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

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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
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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
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Ken read a section of a poem by Bertolt Brecht.
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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…
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(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
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#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
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#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 (America/Los_Angeles)
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
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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
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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
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[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
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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
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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]
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[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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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[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

Bibliophiles Unanimous!: Annual Group Reading of Walt Whitman's "Song of "Myself" 5/30/21
2021-05-30 - 2021-06-12
painting by Rick Bartow

Each moment and whatever happens, thrills me with joy.
–Walt Whitman, from “Song of Myself”

To celebrate Walt’s 202nd birthday, on Sunday, May 30th we performed the sacred rite of reading Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself” together. Readers and Listeners who joined the gathering included:

Martha Ragland, Brent Gregston, Claire Stock, Prabu Muruganantham, Mary Real-Leflar, Tad Leflar, Jeffrey Sher, Nancy Scharbach, Marianne Pulfer, Todd Oleson, Katie Radditz, Gail Lester, Andy Larkin, Scott Teitsworth, Deborah Buchanan, Carla Grant, Ken Margolis, Alan Benditt, Carmen Bernier-Grand, Nick Eldredge, Jude Russell, Will Hornyak and me.

This poem changed my life. And continues to inspire me. In this interview I did a few years ago on Marfa Public Radio, I elaborate on what the poem means to me. If you’re interested, here’s a link to that interview:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0D6WmHaSE8&t=25s

All truths wait in all things.

–Johnny

peace, love, happiness & understanding 6/10/21
2021-06-10 - 2021-06-23
June 10, 2021

This is the Nobel Prize Lecture that Wisława Szymborska gave on December 7th, 1996:

The poet and the world

They say the first sentence in any speech is always the hardest. Well, that one’s behind me, anyway. But I have a feeling that the sentences to come – the third, the sixth, the tenth, and so on, up to the final line – will be just as hard, since I’m supposed to talk about poetry. I’ve said very little on the subject, next to nothing, in fact. And whenever I have said anything, I’ve always had the sneaking suspicion that I’m not very good at it. This is why my lecture will be rather short. All imperfection is easier to tolerate if served up in small doses.

Contemporary poets are skeptical and suspicious even, or perhaps especially, about themselves. They publicly confess to being poets only reluctantly, as if they were a little ashamed of it. But in our clamorous times it’s much easier to acknowledge your faults, at least if they’re attractively packaged, than to recognize your own merits, since these are hidden deeper and you never quite believe in them yourself … When filling in questionnaires or chatting with strangers, that is, when they can’t avoid revealing their profession, poets prefer to use the general term “writer” or replace “poet” with the name of whatever job they do in addition to writing. Bureaucrats and bus passengers respond with a touch of incredulity and alarm when they find out that they’re dealing with a poet. I suppose philosophers may meet with a similar reaction. Still, they’re in a better position, since as often as not they can embellish their calling with some kind of scholarly title. Professor of philosophy – now that sounds much more respectable.

But there are no professors of poetry. This would mean, after all, that poetry is an occupation requiring specialized study, regular examinations, theoretical articles with bibliographies and footnotes attached, and finally, ceremoniously conferred diplomas. And this would mean, in turn, that it’s not enough to cover pages with even the most exquisite poems in order to become a poet. The crucial element is some slip of paper bearing an official stamp. Let us recall that the pride of Russian poetry, the future Nobel Laureate Joseph Brodsky was once sentenced to internal exile precisely on such grounds. They called him “a parasite,” because he lacked official certification granting him the right to be a poet …

Several years ago, I had the honor and pleasure of meeting Brodsky in person. And I noticed that, of all the poets I’ve known, he was the only one who enjoyed calling himself a poet. He pronounced the word without inhibitions.

Just the opposite – he spoke it with defiant freedom. It seems to me that this must have been because he recalled the brutal humiliations he had experienced in his youth.

In more fortunate countries, where human dignity isn’t assaulted so readily, poets yearn, of course, to be published, read, and understood, but they do little, if anything, to set themselves above the common herd and the daily grind. And yet it wasn’t so long ago, in this century’s first decades, that poets strove to shock us with their extravagant dress and eccentric behavior. But all this was merely for the sake of public display. The moment always came when poets had to close the doors behind them, strip off their mantles, fripperies, and other poetic paraphernalia, and confront – silently, patiently awaiting their own selves – the still white sheet of paper. For this is finally what really counts.

It’s not accidental that film biographies of great scientists and artists are produced in droves. The more ambitious directors seek to reproduce convincingly the creative process that led to important scientific discoveries or the emergence of a masterpiece. And one can depict certain kinds of scientific labor with some success. Laboratories, sundry instruments, elaborate machinery brought to life: such scenes may hold the audience’s interest for a while. And those moments of uncertainty – will the experiment, conducted for the thousandth time with some tiny modification, finally yield the desired result? – can be quite dramatic. Films about painters can be spectacular, as they go about recreating every stage of a famous painting’s evolution, from the first penciled line to the final brush-stroke. Music swells in films about composers: the first bars of the melody that rings in the musician’s ears finally emerge as a mature work in symphonic form. Of course this is all quite naive and doesn’t explain the strange mental state popularly known as inspiration, but at least there’s something to look at and listen to.

But poets are the worst. Their work is hopelessly unphotogenic. Someone sits at a table or lies on a sofa while staring motionless at a wall or ceiling. Once in a while this person writes down seven lines only to cross out one of them fifteen minutes later, and then another hour passes, during which nothing happens … Who could stand to watch this kind of thing?

I’ve mentioned inspiration. Contemporary poets answer evasively when asked what it is, and if it actually exists. It’s not that they’ve never known the blessing of this inner impulse. It’s just not easy to explain something to someone else that you don’t understand yourself.

When I’m asked about this on occasion, I hedge the question too. But my answer is this: inspiration is not the exclusive privilege of poets or artists generally. There is, has been, and will always be a certain group of people whom inspiration visits. It’s made up of all those who’ve consciously chosen their calling and do their job with love and imagination. It may include doctors, teachers, gardeners – and I could list a hundred more professions. Their work becomes one continuous adventure as long as they manage to keep discovering new challenges in it. Difficulties and setbacks never quell their curiosity. A swarm of new questions emerges from every problem they solve. Whatever inspiration is, it’s born from a continuous “I don’t know.”

There aren’t many such people. Most of the earth’s inhabitants work to get by. They work because they have to. They didn’t pick this or that kind of job out of passion; the circumstances of their lives did the choosing for them. Loveless work, boring work, work valued only because others haven’t got even that much, however loveless and boring – this is one of the harshest human miseries. And there’s no sign that coming centuries will produce any changes for the better as far as this goes.

And so, though I may deny poets their monopoly on inspiration, I still place them in a select group of Fortune’s darlings.

At this point, though, certain doubts may arise in my audience. All sorts of torturers, dictators, fanatics, and demagogues struggling for power by way of a few loudly shouted slogans also enjoy their jobs, and they too perform their duties with inventive fervor. Well, yes, but they “know.” They know, and whatever they know is enough for them once and for all. They don’t want to find out about anything else, since that might diminish their arguments’ force. And any knowledge that doesn’t lead to new questions quickly dies out: it fails to maintain the temperature required for sustaining life. In the most extreme cases, cases well known from ancient and modern history, it even poses a lethal threat to society.

This is why I value that little phrase “I don’t know” so highly. It’s small, but it flies on mighty wings. It expands our lives to include the spaces within us as well as those outer expanses in which our tiny Earth hangs suspended. If Isaac Newton had never said to himself “I don’t know,” the apples in his little orchard might have dropped to the ground like hailstones and at best he would have stooped to pick them up and gobble them with gusto. Had my compatriot Marie Sklodowska-Curie never said to herself “I don’t know”, she probably would have wound up teaching chemistry at some private high school for young ladies from good families, and would have ended her days performing this otherwise perfectly respectable job. But she kept on saying “I don’t know,” and these words led her, not just once but twice, to Stockholm, where restless, questing spirits are occasionally rewarded with the Nobel Prize.

