the oppression. Some people do that. They discover the difficulties of the wilderness moving into the promised land, and they would rather go back to the despots of Egypt because it’s difficult to get in the promised land. And so they resign themselves to the fate of oppression; they somehow acquiesce to this thing. But that too isn’t the way because non-cooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good.
But there is another way. And that is to organize mass non-violent resistance based on the principle of love. It seems to me that this is the only way as our eyes look to the future. As we look out across the years and across the generations, let us develop and move right here. We 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. Jesus discovered that.
Not only did Jesus discover it, even great military leaders discover that. One day as Napoleon came toward the end of his career and looked back across the years, the great Napoleon that at a very early age had all but conquered the world. He was not stopped until he became, till he moved out to the battle of Leipzig and then to Waterloo. But that same Napoleon one day stood back and looked across the years, and said: “Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and I have built great empires. But upon what did they depend? They depended upon force. But long ago Jesus started an empire that depended on love, and even to this day millions will die for him.”
Yes, I can see Jesus walking around the hills and the valleys of Palestine. And I can see him looking out at the Roman Empire with all of her fascinating and intricate military machinery. But in the midst of that, I can hear him saying: “I will not use this method. Neither will I hate the Roman Empire.” [Recording interrupted.]
And I’m proud to stand here in Dexter this morning and say that that army is still marching. It grew up from a group of eleven or twelve men to more than seven hundred million today. Because of the power and influence of the personality of this Christ, he was able to split history into A.D. and B.C. Because of his power, he was able to shake the hinges from the gates of the Roman Empire. And all around the world this morning, we can hear the glad echo of heaven ring:

Jesus shall reign wherever sun
Does his successive journeys run;
His kingdom spreads from shore to shore,
Till moon shall wane and wax no more.

We can hear another chorus singing: “All hail the power of Jesus name!”
We can hear another chorus singing: “Hallelujah, hallelujah! He’s King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Hallelujah, hallelujah!”

We can hear another choir singing:
In Christ there is no East or West.
In Him no North or South,
But one great Fellowship of Love
Throughout the whole wide world.

This is the only way.
And our civilization must discover that. Individuals must discover that as they deal with other individuals. There is a little tree planted on a little hill and on that tree hangs the most influential character that ever came in this world. But never feel that that tree is a meaningless drama that took place on the stages of history. Oh no, it is a telescope through which we look out into the long vista of eternity, and see the love of God breaking forth into time. It is an eternal reminder to a power-drunk generation that love is the only way. It is an eternal reminder to a generation depending on nuclear and atomic energy, a generation depending on physical violence, that love is the only creative, redemptive, transforming power in the universe.
So this morning, as I look into your eyes, and into the eyes of all of 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. We will be able to matriculate into the university of eternal life because we had the power to love our enemies, to bless those persons that cursed us, to even decide to be good to those persons who hated us, and we even prayed for those persons who despitefully used us.
Oh God, help us in our lives and in all of our attitudes, to work out this controlling force of love, this controlling power that can solve every problem that we confront in all areas. Oh, we talk about politics; we talk about the problems facing our atomic civilization. Grant that all men will come together and discover that as we solve the crisis and solve these problems—the international problems, the problems of atomic energy, the problems of nuclear energy, and yes, even the race problem—let us join together in a great fellowship of love and bow down at the feet of Jesus. Give us this strong determination. In the name and spirit of this Christ, we pray. Amen.

Sermon Delivered at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Montgomery, Alabama, November 17, 1957
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By some miracle, someone recorded this thrilling moment at the birth of the modern Civil Rights Movement, four days after the arrest of Rosa Parks. Here’s a link to an audio recording (with text) of King’s “Address to the First Montgomery Improvement Association Mass Meeting” at the Holt Street Baptist Church, on December 5, 1955:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGtp7kCi_LA&t=53s

And here’s a link to a video of the famous “I Have a Dream” speech, given in Washington D.C. on August 28, 1963:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smEqnnklfYs

peace, love & justice
Johnny

Bibliophiles Unanimous!: Identity & Mythos--The Stories We Tell Ourselves
2021-01-31 15:00 - 17:00
Don Quixote by Gustave Doré

On Sunday, January 31, at 3 pm (PST), the theme for our Bibliophiles Unanimous! Zoom gathering will be Identity & Mythos: The Stories We Tell Ourselves. Here’s the link:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81054571039

I’m using the word “identity” to refer to the stories we tell ourselves about who we are, and “mythos” to refer to the stories we tell ourselves about the world in which we live.
Where do our stories come from? How are we, individually and collectively, shaped by our stories? Can stories hurt us? Help us?
Lots to talk about!
I hope you’ll join the conversation!
peace & love
Johnny

Metropolitan Opera: Nightly Met Opera Streams
2021-02-01 - 2021-02-28
A new opera is shown every day, starting at 4:30 pm (PST). Each opera Met streams for 20 hours.
Here’s the link to the Metropolitan Opera.

peace, love, happiness & understanding 2/4/21
2021-02-04 - 2021-02-17
THE OPEN ROAD
peace, love, happiness & understanding

February 4, 2021

Two weeks ago, at the Presidential Inauguration, Amanda Gorman, America’s first Youth Poet Laureate recited her poem “The Hill We Climb.” (Read it aloud.):

The Hill We Climb

Mr. President, Dr. Biden, Madam Vice President, Mr. Emhoff, Americans and the world:

When day comes we ask ourselves where can we find light in this never-ending shade? The loss we carry a sea we must wade. We’ve braved the belly of the beast. We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace. In the norms and notions of what just is isn’t always justice. And yet, the dawn is ours before we knew it. Somehow we do it. Somehow we’ve weathered and witnessed a nation that isn’t broken, but simply unfinished. We, the successors of a country and a time where a skinny black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother can dream of becoming president only to find herself reciting for one.

And yes, we are far from polished, far from pristine, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t striving to form a union that is perfect. We are striving to forge our union with purpose. To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters, and conditions of man. And so we lift our gazes not to what stands between us, but what stands before us. We close the divide because we know to put our future first, we must first put our differences aside. We lay down our arms so we can reach out our arms to one another. We seek harm to none and harmony for all. Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true. That even as we grieved, we grew. That even as we hurt, we hoped. That even as we tired, we tried that we’ll forever be tied together victorious. Not because we will never again know defeat, but because we will never again sow division.

Scripture tells us to envision that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree and no one shall make them afraid. If we’re to live up to our own time, then victory won’t lie in the blade, but in all the bridges we’ve made. That is the promise to glade, the hill we climb if only we dare. It’s because being American is more than a pride we inherit. It’s the past we step into and how we repair it. We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation rather than share it. Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy. And this effort very nearly succeeded.

But while democracy can be periodically delayed, it can never be permanently defeated. In this truth, in this faith we trust for while we have our eyes on the future, history has its eyes on us. This is the era of just redemption. We feared it at its inception. We did not feel prepared to be the heirs of such a terrifying hour, but within it, we found the power to author a new chapter, to offer hope and laughter to ourselves so while once we asked, how could we possibly prevail over catastrophe? Now we assert, how could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?

We will not march back to what was, but move to what shall be a country that is bruised, but whole, benevolent, but bold, fierce, and free. We will not be turned around or interrupted by intimidation because we know our inaction and inertia will be the inheritance of the next generation. Our blunders become their burdens. But one thing is certain, if we merge mercy with might and might with right, then love becomes our legacy and change our children’s birthright.

So let us leave behind a country better than one we were left with. Every breath from my bronze-pounded chest we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one. We will rise from the gold-limbed hills of the West. We will rise from the wind-swept Northeast where our forefathers first realized revolution. We will rise from the Lake Rim cities of the Midwestern states. We will rise from the sun-baked South. We will rebuild, reconcile and recover in every known nook of our nation, in every corner called our country our people diverse and beautiful will emerge battered and beautiful. When day comes, we step out of the shade aflame and unafraid. The new dawn blooms as we free it. For there is always light. If only we’re brave enough to see it. If only we’re brave enough to be it.

—Amanda Gorman January 20, 2021

Here’s a link to a video of her reciting the poem:

https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/politics/100000007561374/poet-amanda-gorman-inauguration.html?searchResultPosition=1
*

Prabu sent me his thoughts on Tolstoy’s last novel, Resurrection.:

Tolstoy’s final novel opens in a courtroom, where Dmitri Nekhlyudov, a landowning aristocrat, called onto jury service, finds out that Katusha, his teenage love, is among the three accused of a murder and theft. Katusha used to be a maid at his aunt’s estate when Nekhlyudov first met her. They fell in love and she eventually became pregnant with his child.

In 19th century Russia, it was not uncommon for an aristocrat to impregnate a maid. Tolstoy himself had a similar affair with one of his household servants before his marriage. Nekhlyudov doesn’t feel any moral obligation for Katusha or the child. He moves forward with his aristocratic life—becomes a soldier, returns to the civil society, drinks, has affairs with married women, and courts a young princess for marriage.

Katusha’s journey, however, takes a different turn. Who wants a pregnant maid in the staff quarters, after all? She gets kicked out of her job in the estate. She finds several jobs, but repeatedly gets molested at work. She gives birth to a son and leaves him in a orphanage. Circumstances get her into prostitution. She accepts her condition and gets a legal permit from the government. One day a wealthy client of hers, who torments her for a whole evening, gets killed in the hotel room. She is accused of the murder and ends up in the courtroom. She even gets wrongly convicted and sentenced to hard labor in Siberia, due to some petty negligence of the men on the jury and the judge.

For Nekhlyudov, the truth that his actions lead to Katusha’s ill fate starts to sink in. His Christian conscience seeks pardon for his sins. He immediately approaches a lawyer and appeals for a hearing of her case in the Senate. He also decides to marry her, if she consents.

Has Nekhlyudov turned into a moral human? Where was this conscience all these years? Why was he able to go on living without thinking about the consequences of his actions? These aren’t my questions. Tolstoy’s protagonist questions himself along these lines. The answer, as Nekhlyudov and Tolstoy would discover, is somewhere hidden in the values of landowning in feudal Russian society.

Nekhlyudov’s abandonment of love for the pursuit of pleasure and status was the injustice which occurred in the spiritual realm. In the worldly realm, the feudalistic idea of treating land and earth simply as a property that certain privileged humans can own and control at the expense of other humans, like farmers and peasants, is the underlying crime. In the novel Nekhlyudov realizes this and seeks remedies for it by distributing most of his estates to the peasants and keeping only what is essential to support a simple life for himself.

The Senate rejects Katusha’s case and she, along with other prisoners, begins walking on the 3000 mile journey to Siberia. He writes to the Tsar, explaining the jury’s mistake in her case, and decides to follow her to Siberia. Through his interaction with some of the other prisoners, he discovers that there are several innocent people among them. He tries to help them by all possible means, but often comes up against the power and wealth of his old aristocratic way of living. At times it even allures him to retreat into it. His conscience resists. He can seek cure for his own past mistakes, but how much can he change the injustices in society? Would his well-intended actions lead to any fruitful results? What is one to do with evildoers, like those who murder someone?

Tolstoy concludes by reflecting on the centuries old practice of punishing criminals:

“For many centuries people who were considered criminals have been tortured. Well, and have they ceased to exist? No; their numbers have been increased not alone by the criminals corrupted by punishment but also by those lawful criminals, the judges, procureurs, magistrates and jailers, who judge and punish men. Nekhlyudov now understood that society and order in general exists not because of these lawful criminals who judge and punish others, but because in spite of men being thus depraved, they still pity and love one another.

Doesn’t the Gospel tell the same in the Sermon on the Mount?—that man should not only not demand an eye for an eye, but when struck on one cheek should hold out the other, should forgive an offence and bear it humbly, and never refuse the service others demand of him.”

Like Nekhlyudov, I also lay silent in my bed on this rainy night, waiting for the first light of dawn to touch my window and imagining a society where these principles were carried out in practice. Only a century has passed between us.

—Prabu Muruganantham
*

The conclusion of Prabu’s essay reminds me of William Blake’s words:

Love to faults is always blind,
Alwasy is to joy inclin’d,
Lawless, wing’d & unconfin’d,
And breaks all chains from every mind.
*

May all people be happy.
May we live in love.
—Johnny

Bibliophiles Unanimous! Valentine's Day Special: LOVE POEMS
2021-02-14 - 2021-02-27
Paolo and Francesca by Anselm Feuerbach

Valentine’s Day Special! LOVE POEMS.

We read love poems. Joining our merry band of lovers were Jude Russell, Martha Ragland, Nancy Scharbach, Jeffrey Sher, Dave Duncan, Ken Margolis and Johnny Stallings. Katie Radditz couldn’t come, but she sent some poems. Jeffrey got the ball rolling with a poem by Theodore Roethke, and later added one by William Carlos Williams:

I Knew a Woman

I knew a woman, lovely in her bones,
When small birds sighed, she would sigh back at them;
Ah, when she moved, she moved more ways than one:
The shapes a bright container can contain!
Of her choice virtues only gods should speak,
Or English poets who grew up on Greek
(I’d have them sing in chorus, cheek to cheek).

How well her wishes went! She stroked my chin,
She taught me Turn, and Counter-turn, and Stand;
She taught me Touch, that undulant white skin;
I nibbled meekly from her proffered hand;
She was the sickle; I, poor I, the rake,
Coming behind her for her pretty sake
(But what prodigious mowing we did make).

Love likes a gander, and adores a goose:
Her full lips pursed, the errant note to seize;
She played it quick, she played it light and loose;
My eyes, they dazzled at her flowing knees;
Her several parts could keep a pure repose,
Or one hip quiver with a mobile nose
(She moved in circles, and those circles moved).

Let seed be grass, and grass turn into hay:
I’m martyr to a motion not my own;
What’s freedom for? To know eternity.
I swear she cast a shadow white as stone.
But who would count eternity in days?
These old bones live to learn her wanton ways:
(I measure time by how a body sways).

–Theodore Roethke

Here’s Theodore Roethke reading the poem:

*
This Is Just To Say

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the ice box

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

–William Carlos Williams
*
Jude played Offenbach’s Barcarolle for us, sung by Anna Netrebko & Elīna Garanča, from Tales of Hoffmann:

*
Dave read “Re-Statement of Romance” by Wallace Stevens:

Re-Statement of Romance

The night knows nothing of the chants of night.
It is what it is as I am what I am:
And in perceiving this I best perceive myself

And you. Only we two may interchange
Each in the other what each has to give.
Only we two are one, not you and night,

Nor night and I, but you and I, alone,
So much alone, so deeply by ourselves,
So far beyond the casual solitudes,

That night is only the background of our selves,
Supremely true each to its separate self,
In the pale light that each upon the other
throws.

–Wallace Stevens
*
Martha read “Wish in a War Zone” by Amy Gerstler, from Bitter Angel, published in 1990, and “The Shirt” by Jane Kenyon:

Wish in a War Zone

Somewhere under the weather
snores our drugged hero:
a gladiator or astronaut,
lying in a fringed hammock
in his mother’s garden,
waiting to be wakened
and loosed upon the world.
Quick, into my arms before
the next tremor hits.
Just beneath these monsoons,
an aurora borealis trembles.
Tucked into its luminous
gunbelt, a change of luck,
an abrupt windfall tunes up,
just for us. Soon,
instead of zinging bullets
we’ll find ourselves drenched
in concertos. I have no
authority to comfort
you, though I try.
If all this is to vanish,
If you and I are lost,
set loose, wounded,
to wander among uncomplaining
trees, fingering their lightly
haired, sticky little leaves,
then hand me my camera.
I must take pictures.

–Amy Gerstler
*
The Shirt

The shirt touches his neck
and smooths over his back.
It slides down his sides.
It even goes down below his belt—
down into his pants.
Lucky shirt.

—Jane Kenyon
*
Ken read a section of a poem by Bertolt Brecht.
*
Katie sent these poems:

Come to the orchard in Spring.
There is light and wine, and sweethearts
in the pomegranate flowers.

If you do not come, these do not matter.
If you do come, these do not matter.

–Rumi
*

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

—e. e. cummings
*
I Loved You Before I Was Born
I loved you before I was born.
It doesn’t make sense, I know.
I saw your eyes before I had eyes to see.
And I’ve lived longing
for your ever look ever since.
That longing entered time as this body.
And the longing grew as this body waxed.
And the longing grows as the body wanes.
The longing will outlive this body.
I loved you before I was born.
It doesn’t make sense, I know.
Long before eternity, I caught a glimpse
of your neck and shoulders, your ankles and toes.
And I’ve been lonely for you from that instant.
That loneliness appeared on earth as this body.
And my share of time has been nothing
but your name outrunning my ever saying it clearly.
Your face fleeing my ever
kissing it firmly once on the mouth.
In longing, I am most myself, rapt,
my lamp mortal, my light
hidden and singing.
I give you my blank heart.
Please write on it
what you wish.

–Li-Young Lee
*

What We’re Doing Here

This is why we are here—
not merely to survive
but to fall in love
with the white-breasted hawk
and the rainbow fish,
with the lonely sidewalk
and the shadows of ourselves,
fall in love with the hands
of the woman wearing yellow
and the girl who loves chocolate
and the boy who loves cars
and the man who makes us want to be
a better version of ourself.

We are here to fall into unmanageable love—
to love beyond reason, beyond
fact, beyond certainty. We are here
to lose all our ideas about love
and know it as the next choice
we make, the next word
we say, the next invitation
we offer ourselves.

We are here to love
the world and each other
the way whales love water,
the way blue loves a peacock,
the way night blooming jasmine
loves night.

—Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
*

I read “The Sun Rising” and the last part of “To His Mistress Going to Bed” by John Donne. And “We Two, How Long We Were Fool’d” by Walt Whitman. And this gem from William Blake:

Love to faults is always blind,
Always is to joy inclin’d,
Lawless, wing’d & unconfin’d,
And breaks all chains from every mind.

—William Blake
*
And my own poem, “wake up, heart!”:

wake up, heart!

wake up, heart!
wake up and love everyone and every thing
love the unlovable
the unhappy old men who start the wars
the geniuses who collapse the economy
the heads of the big corporations who ruin the earth
they need love, too
why else would they do stuff like that?

we all want to love and be loved
we all need to love and be loved
love everything that moves
and everything that won’t budge
love the person who is reading or listening to this poem

you might start with the easy ones
passing dogs
laughing children
fluffy white clouds
all the spring flowers shouting “love me!”
practice on the easy ones
until you get so good at it that you accidentally love the weird and scary homeless people,
the criminals,
the people whose views differ from yours
—before you have time to think about it

heart, you were born for love
mr. brain sometimes tells you not to
“don’t love that one,” he says, “that one doesn’t deserve it”
“don’t be a fool”
forgive mr. brain
he can’t help it
he’s always making distinctions between this and that
he needs a hug

you know better
you know that the thing to do is just to love
to wake up and love without limit

–Johnny Stallings

At the end I talked a bit about Romeo and Juliet. When they first meet, these two amazing young lovers spontaneously compose a sonnet–a sure sign that they are well-matched:

ROMEO
If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this:
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.
JULIET
Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
For saints have hands that pilgrims’ hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss.
ROMEO
Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?
JULIET
Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.
ROMEO
O then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do–
They pray; grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.
JULIET
Saints do not move, though grant for prayers’ sake.
ROMEO
Then move not while my prayer’s effect I take.
[He kisses her.]
Thus from my lips, by thine, my sin is purged.
JULIET
Then have my lips the sin that they have took.
ROMEO
Sin from my lips? O trespass sweetly urged!
Give me my sin again.
[She kisses him.]
JULIET
You kiss by th’ book.

And…Juliet’s love is absolute:

JULIET
My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep. The more I give to thee,
The more I have for both are infinite.

–William Shakespeare

Well, that’s it for now.

May we live in love.
Johnny

Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue 2/15/21
2021-02-15 - 2021-03-14
photo by Kim Stafford

Open Road Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue

I find it interesting how my mind works.
—Michel Deforge

February 15, 2020

Welcome to our sixth meditation and mindfulness dialogue! The numbers below refer to passages from the book Your True Home by Thich Nhat Hanh. The tag on my Yogi Tea bag says: “Compassion will make you beautiful.” (JS)
*

Hey guys, I hope you enjoy this M & M submission.
You are all great & I hope you’re well.
I’m looking forward to reading your submissions.

#95 What Is Your True Face?

An answer from the face of ages.

