Last night when I was dozing off to sleep with a book in my hands, trying to read just one more line, get through at least five pages before giving over to sleep, I had this realization that I was feeling content. The whole day I had this feeling, though I had not named it. It was one of those days in L.A. where the morning haze never did burn off and it was that kind of overcast where no rain is going to happen but everything is muffled; colors, sounds, movements. I spent most of the day in the house, only went out in the afternoon to run to the pet store for dog food, the beauty shop to pick up some facial cleanser and Trader Joes for the macaroni and cheese I just had to have for dinner. I didn’t do anything special during the day, though everything I did felt special in some way or another. Even paying the bills or watching TV later on in the evening–taking in a few minutes of a Laker game and liking the look of the team this year, actually considering going to a game and cheering them on (which I haven’t felt since Magic & Kareem hung up their tennies).

It was elusive, really, where that contentment originated, but I think most likely it was a response to all the traveling I’ve done in the last few months and the appreciation deep in my bones, to being home, to being secure and comfortable–an appreciation for all that I have and not wanting to be anywhere else or with anyone else at that moment. Everything was just as it was supposed to be. I was just as I was supposed to be. It was sweet to drift off to sleep with these thoughts in my mind. I thanked the comforter on my bed, the green water glass on the nightstand, the carpet on the floor, pictures on the wall of my son and my teacher and the Golden Temple in India. It was all right. Perfect. In harmony. Ah, to be human in these moments is such a blessing and helps me understand the other side, those dark nights of the soul, so much more. They exist side by side. Just as there are dragons and goblins and mice that come into my life to shake lose what I hold onto and open me up to what I fear, there are those moments so soft and tender where no one is witness; those moments when life is poetry and poetry is all around, not in words but in essence, in vibration, in every cell and molecule in and around me.

********

Ten Thousand Flowers

Ten thousand flowers in spring, the moon in autumn,
a cool breeze in summer, snow in winter.
If your mind isn’t clouded by unnecessary things,
this is the best season of your life.

Wu-Men

***

Why Log Truck Drivers Rise Earlier Than Students of Zen

In the high seat,
before-dawn dark,

Polished hubs gleam
And the shiny diesel stack
Warms and flutters
Up the Tyler Road grade
To the logging on Poorman Creek.
Thirty miles of dust.

There is no other life.

Gary Snyder

***

The Perfume of Flowers!…

The perfume
of flowers! A haw

drops such odour
it stops me

in the wall
of its fall. Love

arrests

Lime-trees
saturate

the night. We walk
in it

On a path jonquils
fill

the air. Love
is a scent.

Charles Olson

***

West Wall

In the unmade light I can see the world
as the leaves brighten I see the air
the shadows melt and the apricots appear
now that the branches vanish I see the apricots
from a thousand trees ripening in the air
they are ripening in the sun along the west wall
apricots beyond number are ripening in the daylight.

Whatever was there
I never saw those apricots swaying in the light
I might have stood in orchards forever
without beholding the day in the apricots
or knowing the ripeness of the lucid air
or touching the apricots in your skin
or tasting in your mouth the sun in the apricots.

W. S. Merwin

***

from
Vacillation

My fiftieth year had come and gone,
I sat, a solitary man,
In a crowded London shop,
An open book and empty cup
On the marble table-top.

While on the shop and street I gazed
My body of a sudden blazed;
And twenty minutes more or less
It seemed, so great my happiness,
That I was blessed and could bless.

William Butler Yeats

Artwork from AllPoster.com

I am so anti-Halloween, the way we celebrate here in this country, anyway. Around my neighborhood there are so many houses with fake cobwebs strung all over the bushes, gravestones with R.I.P. stuck in the lawns, bones and skulls and witches on brooms all over the house. Then there are those crazy inflatable ghosts and goblins.

It brings out the monster in me to see all this ridiculous “celebration” of a holiday that was originally seen by the pagans “to be crucial joints between the seasons that opened cracks in the fabric of space-time, allowing contact between the ghostworld and the mortal one.” (This per The Woman’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets by Barbara Walker.) What is it about this culture that can’t deal with death? Why are we so surprised when it occurs? Why don’t we talk about it, study it, accept it as the natural transition of the soul from physical to ephemeral? What happened to us that we are so blind to the inevitable?

Okay, enough of the ranting. Maybe it’s the jet lag brain that’s got me so irritable. Let me try and put a positive spin on this Halloween gig. It’s time for a dog walk. I’ll go and get some fresh air and take some pictures of the neighborhood decorations. Maybe I’ll get a sign from the other side.
Got some great shots of the local scary lawn decor AND an undeniable sign (to be revealed after the pictures).

********

A Monarch butterfly, the only one I saw, on this cool Autumn day, flew out of a tree right when I walked by and kept circling me and the dogs while I stood there watching it. Orange and black. It’s orange and black–Halloween’s colors. Lighten up and have fun. Don’t get too full of yourself. Life is short. Soar. Spread your wings. Come out of your shell. Play. This is what I got from it. This was my message from the “ghostworld” and I’m keeping it. Bring on the trick-or-treaters! Bring on the horror shows! Dracula and Frankenstein! And bring on the scary poems…

Two from Emily Dickinson and one from our favorite scary poet–Edgar Allan Poe.

Because I Could Not Stop for Death

Because I could not stop for Death
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.

We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.

We passed the school where children played,
Their lessons scarcely done;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.

We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice but a mound.

Since then ’tis centuries; but each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses’ heads
Were toward eternity.

********

I Heard a Fly Buzz When I Died

I heard a fly buzz when I died;
The stillness round my form
Was like the stillness in the air
Between the heaves of storm.