Poets, if they’re genuine, must also keep repeating “I don’t know.” Each poem marks an effort to answer this statement, but as soon as the final period hits the page, the poet begins to hesitate, starts to realize that this particular answer was pure makeshift that’s absolutely inadequate to boot. So the poets keep on trying, and sooner or later the consecutive results of their self-dissatisfaction are clipped together with a giant paperclip by literary historians and called their “oeuvre” …

I sometimes dream of situations that can’t possibly come true. I audaciously imagine, for example, that I get a chance to chat with the Ecclesiastes, the author of that moving lament on the vanity of all human endeavors. I would bow very deeply before him, because he is, after all, one of the greatest poets, for me at least. That done, I would grab his hand. “‘There’s nothing new under the sun’: that’s what you wrote, Ecclesiastes. But you yourself were born new under the sun. And the poem you created is also new under the sun, since no one wrote it down before you. And all your readers are also new under the sun, since those who lived before you couldn’t read your poem. And that cypress that you’re sitting under hasn’t been growing since the dawn of time. It came into being by way of another cypress similar to yours, but not exactly the same. And Ecclesiastes, I’d also like to ask you what new thing under the sun you’re planning to work on now? A further supplement to the thoughts you’ve already expressed? Or maybe you’re tempted to contradict some of them now? In your earlier work you mentioned joy – so what if it’s fleeting? So maybe your new-under-the-sun poem will be about joy? Have you taken notes yet, do you have drafts? I doubt you’ll say, ‘I’ve written everything down, I’ve got nothing left to add.’ There’s no poet in the world who can say this, least of all a great poet like yourself.”

The world – whatever we might think when terrified by its vastness and our own impotence, or embittered by its indifference to individual suffering, of people, animals, and perhaps even plants, for why are we so sure that plants feel no pain; whatever we might think of its expanses pierced by the rays of stars surrounded by planets we’ve just begun to discover, planets already dead? still dead? we just don’t know; whatever we might think of this measureless theater to which we’ve got reserved tickets, but tickets whose lifespan is laughably short, bounded as it is by two arbitrary dates; whatever else we might think of this world – it is astonishing.

But “astonishing” is an epithet concealing a logical trap. We’re astonished, after all, by things that deviate from some well-known and universally acknowledged norm, from an obviousness we’ve grown accustomed to. Now the point is, there is no such obvious world. Our astonishment exists per se and isn’t based on comparison with something else.

Granted, in daily speech, where we don’t stop to consider every word, we all use phrases like “the ordinary world,” “ordinary life,” “the ordinary course of events” … But in the language of poetry, where every word is weighed, nothing is usual or normal. Not a single stone and not a single cloud above it. Not a single day and not a single night after it. And above all, not a single existence, not anyone’s existence in this world.

It looks like poets will always have their work cut out for them.

— Wisława Szymborska
Translated from Polish by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh.
*

Here is one of her poems:

A Few Words On The Soul

We have a soul at times.
No one’s got it non-stop,
for keeps.

Day after day,
year after year
may pass without it.

Sometimes
it will settle for awhile
only in childhood’s fears and raptures.
Sometimes only in astonishment
that we are old.

It rarely lends a hand
in uphill tasks,
like moving furniture,
or lifting luggage,
or going miles in shoes that pinch.

It usually steps out
whenever meat needs chopping
or forms have to be filled.

For every thousand conversations
it participates in one,
if even that,
since it prefers silence.

Just when our body goes from ache to pain,
it slips off-duty.

It’s picky:
it doesn’t like seeing us in crowds,
our hustling for a dubious advantage
and creaky machinations make it sick.

Joy and sorrow
aren’t two different feelings for it.
It attends us
only when the two are joined.

We can count on it
when we’re sure of nothing
and curious about everything.

Among the material objects
it favors clocks with pendulums
and mirrors, which keep on working
even when no one is looking.

It won’t say where it comes from
or when it’s taking off again,
though it’s clearly expecting such questions.

We need it
but apparently
it needs us
for some reason too.

— Wisława Szymborska
Translated from the Polish by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh.

Bibliophiles Unanimous!: BLOOMSDAY CELEBRATION!!! 6/13/21
2021-06-13 15:00 - 17:00
James Joyce (1882-1941)

On June 13th, we will celebrate Bloomsday! On June 16th, 1904 two fictional characters–Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus–wandered the streets of Dublin, Ireland, in what many bibliophiles consider the greatest novel of the 20th Century, James Joyce’s Ulysses. On Sunday, June 13th, at 3 pm (PDT) we will journey together through those same streets and see what adventures befall us. Here’s the Zoom link:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83135193074

Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue 6/15/21
2021-06-15 - 2021-07-14
Open Road Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue

June 15, 2021

You are equally as beautiful as the universe.
—tag on a Yogi Tea bag
*
It is easy to see the conventional character of roles. For a man who is a father may also be a doctor and an artist, as well as an employee and a brother. And it is obvious that even the sum total of these role labels will be far from supplying an adequate description of the man himself, even though it may place him in certain general classifications. But the conventions which govern human identity are more subtle and much less obvious than these. We learn, very thoroughly though far less explicitly, to identify ourselves with an equally conventional view of “myself.” For the conventional “self” or “person” is composed mainly of a history consisting of selected memories, and beginning from the moment of parturition. According to convention, I am not simply what I am doing now. I am also what I have done, and my conventionally edited version of my past is made to seem almost more the real “me” than what I am at this moment. For what I am seems so fleeting and intangible, but what I was is fixed and final. It is the firm basis for predictions of what I will be in the future, and so it comes about that I am more closely identified with what no longer exists than with what actually is!

—Alan Watts, from The Way of Zen, p. 6
*
Esoterica

Shall I write for the ages? Shall I compose
for a scholar’s delectation? Shall footnotes
be the explication implement for my puzzles,
my utterance reeking of the lamp? Shall glossy
lyricism enamel my philosophies? Shall I play
cat and mouse, merciless with a reader’s mind?
Shall I strive to conceal my meaning so teachers
may tease their students for the great shazam?

Do not hang my painting in the parlor,
said Van Gogh—I see it in the cabin of a boat
storm-tossed at sea, as a help to frightened sailors.

—Kim Stafford
*

Takes a heap of meaning to make a body happy

There have been complaints these days about meaninglessness.

The spiritual end of our civilization seems to have broken down. We were originally set up to be monotheistic, and not polytheistic. The gods were banished and all space taken by Jehovah on his golden throne. That worked through the Middle Ages, but the Industrial Revolution put a spoke in the wheel. Almost unnoticed, the gods started coming back.

There are those who would turn Jehovah out and bring the gods back. Monotheism, polytheism, whatever. The important thing is to live a meaningful spiritual life. But a lot of Christians, Muslims and Jews are invested in monotheism, which is the idea that if there is one god there can’t be many. Logic won’t allow it. Others say that religion needs to be founded on paradox, in which case, there can be one god or many, depending on your visionary angle.

—Charles Erickson
*

let’s pretend

instead of pretending that we are afraid
that we must improve
that we have enemies
that the future will arrive someday

let’s pretend everything is sacred
pretend this is Paradise
pretend every moment is precious
pretend we love everyone

pretend our joy knows no bounds
pretend we are the whole wide world

—Johnny Stallings
*

You can take any object whatsoever–a stick or a stone, a dog or a child–draw a ring around it so that it is seen as separate from everything else, and thus contemplate it in its mystery aspect–the aspect of the mystery of its being, which is the mystery of all being–and it will have there and then become a proper object of worshipful regard. So, any object can become an adequate base for meditation, since the whole mystery of man and nature and of everything else is in any object that you want to regard.

—Joseph Campbell, from Mythic Worlds, Modern Words: On the Art of James Joyce, p. 130
*

I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least,
Nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than myself.

Why should I wish to see God better than this day?
I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four, and each moment then,
In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass,
I find letters from God dropt in the street, and every one is signed by God’s name,
And I leave them where they are, for I know that wheresoe’er I go,
Others will punctually come for ever and ever.