What was my face you’ve queried, and although I know what it is, I can’t say it ever was.
Change… As far as I can tell my face has never changed.
Only the great multitude of masks I don in a moment’s notice can be defined as change, and only then in a second’s split.
Underneath my face remains the same, frozen, pursed in the seeker’s scowl as it journeys through the ages.
What was my face?
My face always is, and in always being never was, for the pulse of life is too strong to resist, & the change of masks a familiar constant.
Remember, how could I forget?
I still remember them all, whether gilded, plain, or in between, I still remember.
Maybe it’s time for a change…

—Joshua Tyler Barnes
*

I’m 25 wisdoms into Your True Home, and so far what has occupied my thinking most is the apparent (to my novice understanding) conflict for an artist (specifically writers) trying to practice mindfulness and meditation. My struggle with meditation is that I start to have good ideas! Then, I don’t want to forget them, so I either A) begin ruining the meditation by trying not to forget the good idea, or B) stop meditating so I can write down the good idea before I forget it. Also, as a writer, I am always applying words & labels & categories to everything I see, thereby denying the essential emptiness of everything, which my heart & mind both know to be true. But there is an everpresent pull, a wish, to exist without the endless desire to write about, catalog, chronicle the act of existence. This isn’t a unique torment. It’s actually something a lot of writers write about, especially poets: “I throw my quill into the sea, and burn my parchments,” etc. There’s an excellent little monograph by Ben Lerner called “The Hatred of Poetry” that I recommend you read. In it, he talks about this strange inclination, as evidenced in the renunciations of writing by legends such as Rimbaud & Oppen.

—Alex Tretbar
*

Not Thinking While Writing

Before I write in the early morning, I sit in the dark for a time, breathing, resisting thought but welcoming wondering, sensation, and the simple ache of being that is more primordial than regret or fear, the pleasure of some hunger, some cold. I’m in the shed, after all, in my chair with the strips of rug on the runners because it once lived in the fire station, where the card players did not want to disturb the sleepers.

When I write, do I want to disturb the sleepers? No, I want to sidle into their dreams and tell them how beautiful they are, give them wishes, provide them with stories of simple triumph that hurts no one, so when they wake, life will be a little easier. So we all may be more curious than afraid.

In 1913, the Russian futurist poet Aleksei Kruchenykh created the word zaum, which means ‘beyond or behind the mind.’ He sought an experimental poetic language characterized by indeterminacy: ‘beyonsense.’

The geese are shouting as they fly north
so they will not be encumbered by all those
extra syllables, can concentrate on the magnetic
tug toward the far beyond.

The river leaves its shouting in the mountains
so in the valley it can depend on wink and whisper
to convey its learning, its salmon home scent
for anyone alert enough to notice.

Shall I throw my pen into the sea? Shall I take
a vow of silence in order to be worthy of this
existence? How many trees did my poems have to
kill, anyway, to gather these pages? Just enough.

I plant seeds of silence, syllable by syllable.
My greatest gift for you is the space between words
where my code tells the secrets of our oldest kinship,
and all my love in the silence after the last breath.

—Kim Stafford
*

Kim also sent this poem by Chuang Tzu, along with a writing prompt:

The Woodcarver

Khing, the master carver, made a bell stand
Of precious wood. When it was finished,
All who saw it were astounded. They said it must be
The work of spirits.
The Prince of Lu said to the master carver:
What is your secret?

Khing replied: I am only a workman:
I have no secret. There is only this:
When I began to think about
the work you commanded
I guarded my spirit, did not expend it
On trifles, that were not to the point.
I fasted in order to set
My heart at rest.
After three days fasting,
I had forgotten gain and success.
After five days
I had forgotten praise or criticism.
After seven days I had forgotten my body
With all its limbs.

By this time all thought of your Highness
And of the court had faded away.
All that might distract me from the work
Had vanished.
I was collected in the single thought
Of the bell stand.

Then I went to the forest
To see the trees in their own natural state.
When the right tree appeared before my eyes,
The bell stand also appeared in it, clearly,
beyond doubt.
All I had to do was to put forth my hand
and begin.

If I had not met this particular tree
There would have been
No bell stand at all.

What happened?
My own collected thought
Encountered the hidden potential in the wood;
From this live encounter came the work
Which you ascribe to the spirits.

—Chuang Tzu (translated by Thomas Merton)

Chuang Tzu, or Zhuang Zhou, or Zhaungzi…was an influential Chinese philosopher who lived around the 4th century B.C., during the Warring States period, a time corresponding to the summit of Chinese philosophy, the Hundred Schools of Thought. He is credited with writing…one of the foundational texts of Taoism… He is described as a minor official from the town of Meng, in the state of Song. (Wikipedia)

Writing prompt: Tell the story of something you did purely for beauty, for essence, in response to a call that reached your heart…
*

(Some excerpts from Michel’s meditation journal:)

January 24, 2021

#69 Suddenly You Are Free

It may happen like that—suddenly. Two days ago, I was uprooted and moved from my place of comfort and peace (complacency?), to a new unit. I tested positive for COVID-19 on 1/14. The DOC response was to take all positives and cohort us in one unit. There was little communication and much chaos and anxiety for all affected staff. Many of my fellow prisoners are also stressed out beyond their limits, or at the very fringe of their coping. I too was initially anxious. Because I was the only one leaving my unit and I didn’t know where I was moving or why. As soon as I learned it was not a move to the DSU/“Med” iso wing and that the goal was a conversion of a regular incentive unit into a COVID isloation/quarantine unit, I was able to release my tensions. I hate moving!….

Yet, somehow, amidst all the chaos, my stress settled quickly and I stumbled across peace, acceptance and understanding—suddenly. I’m no great success with mindfulness and meditation. But, sometimes it works!

In some ways, I see the truth of Thây’s thought in the experience, and in some ways I wonder if he is speaking of a more deliberate and permanent result of all the work—suddenly finding freedom after looking for so many years. I do think that for something appearing suddenly, it can also disappear just as suddenly. If I relax into the appearance and don’t grasp it tightly, then, maybe, I won’t get hurt so much when it goes away just as suddenly.

January 25, 2021

#70 Miraculous Smile

Writing here, I am also looking at my first lines from January 1. So much has happened since then. Yet, it is still true. Life is really “perfect” just the way it happens—whether I “like” it or not is irrelevant. Today’s writing reminds me of how easy it can be to feel better. As Thây puts it, knowing (how) to breathe, we can find our peace and our smile. (I wonder if I really know how to breathe.) I have had times when finding my smile has helped someone else relax a little. I have read before that faking a genuine smile will cause a shift of hormones and thoughts, leading to having a genuine smile—I think it works. Whatever the case, I can stop…breathe…smile at myself (or what/whom ever)…and carry on with my day. It may or may not be a grand “miracle.” It will be a smile and a moment of breathing mindfully. It will be a break, no matter how brief, from whatever else is competing for my life’s energy. And, it is a moment I can control in a world of chaos.

9:00 pm Update:

Having been awoken for mail delivery…(normally, this would be grounds for great upset by any prisoner), I came to realize this poor fella (PM-swing CO) running this unit is having to keep up with a “COVID-POSITIVE” unit—with showers, phone calls, access to ice and water and whatever other services he must provide—like mail, meals, call-outs—alone… It is hard to not have compassion for anyone subjected to such work-conditions, (or, it’s relatively “easy,” especially since he has been positive and generally conciliatory in the performance of his duties). I find it interesting how my mind works. A staff person whom I don’t know, and with whom I haven’t had much contact, comes in, working alone, with a positive attitude, doing all he (or she) can to keep abreast of the daily duties, and is doing so in a manner which does not put any of that burden upon us prisoners—is one to applaud. It is easy to feel compassion, almost automatically, for this person. Random thoughts at 10 pm.

January 27, 2021

#71 Habit Energy

….I see this same pattern in my life—OLD HABIT energy holding me back or weighing me down. When I can, I let it go. Sometimes I need to go through a challenging learning process to do this. In the end I grow. Thây doesn’t teach a technique for letting go, but a gentle awakening to an awareness of exploration into the habit energy I do have—be it of my own creation, or inherited. Having come to an awareness, I then have a choice about what I do with that energy—keep, change, or Let Go. I have power.

January 28, 2021

#72 You Are Safe Now

This is not a phrase I hear here in prison often. Yet, it’s timely. I just had a cellie on a previous unit—(they’re bouncing the COVID POSITIVES – PRE/POST CLEARANCE all over)—who was told he was to move to an unknown cell with high probability of mortal danger. Through timely machinations by kind staff he was allowed to stay put—he’s safe. That same night I got word of my immanent reassignment. I am back “home” on Unit 13. I too am safe now. I wonder how often we fail to recognize this truth in our day-to-day ordinary lives. If I never hear this, or tell myself this, will I be able to recognize when a crisis is over and I am again safe? My guess is: no. I wonder how many of life’s challenges became traumas simply because I didn’t know I was now “safe.” And, maybe I never knew “safe” as part of my reality growing up, but, I can learn that now and maybe even offer this bit of help to another in saying, “You’re safe now.” (Mantra exercise, with breath.)

January 29, 2021

#73 The Anchor

Once again I am brought back and reminded that my breath is my connection to life. “Well, sure, silly! Of course it is. Everyone has to breathe to stay alive.” It is true. To live is to breathe. If I stop breathing, I stop living. It’s an unavoidable technicality. I am, however, looking through Thây’s lens. When I am disconnected from my breath and breathing, life just sort of happens without my conscious involvement—which is most often the case for me. I can’t say that anything mystical or magical happens if and when I’m alert to my breathing—connected. But, when stressed, if I focus on my breath and pray, (contemplate the Infinite, if you will), then I am calmed, eventually, and able to be more present and rational, or in control of much of my actions and words.

My breath becomes my “still point” (anchor), from which I can move out into the world around me, regardless of events (or chaos) within it.

January 30, 2021

#74 Caught in the Idea of a Self

This idea of no-self (integrating self and non-self) has been a focus of mine, off and on. I don’t know where it will lead me, or how far I am along a path to understanding or embracing such an idea. So far, I have learned (?) that we are all inter-related and not separate from any thing or anyone—even if our experience and sense of self-identity suggest otherwise….

What I do know matters is learning to connect fully to this “life.” I can only do this through breath, and intent. We’ve been calling this “mindfulness.” I think (it’s my guess, mind you) that the Buddha (and all his progeny), Jesus and others, are fundamentally striving to explain this very simple idea—living a complete, whole life, connected to reality as it is, not as ego manufactures it to be through stories to convince the self of it being a hero of its story. I’m probably off base on this… But, I’ll keep breathing to find out.

—Michel Deforge
*

#46 Deep Listening and Loving Speech

Deep listening and loving speech are wonderful instruments to help us arrive at the kind of understanding we all need as a basis for appropriate action. You listen deeply for only one purpose—to allow the other person to empty his or her heart. This is already an act of relieving suffering. To stop any suffering, no matter how small, is a great action of peace. The path to end suffering depends on your understanding and your capacity to act without causing harm or further suffering. This is acting with compassion, your best protection.

I wanted to write out TNH’s piece on this, because my thoughts follow his thought, but his are integral to mine. I keep trying to articulate what I mean when I say that relationships/understanding/connection are what give life meaning to me. But without going deeper, those words don’t mean much. Or else they mean too much!

Thich Nhat Hanh opens it up for me, with Deep Listening and Loving Speech. Before relationship, understanding and connection can happen, I must listen deeply, intently, slowly, and respond by speaking with love. My life is at its fullest, its richest, when I am listening so deeply to someone that they feel loved enough to open their heart. Listening to someone who is normally unheard, derided, discounted, debased—a prison inmate; an unwed, pregnant mom; a vet with PTSD; an angry teenager; a woman living on the edge in Meridian, Mississippi; an Hispanic worker trying to learn English…all those who are suffering in whichever myriad ways one suffers.

A corollary to deep listening and loving speech is—time. Deep listening and deep response that lead to understanding, relationship and connection requires years to achieve. I have always said I give everything ten years—ten years for my stepchildren to love me, my wisteria to bloom, my body to shed 5 pounds. I am patient. After ten years, I re-evaluate and might give it (whatever “it” is) another ten years. In relationships time is important. Trust doesn’t happen immediately. One who is suffering has built up sturdy walls of protection, and only time, deep listening and loving speech can build trust and break down walls. And when those walls come down, oh man! the richness that pours forth is a gift—the gift of life, and relief from suffering, the gift of peace and joy. All those things for both the person suffering and for me.

—Jude Russell
*

I once lived in a small cabin and wrote small poems. Here are some of them:

a bowl of oatmeal
and a cup of coffee
did you think heaven was up in the sky somewhere?

let go of thought
and see what happens

all these people walking around
imagining that the ideas in their heads
make them different from each other

sitting here
with a cup of green tea
I forget what it was
that I was so worried about

do you imagine
there is some other day?

the things we think we know
are the stones of the prison
in which we live

say “I am”
and leave it at that

when you see how simple it is to be happy
you’ll kick yourself
for spending so much time being miserable

what Reason has rent asunder
the Heart will make whole

everything I touch
touches me

—Johnny Stallings
*

Meditation, it seems to me, is like detox for the mind. Similar to the way our bodies need detoxing when we’ve indulged in too much for too long, our minds can become saturated with noise to the point where an intervention is required. The remedy is the same for both the body and the mind: let go of the indulgence. Quit drinking. Quit thinking. Keep still.

The uncluttered awareness of the meditative mind reconnects us with the elemental beauty of life. Clarity returns. The painful sense of isolation diminishes. How can we not feel gratitude for such an exquisite and accessible way to restore ourselves?

—Bill Faricy
*

#45 The Bridge

Breath is the bridge to life; in sleep or awake, we cross the bridge always. We also share and build bridges with others by breathing in their love, dreams, needs and respect. Breaths & Bridges are more than air.

—Rocky Hutchinson

peace, love, happiness & understanding 2/18/21
2021-02-18 - 2021-03-03
THE OPEN ROAD
peace, love, happiness & understanding

February 18, 2021

February 14th was Valentine’s Day. Our Bibliophiles Unanimous Zoom gathering celebrated by reading love poems. Here are some of the poems we shared and some we didn’t. But first, some wisdom from the tag on my Yogi Tea bag, and then a story of young love:

You don’t need love, you are love.

—anonymous sage employed by the Yogi Tea Company
*

In fifth grade I developed this major crush on a sixth-grader named Wendy. She always had the prettiest face and the nicest smile; everybody thought so. So I started kissing rocks and throwing them at her.

—John, Connecticut, b. 1959, from Up To No Good: the rascally things boys do, edited by Kitty Harmon
*

Love to faults is always blind,
Always is to joy inclin’d,
Lawless, wing’d & unconfin’d,
And breaks all chains from every mind.

—William Blake (1757-1827)
*

THESEUS

Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,
Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
More than cool reason ever comprehends.
The lunatic, the lover, and the poet
Are of imagination all compact.
One sees more devils than vast hell can hold:
That is the madman. The lover, all as frantic,
Sees Helen’s beauty in a brow of Egypt.
The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven.
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen
Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.
Such tricks hath strong imagination,
That if it would but apprehend some joy,
It comprehends some bringer of that joy.
Or in the night, imagining some fear,
How easy is a bush supposed a bear?

—William Shakespeare (1564-1616), from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act V, scene i.
*

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

—e. e. cummings (1894-1962)
*

I Loved You Before I Was Born

I loved you before I was born.
It doesn’t make sense, I know. I saw your eyes before I had eyes to see.
And I’ve lived longing
for your ever look ever since.
That longing entered time as this body. And the longing grew as this body waxed.
And the longing grows as the body wanes.
The longing will outlive this body. I loved you before I was born.
It doesn’t make sense, I know. Long before eternity, I caught a glimpse
of your neck and shoulders, your ankles and toes.
And I’ve been lonely for you from that instant.
That loneliness appeared on earth as this body.
And my share of time has been nothing
but your name outrunning my ever saying it clearly.
Your face fleeing my ever
kissing it firmly once on the mouth. In longing, I am most myself, rapt,
my lamp mortal, my light
hidden and singing. I give you my blank heart.
Please write on it
what you wish.

—Li-Young Lee – 1957-
*

The Song of Wandering Aengus

I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire a-flame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And someone called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done,
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.

—William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)
*

This Is Just To Say

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the ice box

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

–William Carlos Williams (1883-1963)
*

What We’re Doing Here

This is why we are here—
not merely to survive
but to fall in love
with the white-breasted hawk
and the rainbow fish,
with the lonely sidewalk
and the shadows of ourselves,
fall in love with the hands
of the woman wearing yellow
and the girl who loves chocolate
and the boy who loves cars
and the man who makes us want to be
a better version of ourself.

We are here to fall into unmanageable love—
to love beyond reason, beyond
fact, beyond certainty. We are here
to lose all our ideas about love
and know it as the next choice
we make, the next word
we say, the next invitation
we offer ourselves.

We are here to love
the world and each other
the way whales love water,
the way blue loves a peacock,
the way night blooming jasmine
loves night.

–Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
*

I Knew a Woman

I knew a woman, lovely in her bones,
When small birds sighed, she would sigh back at them;
Ah, when she moved, she moved more ways than one:
The shapes a bright container can contain!
Of her choice virtues only gods should speak,
Or English poets who grew up on Greek
(I’d have them sing in chorus, cheek to cheek).

How well her wishes went! She stroked my chin,
She taught me Turn, and Counter-turn, and Stand;
She taught me Touch, that undulant white skin;
I nibbled meekly from her proffered hand;
She was the sickle; I, poor I, the rake,
Coming behind her for her pretty sake
(But what prodigious mowing we did make).

Love likes a gander, and adores a goose:
Her full lips pursed, the errant note to seize;
She played it quick, she played it light and loose;
My eyes, they dazzled at her flowing knees;
Her several parts could keep a pure repose,
Or one hip quiver with a mobile nose
(She moved in circles, and those circles moved).

Let seed be grass, and grass turn into hay:
I’m martyr to a motion not my own;
What’s freedom for? To know eternity.
I swear she cast a shadow white as stone.
But who would count eternity in days?
These old bones live to learn her wanton ways:
(I measure time by how a body sways).

–Theodore Roethke (1908-1963)
*
On Valentine’s Day, Jude Russell played Offenbach’s Barcarolle for us, sung by Anna Netrebko & Elīna Garanča, from Tales of Hoffmann. Here’s a link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0u0M4CMq7uI
*

VII

I don’t love you as if you were a rose of salt, topaz,
or an arrow of carnations that propagates fire:
I love you as certain dark things are loved,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that doesn’t bloom,
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love, a certain dense fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where;
I love you simply, without problems or pride:
I love you in this way because I don’t know any other way of loving

but this, where there is no I or you—
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that when I fall asleep, it is your eyes that close.

—Pablo Neruda (1904-1973), from One Hundred Love Sonnets
*

Re-Statement of Romance

The night knows nothing of the chants of night.
It is what it is as I am what I am:
And in perceiving this I best perceive myself

And you. Only we two may interchange
Each in the other what each has to give.
Only we two are one, not you and night,

Nor night and I, but you and I, alone,
So much alone, so deeply by ourselves,
So far beyond the casual solitudes,

That night is only the background of our selves,
Supremely true each to its separate self,
In the pale light that each upon the other
throws.

–Wallace Stevens (1879-1955)
*

We Two, How Long We Were Fool’d

We two, how long we were fool’d,
Now transmuted, we swiftly escape as Nature escapes,
We are Nature, long have we been absent, but now we return,
We become plants, trunks, foliage, roots, bark,
We are bedded in the ground, we are rocks,
We are oaks, we grow in the openings side by side,
We browse, we are two among the wild herds spontaneous as any,
We are two fishes swimming in the sea together,
We are what locust blossoms are, we drop scent around lanes mornings and evenings,
We are also the coarse smut of beasts, vegetables, minerals,
We are two predatory hawks, we soar above and look down,
We are two resplendent suns, we it is who balance ourselves orbic and stellar, we are as two comets,
We prowl fang’d and four-footed in the woods, we spring on prey,
We are two clouds forenoons and afternoons driving overhead,
We are seas mingling, we are two of those cheerful waves rolling over each other and interwetting each other,
We are what the atmosphere is, transparent, receptive, pervious, impervious,
We are snow, rain, cold, darkness, we are each product and influence of the globe,
We have circled and circled till we have arrived home again, we two,
We have voided all but freedom and all but our own joy.

—Walt Whitman (1819-1892)
*

When they first meet, these two amazing young lovers spontaneously compose a sonnet–a sure sign that they are well-matched:

ROMEO
If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this:
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.
JULIET
Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
For saints have hands that pilgrims’ hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss.
ROMEO
Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?
JULIET
Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.
ROMEO
O then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do–
They pray; grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.
JULIET
Saints do not move, though grant for prayers’ sake.
ROMEO
Then move not while my prayer’s effect I take.
[He kisses her.]
Thus from my lips, by thine, my sin is purged.
JULIET
Then have my lips the sin that they have took.
ROMEO
Sin from my lips? O trespass sweetly urged!
Give me my sin again.
[She kisses him.]
JULIET
You kiss by th’ book.