—Walt Whitman, from “Song of Myself”
*

And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
sermons in stones, and good in every thing.
I would not change it.

—William Shakespeare, from As You Like It, Act II, scene 1
*

Here are some excerpts from Michel’s meditation journal. The numbers refer to passages from the book Your True Home by Thich Nhat Hanh. (JS)

May 3, 2021 #113 The Beautiful Earth

This one ended up not being about the entitled topic: certainly it does start there…and ends where we can help others find/touch peace more often in their lives, realizing that the Earth and all it contains is already beautiful. I appreciate that Thây tells/reminds us that we are “able to”—“We can allow ourselves…” How often do we do this—allow ourselves to do anything for ourselves?; let alone, walking mindfully or touching the Earth. Certainly, it can be a greater challenge for those of us located in the box. But, we can let our spirit soar outside this box, our minds don’t have to be imprisoned along with our bodies. (As an aside: How many do you know and/or notice whose mind is as trapped as their body, unable to see any beauty or kindness inside here?) Even walking on concrete we can touch the Earth. Even looking at concrete walls, or at a sky above, we can recognize the beauty of the Earth around us—as we once knew it, or as we can see it now in faces of people, or pictures, or birds flying overhead. We can allow ourselves to live, breathe, see, feel, and even “be” outside the box. We only need to “see” it…
*

May 24, 2021 #128 Peace is Contagious

I guess I have not experienced this truth yet. I see war as a result of greed, hatred, delusion: this is contagious, in a way. Peace has certainly been a byproduct of meditation practice, as has happiness with ease. I wonder if this is the intent of using “contagious.”

Wouldn’t that be wonderful? If we could get many to meditate and peace were to spontaneously erupt. Then, as a result of all the peaceful people and the contagious nature of peace, that Peace broke out all over the world. What would that world look like? Would it be astonishing or amazing? Or, would we all, as active meditators, know it was what we expected to occur?

Peace is the antithesis of greed, hate, and delusion (The Three Poisons). Meditation is part of the path for overcoming the self-told lies leading to these three poisons. So, if this is known—(this is known, isn’t it?)—then why don’t more people pursue peace this way: divesting of false narratives, of grasping for what others have, and the desire to erase the otherness?

It all comes down to choices. We each make choices. Some will blind us to reality, and others bring sharp relief. Each person gets to choose. When one discovers the path of peace, he or she wants others to share in it—contagious.
*

May 31, 2021 #133 Where the Buddhas Live

….We are all sleeping Buddhas. And, we all share this planet together. We can all love ourselves, in the now, as it is, as we really are, seen in the “others” with whom we share the air we breathe, the sunlight that warms our body, on this planet provided for us to live. Where do the buddhas live? In you and in me and in each person we encounter. Can you see it? Can you feel this?

Love
Michel Deforge
*

One of my favorite “children’s books” is Cosmic View: The Universe in 40 Jumps by Kees Boeke, published by John Day, 1957. It has long been out of print but some amazing soul has scanned the whole book to a PDF:

http://www.arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/cosmic-view.pdf

And in 1968 Canadian Broadcasting made a film based on it:

https://letterboxd.com/film/cosmic-zoom/

We take size and our reactions to it almost by rote, not seeing how very relative our slice or box of the universe is. And these two, the book and film, remind us of that. In addition there is a great French movie, Microcosmos, about the life of insects in a field in France.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117040/

Talk about different worlds and sizes! Which is just what I have done in this recent poem of mine, that I am attaching.

love,
Deb

Opening the Hubble Galaxy Calendar

In a summer field the camera inches closer, the air’s hum becomes louder, thicker and we watch small creatures move through wilds of grass and dirt, beings so tiny our lordly bodies rarely see them, human vision inattentive to antennas, faceted eyes, and carapace. How unimaginable these day-long worlds are to us and we to them, our one hundred years beyond reach in the universe of insect life.

Ants, worms, and crickets, dynasties of arachnid and lepidoptera rush to mind each morning as I open another color-enhanced photograph from the Hubble telescope, each one bringing the unexpected into view: the Horse Head Nebula rearing as if a stallion, a butterfly configuration composed of galaxy upon galaxy, streams of gas and water, glowing fire. What can we know of 100 million light-years, these interstellar worlds?

O, how like insects we are, hands and legs, thorax and mandibles all waving in the limitless dark.

—Deborah Buchanan
*

#161 Think Globally

“…When we see things globally we have more wisdom and we feel much better We are not caught by small situations…”

I don’t remember when I first started doing this, but I know it was many, many decades ago, during my first rocky marriage. When caught up with tormenting thoughts I would extricate myself by saying, “Look at the big picture. Look at you, now, in this time. This is nothing; you are nothing. In the “Grand Scheme of Things” this doesn’t matter. You don’t matter (you do, but you don’t). It is nothing. Things will change.” I would detach myself, look at the situation from the outside, like a scientist, untethering myself from the suffocating emotional bind. I would think of centuries, of eons, eras, of countries, continents, planets, the universe — and all the inhabitants therein, and how their lives could be monstrous compared to mine.

Then I would count up the joys in my life, remembering what I had within and without me that others globally could not experience. I would get specific, enumerate details—loving, supportive parents and siblings; vegetables in my garden ready to pick; good physical (if not mental) health; art; adoring, adorable dog; freedom from addictions (for now); the trees and mountains calling me…

If nothing else, the time it took me to go through this process would invariably diffuse the heretofore unbearable situation.

I am everything. I am nothing.

—Jude Russell
*

I love this poem:

I am one
Who eats his breakfast
Gazing at morning glories

—Basho

https://matsuobashohaiku.home.blog/2019/04/12/gazing-at-morning-glories-eating-breakfast-basho/

I am still contemplating the story Michel sent about fishing with a straight hook. Picturing this fisherman/fisherwoman sitting with companions who are intent on catching fish for dinner, or sport.

The difference seems to me about letting go of expectations, come what may, but staying engaged with companions in the present moment. A surprise might come that feels magical, but it isn’t about waiting for something better in the future. But the straight hook does make that fisherbeing unique amongst others. I am sending some quotes on this thought:

If you always sit in expectation, you’re not in the present moment. The present moment contains the whole of life.
—Thich Nhat Hanh

Letting go is a painful part of life. But according to Buddhism, we must let go of attachment and desires if we are to experience happiness.
However, letting go doesn’t mean you don’t care about anyone and anything. It actually means you can experience life and love fully and openly without clinging to it for your survival.
According to Buddhism, this is the only way to experience true freedom and happiness.
Letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness. If, in our heart, we still cling to anything—anger, anxiety, or possessions—we cannot be free.
—Thich Nhat Hanh

The greatest loss of time is delay and expectation, which depend upon the future. We let go of the present, which we have in our power, and look forward to that which depends upon chance, and so relinquish a certainty for an uncertainty.
—Seneca

If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction, we lessen the importance of their deprivation. We must risk delight….We must have the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless furnace of this world….( injustice cannot be the only measure of our attention)….We must admit there will be music despite everything.
—Jack Gilbert

Let Go Of Expectations

“If it weren’t for my mind, my meditation would be excellent.”
—Pema Chödrön

She continues:

Every meditation is different. Some of them will be peaceful throughout and you may feel a deep sense of joy. Other times your mind might be wild with thoughts of the day, responsibilities you have yet to fulfill, or emotions that percolate to the surface of your mind.

Here are some steps you can take during your practice so that you avoid unnecessary turmoil and disappointment:

Accept whatever shows up for you. If your mind is wild with thoughts, simply let them arise without judgement. When you catch yourself being aware of these thoughts, you can remind yourself to focus once again on your breath.

Sometimes you may experience emotions arising. Again, allow them to move through you without judgement. Emotions need to move through us, otherwise they can become stuck within our body and cause discomfort or even disease later in life. The release of that emotion could be the very thing that brings some relief and a quieter mind.