And…Juliet’s love is absolute:

JULIET
My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep. The more I give to thee,
The more I have for both are infinite.

–William Shakespeare (1564-1616), from Romeo and Juliet

Well, that’s it for now.

May we live in love.
Johnny

Bibliophiles Unanimous!: A Group Reading of the poem "FACTORY" by Antler 2/28/21
2021-02-28 15:00 - 18:00
Dear Bibliophiles!

We’re going to have a Group Reading of the poem “FACTORY” by Antler, on Sunday, February 28th at 3 pm. Here’s the link:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81054571039

This is an amazing poem! It can change the way you see and feel and understand our world. I first read an abridged version in the Winter 1979/80 Issue (No. 24) of the CoEvolution Quarterly. I got a copy of the complete poem from City Lights Books, which published it as a separate volume.

It’s a long poem. It’s progenitors include Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself,” the Chicago poems of Carl Sandburg, and Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl.” I have abridged it for this event.

Here’s something brief about the poet from Wikipedia:

Antler (born Brad Burdick); 1946 in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, is an American poet who lives in Wisconsin.
Among other honors, Antler received the Whitman Prize from the Walt Whitman Association, given to the poet “whose contribution best reveals the continuing presence of Walt Whitman in American poetry,” in 1985. Antler also was awarded the Witter Bynner prize in 1987. Antler was the poet laureate of the city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, for 2002 and 2003. He is also an advocate for wilderness protection.

Here are just a few passages from the poem to entice you to join us on the 28th:

The machines waited for me.
Waited for me to be born and grow young,
For the totempoles of my personality to be carved….

This is the hall big as a football field….
Machines large as locomotives,
louder than loudest rockgroup explosions…

From my work alone 280,000 lids each day….
14 million cans each day
from a single factory!….

How can I apologize to primeval shorelines cluttered with beercans?
Should I say I needed the money?
….Should I say I’m a spy behind enemy lines….?
Should I say here’s a free pass
to the antique beercan collector’s convention?….

I should be paid for wondering if I’m only a defect
in the mass-production of zombies!….
How much do I get for watching the sunrise?
How much do I get for sleeping under the stars?

Before I said—“I will never cringe under the crack
of the slavedriver’s whip!”
Now my job is to murder the oceans!
Now my job is to poison the air!
Now my job is to chop down every tree!….

….I should be paid to say everyone’s job is enlightenment!
I should be paid to run naked through the sprinkler
the hottest day of summer!
I should be paid to lie in a canoe
and drift over the lake all day!….

All I have to do is stand here
and package factories as they come from the press—
Factories that make cans.
Factories that make the machines that make cans.
Factories that make the machines that make the machines
that make cans.
Factories that make factories….

Factories that make cuckoo-clock canaries.
Industries of canned laughter, canned applause,
canned music.
Telephone factories, television factories,
radio, stereo, tape recorder factories,
refrigerator, stove and toilet factories.
Telescope factories, microscope factories,
film, camera, movie screen factories,
jukebox, roulette wheel and slot machine factories.
Industries of nuts! Industries of bolts!
Industries of bulldozers, roadgraders, steamshovels,
cement mixers, steamrollers, jackhammers,
pile drivers and wrecking cranes!….

Working your way up to foreman in the insecticide factory!
Working your way up to employment manager in the squirtgun factory!
Working your way up to the top in the pay toilet factory!

Well, that should give you a feeling for the poem. There’s much much more!

DON’T MISS THIS!!!

peace & love
Johnny

peace, love, happiness & understanding 3/4/21
2021-03-04 - 2021-03-17
THE OPEN ROAD
peace, love, happiness & understanding

March Forth! (2021)

The world is so full of a number of things.
I’m sure we should all be as happy as kings.

—“Happy Thought,” by Robert Louis Stevenson, from A Child’s Garden of Verses

Among the great works of imaginative literature, along with The Odyssey of Homer, Dante’s Divina Commedia, Cervantes’ Don Quixote, Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov, we must place Crockett Johnson’s Harold and the Purple Crayon. As a philosophical vision, it stands beside The Bhagavad Gita, Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave,” and Wittgenstein’s Logisch-philosophische Abhandlung. When we think of works of visual art to which we might compare it, several come to mind: “The Adoration of of the Mystic Lamb” by Hubert and Jan van Eyck (1432), “The Garden of Earthly Delights” by Hieronymus Bosch (1510), Michelangelo’s fresco on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (1512), “The Isenheim Altarpiece” by Nikolaus of Haguenau and Matthias Grünewald (1516), and perhaps Pablo Picasso’s “Guernica” (1937).

In Crockett Johnson’s masterpiece, young Harold, dressed in those kind of flannel pajamas into which you put your feet (“onesies”), sets out like Parsifal on an epic journey, armed only with a purple crayon. As he goes, he creates the world in which he lives. He makes a moon, so he will have moonlight to light his way. He terrifies himself with a monster from his own id. He falls into a sea of his own making, but saves himself from drowning by drawing a boat with his purple crayon and climbing into it. I’ll say no more of what befalls our youthful protagonist on his quest. Suffice it to say that, as in the archetypal Hero’s Journey, he returns home with a Treasure, and bestows it upon Humanity. The Treasure is of course the slender tome: Harold and the Purple Crayon.

Another Bold Young Explorer is Alice. We empathize with the indomitable Alice, who has adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, because we once shared her plight—the plight of the child trapped in a world of Bossy Adults, who are irrational and/or completely insane. Here’s an example of what she has to endure:

CHAPTER VII.
A Mad Tea-Party

There was a table set out under a tree in front of the house, and the March Hare and the Hatter were having tea at it: a Dormouse was sitting between them, fast asleep, and the other two were using it as a cushion, resting their elbows on it, and talking over its head. “Very uncomfortable for the Dormouse,” thought Alice; “only, as it’s asleep, I suppose it doesn’t mind.”
The table was a large one, but the three were all crowded together at one corner of it: “No room! No room!” they cried out when they saw Alice coming. “There’s plenty of room!” said Alice indignantly, and she sat down in a large arm-chair at one end of the table.
“Have some wine,” the March Hare said in an encouraging tone.
Alice looked all round the table, but there was nothing on it but tea. “I don’t see any wine,” she remarked.
“There isn’t any,” said the March Hare.
“Then it wasn’t very civil of you to offer it,” said Alice angrily.
“It wasn’t very civil of you to sit down without being invited,” said the March Hare.
“I didn’t know it was your table,” said Alice; “it’s laid for a great many more than three.”
“Your hair wants cutting,” said the Hatter. He had been looking at Alice for some time with great curiosity, and this was his first speech.
“You should learn not to make personal remarks,” Alice said with some severity; “it’s very rude.”
The Hatter opened his eyes very wide on hearing this; but all he said was, “Why is a raven like a writing-desk?”
“Come, we shall have some fun now!” thought Alice. “I’m glad they’ve begun asking riddles.—I believe I can guess that,” she added aloud.
“Do you mean that you think you can find out the answer to it?” said the March Hare.
“Exactly so,” said Alice.
“Then you should say what you mean,” the March Hare went on.
“I do,” Alice hastily replied; “at least—at least I mean what I say—that’s the same thing, you know.”
“Not the same thing a bit!” said the Hatter. “You might just as well say that ‘I see what I eat’ is the same thing as ‘I eat what I see’!”
“You might just as well say,” added the March Hare, “that ‘I like what I get’ is the same thing as ‘I get what I like’!”
“You might just as well say,” added the Dormouse, who seemed to be talking in his sleep, “that ‘I breathe when I sleep’ is the same thing as ‘I sleep when I breathe’!”
“It is the same thing with you,” said the Hatter, and here the conversation dropped, and the party sat silent for a minute, while Alice thought over all she could remember about ravens and writing-desks, which wasn’t much.
The Hatter was the first to break the silence. “What day of the month is it?” he said, turning to Alice: he had taken his watch out of his pocket, and was looking at it uneasily, shaking it every now and then, and holding it to his ear.
Alice considered a little, and then said “The fourth.”
“Two days wrong!” sighed the Hatter. “I told you butter wouldn’t suit the works!” he added looking angrily at the March Hare.
“It was the best butter,” the March Hare meekly replied.
“Yes, but some crumbs must have got in as well,” the Hatter grumbled: “you shouldn’t have put it in with the bread-knife.”
The March Hare took the watch and looked at it gloomily: then he dipped it into his cup of tea, and looked at it again: but he could think of nothing better to say than his first remark, “It was the best butter, you know.”
Alice had been looking over his shoulder with some curiosity. “What a funny watch!” she remarked. “It tells the day of the month, and doesn’t tell what o’clock it is!”
“Why should it?” muttered the Hatter. “Does your watch tell you what year it is?”
“Of course not,” Alice replied very readily: “but that’s because it stays the same year for such a long time together.”
“Which is just the case with mine,” said the Hatter.
Alice felt dreadfully puzzled. The Hatter’s remark seemed to have no sort of meaning in it, and yet it was certainly English. “I don’t quite understand you,” she said, as politely as she could.
“The Dormouse is asleep again,” said the Hatter, and he poured a little hot tea upon its nose.
The Dormouse shook its head impatiently, and said, without opening its eyes, “Of course, of course; just what I was going to remark myself.”
“Have you guessed the riddle yet?” the Hatter said, turning to Alice again.
“No, I give it up,” Alice replied: “what’s the answer?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea,” said the Hatter.
“Nor I,” said the March Hare.
Alice sighed wearily. “I think you might do something better with the time,” she said, “than waste it in asking riddles that have no answers.”
“If you knew Time as well as I do,” said the Hatter, “you wouldn’t talk about wasting it. It’s him.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” said Alice.
“Of course you don’t!” the Hatter said, tossing his head contemptuously. “I dare say you never even spoke to Time!”
“Perhaps not,” Alice cautiously replied: “but I know I have to beat time when I learn music.”
“Ah! that accounts for it,” said the Hatter. “He won’t stand beating. Now, if you only kept on good terms with him, he’d do almost anything you liked with the clock. For instance, suppose it were nine o’clock in the morning, just time to begin lessons: you’d only have to whisper a hint to Time, and round goes the clock in a twinkling! Half-past one, time for dinner!”
(“I only wish it was,” the March Hare said to itself in a whisper.)
“That would be grand, certainly,” said Alice thoughtfully: “but then—I shouldn’t be hungry for it, you know.”
“Not at first, perhaps,” said the Hatter: “but you could keep it to half-past one as long as you liked.”
“Is that the way you manage?” Alice asked.
The Hatter shook his head mournfully. “Not I!” he replied. “We quarrelled last March—just before he went mad, you know—” (pointing with his tea spoon at the March Hare,) “—it was at the great concert given by the Queen of Hearts, and I had to sing

‘Twinkle, twinkle, little bat!
How I wonder what you’re at!’

You know the song, perhaps?”
“I’ve heard something like it,” said Alice.
“It goes on, you know,” the Hatter continued, “in this way:—

‘Up above the world you fly,
Like a tea-tray in the sky.
Twinkle, twinkle—’”

Here the Dormouse shook itself, and began singing in its sleep “Twinkle, twinkle, twinkle, twinkle—” and went on so long that they had to pinch it to make it stop.
“Well, I’d hardly finished the first verse,” said the Hatter, “when the Queen jumped up and bawled out, ‘He’s murdering the time! Off with his head!’”
“How dreadfully savage!” exclaimed Alice.
“And ever since that,” the Hatter went on in a mournful tone, “he won’t do a thing I ask! It’s always six o’clock now.”
A bright idea came into Alice’s head. “Is that the reason so many tea-things are put out here?” she asked.
“Yes, that’s it,” said the Hatter with a sigh: “it’s always tea-time, and we’ve no time to wash the things between whiles.”
“Then you keep moving round, I suppose?” said Alice.
“Exactly so,” said the Hatter: “as the things get used up.”
“But what happens when you come to the beginning again?” Alice ventured to ask.
“Suppose we change the subject,” the March Hare interrupted, yawning. “I’m getting tired of this. I vote the young lady tells us a story.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know one,” said Alice, rather alarmed at the proposal.
“Then the Dormouse shall!” they both cried. “Wake up, Dormouse!” And they pinched it on both sides at once.
The Dormouse slowly opened his eyes. “I wasn’t asleep,” he said in a hoarse, feeble voice: “I heard every word you fellows were saying.”
“Tell us a story!” said the March Hare.
“Yes, please do!” pleaded Alice.
“And be quick about it,” added the Hatter, “or you’ll be asleep again before it’s done.”
“Once upon a time there were three little sisters,” the Dormouse began in a great hurry; “and their names were Elsie, Lacie, and Tillie; and they lived at the bottom of a well—”
“What did they live on?” said Alice, who always took a great interest in questions of eating and drinking.
“They lived on treacle,” said the Dormouse, after thinking a minute or two.
“They couldn’t have done that, you know,” Alice gently remarked; “they’d have been ill.”
“So they were,” said the Dormouse; “very ill.”
Alice tried to fancy to herself what such an extraordinary ways of living would be like, but it puzzled her too much, so she went on: “But why did they live at the bottom of a well?”
“Take some more tea,” the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly.
“I’ve had nothing yet,” Alice replied in an offended tone, “so I can’t take more.”
“You mean you can’t take less,” said the Hatter: “it’s very easy to take more than nothing.”
“Nobody asked your opinion,” said Alice.
“Who’s making personal remarks now?” the Hatter asked triumphantly.
Alice did not quite know what to say to this: so she helped herself to some tea and bread-and-butter, and then turned to the Dormouse, and repeated her question. “Why did they live at the bottom of a well?”
The Dormouse again took a minute or two to think about it, and then said, “It was a treacle-well.”
“There’s no such thing!” Alice was beginning very angrily, but the Hatter and the March Hare went “Sh! sh!” and the Dormouse sulkily remarked, “If you can’t be civil, you’d better finish the story for yourself.”
“No, please go on!” Alice said very humbly; “I won’t interrupt again. I dare say there may be one.”
“One, indeed!” said the Dormouse indignantly. However, he consented to go on “And so these three little sisters—they were learning to draw, you know—”
“What did they draw?” said Alice, quite forgetting her promise.
“Treacle,” said the Dormouse, without considering at all this time.
“I want a clean cup,” interrupted the Hatter: “let’s all move one place on.”
He moved on as he spoke, and the Dormouse followed him: the March Hare moved into the Dormouse’s place, and Alice rather unwillingly took the place of the March Hare. The Hatter was the only one who got any advantage from the change: and Alice was a good deal worse off than before, as the March Hare had just upset the milk-jug into his plate.
Alice did not wish to offend the Dormouse again, so she began very cautiously: “But I don’t understand. Where did they draw the treacle from?”
“You can draw water out of a water-well,” said the Hatter; “so I should think you could draw treacle out of a treacle-well—eh, stupid?”
“But they were in the well,” Alice said to the Dormouse, not choosing to notice this last remark.
“Of course they were,” said the Dormouse; “—well in.”
This answer so confused poor Alice, that she let the Dormouse go on for some time without interrupting it.
“They were learning to draw,” the Dormouse went on, yawning and rubbing its eyes, for it was getting very sleepy; “and they drew all manner of things—everything that begins with an M—”
“Why with an M?” said Alice.
“Why not?” said the March Hare.
Alice was silent.
The Dormouse had closed its eyes by this time, and was going off into a doze; but, on being pinched by the Hatter, it woke up again with a little shriek, and went on: “—that begins with an M, such as mouse-traps, and the moon, and memory, and muchness—you know you say things are “much of a muchness”—did you ever see such a thing as a drawing of a muchness?”
“Really, now you ask me,” said Alice, very much confused, “I don’t think—”
“Then you shouldn’t talk,” said the Hatter.
This piece of rudeness was more than Alice could bear: she got up in great disgust, and walked off; the Dormouse fell asleep instantly, and neither of the others took the least notice of her going, though she looked back once or twice, half hoping that they would call after her: the last time she saw them, they were trying to put the Dormouse into the teapot.
“At any rate I’ll never go there again!” said Alice as she picked her way through the wood. “It’s the stupidest tea-party I ever was at in all my life!”
Just as she said this, she noticed that one of the trees had a door leading right into it. “That’s very curious!” she thought. “But everything’s curious today. I think I may as well go in at once.” And in she went.
Once more she found herself in the long hall, and close to the little glass table. “Now, I’ll manage better this time,” she said to herself, and began by taking the little golden key, and unlocking the door that led into the garden. Then she went to work nibbling at the mushroom (she had kept a piece of it in her pocket) till she was about a foot high: then she walked down the little passage: and then—she found herself at last in the beautiful garden, among the bright flower-beds and the cool fountains.

Oh dear! I wanted to talk about some more books for children of all ages. Another day, perhaps. Stay tuned.

May all people be happy.
May we live in peace & love.

Johnny

Bibliophiles Unanimous!: Poems, Songs & Stories About Work 3/14/21
2021-03-14 - 2021-03-27
Greetings, O Bibliophiles!

On Sunday, March 14th, our topic was POEMS, SONGS & STORIES ABOUT WORK. Jeffrey Sher, Martha Ragland, Dave Duncan and Todd Oleson joined the conversation.

We talked about Antler’s poem “Factory,” which we read together on February 28th, and regaled each other with stories about jobs we’ve worked at. We talked about work that is fulfilling, and work that isn’t.

Todd Oleson read “After Apple Picking” by Robert Frost. Johnny read “The Right to Grief” by Carl Sandburg.

Meditation & Mindfulness 3/15/21
2021-03-15 - 2021-04-14
picture by Andy Larkin

Open Road Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue

March 15, 2021

A note on this picture:

A couple of years ago I began illustrating a South Indian book on meditation and mindfulness called “A Hundred Verses of Self-Instruction” by a 19th century yogi from South India named Narayana Guru. This picture shows Verse 16, which reads as follows:

A very vast wasteland suddenly
flooded by a river in spate – thus comes the sound
that fills the ears and opens the eyes of the one who is never distracted;
such should be the experience of the seer par excellence.

Everyone who meditates probably hears about some far-off experience called “enlightenment” that’s had only after years of heroic meditation sitting in a cave. When you read this verse, you might think that’s what’s being described, but I don’t think the author intended that. In a certain sense, there’s something in us that’s always focused, never distracted. It was working when you first opened your eyes this morning and looked out on your world. It was a wordless awareness that heard every thought you’ve had today, and it monitored your heartbeat and your respiration when you were deeply asleep. If you look for it, you can’t see it, and you can’t say anything about it, other than that it Is. So the picture shows you, the “seer par excellence,” in the center, with that wordless awareness functioning continually in all these ways. As that awareness is all-filling, the author likened it to a river in full flood.

I hope you enjoy the picture!

With best wishes to all
—Andy Larkin
*

We are what we think.
All that we are arises with our thoughts.
With our thoughts we make the world.

—words of the Buddha, from The Dhammapada, version by Thomas Byrom
*

Welcome to our seventh meditation and mindfulness dialogue! The numbers below refer to passages from the book Your True Home by Thich Nhat Hanh. (JS)
*

A few months ago, I squeezed a whitehead near the tip of my nose, squeezing out a most satisfying tiny white tube of gook. It turned out that in my enthusiasm, I must have squeezed out some of the material that actually constituted that part of my nose, because the next morning there was a pit displayed there, of inestimable depth.
Over the ensuing months I have sometimes used cortisone cream or vitamin E to help along my body’s unceasing but ineffective efforts to rebuild that little piece of nasal real estate. Most of the time, I have just watched, in my bathroom mirror, the ceaseless process of rebuilding, destruction, rebuilding, etc… Had this happened sixty-five years ago, when I was fifteen (and it probably did, given all the squeezing I was doing in those days), it would have healed in a week.
This increasing inability of my body to fight my and time’s ravishings is part of a gradual slowing down of my systems. I can feel and see, in and on my body and brain, the cascade of imperfections always coming and coming.
The falling away of functions is like being stroked; I am being prepared, so gently really, molecule by molecule, to detach completely from this pulpy shell that is me and not-me.
All ways of going are good. I am very grateful to be able to participate, so far, in this way.

—Ken Margolis
*

[Here are some excerpts from Michel’s meditation and mindfulness journal. I highly recommend the practice of keeping a journal to everyone. JS]

February 1, 2021
#75 Your True Nature
This idea could challenge some of us. For me, the point I think Thây is trying to make is: not only is “heaven” or “nirvana” possible, but, like the ability to awaken (be a buddha), is already contained within all of us. If this existence is simply part of the journey, then, maybe, I don’t have to attach to the identity of this self (or body driving that story). I can release those judgements—good/bad, up/down, like/dislike, etc.—and simply be. I think this is where the challenge of living arises: letting go of attachment to preconceived (or inherited) beliefs or notions about life and what comes next. We can focus on the life we live now and be part of the now. The future, not needing our control, or guidance, will attend to itself without our involvement (including whatever comes after “life.”)
We can and do (briefly) experience nirvana (“heaven on earth”). Sometimes, I think, it happens and we’re too busy with past/future concerns to notice. Other times, we realize what we’ve found and, in our excitement, we begin grasping at that (old) moment, trying to hold on to “perfection” forever. It’s fleeting, this thing called “now.” If we learn to hold gently, with open hands, we might be able to relax into a moment, become more familiar and comfortable in that space, and eventually we may even bring some of it with us to share with others.
Whatever it is, or whatever it looks/feels like, words will fail us to describe and share with others. We’ll know that they would benefit from what we found, (our experience—but one of their own), yet each person must find his/her own way to nirvana/heaven in the now. The journey is where we find “the meaning,” not the destination. I suspect this is why the Buddha had so much to say—not only do words fail us, but others (each uniquely) hear a message differently, based on their own life experience. My excitement, over a moment in heaven on earth can pull me out of my “moment….”
For me, it is like practicing zazen (just sitting) in the Zen dojo. I practice in a safe neutral space with the intent that the effect of learning to be present to the “now” will leach over into everyday life. I see heaven/nirvana interaction the same way. As I learn to be more present to “now,” I am able to do so during ordinary (non-cushion practice) life. Likewise, as I experience heaven, I can just be with this. Eventually, the experience will be transferable (translatable?) to everyday life too. May you find your nirvana soon.

February 4, 2021
#78 The Wounded Child
This is a toughie. I am aware of my wounded child within. I just don’t, (or haven’t been aware of how to), understand “embracing” the child within. I have made some deliberate efforts to connect. So far, I’ve not had much success even being aware of him. One day, I’ll be able to create a sense of safety for him and be attentive to his needs—through practicing mindfulness. Until then, I keep doing my best to care for this mind/body and practice mindful living often—on and off cushion—mostly “off cushion” currently.
I don’t know about you, but I want to connect with my child self—wounded or not. To reconnect, reopen, or revive the state of child-like awe and wonder—to embrace and protect that awareness. Being a “grown-up” doesn’t mean being “old.” Our world values strange, alien ideals which we were compelled/forced to adopt/adhere our self identity. A result is we close off from parts of the world, or shut down awareness to the beauty, and then struggle for the rest of our adult life to return to that connection, awareness, “innocence” we once possessed. Some never find it again, due to looking for outward objects for inward fulfillment. Our inner child, wherever he or she is hiding, is waiting to be heard, seen, loved, held, protected, and known again. We only need to be quiet, look and listen.

February 14, 2021
#82 Something to Believe In
It is a day dedicated to ideals of love—regardless of its origins or current capitalization. I am a little bit tender of heart. NEWS INSIDE from the Marshall Project, (Issue 6, December, 2020)
(https://www.themarshallproject.org/2020/06/04/i-wonder-if-they-know-my-son-is-loved),

“I Wonder If They Know My Son Is Loved” by Ymilul Bates: This was a heart rending story of what one mother experienced as she visited her young son. Words fail to express other feelings for me, beyond the sadness I experience thinking of what my own mother has faced to come visit me—and I wonder how she has “felt” about all of this—worsened by guilt that I dragged my parents into this place with me. But that’s love, isn’t it? To follow your loved ones wherever they may go—emotionally, if not physically—to set aside my comfort and accept a new paradigm for “normal,” and go to a place (made to create fear and isolation) to bring and/or share comfort, compassion and love to a person I care about. I wonder if I could do it, to be strong enough to overcome discomfort and fear to share a restricted moment with an other, for whom I feel love—could I? I want to hope so. I’ve only known this side of the exchange—receiving the gift of love and compassion, the gifting of value estimation to remind me that I do have worth in this world. Whether it has been my mother and father, uncle and aunt (in person), or the generous volunteers of Group Dialogue and Theatre for OHOM, or religious volunteers and teachers—each has brought light, color, beauty, love, compassion inside, and shown me that I am more than a number, a statistic, a criminal code violation followed by a sentence, that I am still a human being, that I still have worth and value, that I am still lovable, able to love, and that I am worthy of it. The saddest, darkest hour must be for those here for whom the call never comes for a visit, a program, a call-out to school or any other life-affirming event; because these walls give back only noise, overwhelming light, or absolute darkness, (never warmth), and they never give back love, compassion, or humanity. So on this day of love, SOMETHING TO BELIEVE IN is love. We each do our part to hold on to our spark, but to fan the flame I found I must give it away to another—two sparks become a flame, many sparks can become a fire to warm ourselves, together.
(Now, I’ve paused to read…Thây.)
Thây spoke of mindfulness as the “something” to believe in, which is present in everyday concrete actions, such as sitting or drinking water. I offer this to add. Experiencing love. If I give of myself, whatever the moment may be, to the experience of love, and I do it mindfully, (focused, fully present, not distracted by past or future, or worries clouding the now), then I can sink into the moment and really feel this love. I will also be ready to return love, fully committed and freely.
I can’t think of a time, since being incarcerated (August, 2007) to the present, or even prior to being locked away, that the idea of love has not been my quest, my holy grail. I didn’t always have the words, or the capacity to express/receive (with full awareness) love as it was offered. But I was always pursuing it as a precious gem, a treasure beyond compare, buried beneath a mountain. I have experienced various moments over the years, when awakened to the reality and beauty of love, and now know it was not a fable, or a lie, or something just for those others more special than I. To this day I still struggle and search for my place in the sun, and I Believe, when it’s my time, I’ll find the completeness held within. Until then, I can BELIEVE IN this reality I have for now, knowing I have love inside and outside these dark and musty walls.

February 28, 2021
#88 The Deepest Relief (the day after turning 49!)
“…the deepest kind of relief is the realization of nirvana” (or heaven on earth, if you would prefer different terms.) The best part of today’s thought is this: Everything is “perfect” as it is; I have everything necessary to fully realize heaven on Earth for this self right now, and all I need to do to access this is—breathe, all the rest can take care of itself….
I find the allegory of farming—“cultivation” to be highly relevant. We must prepare soil for planting—tilling, weeding, fertilizing, watering, more tilling, resting, exposing to nature, etc.—then we can “plant” seeds, water and fertilize for a specific result.
I think life can be much the same. Mindfulness can be both plowing/tilling of soil—turning up the deep and rich fertile ground—and it can also be the time allowing the ground to rest in nature…. We reap what we sow, so they say—I think “they” are right…..
When I neglect all of my practice, I find the ground hard and dry; no matter how abundant the rains have been. But when I maintain even a small practice I find life is grander, and I am more of the person I desire to be. I may not attract all the butterflies and pollinators to my “field,” as I desire; at least the ones who do attend my field are appreciated and seen.
I want to encourage each and everyone to discover and develop a time and space to focus on and to “cultivate” a garden of life. I believe it will make all the difference to be deliberate, rather than hoping for a “happy accident” to come about—it’s not as common as many wish it was. I too shall strive towards a daily, regular, focused, recharge of love.

—Michel Deforge
*

Shakespeare said: “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” Like Plato’s Cave, this is a deep metaphor. When called upon, we play our parts. At the moment, I’m offstage. Nothing is required of me. I don’t have to pretend to be Johnny Stallings until I get my next cue.

Bright sunlight this morning (3/6/21). Always welcome this time of year. The forms and colors of Spring are vivid. I like to sit quietly, like this, in the morning. Even words like “meditation” and “mindfulness” are unnecessary. It’s too ordinary (and too extraordinary) to be named. I like how, in the last verse of the Hsin Hsin Ming, Seng Ts’an says: “No past, no future, no now.” No now!

—(pretending for a moment to be) Johnny Stallings
*

Below is a copy of the Dalai Lama’s morning meditation to begin with right intention for the day. I think you will enjoy and relate.
I thought it might be great for the dialogue people too. It makes me think of the intentions we must make to come regularly with kind and open intentions for everyone’s well being.
This prayer was written by Shantideva, a Buddhist monk of the Mahayana tradition who lived around 700 AD. It is said that His Holiness the Dalai Lama considers this text to be THE source for developing altruism in your character and the “Spirit of Awakening.” It is also said that His Holiness the Dalai Lama recites this prayer every morning as part of his waking rituals.

Bodhisattva Prayer for Humanity
May I be a guard for those who need protection
A guide for those on the path
A boat, a raft, a bridge for those who wish to cross the flood
May I be a lamp in the darkness
A resting place for the weary
A healing medicine for all who are sick
A vase of plenty, a tree of miracles
And for the boundless multitudes of living beings
May I bring sustenance and awakening
Enduring like the earth and sky
Until all beings are freed from sorrow
And all are awakened.

What a beautiful prayer to start a new day! A Bodhisattva is a person who has attained Enlightenment, but who postpones Nirvana in order to help others to attain Enlightenment.

The bodhisattva ideal:

The teachings of Buddhism are about your life, about being the person you are. The practices of Buddhism are about being willing to be intimate with yourself, with your idiosyncrasies. So when we talk about compassion and the ideal of the bodhisattva, we are talking about how we as ordinary people—with this body, this mind, this life, these problems—can find generosity, effort, and wisdom right here and now. We realize that they are always available.
Bodhisattvas are beings who are dedicated to the universal awakening, or enlightenment, of everyone. They exist as guides and providers of relief to suffering beings. They are models who exemplify lives dedicated to eradicating suffering in the world. Bodhisattvas can be awesome in their power, radiance, and wisdom, and they can be as ordinary as your next-door neighbor. Bodhisattvas appear wherever they can be most helpful. Being a bodhisattva is especially about being an adult – a playful, compassionate, creative adult.
Johnny embodies the life of a bodhisattva. I think there are others in the dialogue group that we may view this way.

—Katie Radditz

[Leaving aside questions of nirvana and enlightenment, in my view, anyone who sincerely desires to love all people, and “all creatures great and small” is in tune with the bodhisattva ideal. Maybe a bodhisattva is nothing more or less than a kind person. JS]
*

[Howard is doing an online study course with Nancy Yeilding and other friends on Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. JS]

I just sent in my assignment for Nancy Yeilding’s class and I thought maybe with a little modification it could be my contribution to the meditation letter.

Sutra II:43

Perfection of the body and sense organs through destruction of impurity by self-purification.

The deepest inquiry of yoga was expressed by Ramana Maharshi as, “Who am I?”
When I say “my body” or “my mind” there is a presumption of separation. There is “I” and there is “my body” and the two are at odds with each other. “I” want to “control my body” or “I” want to “control my mind” but who is this “I” who thinks it can chop pieces off of the whole and then control them?
The body is not some dog that has to be beaten into submission. But neither is it some dog that has to be well fed and trained. It is the very matrix of my being. It is the finest intelligence, awareness, the consequence of a billion years of evolution. It perceives the world and it simultaneously creates the world. There is no brain without the body…and no heart, either.
In Buddhism they say the first prerequisite for enlightenment is a human birth.
There’s a famous Zen story in which a person brags that his master can walk on water. Another student says, “My teacher can also perform miracles. When he is tired he sleeps; when he is hungry he eats.” To me this story has infinite implications and ramifications.
What is purity?—what is purification? Meister Eckhart said, “To be pure is to have no thoughts.”
How to have no thoughts? Listen, listen, listen.
I feel that “tapas”—purification—is listening, with all the connotations of that beautiful word. When I am listening, there is no division. If I am listening and the voice of division arises, it is just another sound like the song of the bird or the beep beep beep of the truck backing up…it has no more “authority” than that.
If I listen, I can sleep when I am tired and eat when I am hungry.

—Howard Thoresen
*

Here’s a recent one:

Radical Justice

My dream displayed two words: radical justice.
No scene, no story, just those syllables delivered
to a man, American, in the age of gizmos, of radical
injustice careening toward catastrophe. So my outer life
says to my inner life, What do you mean? Are you saying
Give back the Western Hemisphere to First People here?
Are you demanding Deep reparations for slavery?
Do you specify The rich divest utterly? Do you say
Radical kindness to all creatures of the Earth?

If these, they are far beyond my power, yes? Well,
no. For if I choose to be a citizen of justice, every act
will question: What is best for every one and all?

—Kim Stafford
*

In meditation I was made aware of the fact that I have forgotten to smile…for quite a long time. In fact, I have been unable (chosen not) to read, think about, write about, many things. I have been unwilling to communicate in many ways, including with myself, or the larger consciousness. I feel a failure (no lectures, please). Realizing that I had stopped taking my “smiling medicine,” I became aware of a song I wrote as part of a song writing challenge here at DRCI a while back. I share the lyrics despite the fact that I believe that song lyrics often don’t translate well to silent poetry. So, if any of you are “anti-rhymers”—read no further. Rhyme facilitates meter, which combines in powerful ways with melody & harmony, in my not so humble opinion. Maybe sometime I will be able to share this in its entirety, it is the best advice I can offer myself & others. Thank you so much for The Open Road in both forms, much anticipated, highly appreciated.

Learning To Smile

Without a smile, I walk a mile
Smilin’ just not my style
I miss my friends, I miss my wife
I miss my outside life

But there’s beauty to see
Air to breathe
Thoughts to think and hear and be

A smile overcomes all grief and pain
It takes me home again
So I force a smile, walk that mile
Smilin’ might become my style

Because there’s beauty to see
Air to breathe
Thoughts to think and hear and be

So, check out this smile, it’ll be here a while
It helps me through this trial
My spirit lifts, the smile grips
My mood and won’t let go

So there’s beauty to see
Air to breathe
Thoughts to think and hear and be

I’m alive, I’m headed home
When I smile I’m free

—T. String Clements
© 2019
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I had to smile when I read the Feb 15, 2021 Open Road M & M dialogue filled with many intrigues. In particular, and most notably to me, the 3rd to the last line in the poem by Kim Stafford, which says: “My greatest gift for you is the space between words.” The reason this stood out to me is that I recently was reading a book titled Forbidden Science by Douglas Kenyon, which is a collection of articles, one of which is titled “Altered States” by Patrick Marsolek. In this is a reference to an experiment by…

“…Dr. Les Fehmi…a psychologist and neurofeedback researcher from Princeton, also studying the value of subjective experience, as well as what we know about the physical mechanisms of the brain. He promotes an open focus state of awareness signified by synchronous alpha frequencies in the brain. He first experienced these alpha frequencies for himself when he tried and failed. ‘At the moment of surrender I experienced a deep and profound feeling of disappointment. Fortunately, I surrendered while still connected to my EEG and while still receiving feedback. It was surprising to observe that I now produced five times the amount of alpha than before the act of surrendering.’ After learning how to open his focus and create the alpha waves, he ‘felt more open, lighter, freer, more energetic and spontaneous. A broader perspective ensued, which allowed me to experience a more whole and subtle understanding. As the letting go unfolded, I felt more intimate with sensory experience, more intuitive….’
“Fehmi found that imagining space was one of the ways to force the brain to stop grasping and move into open focus. The state is experienced as ‘a vast three-dimensional space, nothingness, absence, silence, and timelessness. The scope of our attention is not only expanded, but is experienced with greater immersion. Thus, the ground of our experience is reified, realized as a more pronounced sense of presence, a centered and unified awareness, an identity with a vast quality-less awareness in which all objects of sensation float, as myself.’ This sounds surprisingly similar to meditators’ reports when they quieted the orientation area in their brains. You can get a taste of open focus now, if you want. As you read, become aware of he space in between the letters on the page while you are attending to the words and the meaning of the words. Can you also be aware of the space between you and the paper? At the same time, is it also possible to be aware of the sounds around you? Let all of that stay with you as you attend to the words and to the meanings of the words you read.”

When I read Kim’s words, this immediately came to mind. I’d also like to include the next two paragraphs of this for you:

“Fehmi believes that the way we pay attention is important. If someone is always in narrow objective focus, he will start to experience stress, regardless of the content of his attention. Fehmi was chronically in narrow focus; that is why he experienced such a profound breakthrough. He finally gave up and went into the open focus state. Consideration of our society’s chronic narrow focus may help us to explain both rampant drug use and fascination with meditation and ecstatic spiritual states. These methods help us to alleviate the tension of remaining chronically narrow focused in our consensus trance.
“The relief that comes with altering our attention and our consciousness is more than just feeling good. Fehmi’s open focus, hypnotic trances, and other ecstatic states have been shown to bring about the remission of many stress-related symptoms, chronic pain, insomnia, even eye and skin disorders. People who have been the most narrow focused may experience the most profound results. With practice most people can experience lasting changes.”

I can personally attest that the more I try this idea of “space between” things, the more my body seems to relax.

–Joseph Opyd
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Aches and Tensions #337

“When I breathe in, I generate the energy of mindfulness. With this energy, I recognize my body’s aches and tensions. I begin to embrace my body tenderly, and allow any tension to be released. Many of us accumulate a lot of tension and pressure in our bodies, working them too hard. It’s time to come home to our body. This is possible anytime, anywhere, whether we are sitting, lying, standing or walking.”
Aches and tensions I have been intimately familiar with the past two weeks – actually for about a year before that. My feet have had so much wear and tear from years of sports that I was hobbling in pain, no matter what the shoes I wore. After complicated foot surgery two weeks ago – pins, screws, splints, twenty stitches looking like black spider legs – I know the aches and pains of slow recovery.
I have returned to the practice of sitting and breathing, thirty minutes each day, this past year. Usually it takes me a little while to let go. Breathe in – I wonder how Harry and Meghan are feeling. Breathe out – Will this fingernail ever stop splitting? In – Should I divide those peonies now or wait until fall? Out – Those dang voter suppression bills are gonna sink us if they all pass… Finally the breath and the body prevail and the mind goes. But not lately.
The severe pain of the foot surgery has caused extreme tension in my body. I can hardly walk (nor should I), and my breathing is shallow and rapid. I resumed sitting about five days after surgery. Not easy. Aches, pain, tension create a mind disjointed from the body, let me tell you. I’m sure everyone has experienced this (or is experiencing it now) and can remember how pain can suck you dry. The first three days of sitting were hopeless. I just sat and went through the motions, waiting for something to change. And then I read this ‘everyday wisdom,’ #337. There it was: “It’s time to come home to our body.” And then, that is just what happened. Breathing in, breathing out – this body is miraculous. This breath is miraculous. And since then, when I sit, my body smiles and relaxes. We are back together —mind, body, breath. And where did that pain go, anyway?

—Jude Russell
*

One of my favorite writers has been Thomas Merton. One example of why:

What I wear is pants.
What I do is live.
How I pray is breathe.
Who said Zen?
Wash out your mouth if you said Zen.
If you see a meditation going by, shoot it.
Who said “Love?”
Love is in the movies.
The spiritual life is something people worry about when they are so busy with something else they think they ought to be spiritual.
Spiritual life is guilt.
Up here in the woods is seen the New Testament:
that is to say,
the wind comes through the trees and you breathe it.

—from the memoir “Day of a Stranger,” published in the Hudson Review, Summer 1967

In this ground-breaking essay, Merton allows himself to speak in the unexpurgated voice of the self he was excavating to be most true. You can read the entire essay here:

https://hudsonreview.com/1967/07/day-of-a-stranger/

—Deborah Buchanan
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This is for the meditation & mindfulness newsletter. It’s out of my heart, not “Your True Home.”

Many times in my life I would sit and deeply think to myself. This is before I knew what it was to meditate. Many times I have imagined my self being a massive stone out in the sea. With wave after crushing wave breaking on me. The wave represented all of the whips and scorns of life. Nothing could ever break me.

The inevitability is that the erosion, pressure & time have slowly taken their toll on me. With a full and happy heart I will turn to sand on an eternal beach inside the hourglass of time.