Release expectations of a specific outcome before you go in to a meditation. Some people will enter meditations with the hope that they will be able to manifest money, relationships or health. High expectations of a specific outcome can lead to disappointments when they do not arise immediately. The less you expect of your meditation the easier you will find happiness.

*

OK, you are now ready to begin, take a calm, deep breath.
—Katie Radditz

peace, love, happiness & understanding 6/24/21
2021-06-24 - 2021-07-07
sidewalk message

THE OPEN ROAD
peace, love, happiness & understanding

June 24, 2021

Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.
—Dalai Lama
*

The other day I was thinking about what I would say if asked to give a TED talk. Here’s what I wrote:

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

that’s William Blake

I’d like to talk about love
and so I shall
not the fascinating question of the relation between love and sex
but another kind of love:
unconditional love for everyone and every thing
is such a love possible?
that’s an open question
but surely it is possible to have this as an aspiration
for our love to grow and grow as we go along on our life journey
it is good to begin with this axiom:
we are one human family
that means:
all children are our children
all children are our children
every child, everywhere in the world
if you accept this as true, then war becomes impossible
unthinkable
for whenever we drop a bomb on our so-called “enemies” we would at the same time murder some of our own children
surely we don’t want to do that
it’s much more pleasant to have no enemies
there’s no one to fear
we can live in love
the preamble to the UNESCO constitution says:
“wars begin in the minds of men”
so, that’s where they must end, too
we can end the wars within ourselves
by doing our own inner work
the other kind of war—between nations and groups of people—
ends with acts of imagination, informed by love
by the knowledge that each person’s life is as limitless and precious as our own
if we don’t imagine that we have enemies, we don’t have enemies
this is true, because we are one human family
and all children are our children
we have no enemies
there is no “other”
there is no scapegoat upon whom to project all our sins
we are not born in sin
(every newborn baby proves Saint Augustine was wrong about that)
we are born in love
we grow in love
that’s why we came here
to love and be loved
that’s why we came to this earth
that’s why we came to this room
love has no limit
it has no beginning or end
to quote the Bible:
who loves not, knows not God
for God is love
Jesus enjoined us to love our neighbors as ourselves
and to love our enemies
if you love your enemies, they are no longer enemies
they are friends
brothers and sisters
*
our family is larger than the human family
it includes every living being
and rocks and rivers and clouds
Thich Nhat Hanh speaks of interbeing
we all inter-are
the trees provide oxygen for us to breathe
each of our bodies is a host for millions of micro-organisms, without which we couldn’t digest our food
it’s wonderful!
whether or not you postulate a creator, this world is amazing!
every particle of creation is miraculous
everywhere you look is another miracle
our breath, the circulation of our blood, our brain, the bees pollinating the fruit trees—
the Web of Life!
*
the odds against any one of us being born are impossibly large—
the chance meeting of our parents, the moment of conception, the zillions of little swimmers—
and yet here we are
it is great good fortune
here we are with our precious human bodies and brains
our thoughts, our emotions, our imaginings
we are in this well-lit room, where the temperature is regulated for our comfort
we are all suitably clothed
well-fed
we are very fortunate
many people, as we know, are not so fortunate
everyone should have access to clean and abundant drinking water
no one should go to bed hungry
no one should live in fear
we have a lot of work to do
compassion is the essential prerequisite
*
the earth is hurting, too
we have been relentlessly destroying the ecological health of our planet—especially since the advent of the Industrial Revolution
we have to learn, or re-learn, how to live on this earth in ways that are not so destructive
this, too, begins with love
we must love our Mother Earth
*
and as the poet Auden said:
“we must love one another or die”
of course you probably got the memo that we’re all going to die anyway
we are mortal beings
the question is:
how shall we live?
may I have the envelope please?
and the answer to the question “How shall we live?” is…
in Love

thank you

—Johnny Stallings
*

I shared it with Kim Stafford, who sent me a poem and also a letter that his friend Charles Busch had written to the mothers and fathers of Palestine and Israel:

For the Bird
Singing before Dawn

Some people presume to be hopeful
when there is no evidence for hope,
to be happy when there is no cause.
Let me say now, I’m with them.

In deep darkness on a cold twig
in a dangerous world, one first
little fluff lets out a peep, a warble,
a song—and in a little while, behold:

the first glimmer comes, then a glow
filters through the misty trees,
then the bold sun rises, then
everyone starts bustling about.

And that first crazy optimist,
can we forgive her for thinking, dawn by dawn,
“Hey, I made that happen!
And oh, life is so fine.”

—Kim Stafford
*

Letter to the Mothers and Fathers of Palestine and Israel,

We have read the names of the 69 children killed in the 11-day exchange of violence between your peoples. Though we live far away, your grief reaches us, for we too have daughters and sons we love and cannot imagine life without.

Qusai al-Qawlaq (6 months), Ibrahim al-Rantisi (6 months), Muhammade-Zain al-Attar (9 months)

The deaths of your children point to the dark truth of modern warfare: For every 1 combatant killed, 9 civilians are killed, the majority of them children. These numbers have been reported consistently for decades, but are hard to hear. War has become the killing of children.

Dain Ishkontana (2), Yazan al-Masri (2), Nagham Salha (2), Adam al-Qawlaq (3), Yahya Ishkontana (4)

We at Fields of Peace, a small nonprofit on the coast of Oregon, have a Mission: To stop the killing of children in wars. Today, we recommit to working for a lasting peace in your land by daring to propose a way to a new beginning.

Baraa al-Gharabli (5), Ido Avigal (5), Amira al-Attar (6), Butheina Obaid (6), Abdurrahman al-Hadidi (7)

We know there have been countless failed attempts at peacemaking. And we know that there are seemingly intractable issues—borders, occupation, settlements, refugees, statehood. But we also know that the majority of peoples on both sides desperately want and demand peace.

Zaid al-Qawlaq (8), Bilal Abu Hatab (9), Yara al-Qawlaq (9), Yahya al-Hadidi (10), Mira al-Ifranji (11)

To begin anew, a shared perspective is needed, one that rises above the narratives on each side that justify violence. The perspective we propose is the view from the eyes of mothers and fathers. They see that to gain a whole world is not worth the killing of a single child.

Abdullah Jouda (12), Hala Rifi (13), Ahmad al-Hawajri (14), Muhammad Suleiman (15), Nadine Awad (16)

To unite the mothers and fathers of Palestine and Israel into a force for peace, a common commitment is needed. The commitment we propose is an obvious one: make A Promise to Our Children. It begins,

I will not be a part of the killing
of any child,
no matter how lofty the reason.
These words may seem slight given the history and walls that divide your land, but words hold the power of creation. They set in motion the good that is waiting in us to be born. Nothing new begins without words. But they must be said out loud, and someone must go first.

I will not be a part of the killing
of any child,
no matter how lofty the reason.
Not my neighbor’s child.
Not my child.
Not the enemy’s child.
Not by bomb. Not by bullet.
Not by looking the other way.
I will be the power that is peace.
Spoken, these words will travel out, be heard and repeated by other mothers and fathers, by grandparents, godparents, by all who say the name of a child with love. They will serve notice to leaders: “Stop the killing of children in wars. Stop wars.” Spoken, the words will also travel in, reminding us of who we are, giving us courage to stand and act.

There is a way to a new beginning. It is simple and immediate: See with the eyes of mothers and fathers. Make A Promise to Our Children. It begins,

I will not be a part of the killing
of any child,
no matter how lofty the reason.

Thank you,
Fields of Peace

June, 2021
fieldsofpeace.org

Bibliophiles Unanimous!: PLAYS!
2021-06-27 13:00 - 15:00
my first play, circa 1956, Columbia Falls, Montana (JS)

Beloved Bibliophiles!