Blessings,
Peace,
Joy,
Unconditionally
Love
All
There is in Life

—Rocky Hutchinson
*

Reflections On Meditation

Greetings to this worthy sangha. My name is Peter Oppenheimer. I’m an old crony of Johnny Stallings. I think it was 1973. Johnny and I were spending days, and some nights, together in a hospital in South India, attending to our teacher’s teacher, a well-known guru thereabouts.
At one point, when I think, only Johnny and I were in the room, Guru motioned from his bed for me to come near. He said, “I don’t know how much longer I’m going to be around. Do you want to ask me anything?”
I was taken aback. Daily I had countless questions, but in the calming aura of his presence and under the spotlight of his gaze, I couldn’t immediately think of one. “Oh yeah,” I thought and asked, “Can you teach me how to meditate?” His response was quickly made and quickly over, “Meditate on the world without you in it.” Boom. That was/is both a tall order and has become a lifelong aspirational practice of mine.
Oddly enough, years later when I told my own guru about what his guru had suggested to me as how to meditate, he said, “That’s funny. Guru told me the opposite. He told me to meditate on the room that I was in as being all inside and having no outside.”
And there’s another secret of meditation. There can be many ways to meditate, but the paths all converge at the same goal. What is that goal?
An inner quietude, an inner fortitude, an inner gratitude, an inner clarity, an inner affection, an affection both that we have tasted from others and from Nature, and an affection that we have within us as a treasure to share with others. This manifests as universal good will. These are all primary indicators of successful meditation.
If that’s the goal, then how do we get there?
During the ensuing 5 decades after those words of the guru, I have studied and practiced several types or schools of seated-meditation, such as the one taught by Johnny’s and my guru, several practices taught by different Indian schools of yoga, and zazen, the practice of Zen Buddhist meditation.
There’s been a through-line in all of these approaches to meditation. They all start from and aim at maintaining a state of mindfulness, a “Be Here Now” approach to mental self-discipline. Another common thread I’ve noticed is using one’s breath to help focus on the here and now. Just notice, your breath. Be with it, and in essence become your breath. In and out. In and out. Calmly. Mindfully. Affectionately. It is the energy from your breath that keeps your heart beating and the blood circulating. Be mindful of that going on. Part of mindfulness or “being here now” includes body awareness – pains and pleasures, strains and pressures. How fully can you be with your breath and your body? If you can be simply present for what’s going on within you, the chances are good that you will be able to be present and available to what arises in the world around you.
Sitting meditation is not for everyone. Sometimes in the case of trauma survivors, sitting and observing one’s thoughts can be too triggering. The state and fruits of “Meditation,” as discussed above, can be attained not only through sitting, but also if done whole-heartedly through, among others things – walking, running, dancing, drawing, singing, cooking, conversing, writing, communing with nature, laughing, sharing affection, or simply taking a moment to feel comfortable in one’s own skin and feel open to what arises. Then the practice becomes to be prepared to treat everything which arises (within and without) with generosity, uprightness, patience, enthusiasm, concentration, and wisdom.
Finally, coming back to my Grandguru’s instruction to “meditate on the world without you in it,” years later a Zen teacher of mine, with whom I sat periods of zazen, described meditation as “cutting the storyline of your own inner narrative.” My and Johnny’s Guru, Nitya, sometimes described meditation as shifting one’s identity from the ego-center to the spirit-center. The ego is our self with a small “s” and revolves around uniqueness, what separates us from others. Whereas the spirit-center is our Self with a large “S” and revolves around that inner spirit which ignites and unites us. When we forget or transcend our smaller self and slip into a flow state, there arises within us an identity or belongingness with the world around us. It’s a state of both peacefulness and vibrance. All of this is what I have come to know as a meditative state.
I invite and welcome any additions, corrections, questions or comments from the sangha. I will be happy to respond and continue the conversation. With Love and Best Wishes to all……

—Peter Oppenheimer
*

[Peter is inviting people to have a dialogue with him. Feel free to use the monthly Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue as a place to have conversation, and respond to what others have written. If people inside or outside the prison walls want to be pen pals with others in this “sangha,” let me know. I can help with that. JS]

Will Hornyak presents: Tales of Erin's Daughters
2021-03-17 - 2021-03-21
Storyteller Will Hornyak presents:

Tales of Erin’s Daughters

From Lusty Queen Maeve and Pirate Queen Grace O’Malley to the Hag of Beara and the White Witch of Feakle, storyteller William Kennedy Hornyak celebrates the Wild Celtic Feminine with Tales, Myths, Poems, History and Lore in honor of St. Patrick’s Day, 2021

Three live Zoom performances:

St. Patrick’s Day, March 17 at 6 p.m. Pacific Time Mature audiences
Friday March 19 at 6 p.m. Pacific Time Mature audiences
Sunday March 21 2 p.m. Pacific Time Family Show

Zoom Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82659078275

The Event is Free but Donations are Welcome:

https://paypal.me/WillHornyak?locale.x=e

or mail to:

Will Hornyak
11375 SE 33rd Ave.
Milwaukie, OR 97222

Individual Storytelling Coaching Sessions Available:

hornyak.will@gmail.com

25th Annual Exhibition of Art by Michigan Prisoners March 17th-31st
2021-03-17 - 2021-03-31
Gas-n-Go by Bradlee Cournaya; Hypervigilance by Bryan Picken

25th Annual Exhibition of Art by Michigan Prisoners

There are some amazing works of art for sale, now through the 31st of March. Highly recommended!!

Here’s a link to the website:

https://dcc.carceralstateproject.lsa.umich.edu/s/pcapexhibition25/page/home

Spend some time on the website. There’s lots to see! The full price of the artwork goes to the artist.

peace, love & creativity!
Johnny

peace, love, happiness & understanding 3/18/21
2021-03-18 - 2021-03-31
Daphne odora

THE OPEN ROAD
peace, love, happiness & understanding

Spring Equinox
March 18, 2021

Kristen Sagan sent this poem just in time for our Annual Spring Issue!:

A Color of the Sky

Windy today and I feel less than brilliant,
driving over the hills from work.
There are the dark parts on the road
when you pass through clumps of wood
and the bright spots where you have a view of the ocean,
but that doesn’t make the road an allegory.

I should call Marie and apologize
for being so boring at dinner last night,
but can I really promise not to be that way again?
And anyway, I’d rather watch the trees, tossing
in what certainly looks like sexual arousal.

Otherwise it’s spring, and everything looks frail;
the sky is baby blue, and the just-unfurling leaves
are full of infant chlorophyll,
the very tint of inexperience.

Last summer’s song is making a comeback on the radio,
and on the highway overpass,
the only metaphysical vandal in America has written
MEMORY LOVES TIME
in big black spraypaint letters,

which makes us wonder if Time loves Memory back.

Last night I dreamed of X again.
She’s like a stain on my subconscious sheets.
Years ago she penetrated me
but though I scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed,
I never got her out,
but now I’m glad.

What I thought was an end turned out to be a middle.
What I thought was a brick wall turned out to be a tunnel.
What I thought was an injustice
turned out to be a color of the sky.

Outside the youth center, between the liquor store
and the police station,
a little dogwood tree is losing its mind;

overflowing with blossomfoam,
like a sudsy mug of beer;
like a bride ripping off her clothes,

dropping snow white petals to the ground in clouds,

so Nature’s wastefulness seems quietly obscene.
It’s been doing that all week:
making beauty,
and throwing it away,
and making more.

—Tony Hoagland (1953-2018)
*

Kim sent this:

Oregon Dawn in Spite of the News

Before I can get to our statistics—so many
stricken, so many dead—I’m summoned
by the birds raising a ruckus outside, crows
and jays in festive outrage, trill, chirrr, and aria

from the little brown birds, the mournful
dove, the querulous towhee, rusty starlings
in their see-saw mutter, and a woodpecker
flicker hammering the gutter staccato.

On the porch, I’m assaulted by the merciless
scent of trees opening their million flowers,
as I inhale the deep elixir of hazel, hawthorn,
maple, and oh those shameless cherry trees.

And just when I’ve almost recovered
my serious moment, I gasp, helpless to see
the full queen moon sidling down
through a haze of blossoms.

—Kim Stafford
*

E. E. Cummings has so many poems of spring springing. In this one we can remember our youth and the joy of suddenly sunny play days and school letting out:

in Just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloonman

whistles far and wee

and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it’s
spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer
old balloonman whistles
far and wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it’s
spring
and
the
goat-footed
balloonMan whistles
far
and
wee

May you know peace and well being this weekend on the spring equinox when things are in balance in the cosmos and the rain and the sun are in concert with one another.

—Love, Katie
*

O sweet spontaneous
earth how often have
the
doting

fingers of
prurient philosophers pinched
and
poked

thee
,has the naughty thumb
of science prodded
thy

beauty .how
often have religions taken
thee upon their scraggy knees
squeezing and

buffeting thee that thou mightest conceive
gods
(but
true

to the incomparable
couch of death thy
rhythmic
lover

thou answerest

them only with

spring)

—e e cummings, published in The Dial, May 1920.
*

Spring, the sweete spring, is the yeres pleasant King,
Then bloomes eche thing, then maydes daunce in a ring,
Cold doeth not sting, the pretty birds doe sing,
Cuckow, jugge, jugge, pu we, to witta woo.

The Palme and May make countrey houses gay,
Lambs friske and play, the Shepherds pype all day,
And we heare aye birds tune this merry lay,
Cuckow, jugge, jugge, pu we, to witta woo.

The fields breathe sweete, the dayzies kisse our feete,
Young lovers meete, old wives a sunning sit;
In every streete, these tunes our eares doe greete,
Cuckow, jugge, jugge, pu we, to witta woo.
Spring, the sweete spring.

—Thomas Nashe (1567-1601)
*

SPRING

Nothing is so beautiful as Spring—
When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.

What is all this juice and all this joy?
A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden. — Have, get, before it cloy,
Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,
Most, O maid’s child, thy choice and worthy the winning.

—Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)
*

A Thin Sliver at the Door

All she ever needed was the one sliver of air that hovered between the door and the frame. That small space was a persistent invitation. She would look around and make sure no one was in the room, then quietly get up from her chair, turn sideways, and slip through the crack between the heavy oak door and its sash. The room left behind was dark and immobile, everything inert, waiting without expectation or possibility. But once through the door the air changed. It expanded in the light, vibrating. The world was hushed, but with a kind of openness—something was just about to happen. When she went out, when she slipped through that crack, the world changed and so did she. The resonant hum of the air struck a note of movement in her body and she became more lithe, more supple. And the light–of course, the light–that made all the difference. In the trees the leaves moved gently, dappled by the light. The ground seemed alive, as if it too would burst into motion—iridescent green, chocolate brown, gray-blue in the stones. She heard her own low humming but there were other songs as well, perhaps birds or even insects in the fields, perhaps the echo of a bell from the far buildings. When she was out here she didn’t need anything. Everything felt inviting and reassuring. She never knew how long she was outside, how much time had passed, since she never felt any tug of memory when she was there. She moved and listened and watched. That was all. And that was more than enough. But eventually in the back of her mind a small cloud would begin to gather, pulling her into its shaded heaviness. The cloud would become bigger and more compelling than the trees or the air and she would turn toward it reluctantly. The cloud covered more and more of her vision and she found herself looking for the door, the way back through the crack into the dark, static room. She was never sure how she actually got back in but would suddenly look around, groggily, and realize here she was again. Everything felt heavy. The world was dense. This last time, though, she remembered something—just as she was following the cloud, just as it grew to include her, she held her hand out to the nearest tree and touched the leaves. She pulled some from the lowest branch and held them in her hands. Even back in the room she had them. She looked down and saw their glittering green and inhaled their unnamable smell. She held them and remembered. She looked up to see that small sliver of air between the door and its frame.

—Deborah Buchanan
*

Come Spring

The first warm days of spring, give them to me:
a tepid rain, crocus poking through last year’s leaves.

Give me the heart of it: pale yellow, frail blue,
trees bare but for the hard buds, the few birds.

To hear the screen door slam again. To shoo
the flies from the house, the bowled fruit.

I’ll take all of it, Mother of Summer, the smell
of manure shoveled over the potatoes. Diesel

fumes from the refuse truck. Scent of creek bottom,
feral, lime laced. Cracked effusion of rotting eggs.

Even sinus infections and rusty rake tines sunk
in rank earth near the shed. Mushroom spores.

The asthmatic crank of winter-bound bikes. Fevers,
flu, cold sores, loose ends. Even the crows,

hawking their dull black cloaks from the shiny wings
of iridescent spring. Let them ride the rippled air

over the barren Sunday parking lots, the farther fields,
where the weeds will grow thorny, wild and tall.

—Dorianne Laux
*

Kim Stafford & Alan Benditt suggested these poems from Emily:

A Light exists in Spring
Not present on the Year
At any other period —
When March is scarcely here

A Color stands abroad
On Solitary Fields
That Science cannot overtake
But Human Nature feels.

It waits upon the Lawn,
It shows the furthest Tree
Upon the furthest Slope you know
It almost speaks to you.

Then as Horizons step
Or Noons report away
Without the Formula of sound
It passes and we stay —

A quality of loss
Affecting our Content
As Trade has suddenly encroached
Upon a Sacrament.
*

Spring comes on the World –
I sight the Aprils –
Hueless to me until thou come
As, till the Bee
Blossoms stand negative,
Touched to Conditions
By a Hum.

–Emily Dickinson

*

Alan also sent us some haiku, inspired by Spring:

Look at this world even its
grasses right under my feet
feed us

Grasshoppers in the chilly breeze
sing
as if you’ll never sing again

Spring rain:
a mouse is lapping
the Sumida River.

—Issa
*

I don’t know
which tree it comes from,
that fragrance

Spring!
a nameless hill
in the haze.

—Basho
*

the pheasant sings-
the earth turns into
various grasses

I forget
to remember the days –
yet these spring deer

squatting
the frog observes
the clouds

to be in a world
eating white rice
amid plum fragrance

—Chiyo-ni
*

”peace, love, happiness & understanding” is one year old!

HURRAY!!!

It began on the Spring Equinox, March 19, 2020, as “peace, love & happiness,” a weekly newsletter. The “understanding” got added on June 25, 2020. I started thinking of it as a “journal,” rather than a “newsletter” at some point. It became bi-weekly, instead of weekly on December 10, 2020. Lots of friends have contributed images, poems and other writings, as well as suggestions for poems.

THANK YOU!!! (in no particular order) to:

Kim Stafford, Prabu Muruganantham, Deborah Buchanan, Lonnie Glinski, Shadrach Alexander, Charles Erickson, Nancy Yeilding, Josh Underhill, Howard Thoresen, Esther Elizabeth, Bill Faricy, Katie Radditz, Ken Margolis, Will Hornyak, Joshua Barnes, Ashley Lucas, Jeff Kuehner, Alex Tretbar, Bill Hughes, Doug Marx, Randall Brown, Jude Russell, Jeffrey Sher and Aaron Gilbert. (n.b. If you are a reader of “peace, love, happiness & understanding,” you are invited to contribute!)

Speaking of Aaron Gilbert… He was granted clemency by Governor Kate Brown, and got out of prison on February 25, 2021—twenty months early! I’ve had the pleasure of video-visiting with him by phone. Unsurprisingly, he’s happy to be out of prison! I’m looking forward to getting together soon in person—(with all the necessary safety precautions.)

peace, love & fecundity
Johnny

Bibliophiles Unanimous!: STORY POEMS 3/28
2021-03-28 - 2021-04-10
Beloved Bibliophiles!

We had a lovely gathering on Sunday, March 28th. Our theme was STORY POEMS. We talked about poems we remembered from our childhood–nursery rhymes and the words to songs.
Jude Russell read “Jabberwocky” by Lewis Carroll.
Charles Erickson sang “Woverton Mountain” for us.
I took a whack at Woody Guthrie’s song: “Pretty Boy Floyd the Outlaw.”
Katie Radditz told us about Father Fox’s Pennyrhymes by Clyde and Wendy Watson and she read a couple of them for us.
Kim Stafford was unable to join us, but he sent this beautiful video he made, “I’ll Do Anything”:

Martha Ragland read “Little Breeches” by Colonel John Hay that she found in the book Story Poems, edited by Louis Untermeyer.
That reminded me of another 19th Century classic, “The Green Eye of the Yellow God,” by J. Milton Hayes, which I read. I also read the old Scottish Ballad “Edward, Edward.”
Katie read “The Song of Wandering Aengus” by W. B. Yeats.
Dave Duncan told us that his brother Jack died yesterday, and read this poem for us by Emily Dickinson:

I heard a Fly buzz – when I died –
The Stillness in the Room
Was like the Stillness in the Air –
Between the Heaves of Storm –

The Eyes around – had wrung them dry –
And Breaths were gathering firm
For that Last Onset – when the King
Be witnessed – in the Room –

I willed my Keepsakes – Signed away
What portion of me be
Assignable – and then it was
There interposed a Fly –

With Blue – uncertain stumbling Buzz –
Between the light – and me –
And then the Windows failed – and then
I could not see to see –
*

We ended our gathering by listening to a song that Dave loves: “Father and Son” by Yusuf Cat Stevens.
Here’s a link:

Look for more poems in the upcoming (April 1st) issue of peace, love, happiness & understanding. It will be published on this website.

peace, love & poetry

Johnny

peace, love, happiness & understanding 4/1/21
2021-04-01 - 2021-04-14
The Aged Aged man, illustration by John Tenniel (see the last poem)

THE OPEN ROAD
peace, love, happiness & understanding

April 1, 2021

Jerry Smith sent this inspiring prose poem:

And the people stayed home. And read books, and listened, and rested, and exercised, and made art, and played games, and learned new ways of being, and were still. And listened more deeply. Some meditated, some prayed, some danced. Some met their shadows. And the people began to think differently.

And the people healed. And, in the absence of people living in ignorant, dangerous, mindless, and heartless ways, the earth began to heal.

And when the danger passed, and the people joined together again, they grieved their losses, and made new choices, and dreamed new images, and created new ways to live and heal the earth fully, as they had been healed.

—Kitty O’Meara
*

Rocky sent this poem just in time for this issue:

Recently, after 45 years on earth,
my whole being has been touched by love.
A lifetime of issues kept me from
feeling the truth of this most powerful emotion.
For the first good while I was uncertain
& thought I was having heart problems.
In fact that is what happens to the
heart when filled with arrows of love.
Until now, I’ve never cried for love;
these tears are from the deepest pain.
My love is here, free & it is real;
it is unselfish, it is hunting for the same.
The capability & potency & strength
of the Love in me feels like lightning in my heart.
This is what will shatter the walls
of this prison & cast me into the stars.

—Rocky Hutchinson
*

On Sunday, March 28th, for our Bibliophiles Unanimous! Zoom gathering we read, recited and sang “Story Poems” to each other. Kim Stafford sent a link to a video, along with these words:

“here’s a film I made a few years back…based on a ballad I wrote 20 years ago…about an encounter over 40 years ago…”

https://vimeo.com/259870242

He also sent a text version for this issue of “peace, love, happiness & understanding,” for our friends in prison who can’t watch the video. The italicized parts are sung:

I’ll Do Anything, Watch Me Try

I was driving south along Interstate 5 in the Spring, forty years ago, and I picked up a hitchhiker with bandages on both hands.
“Is this a Mailbu?” he said, climbing into my car. “My name’s Dan. I used to have a Malibu, but she burned.”
“We was driving along,” he said, “me and Ruth and the boys—looking for work, and the damn car catches on fire…” He told his whole sad story…

It ain’t all honey & roses down in Portland,
when you got no work and hungry children,
Driving along down Burnside in the evening,
look in every doorway for a sign.

I’ll do anything, watch me try:
fix your engine, mend your road,
Crack my fingers, break my back
on any load you lead me to.

When we came to a little town, he said to let him out on Main Street. I shook Dan’s hand, gently so as not to hurt the burn, and then I gave him my coat, and all the money I had on me. He set off down the street, and I got in the car and drove south.

There’s a place a few miles farther on, where I sat by the river under a cottonwood with my guitar, and Dan’s story turned into a song.

The kids were sleeping in the back seat,
Softly talking in their way.
Any more they’re never sure,
When it’s night, and when it’s day…

Then somehow a fire broke out,
in the backseat, on the floor—
I grabbed John, and Ruth grabbed Daniel,
closed my eyes and out the door.

I left the kids with my brother out in Gresham.
Ruth went wandering on her own.
I got to find a job and make some dollars,
put it all together again.

When I got where I was going, I told my friends about Dan, and the burning car, and one of them said, “You didn’t give him any money, did you? That’s a scam!” They made me feel small, and a fool. But then, heading north, I stopped under the tree again, and made a new verse about my friends.

Now the man who told that story was a drifter
I picked up walking down Interstate 5.
I gave him money and I told my friends—
They laughed and said, “You got skinned alive!”

No song should end without some kind of mercy.
No one’s life should be like this song.
But mine has been, and you who listen,
bless your luck. So long.

What’s it like to be alone on the road? What’s it like to have a family, a car, a plan—and then to lose it all? And for my friends—what’s it like to guard your heart with denial, so you can protect yourself from another person’s pain?

I was a student then, writing a dissertation. I pretty much lived in the library. But Dan’s witness made me a singer instead. And I needed his pluck, a few years later, when my own family fell apart, and I wandered alone.

I hope the story he told was but a fable,
I hope he spent that money on wine.
I hope that Ruth is still with the family.
I hope their Chevy is running fine.

For every story you hear that’s a lie,
there’s a hundred hard and true.
I’ll give my money again to the stranger,
share the money as I pass through.

—Kim Stafford
*

Here are some great story poems. Read them aloud to someone!:

Abou Ben Adhem

Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
And saw, within the moonlight in his room,
Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom,
An angel writing in a book of gold:—
Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,
And to the presence in the room he said,
“What writest thou?”—The vision raised its head,
And with a look made of all sweet accord,
Answered, “The names of those who love the Lord.”
“And is mine one?” said Abou. “Nay, not so,”
Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low,
But cheerly still; and said, “I pray thee, then,
Write me as one that loves his fellow men.”

The angel wrote, and vanished. The next night
It came again with a great wakening light,
And showed the names whom love of God had blest,
And lo! Ben Adhem’s name led all the rest.

—Leigh Hunt (1784-1859)
*

Nirvana

not much chance,
completely cut loose from
purpose,
he was a young man
riding a bus
through North Carolina
on the way to somewhere
and it began to snow
and the bus stopped
at a little café
in the hills
and the passengers
entered.
he sat at the counter
with the others,
he ordered and the
food arrived.
the meal was
particularly
good
and the
coffee.
the waitress was
unlike the women
he had
known.
she was unaffected,
there was a natural
humor which came
from her.
the fry cook said
crazy things.
the dishwasher,
in back,
laughed, a good
clean
pleasant
laugh.
the young man watched
the snow through the
windows.
he wanted to stay
in that café
forever.
the curious feeling
swam through him
that everything
was
beautiful
there,
that it would always
stay beautiful
there.
then the bus driver
told the passengers
that it was time
to board.
the young man
thought, I’ll just sit
here, I’ll just stay
here.
but then
he rose and followed
the others into the
bus.
he found his seat
and looked at the café
through the bus
window.
then the bus moved
off, down a curve,
downward, out of
the hills.
the young man
looked straight
forward.
he heard the other
passengers
speaking
of other things,
or they were
reading
or
attempting to
sleep.
they had not
noticed
the
magic.
the young man
put his head to
one side,
closed his
eyes,
pretended to
sleep.
there was nothing
else to do-
just listen to the
sound of the
engine,
the sound of the
tires
in the
snow.

—Charles Bukowski (1920-1994)
*

The Three Hermits

Three old hermits took the air
By a cold and desolate sea,
First was muttering a prayer,
Second rummaged for a flea;
On a windy stone, the third,
Giddy with his hundredth year,
Sang unnoticed like a bird:
‘Though the Door of Death is near
And what waits behind the door,
Three times in a single day
I, though upright on the shore,
Fall asleep when I should pray.’
So the first, but now the second:
‘We’re but given what we have eamed
When all thoughts and deeds are reckoned,
So it’s plain to be discerned
That the shades of holy men
Who have failed, being weak of will,
Pass the Door of Birth again,
And are plagued by crowds, until
They’ve the passion to escape.’
Moaned the other, ‘They are thrown
Into some most fearful shape.’
But the second mocked his moan:
‘They are not changed to anything,
Having loved God once, but maybe
To a poet or a king
Or a witty lovely lady.’
While he’d rummaged rags and hair,
Caught and cracked his flea, the third,
Giddy with his hundredth year,
Sang unnoticed like a bird.

—William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)
*

Three Angels

Three angels up above the street
Each one playing a horn
Dressed in green robes with wings that stick out
They’ve been there since Christmas morn
The wildest cat from Montana passes by in a flash
Then a lady in a bright orange dress
One U-Haul trailer, a truck with no wheels
The Tenth Avenue bus going west
The dogs and pigeons fly up and they flutter around
A man with a badge skips by
Three fellas crawlin’ on their way back to work
Nobody stops to ask why
The bakery truck stops outside of that fence
Where the angels stand high on their poles
The driver peeks out, trying to find one face
In this concrete world full of souls
The angels play on their horns all day
The whole earth in progression seems to pass by
But does anyone hear the music they play
Does anyone even try?

—Bob Dylan
*

A Story That Could Be True

If you were exchanged in the cradle and
your real mother died
without ever telling the story
then no one knows your name,
and somewhere in the world
your father is lost and needs you
but you are far away.

He can never find
how true you are, how ready.
When the great wind comes
and the robberies of the rain
you stand on the corner shivering.
The people who go by—
you wonder at their calm.

They miss the whisper that runs
any day in your mind,
“Who are you really, wanderer?”—
and the answer you have to give
no matter how dark and cold
the world around you is:
“Maybe I’m a king.”

—William Stafford (1914-1993)
*

The Aged Aged Man

I’ll tell thee everything I can;
There’s little to relate,
I saw an aged, aged man,
A-sitting on a gate.
“Who are you, aged man?” I said.
“And how is it you live?”
And his answer trickled through my head
Like water through a sieve.

He said, “I look for butterflies
That sleep among the wheat;
I make them into mutton-pies,
And sell them in the street.
I sell them unto men,” he said,
“Who sail on stormy seas;
And that’s the way I get my bread–
A trifle, if you please.”

But I was thinking of a plan
To dye one’s whiskers green,
And always use so large a fan
That they could not be seen.
So, having no reply to give
To what the old man said,
I cried, “Come, tell me how you live!”
And thumped him on the head.

His accents mild took up the tale;
He said, “I go my ways,
And when I find a mountain-rill,
I set it in a blaze;
And thence they make a stuff they call
Rowland’s Macassar Oil–
Yet twopence-halfpenny is all
They give me for my toil.”

But I was thinking of a way
To feed one’s self on batter,
And so go on from day to day
Getting a little fatter.
I shook him well from side to side,
Until his face was blue,
“Come, tell me how you live,” I cried,
“And what it is you do!”

He said, “I hunt for haddocks’ eyes
Among the heather bright,
And work them into waistcoat-buttons
In the silent night.
And these I do not sell for gold
Or coin of silvery shine,
But for a copper halfpenny,
And that will purchase nine.

“I sometimes dig for buttered rolls,
Or set limed twigs for crabs;
I sometimes search the grassy knolls
For wheels of hansom-cabs.
And that’s the way” (he gave a wink)
“By which I get my wealth–
And very gladly will I drink
Your honor’s noble health.”

I heard him then, for I had just
Completed my design
To keep the Menai bridge from rust
By boiling it in wine.
I thanked him much for telling me
The way he got his wealth,
But chiefly for his wish that he
Might drink my noble health.

And now, if e’er by chance I put
My fingers into glue,
Or madly squeeze a right-hand foot
Into a left-hand shoe,
Or if I drop upon my toe
A very heavy weight,
I weep, for it reminds me so
Of that old man I used to know–
Whose look was mild, whose speech was slow,
Whose hair was whiter than the snow,
Whose face was very like a crow,
With eyes, like cinders, all aglow,
Who seemed distracted with his woe,
Who rocked his body to and fro,
And muttered mumblingly and low,
As if his mouth were full of dough,
Who snorted like a buffalo–
That summer evening long ago,
A-sitting on a gate.

—Lewis Carroll (1832-1898)

Bibliophiles Unanimous!: Mystical Poetry & Prose 4/11 - 4/24/21
2021-04-11 - 2021-04-24
Thomas Traherne (1636-1674)

Songs are thoughts, sung out with the breath when people are moved by great forces and ordinary speech no longer suffices. Man is moved just like the ice floe sailing here and there in the current. His thoughts are driven by a flowing force when he feels joy, when he feels fear, when he feels sorrow. Thoughts can wash over him like a flood, making his breath come in gasps and his heart throb. Something like an abatement in the weather will keep him thawed up. And then it will happen that we, who always think we are small, will feel still smaller. And we will fear to use words. But it will happen that the words we need will come of themselves. When the words we want to use shoot up of themselves–we get a new song.

–Orpingalik, Netsilik Inuit

On Sunday, April 11th, our theme was MYSTIC POETRY & PROSE from Animist, Polytheist, Hindu, Taoist, Buddhist, Jewish, Christian & Muslim mystics.

Todd Oleson read a poem by Emily Dickinson and two poems by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Jude Russell read poems by Rilke, Roethke & Blake. Dave Duncan read a poem by Sylvia Plath, which reminded me of a passage from Hamlet. Martha Ragland read the opening of Tagore’s Gitanjali. Nick Eldredge read the lyrics to Into the Mystic by Van Morrison. I read poems by Staffords William & Kim, and Waxwings by Robert Francis. Here are some the poems:

God made a little Gentian –
It tried – to be a Rose –
And failed – and all the Summer laughed –
But just before the Snows

There rose a Purple Creature –
That ravished all the Hill –
And Summer hid her Forehead –
And Mockery – was still –

The Frosts were her condition –
The Tyrian would not come
Until the North – invoke it –
Creator – Shall I – bloom?

–Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
*

A Better Resurrection

I have no wit, I have no words, no tears;
My heart within me like a stone
Is numbed too much for hopes or fears;
Look right, look left, I dwell alone;
A lift mine eyes, but dimmed with grief
No everlasting hills I see;
My life is like the falling leaf;
Jesus, quicken me.

–Sylvia Plath
*

Hamlet. 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.

–Will Shakespeare
*

“Ich lebe mein Leben in wachsenden Ringen”

“I live my life in widening circles
that reach out across the world.
I may not complete this last one
but I give myself to it.

I circle around God, around the primordial tower.
I’ve been circling for thousands of years
and I still don’t know: am I a falcon,
a storm, or a great song?”
*

“Alles wird wieder gross sein und gewaltig”

“All will come again into its strength:
the fields undivided, the waters undammed,
the trees towering and the walls built low,
And in the valleys, people as strong
and varied as the land.

And no churches where God
is imprisoned and lamented
like a trapped and wounded animal.
The houses welcoming all who knock
and a sense of boundless offering
in all relations, amd in you and me.

No yearning for an afterlife, no looking beyond,
no belittling of death,
but only longing for what belongs to us
and serving earth, lest we remain unused.”

(I have to add one more here, read and absorbed shortly after I had experienced my life changing ‘mystical experience,’ and was still in the deepest throes of LOVE) (I still love it) (Jude)

”Losch mir die Augen aus; ich kann dich sehen”

“Extinguish my eyes, I’ll go on seeing you,
Seal my ears, I’ll go on hearing you,
And without feet I can make my way to you,
without a mouth I can swear your name.

Break off my arms, I’ll take hold of you
with my heart as a hand,
Stop my heart, and my brain will start to beat,
And if you consume my brain with fire,
I’ll feel you burn in every drop of my blood.”

Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Poems to God, translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy, 1996
*

Gitanjali

I
Thou hast made me endless, such is thy pleasure. This frail vessel thou emptiest again and again, and fillest it ever with fresh life.
This little flute of a reed thou hast carried over hills and dales, and hast breathed through it melodies eternally new.
At the immortal touch of thy hands my little heart loses its limits in joy and gives birth to utterance ineffable.
Thy infinite gifts come to me only on these very small hands of mine. Ages pass, and still thou poorest, and still there is room to fill.

–Rabrindranath Tagore
*

Into the Mystic

We were born before the wind
Also younger than the sun
Ere the bonnie boat was won as we sailed into the mystic
Hark, now hear the sailors cry
Smell the sea and feel the sky
Let your soul and spirit fly into the mystic

And when that fog horn blows I will be coming home
And when the fog horn blows I want to hear it
I don’t have to fear it

And I want to rock your gypsy soul
Just like way back in the days of old
And magnificently we will flow into the mystic

When that fog horn blows you know I will be coming home
And when that fog horn whistle blows I got to hear it
I don’t have to fear it

And I want to rock your gypsy soul
Just like way back in the days of old
And together we will flow into the mystic
Come on girl…

Too late to stop now…

–Van Morrison
*

Ask Me

Some time when the river is ice ask me
mistakes I have made. Ask me whether
what I have done is my life. Others
have come in their slow way into
my thought, and some have tried to help
or to hurt: ask me what difference
their strongest love or hate has made.

I will listen to what you say.
You and I can turn and look
at the silent river and wait. We know
the current is there, hidden; and there
are comings and goings from miles away
that hold the stillness exactly before us.
What the river says, that is what I say.

–William Stafford (1914-1993)
*

All My Relations

I want to thank all my relations
for this chance to be on Earth
in her time of flourishing; to thank
the First People of this place, the
Multnomah people, the Clackamas,
Molalla, Tualatin, and Chinook, to honor
their sovereignty in long and continuing
relation, still teaching us how we might
be here together; to thank my mother and father,
moon and sun, for setting me forth before
their own passing on; to thank my grandmother
who listened to me so eloquently I learned
to listen to my own heart and mind, to find
stories and songs there; to thank my family
and friends, and all the citizens and travelers
who study and work for deeper kinship
in this place, with one another, and with
all creatures, one Earth, visible, palpable,
fragile, intricate, resonant, in need of our
better stories. I want to thank you
who have gathered to receive what I have
carried here–in hope that something
I have may meet something you need,
so all our relations may be strengthened
for the life we live together.

–Kim Stafford
*

The Divine Image

To Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love
All pray in their distress;
And to these virtues of delight
Return their thankfulness.

For Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love
Is God, our father dear,
And Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love
Is Man, his child and care.

For Mercy has a human heart,
Pity a human face,
And Love, the human form divine,
And Peace, the human dress.

Then every man, of every clime,
That prays in his distress,
Prays to the human form divine,
Love, Mercy, Pity, Peace.

And all must love the human form,
In heathen, turk, or jew;
Where Mercy, Love, & Pity dwell
There God is dwelling too.

–William Blake (1757-1857)
*

In a Dark Time

In a dark time, the eye begins to see,
I meet my shadow in the deepening shade;
I hear my echo in the echoing wood—
A lord of nature weeping to a tree.
I live between the heron and the wren,
Beasts of the hill and serpents of the den.

What’s madness but nobility of soul
At odds with circumstance? The day’s on fire!
I know the purity of pure despair,
My shadow pinned against a sweating wall.
That place among the rocks—is it a cave,
Or winding path? The edge is what I have.

A steady storm of correspondences!
A night flowing with birds, a ragged moon,
And in broad day the midnight come again!
A man goes far to find out what he is—
Death of the self in a long, tearless night,
All natural shapes blazing unnatural light.

Dark, dark my light, and darker my desire.
My soul, like some heat-maddened summer fly,
Keeps buzzing at the sill. Which I is I?
A fallen man, I climb out of my fear.
The mind enters itself, and God the mind,
And one is One, free in the tearing wind.

–Theodore Roethke (1908-1963)
*

Constantly risking absurdity
and death
whenever he performs
above the heads
of his audience
the poet like an acrobat
climbs on rime
to a high wire of his own making
and balancing on eyebeams
above a sea of faces
paces his way
to the other side of day
performing entrechats
and sleight-of-foot tricks
and other high theatrics
and all without mistaking
any thing
for what it may not be

For he’s the super realist
who must perforce perceive
taut truth
before the taking of each stance or step
in his supposed advance
toward that still higher perch
where Beauty stands and waits
with gravity
to start her death-defying leap

And he
a little charleychaplin man
who may or may not catch
her fair eternal form
spreadeagled in the empty air
of existence
*

17

This life is not a circus where
the shy performing dogs of love
look on

as time flicks out
its tricky whip
to race us thru our paces
Yet gay parading floats drift by
decorated with gorgeous gussies in silk tights
and attended by moithering monkeys
make-believe monks
horny hiawathas
and baboons astride tame tigers
with ladies inside
while googly horns make merrygoround music
and pantomimic pierrots castrate disaster
with strange sad laughter
and gory gorillas toss tender maidens heavenward
while cakewalkers and carnie hustlers
all gassed to the gills
strike playbill poses
and stagger after every
wheeling thing
While still around the ring
lope the misshapen camels of lust
and all us Emmet Kelley clowns
always making up imaginary scenes
with all our masks for faces
even eat fake Last Suppers
at collapsible tables
and mocking cross ourselves
in sawdust crosses

And yet gobble up at last
to shrive our circus souls
the also imaginary
wafers of grace

–Lawrence Ferlinghetti
*

Waxwings

Four tao philosophers as cedar waxwings
chat on a February berrybush
in sun, and I am one.

Such merriment and such sobriety–
the small wild fruit on the tall stalk–
was this not always my true style?

Above an elegance of snow, beneath
a silk-blue sky a brotherhood of four
birds. Can you mistake us?

To sun, to feast, and to converse
and all together–for this I have abandoned all my other lives.

–Robert Francis (1901-1987)
*

Is anyone still reading this? It’s getting pretty long. But not long enough. On April 11th, we didn’t get around to mystic prose, but here’s something loving and lovely from Thomas Traherne:

47

What life can be more pleasant, than that which is delighted in itself, and in all objects; in which also all objects infinitely delight? What life can be more pleasant, than that which is blessed in all, and glorious before all? Now this life is the life of Love. For this end therefore did He desire to Love, that He might be Love. Infinitely delightful to all objects, infinitely delighted in all, and infinitely pleased in Himself, for being infinitely delightful to all, and delighted in all. All this He attaineth by Love. For Love is the most delightful of all employments. All the objects of Love are delightful to it, and Love is delightful to all its objects. Well then may Love be the end of loving, which is so complete. It being a thing so delightful, that God infinitely rejoiceth in Himself for being Love. And thus you see how God is the end of Himself. He doth what He doth, that He may be what He is: Wise and glorious and bountiful and blessed in being Perfect Love.

48

Love is so divine and perfect a thing, that it is worthy to be the very end and being of the Deity. It is His goodness, and it is His glory. We therefore so vastly delight in Love, because all these excellencies and all other whatsoever lie within it. By Loving a Soul does propagate and beget itself. By Loving it does dilate and magnify itself. By Loving it does enlarge and delight itself. By Loving also it delighteth others, as by Loving it doth honor and enrich itself. But above all by Loving it does attain itself. Love also being the end of Souls, which are never perfect till they are in act what they are in power. They were made to love, and are dark and vain and comfortless till they do it. Till they love they are idle, or mis-employed. Till they love they are desolate; without their objects, and narrow and little, and dishonorable: but when they shine by Love upon all objects, they are accompanied with them and enlightened by them. Till we become therefore all Act as God is, we can never rest, nor ever be satisfied.

–Thomas Traherne (1636-1674)
*

(In Centuries of Meditations, Thomas Traherne has just over four hundred meditations. In the “Second Century,” he goes on an extended meditation of love, from numbers 39-67. I have included two typical ones.)

May all beings be happy.
May we live in love.

Johnny

peace, love, happiness & understanding 4/15/21
2021-04-15 - 2021-04-28
THE OPEN ROAD
peace, love, happiness & understanding

April 15, 2021

All beings rejoice! A new book of Kim’s poems has just been published by Red Hen Press! Sing! Dance! Make Merry! Get your copy today! Act now! Easy monthly payments! No money down! Makes a great gift for all occasions! With Kim’s permission, here’s a small sampling from the Treasure Trove:

Poetry in Prison

You’re in, but the question is:
what’s in you? What story
aching to be told do you hold
in solitary, shackled, denied
its rights to visitors?

The hard things that happened are gold
you hammer into shape, the pain
you twist, the grief you make shimmer,
the lost good thing you restore
by telling it back into being.

Everyone is in prison, one way
or another. And everyone is
free, one way or another. The trick
is to find your way to bear the story
forth, so it shines in the listener’s eyes.
*

Blue Brick from the Midwest

After my father collapsed like a bolt of light, toppled without a word,
I was the one to enter his study, find the jagged note to our mother he
scratched as he reeled, the freight train of his departure hurtling
through his heart—

—a sentiment he did not speak in seventy-nine years, as a tough customer,
affable but stern, inert when grief came, reserved as granite
when my brother died, cracking plaintive jokes when we trembled
in the hospital, mother going under the knife.

His way was trenchant, oblique. He distrusted those who
talk about God, preferring to honor the holy with a glance,
a nod, or silence. Delving deeper, the day he died, we found
in his sock drawer, under that scant set of flimsy raiment, the fetching
photo of the flirt; our mother, coy at the sink, looking back
over her shoulder, dressed only in an apron with a big bow.
No fool like an old fool.

And delving deeper, at the back of the bottom file (the niche
where one would hide the stuff of blackmail) I touched the blue
brick of love letters our mother had sent him when they
courted in the war—brittle leaves kissed snug together
and bound with string, the trouble he had carried
in secret through every move since 1943. She knew
them not, nor had his. “Oh Billy,” she said.

Father, early years taught your way with the heart’s contraband
when the dirty thirties blunted your bravado, tornado snatched
your friends, the war your tenderness, and left you with these secrets
hoarded for us to find when you were gone.

—Kim Stafford
*

At last Sunday’s Bibliophiles Unanimous! Zoom gathering (April 11th) we shared “Mystic Poems and Prose.” I read William Stafford’s poem “Ask Me.” Kim has a story about this poem (my paraphrase):

There was a big event at the Oregon Historical Society for the 100th Anniversary of William Stafford’s birth. OPB was there. Very Important People from the historical society and literary societies, et cetera. A homeless man wandered in, and headed for the table with the cookies. The cookies were being guarded by Someone of Importance. The homeless guy asked, “What’s going on?” “We’re honoring a poet.” “Is he any good?” “Yes, we think so: William Stafford.” The homeless man says, “Ask me.” “Ask you what?” “Some time when the river is ice ask me mistakes I have made…” After the Uninvited Guest had finished reciting the poem, the Guardian of the Refreshment Table asked, “Would you like some cookies?”