On June 27th, at 1 pm, we will gather together on Zoom to talk about PLAYS!–reading them, watching them, performing them. The Zoom link is:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83135193074

Hope to see you there!

peace, love & katharsis
Johnny

peace, love, happiness & understanding 7/8/21
2021-07-08 - 2021-07-21
THE OPEN ROAD
peace, love, happiness & understanding

DREAMS OF BETTER WORLDS

July 8, 2021

I once asked my friend Howard Thoresen what he thought the future would be like. “Like the present,” he said.

In the drawings above, the artist Robert Crumb gives three versions of the future of the same street corner. In the first, everything is more-or-less dead. The second is a high-tech future, with flying cars. The third is a hippie ecotopian future. One of the things I think Howard was getting at is that all three of these “futures” exist right now. Somewhere there’s a terrible drought and the crops have died. Somewhere there’s a city where tall skyscrapers have skins of mirrored glass. And somewhere someone is riding her bike to the organic vegetable market.

In movies and popular culture dystopian visions abound. Back in the Hippie Days, before the Internet, we had a Bible of Hope known as The Whole Earth Catalog. On the cover, it had a picture of our planet as seen from space.

In the Fifties, in America, World War Two was over and many people dreamed of raising a happy family—like the ones on TV—in their house in the suburbs, with a two-car garage and an automatic washer and dryer. A company advertised: PROGRESS IS OUR MOST IMPORTANT PRODUCT. The idea was that things were better than they had ever been, and they would just keep getting better and better.

Around 1970, we got the Bad News. Ecologists told us that there were too many people on the planet for its “carrying capacity.” Plant and animal species were becoming extinct. Forests were being cut down, topsoil was being exhausted and eroded, fresh water sources were being depleted. Factories were poisoning the air, the soil and the rivers. The climate was changing. The trajectory we were on, they said, was not taking us to a better place, but to a worse one.

This came as quite a shock. All our stories had told us that humanity was ascending from a state where life was “nasty, brutish and short” to a more and more civilized, more and more “modern” one, where all our problems would be abolished by rational problem solving, economic prosperity and technological progress.

One of the thinkers featured in the Whole Earth Catalog was R. Buckminster Fuller, the inventor of the geodesic dome, and a “futurist.” He wrote a book called Utopia or Oblivion. These, he said, were our options. He said that he didn’t find the subject of oblivion very interesting, so he spent his life trying to figure out how, together, we could “make the world work.” He said he had done the math, and it was quite possible for everyone on this planet to have enough to eat and a place to live. We could educate all the children and provide health care for everyone.

It makes you wonder: why aren’t we doing that?

When we go camping, we’re supposed to leave the campsite better than we found it. Individually and collectively, we would like to do that with our planet. One problem is that we can never give an adequate answer to the question: “What’s going on here?” There’s always too much going on at every moment. I don’t know what’s happening in my backyard right now. What are all the worms up to? And everything is always growing and changing—within me and around me.

Another difficulty is that people have different ideas about what the most important problems are and about how things could be improved. Each of us has our own utopian dreams.

In The Tempest, while Gonzalo puts forward his ideas of what he would do if he was king of the island, hecklers are busy finding all the flaws in his Big Idea:

GONZALO
Had I plantation of this isle, my lord,–
ANTONIO
He’ld sow’t with nettle-seed.
SEBASTIAN
Or docks, or mallows.
GONZALO
And were the king on’t, what would I do?
SEBASTIAN
‘Scape being drunk for want of wine.
GONZALO
I’ the commonwealth I would by contraries
Execute all things; for no kind of traffic
Would I admit; no name of magistrate;
Letters should not be known; riches, poverty,
And use of service, none; contract, succession,
Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none;
No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil;
No occupation; all men idle, all;
And women too, but innocent and pure;
No sovereignty;–
SEBASTIAN
Yet he would be king on’t.
ANTONIO
The latter end of his commonwealth forgets the
beginning.
GONZALO
All things in common nature should produce
Without sweat or endeavour: treason, felony,
Sword, pike, knife, gun, or need of any engine,
Would I not have; but nature should bring forth,
Of its own kind, all foison, all abundance,
To feed my innocent people.
SEBASTIAN
No marrying ‘mong his subjects?
ANTONIO
None, man; all idle: whores and knaves.
GONZALO
I would with such perfection govern, sir,
To excel the golden age.
SEBASTIAN
God save his majesty!
ANTONIO
Long live Gonzalo!
*

In Joyce’s Ulysses, Leopold Bloom fantasizes about being an eloquent politician:

BLOOM

I stand for the reform of municipal morals and the plain ten commandments. New worlds for old. Union of all, jew, moslem and gentile. Three acres and a cow for all children of nature. Saloon motor hearses. Compulsory manual labour for all. All parks open to the public day and night. Electric dishscrubbers. Tuberculosis, lunacy, war and mendicancy must now cease. General amnesty, weekly carnival with masked licence, bonuses for all, esperanto the universal language with universal brotherhood. No more patriotism of barspongers and dropsical impostors. Free money, free rent, free love and a free lay church in a free lay state.

Shakespeare and Joyce are having fun with our proclivity to imagine ourselves in charge of everyone and everything.

The protagonist of Dostoevsky’s short story “Dream of a Ridiculous Man,” is depressed. He wants to find the right day to commit suicide. He falls asleep in his chair and dreams that he travels through space to a planet just like Earth—except that everything there is perfect. Everyone there is happy. They love each other. They love the animals. They talk to the trees. In his dream, the unfortunate narrator corrupts that world. Things get worse and worse, until it resembles our own. When he wakes from the dream, he wants to live! He feels that his mission in life is to convince everyone that we need to love each other. He is certain that if we could do that our world would become a Paradise.

Paradises and utopias come in all shapes and sizes. A perfect moment is Paradise. When we write a poem or paint a picture, we create a perfect little world.

The philosopher Wittgenstein contrasted the idea of “the world” with the idea of “my world.” It’s fun to ponder this distinction. If you wanted to change the world for the better, it would be quite hard to do because it’s so big and there are so many forces in play. But my world—the world as I experience it—changes from day to day. We create a new world from moment to moment. A happy person lives in a friendly world. An angry person lives in a world full of adversaries. We create our own Heaven. Or Hell. We can see the kind of world Marc Chagall lived in by looking at his paintings.

People have imagined that Paradise existed sometime long ago, or will arrive at some time in the distant Future. Maybe after we die—if we’re good. Hesiod spoke of a long-ago Golden Age, when people were happy, lived long, and didn’t have to work. In the Bible, our first parents lived in a Garden until they were kicked out for disobedience. Karl Marx believed that some day a casteless, classless society would be ushered in, and all would be well. Paradise is always elsewhere.

In contrast to this story, Thich Nhat Hanh says: “The present moment is a wonderful moment.” I don’t have to wait for The End of War in the world, in order to abolish the conflict within myself. I could live in Love right now. It’s not against the law.

One of my favorite books is The Big Orange Splot by Daniel Pinkwater. In it, one day a seagull drops a bucket of orange paint on the roof of Mr. Plumbean’s house. Instead of fixing the problem, Mr. Plumbean painted his house to look like all his dreams.

It reminds me of the colorful, wildly imaginative architecture of Gaudi and Hundertwasser.

The Mexican muralists Rivera, Orozco and Siqueros painted walls in Mexico, and inspired thousands of people to do likewise around the world.

Thanks to YouTube, we can tour the barn of the Bread & Puppet Theater in Glover, Vermont

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OV232D962pE

or the home of the clown Slava Polunin in France

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yy9DqXzGEAI&t=12s

or accompany Dr. John “Slomo” Kitchin as he skates along the sidewalks of San Diego

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xn87-mcnoVc

Maybe Paradise is not far away. Maybe we’re in it right now.

Bibliophiles Unanimous!: Your Favorite 50 Books of the Last 50 Years
2021-07-11 15:00 - 17:00
What are your favorite 50 books of the past 50 years? Make a list, and join the Zoom gathering on Sunday, July 11th, at 3 pm (PDT). Here’s the link:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83135193074

See you there!

peace & love

Johnny

Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue 7/15/21
2021-07-15 - 2021-08-14
Open Road Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue

July 15, 2021

Rhyming With Thich Nhat Hanh

1
Once upon a cloudy day
a wandering poet lost his way
a busy yard-sale he passed by
drew him back, he wondered why
Browsing through a battered trunk
he found a book by a Buddhist monk
Thich Nhat Hanh was the writer’s name
interconnection, his basic game
the young man skimmed in search of clues
a garden of thoughts, so many to choose
the path being offered was simple but steep
and spelling that name, a Grand Canyon leap
most daunting of all was rhyming that name
for a poet, perhaps, the ultimate shame
suddenly hungry and ready to roam
he put down the book and started for home
When he got to the sidewalk the poet could tell
his sense of direction was not doing well
the sun was now setting, the clouds darker gray
it was not a good time to be losing his way
a man from the yard sale saw his distress
and showed him a bus that would pass his address
slumped in a seat as the bus took him home
he feared he might never again write a poem
then he thought of the book that he found in the trunk
and wished he had spent more time with the monk
That night the poet fell into a dream
the moon deep blue, the sky rich cream
a brindle cat, in a bare black oak
was playing a fiddle with a lively stroke
in a dark red vest and odd shaped hat
he swayed as he fiddled on the limb where he sat
above the tree, in the cream colored sky
approaching the moon, was a cow who could fly
A gasp escaped from the poet’s throat
the music stopped on a jagged note
the soaring bovine paused mid-air
the fiddling cat conjured a glare

2
What is your problem, poetry man?
Did something happen that’s not in your plan’?
As the poet described his rhyming confusion
The cat cut in with a crisp conclusion
You can’t find a rhyme for Thich Nhat Hanh?
Poetry man, you’re putting me on
By now the cow had cleared the moon
and sang a sympathetic tune
Easy, cat, he’s flesh and bone
he thinks, in life, he’s all alone
with broken compass and hobbled rhyme
his sails are empty on the sea of time
The cat tipped back his pork pie hat
with stingy brim and crown so flat
Of course you’re right, dear nimble cow
he’s everywhere but here and now
rhyme adds power to a tale
like the gust of wind that fills a sail
and rhymes add balance but aren’t essential
to celebrate this world’s potential
Thich Nhat Hanh has an open vision
he honors the world’s unseen precision
for example, in a sheet of paper
he sees a cloud of water vapor
without rain there’d be no trees
no trees, no paper, if you please
As the cow was gliding back to earth
the poet admired her supple girth
she wasn’t slender, nor even trim
but she moved with ease and bovine vim
her coat light brown, with islands white
the streak on her forehead, a comet in flight
touching down near the big black oak
she flicked her tail and again she spoke
That sheet of paper is a fine example
of endless connections we might sample
look more closely and straightaway
you’ll see the sunshine of the day

3
with no sunshine, we all know,
there’s no way a tree can grow
so in this simple paper sheet
rain and sun and tree all meet
The cat chimed in so calm and cool
like he was sunning by a pool
As we savor these connections
we open out in all directions
and though the parts may seem diverse:
the earth, the stars, the universe
everything that we perceive
is in the universal weave
Like a water lily in the sun
glowing, growing, we are one
The poet smiled, for he could see
that lily floating full and free
he took a breath, he heard a cough
his darned alarm was going off
He hit the snooze and tried to think
his brain a frozen skating rink
gone the guiding conversation
oozing back, the deep frustration
no words of cat or even cow
to keep him in the here and now
and still no rhyme for Thich Nhat Hanh
how could a poet carry on?
But . . . something has been gently changed
his rhyming pathway rearranged
the porkpie cat and comet cow
have clarified his course somehow
and though they live inside a dream
the gifts they offer flow downstream
with new connections comes a dawn
revealing rhymes with Thich Nhat Hanh

—Nick Eldredge, 2020
nickeld109@gmail.com
*

Here are some excerpts from Michel’s meditation journal. The numbers refer to meditations in Thich Nhat Hanh’s book, Your True Home:

June 14, 2021 #143 Everyone Smiles

It’s a lovely sentiment, one I hope can be true. It’s a Butterfly Effect moment: “Smile and the whole world smiles with you.” Or, so it’s been said. There are times when smiling is just damn hard to do. Or, I just don’t wanna do it! But, a truth is that if I smile—shake myself up a little and struggle through my pain, to smile from my toes—others will smile back , genuinely happy to be see and be seen. We can alter our minds’ courses, as well as our emotional states. Smiling is one of the positive ways. So, if you see someone smiling, look at him or her—(wonder to yourself: what’s going on?)—and, while making eye contact, share in their smile. And, when you find one who has no smile of his or her own, again, looking deeply at them, smile your warmest, most compassionate, well-wishing smile. (It’s instinctive to smile back to a genuine smile.) It’s hard not to chortle and smile as I write these thoughts of smiling, sharing smiles, and just being happy. It’s a choice each of us is allowed to make. Doing so makes the world better, even for a brief painful moment, just for the price of one simple, genuine, loving, compassionate smile shared, intentionally or not, with the world around. (It makes everyone look better!)
*

June 20, 2021 #149 When Strong Emotions Arise — Happy Father’s Day!

I can really use this one; last night I was racked with deep grief as I have never felt grief or sadness before. I still haven’t a clue as to why. It just came over me as I began my evening prayer service, and caused deep overwhelming sadness. It lasted for minutes. An eternity that might not end, I thought. I knew I didn’t want to stop it, but breathe through the experience. At the same time I found judgement about self-indulgence—how protracted grief can be self-indulgent. I don’t know, but there it was—a self-induced indictment for “being” (acting) self-indulgent with an experience (and display?) of deep grief of unknown/undefined origin.

Eventually, a focus on the breath did calm the overwhelm. Even now I can sense this same sadness just below the surface of attention, as if it rests just below my skin. I can’t bring it to surface just now, yet I am aware of its presence as part of my being. I accept it as part of me and for reasons (deep past pain, maybe?) unknown just now, I don’t know its origin or cause. Maybe I’ll experience it again, or not. When I do “feel” it again I can rest with it, breathe and release a need to define or judge it.

If I attempt to resist, restrain, or even fight back the tears, I’ll only end up suffering a worse mess than if I allow the sensations to run their course through this body. I hope to have enough presence of mind to relax and observe what is coming up, as I also focus on breathing. I can allow curiosity, yet I’ll not want to push too hard or the critical self will arise and condemn, adding to the grief and suffering, instead of allowing it to be what it is, and (eventually) to reveal its source and originating cause—it could be related to childhood traumas, grief for lost innocence, or time lost from not bonding with my father (who may not live to see my scheduled release date: he’s 85 now.)

What will matter is how I do/don’t allow myself and the body to experience these feelings, sensations, emotions when they arise again. If I fight, it will only be more powerful the next time, with the added sensations of the self-battle for restraint and any new emotions about that strong feeling arising. By fighting it, instead of letting it be, I see that I create a past-future tether which pulls at me to not be in the now. It prevents the strength and healing needed to allow this to arise again and for me to just be with myself as it happens, allowing the senses to be part of my now—breathing “quietly,” “calmly”—looking with compassionate curiosity at what came up, not needing to define or judge, but just to be.
*

June 21, 2021 #148 Fearless Bodhisattvas

It would be nice to be “fearless.” I guess once I transcend attachment and aversion I can be a help to others on their journey out of suffering. It’s next-level stuff, as some may say. To me it seems important to keep this suffering of others in mind, not to take it on, but, maybe, to join them under their burden and in doing so lighten their suffering, even for a moment, so they can get a glimpse of Reality as it is. Maybe not. It could mean something totally different.
*

June 22, 2021 #150 The Arhat

Finally! Recognition for doing “nothing.” I find it very easy, even in here, to get caught up with being busy, doing stuff—it’s important, mind you, just ask and when I have the time I’ll let you know how busy I am with all of my importance. I find it sad that, as a culture, we value packing and cramming each and every moment of a day with stuff. Sure it’s important, and we want to make the most of the few moments we have left. But, wouldn’t it be nice to breathe, relax and just enjoy each moment as it passes before us—instead of working and struggling to “do”—and make the most of a moment we can’t get back. And then, suffering for not enjoying the moment more fully. I find it scary how familiar this sounds to me.