Ask Me

Some time when the river is ice ask me
mistakes I have made. Ask me whether
what I have done is my life. Others
have come in their slow way into
my thought, and some have tried to help
or to hurt: ask me what difference
their strongest love or hate has made.

I will listen to what you say.
You and I can turn and look
at the silent river and wait. We know
the current is there, hidden; and there
are comings and goings from miles away
that hold the stillness exactly before us.
What the river says, that is what I say.

–William Stafford (1914-1993)
*

At the Zoom gathering Todd Oleson read his favorite Emily Dickinson poem:

God made a little Gentian –
It tried – to be a Rose –
And failed – and all the Summer laughed –
But just before the Snows

There rose a Purple Creature –
That ravished all the Hill –
And Summer hid her Forehead –
And Mockery – was still –

The Frosts were her condition –
The Tyrian would not come
Until the North – invoke it –
Creator – Shall I – bloom?

–Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
*

Jude read this poem by William Blake:

The Divine Image

To Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love
All pray in their distress;
And to these virtues of delight
Return their thankfulness.

For Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love
Is God, our father dear,
And Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love
Is Man, his child and care.

For Mercy has a human heart,
Pity a human face,
And Love, the human form divine,
And Peace, the human dress.

Then every man, of every clime,
That prays in his distress,
Prays to the human form divine,
Love, Mercy, Pity, Peace.

And all must love the human form,
In heathen, turk, or jew;
Where Mercy, Love, & Pity dwell
There God is dwelling too.

–William Blake (1757-1857)
*

Last Fall, I walked out the back door and found the deck and the entire back yard covered with little orange polka dots. It was mysterious! Where had they come from? I looked up and discovered that a flock of cedar waxwings was flying back and forth from our maple tree to some neighbor’s bush or tree, bringing hundreds (maybe thousands!) of orange berries. They ate the berries in the maple tree and spit out the skins. Mystery solved. This has absolutely nothing to do with the following poem, which I have always loved:

Waxwings

Four tao philosophers as cedar waxwings
chat on a February berrybush
in sun, and I am one.

Such merriment and such sobriety–
the small wild fruit on the tall stalk–
was this not always my true style?

Above an elegance of snow, beneath
a silk-blue sky a brotherhood of four
birds. Can you mistake us?

To sun, to feast, and to converse
and all together–for this I have abandoned all my other lives.

–Robert Francis (1901-1987)
*

We bibliophiles didn’t get around to mystic prose last Sunday, but as a special “peace, love, happiness & understanding” bonus, here’s something loving and lovely from Thomas Traherne:

47
What life can be more pleasant, than that which is delighted in itself, and in all objects; in which also all objects infinitely delight? What life can be more pleasant, than that which is blessed in all, and glorious before all? Now this life is the life of Love. For this end therefore did He desire to Love, that He might be Love. Infinitely delightful to all objects, infinitely delighted in all, and infinitely pleased in Himself, for being infinitely delightful to all, and delighted in all. All this He attaineth by Love. For Love is the most delightful of all employments. All the objects of Love are delightful to it, and Love is delightful to all its objects. Well then may Love be the end of loving, which is so complete. It being a thing so delightful, that God infinitely rejoiceth in Himself for being Love. And thus you see how God is the end of Himself. He doth what He doth, that He may be what He is: Wise and glorious and bountiful and blessed in being Perfect Love.

48
Love is so divine and perfect a thing, that it is worthy to be the very end and being of the Deity. It is His goodness, and it is His glory. We therefore so vastly delight in Love, because all these excellencies and all other whatsoever lie within it. By Loving a Soul does propagate and beget itself. By Loving it does dilate and magnify itself. By Loving it does enlarge and delight itself. By Loving also it delighteth others, as by Loving it doth honor and enrich itself. But above all by Loving it does attain itself. Love also being the end of Souls, which are never perfect till they are in act what they are in power. They were made to love, and are dark and vain and comfortless till they do it. Till they love they are idle, or mis-employed. Till they love they are desolate; without their objects, and narrow and little, and dishonorable: but when they shine by Love upon all objects, they are accompanied with them and enlightened by them. Till we become therefore all Act as God is, we can never rest, nor ever be satisfied.

–Thomas Traherne (1636-1674)
*

In Centuries of Meditations, Thomas Traherne has just over four hundred meditations. In the “Second Century,” he goes on an extended meditation of love, from numbers 39-67. I have included two typical ones.

May all people be happy.
May we live in love.

—Johnny

Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue 4/15/21
2021-04-15 - 2021-05-14
Open Road Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue

Songs are thoughts, sung out with the breath when people are moved by great forces and ordinary speech no longer suffices. Man is moved just like the ice floe sailing here and there in the current. His thoughts are driven by a flowing force when he feels joy, when he feels fear, when he feels sorrow. Thoughts can wash over him like a flood, making his breath come in gasps and his heart throb. Something like an abatement in the weather will keep him thawed up. And then it will happen that we, who always think we are small, will feel still smaller. And we will fear to use words. But it will happen that the words we need will come of themselves. When the words we want to use shoot up of themselves–we get a new song.

—Orpingalik, Netsilik Inuit

April 15, 2020

Welcome to our eighth meditation and mindfulness dialogue! The numbers below refer to passages from the book Your True Home by Thich Nhat Hanh. The tag on my Yogi tea bag says: “Let your heart speak to other hearts.”
*

A MEMORY OF WHAT
after Tracy K. Smith

Angels with days for eyes
lay their hands on the dead.

Who is so fixed & desolate
that they cannot see the walls of honey

closing in on a fugitive grief? They wince so
beautifully against the sun, calamity:

children, aspects of children, falling
in love with a flower. They are lost

in a memory of what the field was.
In a memory of when the field was

in love with a flower, we are lost
children, aspects of children, falling

beautifully against the sun, calamity
closing in on a future grief. We wince so

we cannot see the walls of honey.
What is fixed & desolate

lays its hand on the dead
angels with days for eyes.
*

AMONG THE CATTAILS

If all that’s left are ashes
in a lazy, bending wind
among the cattails—
if a moth is blown off course
and lost in lust
for wander, a crazing of grasses—
if the cottonwoods are twinned
by the sky’s calm sister,
sunrisen water—if
you find one day that you miss me,
miss everyone, and your days
are an inconsolable star
without a night to fall from—
we will wake as seedlings
among the cattails.

—Alex Tretbar
*

I have been unusually busy and am only now catching up on my readings. I apologize to this group for my comments printed in the January 15th newsletter. These were intended as a personal communication with Johnny, and not at all intended for the newsletter. The miscommunication is entirely my fault, I did not adequately delineate my comments as a side conversation. The context was Johnny and I discussing tradition and lineage, and my own confusions about these topics. My comments were not in any way a criticism of this group or its participants.

—Shad Alexander
*

My Foolproof Plan for World Peace

I hereby declare today to be International Love Day.
And a General Armistice.
All hostilities must cease on International Love Day.
Henceforward, every day is International Love Day.

—Johnny Stallings
*

[Three entries from Michel’s (almost) daily March meditation journal.]

March 7, 2021 #92 Don’t Take Side

Reconciliation is a beautiful idea. Yet, even in here, every one of us wants to be on “a side”—the winning sports team (or unit ball team), the “right” side of the power players (however one sees power displayed in prison: violence/aggression, staff informant, etc.), having the “right” charges and/or associates leading to the right job. Because whatever or whomever is of the “wrong” is to be despised, belittled, attacked, exploited, destroyed, not tolerated to co-exist. So much suffering, trauma, and drama exists over this dualistic battle. I don’t recall (free) society being any different—possibly more subtle in some areas. We always have those who have/want power, those who want to be close to power, since they can’t have their own, and those who run from power (maybe over-simplified, and/or “wrongly” thought out.)

As I read on, Thây reminds me that: “What we (I) need are people who are capable of loving and not taking sides so that they can embrace the whole of reality….” “look at all beings with the eyes of compassion, and we (I) can do the real work of helping to alleviate suffering.” I see that, not only do I need/want to have people in my life “capable of loving and not taking sides,” I also need/want to be that person in the world. When I (we) “look at all beings with the eyes of compassion…” it alleviates suffering—mine and theirs.

While I desire reconciliation with former friends and victims of my selfish choices, I wonder how much simpler reconciliation I can do among my current friends and associates and/or family, with whom I have contact. Or, how much I need with my own self—letting me “off the hook” (providing forgivness) for mistakes, big and small, no longer taking a “side,” and cultivating loving compassion to ease suffering in my world.

I imagine this reconciliation isn’t easy, but it can’t be “hard” either. Thây wants me (us) to continue practicing mindfulness and reconciliation till I (we) see the suffering of others as my (our) own.

This is where it gets deep and demands much, to give up self as separate from other, and to see that we’re all made from the same mud. We all share the same source. Even though we insist on seeing separateness—me vs. you, us vs. them—reconciliation helps us see the common ground we share, upon which we can begin anew to build a future together, not excluding anyone, to strive toward relieving (alleviating) suffering.

I believe I can do this work of developing mindfulness—breathing, being aware, holding compassion (instead of contempt), sharing love as acceptance, patience and understanding.
*

March 9, 2021 #93 The Spiritual Dimension

Oh, if only all people pursued peace! What an amazing world this would be. But, Wait! I can encourage friends, family, and anyone who is open to do so. I can bring the peace I have (find, learn) into the world I already live in, to begin a healing work in others I contact. Remind me again: Why is it I need to wait for the (war) world leaders to pull out and learn the ways of peace for their lives? Short answer: I don’t. I can communicate my desires for them to learn and pursue peace. But, I can only find and cultivate my own. And, I can support anyone else’s journey by expressing/living a life of peace.
*

March 24, 2021 #102 Like the Moon in the Sky

“Abandoning ideas” could be scary; especially if they are ideas of identity—“me,” this self. It’s not that I cease to exist, per se, or that I wholly abandon my role in this play going on here. I LET GO of my attachment to the “role” and the “character’s” story. Shakespeare put it well when he called us all merely actors.

To me, an actor picks up a role: and a part in the story is begun. He or she develops a backstory, beyond what’s provided, to drive the character through conflicts to resolution. When the curtain falls for the last time, the actor sets down the role and picks up with the role of the self. (But it’s not really different.)

I think this freedom Thây is speaking of today is like that actor. When I set down my attachment to all the stories spun for this role of Michel: then, I become free to exist and move as I was created, to be the person I came here to be—instead of this assumed role I was once convinced was the “real” me. (PS: I think glimpses of the “real” do shine through, as with all actors bringing a piece of the self to a role.)

The more I identify and attach to this story/role, the more I face the challenge to discover a “real” self within this role. Thây is right, happiness can’t come from this conflict (inner turmoil). It comes easily when I set down attachment to this role of “me.” The story of Michel persists, until it ends: My participation is how I pursue suffering, or ease into happiness…my breathing exercises.

—Michel Deforge
*

Quiet Day

Dawn day. Gone gray.
No car. No key. No place to be.
No task. No mask. No fancy shoes.
No news. Nothing to lose.
No greeting. No meeting.
A quiet nook. A long look.
No call. No knock. Forgotten clock.
Singing birds. Few words. Taking stock.
Dusk slow. Moon glow. Let go.
*

All My Relations

I want to thank all my relations
for this chance to be on Earth
in her time of flourishing; to thank
the First People of this place, the
Multnomah people, the Clackamas,
Molalla, Tualatin, & Chinook, to honor
their sovereignty in long and continuing
relation, still teaching us how we might
be here together; to thank my mother and father,
moon and sun, for setting me forth before
their own passing on; to thank my grandmother
who listened to me so eloquently I learned
to listen to my own heart and mind, to find
stories and songs there; to thank my family
and friends, and all citizens and travelers
who study and work for deeper kinship
in this place, with one another, and with
all creatures, one Earth, visible, palpable,
fragile, intricate, resonant, in need of our
better stories. I want to thank you
who have gathered to receive what I have
carried here — in hope that something
I have may meet something you need,
so all our relations may be strengthened
for the life we live together.

—Kim Stafford, from Singer Come from Afar, Red Hen Press, 2021
*

#50 The Basic Principle

“Have we wasted our hours and our days?Are we wasting our lives? These are important questions.”

Waste: This is what caught my attention. All my life (well, at least for the last 30 years or so) my guiding desire, my guiding principle has been to Not Waste Life. Live this life! Be Alive! Do Not Waste Life. If you are afraid of something, move into it; don’t run from it. Expand, don’t contract.

To that end, I have had a (very) full life. Full of good times and also very difficult times. I am aware of and grateful for both. Many will say that I have Too Many Things going on. Do you ever stop going? they ask. To be clear, these activities are not things I think I should be doing. They are all passions, things I love, or feel strongly about —some despite, or because of their difficulty or complexity.

My husband has set some rules: For every new thing you take on, something else has to go. You want to sing in the Voci Choir? Fine, then you might stop leading those hikes for young girls. Learn how to graft fruit trees? Cool, but stop digging and potting up your two hundred plants for the plant sale. Take classes in Middle eastern cooking? Cook meals for that new Hispanic family? Only if you stop cooking for that other family.

So I’m busy, maybe ‘over scheduled.’ That is until recently when I had to stop everything for two months to recover from foot surgery. And not like the Pandemic Stop, when I could still ride my bike and hike and carry on almost as always. This stoppage has a requirement of REST, of HEALING, of SLEEP, of RECOVERY. In other words, being quite…motionless.

This has undermined my brain pattern of ‘activity’ as being ‘not wasting life.’ If I can’t ‘do’ anything, I must be wasting life. But then I came around to this: I am ‘doing’ something active by recovering, by healing. That is ‘productive!’ Whew! I am not wasting life.

But then I read the rest of The Basic Principle. “Practicing Buddhism is to be alive in each moment. When we practice sitting or walking, we have the means to do it perfectly. During the rest of the day, we also practice. It is more difficult, but it is possible. The sitting and the walking must be extended to the non-walking, non-sitting moments of our day. That is the basic principle of meditation.” Not wasting life is not about being active, or being active in being inactive. It’s not about being ‘productive,’ although I’ve never been proud of the word nor used it as a complimentary personal characteristic. Moment by moment being active and aware, being still and aware. Being in the moment, every moment. Not wasting life is about being alive in each moment. It is not about always doing something.

—Jude Russell
*

Morning Walk

In the park
Immersed in birdsong
Drowned in trees
I breathe it in
Until I smile

—Kristen Sagan
*

Meditation and Mindfulness are simply the Art of paying attention. This is the most wonderful time of year, when we can first take a walk outside after a cold winter and enjoy seeing the new life that comes, without any need but the energy of life. The pink azaleas have bloomed, and the magnificent magnolias. The ground is polka dotted after a wind with plum blossoms. This week on my son’s farm, three sheep have given birth to one lamb each. Each one a surprise because their winter wool hides the mamas’ full bellies. Surprise and awe are two of the gifts of a happy life.

This sense of transformation is also ours just by noticing and being present to how we feel when happiness or kindness shows up.

My wish for us all this beautiful month of spring is to enjoy and notice the rebirth in the world; this can resonate within ourselves. If you don’t have a wonderful outside view, may you find some quiet time for breathing meditation. I like to take that time every day at 3 p.m. and know that others are creating lovingkindness energy along with me. In Vietnam at the same time, Thich Nhat Hanh and Sister Chan Kong and the monks and nuns will be meditating together in the morning after ringing the temple bell.

Here is a note from Thich Nhat Hanh on what we can do paying attention to our breath:

“Our breathing is a stable solid ground that is always there for us to take refuge in. Whenever we are carried away by regret about something that has happened, or swept away in our fears or anxiety in the future, we can return to our breathing, and re-establish ourselves in the present moment.

We don’t need to control the breath in any way. We simply encounter it, just as it is. It may be long or short, deep or shallow. With the gentle energy of mindfulness it will naturally become slower and deeper.”

Peace and Love,

If i could I would send you all peach blossoms,

—Katie Radditz

Bibliophiles Unanimous!: Will Shakespeare's 457th Birthday Party!!! 4/25/21
2021-04-25 - 2021-05-15
the Cobbe portrait

I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine
With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine:
And there the snake throws her enamell’d skin,
Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in…

—A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Oberon, Act 2, scene 1

Beloved Bibliophiles!

We had a lovely Zoom gathering on April 25th, to celebrate Will’s 457th birthday (two days late). Because many of the people had experience doing Shakespeare plays in prison, or going to see them there, that’s mainly what we talked about. Friends from all over the world joined our conversation.
Aaron Gilbert played Helena in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night at Two Rivers prison. He joined us from Roseburg.
Allen Mills joined us from his truck (maybe somewhere in the vicinity of Newberg), while he took a coffee break from work. Allen played Hamlet, Puck and Feste at Two Rivers prison.
Some of the Actor/Directors who enlivened our conversation were:
Curt Tofteland of Shakespeare Behind Bars, from Michigan.
Stratis Panourios from Athens.
Ashley Lucas of the Prison Creative Arts Project at the University of Michigan.
Alan Benditt, from Seattle.
Howard Thoresen from New York.
Keith Scales from Eureka Springs, Arkansas.
Todd Oleson from Walla Walla, Washington.
Other lovely friends who joined the conversation, included Gail Lester from San Rafael, and Portlanders Martha Ragland, Jeffrey Sher, Deborah Buchanan, Tad Leflar and Nancy Scharbach.
And of course Will Shakespeare was with us in spirit!

peace, love & happiness
Johnny

peace, love, happiness & understanding 4/29/21
2021-04-29 - 2021-06-09
THE OPEN ROAD
peace, love, happiness & understanding

April 29, 2021

BIBLIOMANIA

I like to think of myself as a bibliophile, but the correct term would probably be “bibliomaniac.” There is definitely something nutty about my relationship with books. Here’s an example:

One day I had selected a stack of about eight books to check out from the downtown branch of the Multnomah County Library. I brought them to the front desk. The librarian began checking them out. About halfway through the pile she said: “I’m gonna have to cut you off here. This doesn’t happen very often. You aren’t allowed to have more than 500 books checked out at a time.”

See what I mean.

I love books. I console myself with the thought that there are worse things to be addicted to. Probably meth would be worse, in the long run.

As a lad, I hated school. It impinged upon my freedom to go wherever I felt like going and do whatever I felt like doing. Halfway through my Freshman year in college, it dawned on me that going to school was optional. I walked away. I still sometimes have dreams where I walk out of school and get the most wonderful feeling!

Once I left school, I started reading like a madman. I could read anything I wanted to! It was thrilling! I carried a backpack with me wherever I went, with at least five or six books in it. I had to have a lot of books to choose from, because I didn’t know in advance which book I would be in the mood to read once I sat down in the coffee shop. I carried a bag of books with me for many years before I noticed that most people were walking around without any books! That seemed strange to me. It still does.

Like, what if someone found themself somewhere with nothing to read? What would they do? Fortunately, I’ve never had that experience.

I start the day sitting on the couch. Then I begin building my nest. By ten o’clock I am surrounded by piles of books. Ask Nancy.

Instead of going for a long walk, I’m much more likely to reserve a book from the library with a title like: 50 Best Oregon Hiking Trails.

I consider my books to be my friends. And many of the authors, likewise. I feel very fortunate to have Walt Whitman and William Shakespeare as companions on my life journey. And it’s lovely to make new friends. Wikipedia says that Thomas Traherne died in 1674, but that doesn’t bother me in the slightest. We just recently became close.

As I get older I read less and less, and slower and slower, but I still need to have a lot of books nearby—maybe the way some people enjoy having their golden lab sleeping next to them. When I come home, all my books wag their tails. The shelves are crowded with worlds waiting to be explored.

There are so many books! Way too many to read in a single lifetime! (Maybe I’ll have to come back again and again, and get a new library card every time.) Of the books I have read, I can’t remember much. Nevertheless, some books changed the way I see and experience the world. I guess one of my ambitions is to live a life rich in meaning. Books have helped me with that.

I read slowly. Sometimes a few words are enough to satisfy me. I put the book back on the pile, happy as a clam at high tide.

I’ve always dreamed of writing a book. I’ve gotten so much pleasure from reading books, I’d like to give that same pleasure to others. But I don’t know what to say. Or how to say it. I’ve kept a journal for fifty years. I write letters. I’ve written a few poems and stories, theater pieces and essays. I guess I’m writing this little essay, or whatever it is. If I do ever manage to get something I’ve written published between the covers of a book, it will probably consist of short things. I don’t seem to have the attention span or the work ethic to write something long.