—Michel Deforge
*

Song Sparrow
Melospiza melodia

Thicket hidden, choir of one, message invisible
sent to pierce my invisible spirit, how do you
know me so well to tune your secrets to my own?

Denizen of thorn and shadow, you yet sing
silver clear, flit, flurry, and disappear,
leaving your psalms in me.

This ministry, gospel of the good by hint
and revelation, begins in your breath to fill
the sky, unruly syllables of song salvation.

Sparrow, let our bargain be: You remind me
of the covenant between wild and human life,
and your thicket I will defend.
*

Midrash on a Sacred Encounter

When the little ones gathered at my feet
they couldn’t stop laughing every time
I spoke a poem, as if they were wild birds
and I scattered seed for their singing and singing,
singing back to my songs and stories, and they
fed me questions as old as psalms: How long
does it take to write a poem… what’s the longest
poem… who taught you poems… what’s
the oldest poem… what’s oldest
inside a poem…what is a poem
and what is not?

Then they laughed and clapped
and I bowed and felt blessed
and we went out into sunlight
and all went forth to heal the world.

—Kim Stafford
*

To love is the greatest thing in life; it is very important to talk about love, to feel it, to nourish it, to treasure it, otherwise it will be dissipated, for the world is very brutal. If while you are young you don’t feel love, if you don’t look with love at people, at animals, at flowers, when you grow up you find that your life is empty; you will be very lonely, and the dark shadows of fear will follow you always. But the moment you have in your heart this extraordinary thing called love and feel the depth, the delight, the ecstasy of it, you will discover that for you the world is transformed.

Katie Radditz sent this quote from J. Krishnamurti (1895-1986)
*

The state of wordlessness can be elusive. When we talk about it, we use words. Try this baby meditation and see what happens. Imagine that you are a baby, newly arrived on Planet Earth. You look around. You have no words for anything. Nothing you see has a name. You don’t know words like “meditation,” “mindfulness,” “breath,” “thought,” “present,” or “moment.” You don’t know who you are. You have no name. You don’t have any regrets. You don’t have any plans for the future. You don’t have any problems. You don’t know what’s going on—but it’s extremely interesting!

(Typing this dialogue up at a coffee shop, just now my the nonstop love-in baseball cap elicited this question from a guy: “Where is it?” To which I replied: “It’s here. It’s now. It’s everywhere and always.”)

If you are a reader of the Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue, please consider submitting something in time for the August issue, which comes out on August 15th. August 17th is my 70th birthday. You could do it as your birthday present to me. It would make me happy.

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

—Johnny Stallings

peace, love, happiness & understanding 7/22/21
2021-07-22 - 2021-08-04
THE OPEN ROAD
peace, love, happiness & understanding

THE ART OF HAPPINESS

July 22, 2021

This is a TEDx talk by Slava Polunin:

I was asked one day, “Are you happy?” I needed to think, to sit and reflect, and I figured, actually, I’ve been happy for all my life, without breaks, just happiness from morning till night, all day long, without days off or holidays. Nothing but happiness. Why? How is that possible? How could that happen? I did not do anything for it, I did not want anything for it. Just felt happy, and that was it. So I started analyzing. For so many centuries, mankind, smart people with briefcases and ties, have been thinking, reckoning, telling everybody to go here, go there, this way to happiness, that way to happiness, but they don’t succeed.

So I figured, the smart have failed. And I thought, we need to establish an alternative, an International Fools Academy. I founded that Academy and appointed myself its irreplaceable president. So, for some 20-30 years I’ve been the President of the World Fools Academy. Our members are the biggest fools, idiots who are somehow always happy. There is just no way to change it; whatever you do, they just remain happy, there’s no way of beating that happiness out of them. Do not think that they are dimwits with no family, no kids, no problems, no tragedies—they have everything like everyone else. But such a person enters a room and everything is lit up with sunlight, they kind of radiate it, making everybody drop whatever they’re doing and rush after happiness, towards happiness. And it’s with those people I now create all kinds of organizations.

I figured there is only one way: you have to create small, tiny oases. I realized that I won’t change the world anyway, so take just a tiny space, three meters, and in those three meters make sure that everything exists in harmony, in happiness, in joy—that was my dream. So I created first one theater, then a second theater, then a third one. Later some other organizations, all different and very cute. And everywhere I strove to create just one thing—a harmony in a tiny space, and then try to expand that harmony with all my might, to push its walls as far as possible. Sometimes I succeed quite okay, sometimes not so much, but this formula—create harmony around you and then try to expand it as far as you can—it works perfectly. And so, as I am always in the middle, I’m always happy, I’m in harmony, always among my friends, and always full of joy.

So, what are the signs of happiness? I’ll try to sound like a scientist now. (Laughter) We sat and thought for a long time: what are the signs of happiness? How do you recognize it? It turned out to be simple—whistling. As soon as you start whistling, no doubt you’re happy. So, the first sign of happiness is whistling, the second is singing, the third one is bouncing. So, you walk…(Bounces across the stage) (Laughter) (Applause) Those are indisputable signs proven by centuries, decades, by thousands of people and by myself.

Now, how do you reach that happiness? There are probably as many different kinds of happiness as there are people. There are so many possibilities of happiness, so many varieties. And it is hard to tell them apart: one is vibrant energy, that’s happiness; another just sat down—and he’s zen, happy already. Not everybody needs it all. Some people need some things, so they have different ways to get there. My scheme is very simple: while you create, you are happy. What does “create” mean? It means you’re getting closer to yourself. The act of creating is an ideal ignition key. Just switch on creativity, and you’re already happy. My creativity scheme is simple: if people around me feel joy, if they feel happy, that’s when my happiness begins. So, you start that engine, they get in, you join them, and everything is fine. So, only do the stuff you’re getting a kick out of. (Applause) It cannot be simpler: if you’re always doing what you get a kick out of, it works like a charm; follow that rule, and everything will be all right. Do it only together with those you want to hug. (Applause) Because everything lights up around them and near them. I collect those, I have this collection of happy joyful people, in one group, in another group, in the third one. I have no other. Don’t let cynics or whiners in. Period. A separate section for cynics, another one for whiners, and a separate one for the happy ones. (Laughter) I will tell you, they will envy you and run over to your side. No need to teach anyone, they will want it themselves.

Along the same lines, at “Melnitsa” we have a week long immersion in happiness where the first thing is to transform yourself, your hair, which I don’t have, of course, but those who do, transform it, and I can transform my beard like that, or put curls in it. Transform yourself, change your clothes, if you wore grey, try on green, and the other way around, it’s a kick toward you expanding your world, you start crawling out of your own self. First into your hair, then into your suit, then into the room, into your friends, then out into your village, and into your city. It’s important, once you understood what you are all about, it’s important to fill as much space as possible with this. Kind of reveal yourself, fulfill yourself.

So, what is that creativity that makes everyone happy for some reason? For me, there are about three or four main things. It’s a game: try and do everything you usually did seriously, try to play at it. In fact, it is quite an amazing thing! When I was signing a contract on Broadway for nine months, (Laughter) it came to the point where I started freaking out, taking medicine, a doctor checked me up, because I was panicking, afraid that my favorite baby will get turned into some Broadway piece of crap. And then we realized: one more step and I’ll go nuts, because everything I do I try to make it really perfect. That’s when I felt I couldn’t stand it any longer. So we realized it was time to play: one day we came in as punks, next day we came in as those in ties, the day after as somebody else, and we negotiated while acting that way. And everything changed, because it’s not me, it’s him showing off. Everything became easy. If you apply this method of playful attitude toward life, you distance yourself, and life is there while you’re in a free fly and laughing at what happens, and so on. Game is a great key for this story.