When I was young, I just assumed I’d effortlessly write a great book someday. Perhaps the “effortlessly” is the clue to why it never happened. Who knows? I may still write a book and get it published. I’m not dead yet.

Here are a few of the books I’ve enjoyed most:

I put a picture of Autobiography of a Yogi on the first page. I read that book when I was 19 and it opened up a world that I didn’t know existed—the world of the Indian yogi. It turned out that that world was quite congenial to me. In my twenties, I lived for a couple years in India with yogis. For yogis, silence—inner stillness—is important. For me, too.

Three of my favorite short stories are: “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens, “Dream of a Ridiculous Man” by Fyodor Dostoevsky, and “Tenth of December” by George Saunders. (Jason Beito recommended the latter story to me.) The words “human” and “humane” are related. It feels like certain works of fiction subtly enlarge our humanity, make us more human—more kind. Maybe all of Charles Dickens’ works do this. One thing the world could use a lot more of is kindness. These stories can help us with that.

I’m re-reading Huckleberry Finn (again). The older I get, the better it gets. I’m not alone in rating it the greatest American novel. It would be hard to find a more entertaining story, or a more keen-eyed observer of human foibles than Huck.

Last Sunday, we celebrated William Shakespeare’s 457th birthday on Zoom with friends from all over the place—Curt Tofteland and Ashley Lucas from Michigan, Howard Thoresen from New York, Stratis Panourios from Athens, Alan Benditt from Seattle, Todd Oleson from Walla Walla, Keith Scales from Eureka Springs, Arkansas, Aaron Gilbert from Roseburg, Allen Mills from Newberg, and a number of friends from Portland. Since a lot of us have had experience acting, directing and going to see Shakespeare plays in prison, that’s mostly what we talked about.

What makes William Shakespeare so important to me has to do with the fact that he didn’t write novels—he wrote plays. And you can do the plays! Putting on his plays is an even greater pleasure than reading them. You learn the words! You play the parts! You rehearse the scenes over and over. Finally, you perform the plays for your friends! In his day, actors were called “players.” Kids need to play, but grownups do too. There is no one more fun to play with than Will. And no better place to play the plays than in prison.

Another book I’m re-reading (again) is Shakespeare and the Goddess of Complete Being by Ted Hughes. It’s my favorite book about Shakespeare. Ted Hughes is a poet; with great intuition and sympathy he explores the personal, historical and mythological dimensions of Shakespeare’s plays and poems. I had always wondered about Shakespeare’s inner life—who was he? Ted Hughes goes where a vast army of Shakespeare scholars have never dreamed of going. For me, reading the book is thrilling—which is kind of weird for a book of literary criticism, if that’s what it is. Okay, that’s not what it is. But what is it? I don’t know. It doesn’t fit into any categories. It’s not like any other book. When I get to the end, I’ll start again at the beginning.

Over the years, in trying to better understand the meaning of my human life on Earth—(what’s going on here?)—I’ve continued to study what might be called “the wisdom of the East.” Joseph Campbell is one of my favorite guides. If this is a subject that interests you, I would highly recommend the book Talks With Ramana Maharshi, and the writings of R. H. Blyth, J. Krishnamurti, Shunryu Suzuki, Thich Nhat Hanh, Alan Watts, Lao Tzu, Seng Ts’an and Han Shan.

I’ve probably read more nonfiction than fiction. With nonfiction I can learn things I didn’t know, and even change my inner landscape. I thought this essay would be about how books have shaped the way I see and experience the world, but my mind meandered off in other directions. Maybe I’ll write that essay another day.

For a bibliomaniac like me, the subject of books has no beginning or end. Like the great globe itself, the world of books is vast beyond our ability to know it.

A poem that changed my life and has enriched it endlessly is “Song of Myself,” by Walt Whitman. It’s good to read and re-read it aloud, as often as possible. If when you read it, you mean what you say and feel it, it will do something big to you.

If I could take only one book to the proverbial desert island, I’d take The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. A most rare vision! It hath no bottom.

We’re off to Mexico next week! Back in a month.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

—William Shakespeare, Prospero from The Tempest, Act 4, scene 1

peace & love
Johnny

Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue 5/15/21
2021-05-15 - 2021-06-14
This picture is based on Verse 18 from “A Hundred Verses of Self-Instruction” by the South Indian master of mindfulness meditation, Narayana Guru:

The “I” is not dark; if it were dark we would be in a state of blindness,
unable to know even “I,I”;
as we do know, the “I” is not darkness;
thus, for making this known, this should be told to anyone.

The author is inviting us once again to recognize a simple truth: there is a continuous background awareness operating in us that watches our actions, the arising of our mental states, our dreaming and even our breathing in a timeless unbroken flow of attention. It simply exists, prior to any more definite notions we could have about our personal identity, our names, our age, our sex and so on.

This pure awareness can’t see itself directly, but that doesn’t mean it’s dark or absent. We know it’s there, because it illuminates the objects of our inner and outer experience.

Because it’s absolutely featureless, and because we all share it, we could say, in a sense, that we are one Being. And although everyone calls their inner awareness “I”, this is an “I” that is actually shared by all.

Our mental states are cycling in constant flux, sometimes light and sometimes very dark indeed. So here the author is offering a kindly reminder: our moments of deepest confusion can be known, as such, only by virtue of that light in us that watches.

–Andy Larkin

Open Road Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue

May 15, 2021

Katie Radditz is editing this month’s Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue, while Nancy and I are in Mexico. (JS)

Hello dear friends,

Last week, I went to Walla Walla to help take care of my grand kids while their parents worked there for a few days. It was joyful and freeing to be out after covid vaccines, no masks necessary in the outdoors. The bare hills and the towering rock walls with giant wind mills are a huge contrast to our home landscape in Portland in the cedar trees and lush spring greens and reds of rhododendrons, yellow tulips, orange poppies. I hadn’t been on I-84 going East for more than a year. The last time was visiting at Two Rivers. On our return we came past the prison. And I was filled with the feeling of being home and homesick at the same time. It was hard not to be able to come inside. So we stopped, went down to the river and I meditated with you, just breathing the same air. Being at ease. And I pictured the banner that hangs in the trees at Plum Village when one arrives on retreat. It blows gently in the breeze with Thay’s calligraphy that says, “You have arrived. You are home.” It was a wonderful moment of being home. We are always arriving, right here, right now. This was most refreshing, and I felt grateful for having been welcomed there always, in that magical, loving dialogue group.

— Katie R

Here is a poem by Deb that reminds us of all the life going on beneath our feet while above our minds can be spinning –

White Orchid

Waxy petals unfurl slowly against the tropical earth pale insects burrow in drawn by fragrance escaping molecule by molecule through soft loam surrounding the tendril of whitened stem piercing soil branching off a flower then another creeping underground this life unseen unheeded above ground our life drawing sustenance from the dark explosion

— Deborah Buchanan

First Light Meditation this morning May 16 –

You pedal furiously
into a future you’re trying
hard to prolong
by this exercise,
though the landscape
that rolls by here is time
passing, with its lists
of things undone
or not done properly,
and all this effort,
the fierce monotony
of this ride feels
much like life itself —
going nowhere
strenuously… your legs
beginning to throb, as if
the body communicates
in a code of pain, saying
never mind the future,
you’re here
right now, alive.

–Linda Pastan

Two entries from Michel’s journal:

April 29, 2021 #111 Taking Care of the Future

The Future is being made out of the present, so the best way to take care of the future is to take care of the present moment. This is logical and clear. Spending a lot of time speculating and worrying about the future is totally useless. We can only take care of our future by taking care of the present moment, because the future is made out of only one substance: the present. Only if you are anchored in the present can you prepare well for the future. (Thich Nhat Hanh, from Your True Home)

Michel writes about how to deal with his father’s coming death –

It becomes a matter of focus: Do I dwell on the inevitable loss? Or, do I focus my attention and energy on the now, striving to be fully present to any of life’s moments, making the most out of each one? The result of the second has some happiness for now and later; the former is only anguish and suffering.

May 2, 2021 Michel sends this Buddhist story to ponder and respond to from your own life experience –

It is from a Zen teacher who begins, “We might say that Zen practice is about directly experiencing the most satisfying kind of aliveness. The path of practice is about how we may go about realizing this possibility in our everyday lives, regardless of the circumstances, whether they’re comfortable or whether they’re challenging circumstances.”

There’s a story about a fisherman in a remote village in ancient China. As was the custom with people in the village, each day they would go to the mountain stream that ran through the main part of the village and they would fish for their dinner. One day this fisherman showed up using a straight hook, rather than using a curved hook with a barb. He began fishing next to his neighbors, and they all started to make fun of him. They said, “What are you going to do with that? Why are you trying to fish with a straight hook?” And he said, “You may catch an ordinary fish with your curved hook with a barb on it. But one day I may catch an extraordinary fish with my straight hook.” And it’s said that he continued to fish in this way for 40 years. News of this unusual fisherman and his way of fishing spread throughout all of China, even to the Imperial Court. The Emperor was very interested to see, “What is this all about? What is this person doing? What’s this straight-hook fishing?” So he gathered together an entourage. They traveled up to the remote mountain village. Of course, he arrived to see this now old man with his line fishing with a straight hook, and he said, “Old Man, whatever were you hoping to catch with this straight hook?” And he replied, “I was hoping to catch you, dear Emperor.”

The teacher comments – So, here we are together, separated by time and distance but engaged as a learning community. Sitting quietly, each of us on our own and all of us together, putting our hook in this water. What are we hoping to catch? Maybe some piece of understanding, clarity or insight. Maybe relief from some difficulty or challenge we’re facing. Maybe some way that we can help somebody who we care about deeply; who’s having some difficulty. We don’t know what to do. Maybe we’ll find some way we can really be of help and support. Maybe we don’t know why we’re casting our line into this water of meditation. Maybe it doesn’t matter to us at all. And we can’t know. I mean, this is a story, so we can’t know what the intention really of this old man fishing in this unusual way was. Could he ever have imagined that he’d catch an emperor at the end of his straight hook? But there’s the possibility in this slippery kind of situation, where we’re numbed leading into the moment with what we know, with what we understand, with what we think works, with what makes sense to us. We’re entering a moment in a wider way, wider margins on how we’re approaching this feeling of directly experiencing the most satisfying kind of aliveness. And it marks a shift. It’s a shift from relying on our habits, on our past, or thinking what we know; our associations. Enter in the present situation in our experiencing of it, not just for ideas about it. So the possibility of practice is not just to know ourselves as the idea we have of ourselves, but to know ourselves directly, which is much wider than those ideas. . . We could be open to possibilities much wider than what we can imagine. The possibility of fishing without a specific sense of what it is that we’re going to gain, what the outcome is going to be.

–Paul Rosenblum Roshi

A few excerpts from Michel’s comments –

I’ll allow everyone to develop each one’s meaning to this story, so you can catch your own fish. I just found the idea interesting as a launching point for his talk, “this feeling of directly experiencing the most satisfying kind of aliveness. And it marks a shift from relying on our habits, on our past or thinking what we know, our associations.”

(Michel continues): How do I fish with a straight hook, unconcerned/unattached to a specific outcome to my actions?

The Roshi went on to share about Suzuki Roshi and how he would interact with the world: receiving, using both hands, drawing the “gift” into himself–and giving, in the same way from his center with both hands. Suzuki’s whole being was involved. This reminds me of how Johnny sees us (or how his perspective was first described to me) as our 3-5 year old selves – innocent, vulnerable, etc. Think back, before you learned to be selfish, to protect a separate “self,” to a time when we engaged in each moment with both hands and total focus on that moment. Think of receiving a full glass of milk to carry to the table, how we might use both hands to not drop, and totally focus to not spill, as we walked to our destination.

What might life be like if/when we re-discover this engagement, attention and focus? How would we treat others as well as ourself? Would it be engaged, attentive, focused? Would others feel loved, or our compassion as we offer a hand up from a fall? What would the world look like when we all learn to enter now with no thought of past or not holding anything back for any possible future but putting all of “self” into now, fishing with a straight hook?

How often and how easy it is to get caught up in a narrative where I only use a part of my self (one-handed, not two) and look more toward what I can get instead of giving and extending my whole self. It’s that fishing hook story again. Is my hook for just an ordinary, everday fish? Or am I fishing for an Emperor, something unique and unexpected?

–Michel Deforge

# 241 What are you Doing?

One day as I walked through the kitchen, I saw someone cleaning vegetables and I asked, ‘What are you doing?’ I was playing the role of a spiritual friend. Even though it was obvious that they were washing vegetables, I asked the question to wake the person up to how happy they could be, just washing the vegetables. If we aren’t doing something with joy, that moment is wasted. (Thich Nhat Hanh, from Your True Home)

I haven’t an inkling of a clue, if honesty permits me to be so brazen. Though I have pondered this question many times.

Elusive conclusions leave me in a turnstile, spinning in circles, never out, never in.

…I was chasing down the past and looking for the future, but crystal balls cast upside down reflections.

I think the question shouldn’t be what am I doing but rather, what will I be doing in the now? A question for every passing second, before it passes.

Parting Glass

My life is a glass
That’s been filled many times
It’s been put through the wash
Dropped on the floor
And is now a chipped trinket
On a shelf by the door
But soon, very soon, the glass will not matter
For its structure will weaken and eventually shatter
Then it will sparkle bright in the Sun
Then, only then, my life will be done.

–Joshua Barnes, 2021

What are you doing? It makes me think of my friend Ron raking leaves. Every year he would complain in the Fall when the thousands of leaves fell from his giant maple tree. The time he needed to spend raking them up and putting into compost bags. I started to find one red and gold leaf with a tinge of green left at the center and put it on his windshield or into his book for a book mark. One day, he woke up and realized how easy and happy he could feel if he just enjoyed the fleeting moments of getting to rake these individually unique and beautiful leaves that had given him shade all summer. He started working with gratitude and joy, paying attention, and it became a meditation he almost looked forward to. (kr)

Here are two poems that reflect on some of the submissions above. (kr)

Three Times My Life has Opened

Three times my life has opened.
Once, into darkness and rain.
Once, into what the body carries at all times within it and starts
to remember each time it enters the act of love.
Once, to the fire that holds all.
These three were not different.
You will recognize what I am saying or you will not.
But outside my window all day a maple has stepped from her
leaves like a woman in love with winter, dropping the
colored silks.
Neither are we different in what we know.
There is a door. It opens. Then it is closed. But a slip of light stays,
like a scrap of unreadable paper left on the floor, or the one
red leaf the snow releases in March.

– Jane Hirshfield, from The Lives of the Heart: Poems

The Song of Wandering Aengus

I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire a-flame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And someone called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done,
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.

–William Butler Yeats

A note of gratitude from Abe Green,

Friends,

Thank you so much for having me on your mailing list. I am honored.

Each week, no matter my emotional or spiritual condition, I am inspired by the wisdom and love enclosed. I somehow become fuller with each reading . . . a miracle!

Peace and Love,
Abe

Treadmill
(written this morning for you by Kim Stafford)

Do you ever have the feeling you’re plodding
in place, trying to climb the down escalator,
treading water as time’s river slides away?

Day after day you faithfully attend to life’s
administration, to mere maintenance, as your
butterflies of aspiration flit from sight.

Your old dream is real— your shoes are made
of stone, each step a struggle as you stagger across
level ground, too young to be a codger, and yet….

What if you look up when wind shakes the trees,
the pine sheds a pollen cloud, the maple shakes
her skirt inviting you to dance?

–Kim Stafford

#357: The Simple Act of Walking

Walking is as simple as putting one foot in front of the other. But we often find it difficult or tedious. We drive a few blocks rather than walk in order to “save time.” When we understand the interconnectedness of our body and our mind, the simple act of walking like the Buddha can feel supremely easy and pleasurable. (Thich Nhat Hanh, from Your True Home)

Let’s start with that first sentence: “Walking is as simple as putting one foot in front of the other.” I said I was not going to dwell on my foot surgery any longer, but this short passage just spoke to me with force.

This ‘recovery’ from a supposedly minor operation is taking much longer, with a few more uncertain results possible, than I was led to expect. Complications, infection, antibiotics, more doctor appointments and different approaches have been accompanied by a range of emotions on my part. Eager anticipation, determination, trust, puzzlement, frustration, doubt, fear, elation, discouragement, encouragement—you name it, I’ve felt it. Acceptance hasn’t yet set in…

So since February 25, “walking is as simple as putting one foot in front of the other” has been a dream—and a mockery. I dream of the moment I can get my swollen foot into a shoe and then put one foot in front of the other, but the result is that I treasure the thought of that simple act. Is that what it takes to treasure life? Why is it that we have such difficulty appreciating these present moments, these simple acts, and just hurry through them to get to the ‘next thing?’

The gift in all of this is that I have slowed down, learned deep appreciation for the simple act of walking (and plenty of other things), learned thoughtfulness, awareness and appreciation, and come to cherish the interconnectedness of my mind and body, which this situation has certainly amplified.

Thay likes to invite people to smile and appreciate a non-toothache. A simple practice. Thank you for reminding us.

–Jude Russell

I want to include something from Alex Tretbar that I meant to include in an earlier issue, but lost track of. Here it is!: (JS)

…I thought I’d pick your brain on the thorny subject of “desire.” I just finished Balzac’s The Wild Ass’s Skin—(La Peau de chagrin” is the original title, “chagrin” being both “sorrow” and “a kind of grained leather, ordinarily made of the skin of a mule or an ass”)—in which, (pardon the summary, if you’ve read it before), a man, fallen on hard times, finds in a novelty shop a piece of “chagrin” that will grant him any wish, but each wish causes the skin to shrink. Once it shrinks to a certain small size, the owner dies. He eventually discovers that unspoken wishes, desires merely thought of, also shrink the skin, so he’s driven into solitude & reclusion to avoid shrinking it further by accident. At one point, he tries to enlist a scientist’s help in stretching the skin to prolong his life, (this fails), but the scientist says this: “Everything is motion. Thought is motion. Nature is based upon motion. Death is a form of motion whose end is imperfectly understood.”

Thinking on it, it does seem that any desire, at its core, is aimed at a particular arrangement of time & space. You want things to change in just such a way, and then you want them to stay that way. This flies in the face of the never-ending motion that is nature & the universe. Resistance to change is a root of much suffering. So, where & how does “desire” figure in Buddhist (or just “mindful”) thought? Can desire ever be healthy?

Or is it, by nature, essentially like trying to sweep back the tide with a broom?

Looking forward to reading your thoughts on this!

—Alex Tretbar

Rather than sharing in this Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue what I wrote to Alex, I’d like to invite all of you readers to engage his insights and questions for yourselves. There are some great writing prompts! You could also start a conversation with a friend by reading what he wrote and using it as a jumping-off place for dialogue. I’ve kept a journal for fifty years. In it, I like to explore these kinds of ideas and questions. If you don’t keep a journal, you might try doing it as a way to inquire into questions like these, to better understand yourself and the world.

My contribution for the Merry Month of May is the quote from e. e. cummings:

I’d rather learn from one bird how to sing
than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance

—Johnny Stallings

Metta Meditation –

May I be healed. May I be a source of healing for all beings.
May you be healed. May you be a source of healing for all beings.
May we be healed. May we be a source of healing for all beings.

Farewell. Walk in peace, be in love,

–Katie

*

Bibliophiles Unanimous!: ALL THINGS GREEK 5/16/21
2021-05-16 - 2021-05-29
Dionysus

Stratis Panourios was our Hierophant

The Ethiops say that their gods are flat-nosed and black, while the Thracians say that theirs have blue eyes and red hair. Yet if cattle or horses or lions had hands and could draw, and could sculpt like men, then the horses would draw their gods like horses, and cattle like cattle; each would shape bodies of gods in the likeness of their own.

–Xenophanes (died: 475 B.C.)

On Sunday, May 16, Stratis Panourios was our Special Guest. He is fluent it English, but his friend Lena translated for him so that he could give the clearest expression to his thoughts. He talked about a production of Aeschylus’ play The Persians which he is directing at a prison in Athens. He emphasized the character of Xerxes, who returns to Persia after leading the Persian army to a terrible defeat by the Greeks. Stratis said that men coming out of prison face a difficulty analogous to that of Xerxes, and that when he talked with them about it, he was very moved by their stories.
We had a lively Zoom gathering, which included Keith Scales, Curt Tofteland, Kim Stafford, Gail Lester, Martha Ragland, Todd Oleson, Demetra Ariston, Brent Gregston and Katie Radditz.
If you’d like to watch a video recording of the conversation, let me know, and I’ll email it to you.
ειρήνη & αγάπη
Johnny