Fantasy—they say, “What a daydreamer!,” so I thought, where does creativity begin at all, where do happiness and joy begin? All begins with fantasy, not by thinking, “Here’s life and here’s something weird, some accompanying dreams, fantasies, and imagination, hopes and so on, all on the periphery, while real life is here.” But in fact, this is life, and all that is something on its side, it can never reach such a perfection. And your mission is to try to make this out of that. To try and make life as perfect as your fantasy. When you thought about something, and it suddenly comes to life, that miracle of such a joy and happiness cannot even be experienced any other way.

When I was only trying to understand why I needed to perform, why I’m out there, what I’m doing there, I realized that there is an expression “anima allegra,” joyful soul. It might have come from the Greeks, I think, from somewhere there. Joyful soul. What is a joyful soul? That’s where we should remember about love. It is probably born out of falling in love with this world. That is, if you’re in love with this world then the joy emerges, because there’s a harmony: great person here and great person there, and together you are a wonderful creature. Because things are tough when you’re not in love with the world. There might be some back doors, but the straightest way is just to love the world.

But how can you love this world, how can you get to love it at all? Only if you’re a child. Someone out there already said it, looked like me with a different beard. But in order to love this world you need to remain a child. This is the best rule there is. What does it mean, to be a child? What is it, to be a child? (Looking at his note cards) Well, it’s not written here. (Laughter) So, what is it, to be a child? Perhaps, it is something like, “Wow!” Yes, definitely, to be a child means to say every day: “Wow! Wow!” Because this is the definition, this awe before this world through…(Child’s voice from the audience: “I’m a child!”)…Yay! (Slava laughs) (Applause) To be a child is to get surprised, every day get surprised by everything. “What is this? Why is that? How is it here? I want it, too!” And so, in everything: to touch, “Ah, why, what are you doing?” To get yourself into everything, participate in everything, in spite of everything, because this is what it is, the state of “Wow!” I don’t know, I love it when all that stops and this boost of life starts, when you’re no longer reacting, no longer controlling, cannot comprehend anything, just doing something not knowing why, or what for, and so on. Usually, joy has no reason. The real joy has no reason, it just occurs because life is good. That’s why it is here, the main joy occurs in this place. All other joys help a little, but the main joy occurs in here.

Marcel Marceau told me once—I learned from many: sometimes I went to Raikin, sometimes to Marcel Marceau, I used to attach myself to someone and hang there, carrying bags—(Laughter) and he said, “You need to learn only from the great.” I was like, “Oh, that’s very important, what an important thought, I need to act upon it, whom else should I follow?” Now I understand that there’s no need to follow anyone. It turned out that our greatest teachers are our children. So, I follow my granddaughters nonstop now. (Applause) How on earth do they manage to be happy and joyful all the time? A little bit (Makes frustration noises) and life’s awesome again. (Laughter) Really, I’m studying, trying to see how. Still remains a mystery to me. I’m following and recording them, their actions, trying to repeat everything but nothing works that way they can make it work.

Then, the fools in our Academy have a lot of rules which we follow and which work very well. Do not write down a list of problems. What do you need them for? Why do you need such a list? Why do you need the news? Why do you need the TV? All of it is really unnecessary, why on earth get interested in it? (Applause) Write down every tiny achievement, the tiniest success, write it all down, underline, make a total of everyday results. Accumulate the joyful and the beautiful. That’s why in our theater everything is very simple: a show ends, I go backstage and everybody is like, “Well?,” because they all know that they won’t hear a single negative word from me. Try all you want, I will go on, “Again wonderful! I can’t believe you always manage to perform that well!” (Laughter) (Applause)

Turn the mundane into festive and fantastic. Run—there is a word for it—away from a dull life into the middle of something… Never mind. In short, don’t “dull-shit” your life. (Laughter) (Applause) Why is everybody in grey, anyway? Put on some colors! And so turn every minute of your life into something colorful, joyous, awesome and amazing. I have it all separated in my library: here is all the comical stuff, there is all the absurd, fantastic. For me, those always go together, because the fantastic and the absurd both lead to the other side of the planet, to the other side of life really—might not even be on Earth, but somewhere in the universe. These two things give us some kind of a fantastic balance, when clashing the joyous and the fantastic create such a vision of the world that makes you shiver, gives you goosebumps. (Looks at his arm) “Again, goosebumps!”

So, fantastic, festive, and mundane—blah, blah, blah—Got it! There is this man in the history of theater, Meyerhold, who said, “If you want to be there, stretch the leg out there, because in order to get there you need to have balance.” It is hard to find a more thorough person on earth. And it’s me. It is even harder to find a more careless person. And it’s also me. So, I’m starting s huge project, and in the middle of it, “Ah!” (starts to walk offstage) because I already imagined how it’s going to end. And then there is thoroughness: until each little hair is not bent to one side, until my show doesn’t smell with exactly the right color, until all of it comes to a place, I cannot fully enjoy the whole thing. So, everything is produced out of these opposite things. You need to be a completely reckless and headless doofus, and at the same time you need to methodically and thoroughly go through every millimeter of what you’re doing. Then forget about that altogether, and it’ll flow out in an unexpected way. And if you don’t preserve that balance, your whole beautiful thing will fall. Or that other very costly thing—it will also fall. That is, those things can only work when you keep both sides at the same time in harmony. Once you shift a little, “Let’s increase the ticket price,”—ah, (starts to fall sideways) or you shift like, “Let’s don’t give a damn about that and just fly free.” (gestures falling from the sky) So, a shift to either side….only balance on the edge, on the edge. (walks a tightrope)

I always said, “Only do the impossible. Because all the rest will be done by others.” (Applause) It’s true. When you put a star at the very horizon, and then crawl to it, swim in mud, and all the time you feel that beauty that shines upon you. So, when you aspire to the impossible and it comes true in the end, you understand, that’s what you were doing all that for. Then there is no longer mud, nor a deep river, or whatever.

And here goes the opposite: “But always value what you have.” So, if you don’t plan to land in a mental institution, or even worse than that, there is only one way—balance again. Always aspire to the infinite, and always love every moment of what you have. If you find yourself in a small room, not even yours, rented, temporary, it’s good that you have that place, quiet, warm, where no one bothers you. It gets expanded—you get a garage—okay, I’ll make a theater in a garage, it has a cold draft, no problem. It means you keep those two things balanced every time anyway, and if you stop keeping that balance between the ideal and what you’ve got, which is good fortune, luck, indeed, what have you done to deserve it all? Just like that, doofus, you’ve got things people only dream about all their lives.

Feet in the water: this is yet another great rule. Feet in the water. What does it mean? Every 12 years I need to change my occupation. It means that every 12 years I stop the train and say, “Thanks. Bye!” And I see where I want to go next. For that you need to get your feet in the water, sit for a month, and figure out: what is it you seek most, why do you want to do it, what do you need it for, whether you need it in the first place. Don’t you ever keep living on auto-pilot, never. Fear the most automatic repetition of what you already saw, know, and have no interest in. Break free—but you can crash big time, this is the biggest problem. Not everyone has the courage. Do you know where courage comes from? If you tried something a hundred times, then you know how tough your courage is. So, you need to try more, the more you try, the more you know, whether it’s worth getting out of or better to endure.

Hooooh!: the last one! (cue card) Create your life the way you create a piece of art. This is the only way to love it. Create your life the way you create a piece of art. Embrace this attitude toward your every step, your every encounter, toward every day of your life.

Thank you.

(Translated from the Russian by Yulia Kallistratova)

Here’s a link to this talk:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LxwbPFLUHY

May all beings be happy!

Bibliophiles Unanimous!: What Are Your Favorite Documentary Films?
2021-07-25 13:00 - 15:00
This Sunday, July 25th, at 1 pm, we’re going to go crazy, break all the rules, and talk about films–instead of books!!! WHAT ARE YOUR FAVORITE DOCUMENTARY FILMS? Here’s the link:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83135193074

Cinephiles: This is your chance!
I hope to see you there!

peace, love & happiness

Johnny