The eyes beside had wrung them dry,
And breaths were gathering sure
For that last onset, when the king
Be witness in his power.

I willed my keepsakes, signed away
What portion of me I
Could make assignable,–and then
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.

Emily Dickinson

********

Spirits Of The Dead

Thy soul shall find itself alone
‘Mid dark thoughts of the grey tomb-stone;
Not one, of all the crowd, to pry
Into thine hour of secrecy.

Be silent in that solitude,
Which is not loneliness- for then
The spirits of the dead, who stood
In life before thee, are again
In death around thee, and their will
Shall overshadow thee; be still.

The night, though clear, shall frown,
And the stars shall not look down
From their high thrones in the Heaven
With light like hope to mortals given,
But their red orbs, without beam,
To thy weariness shall seem
As a burning and a fever
Which would cling to thee for ever.

Now are thoughts thou shalt not banish,
Now are visions ne’er to vanish;
From thy spirit shall they pass
No more, like dew-drop from the grass.

The breeze, the breath of God, is still,
And the mist upon the hill
Shadowy, shadowy, yet unbroken,
Is a symbol and a token.
How it hangs upon the trees,
A mystery of mysteries!

Edgar Allan Poe

********

For more info on the origins of Halloween, All Saints Day & All Souls Day you can go to these web sites:

Celtic Religious Festivals

Library of Congress Folklife Center

I’m sitting in a hotel in Asheville, North Carolina. The rain is drizzling outside. It’s dark. Liza and I were in the car from 8 am until 6. We drove through the Blue Ridge and the Applachian Mountains. We ate Mexican food at a little town in southern Virginia. We listened to two CD’s of poetry with Sandburg, Auden, St. Vincent Millay, T.S. Eliot, Langston Huges, H.D., and more. We talked about our writing projects, our kids, friends, her enrollment in the MFA program at Lesley University. Claudine (that’s what we call the satellite navigator in her car) kept us on track telling us in her calm, but insistent voice, when to turn right or left, what exit to take and exactly how many miles and how many minutes to our destination. We talked about the heart chakra and Tony Hoagland and how road trips give you a chance to examine your thoughts and allow fresh input into sometimes stale brain cells. I got a motto for the upcoming week from a Langston Hughes poem “Deeds cannot know what dreams can do.” Oh, my God, if this could only be broadcast throughout the land–downloaded onto every IPod, MP3 player, computer and run across the bottom of the daily news–what a different world it would be. We ate sushi and salad and veggies with rice for dinner, checked our email and our phones and now we’re at rest until tomorrow and the adventure begins as we get settled in our little cabins, hang our clothes in the closet, put our almond milk and blueberries and tofu in the fridge, make the bed, set out a candle or two, stack the books on the desk, set up the computer, pull out a pen, a notebook, stare out the window at something new, something we’ve never seen before. Tomorrow is full of possibilities, just as today was and as every day will be, because that’s what we feed on, as much as air or water or food or love…be they grand or be they humble, we must have possibilities, or we have nothing, we only trudge along…we do not sing, never dream. Wow! That got heavy all of a sudden. Well, here’s to dreams and possibilities and blue, smoky mountains and sushi and a good night’s sleep on a tempurpedic bed with down pillows and cotton sheets!

A Dream Deferred

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore–
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over–
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
…Langston Hughes

The photos below were taken at the rest stop right after we crossed over the Tennessee state line. They had a whole visitors center there with brochures for all the sites in Tennessee, including Dollywood, which Liza was keen on going to. (I’m going to get in big trouble for that one.) They also had the highest rating so far on the trip for bathroom cleanliness and fragrance…and that’s no small thing to accomplish.

Although I live in L.A., where the weather rarely dips into the 30’s, it is still clearly evident when we have turned from summer to fall. I notice how the slant of light is more from the south, how some plants in the garden get more sun, some less. Of course there is the early darkness in the evening and the difficulty to get out of bed with the late rising of the sun in the morning. The evenings are a bit chillier. The fans are stored away and down comforters and quilts replace cotton blankets on the bed. Rain becomes a more real possibility. There are even a few trees whose leaves turn red and yellow and scatter into the streets.

A friend of mine is reading a book where the author has a theory that many of the modern day illnesses, such as cancer, heart disease, arthritis, etc, became pervasive in the culture simultaneously with the advent of electricity and the light bulb. The idea (as I understand it) is that with the ability to have light in times when there was before only darkness (or only a soft, natural light provided by flames), we shifted from following our innate cycles of activity during the hours when the sun shone and rest/sleep when it did not. Thus, with the added stress and pushing our systems beyond their inherent biorhythms our very cells began to mutate and, ultimately become diseased. I know this sounds simplistic and I am sure I don’t have it quite right, not having read the book, but I do think there’s a lot of truth in the fact that we are surrounded by artificial stimuli and we use it to facilitate more and more production, stretching the boundaries of our bodies, our minds and our psyches to keep up with our demands for doing and doing and doing.

I want to hibernate this winter. Just as when spring comes I am so ready for summer and long, lazy days, so as fall deepens I want warm tea, black and white movies, a 400-page historical novel, slippers and sweaters, soul-searching thoughts and writing long entries in my journal. Certainly one can’t make like a bear and curl up in a cave for six months, but it does seem right (my body is going Yeah! Yeah!) to take advantage of the seasons, of what they inherently offer. I’ve been traveling quite a bit since May and am ready (after two more jaunts) to stay in one place for a couple of months. I’ve got a list of movies to watch. I’ve got a ton of books to read. There are poems to revise and a manuscript of essays to be edited and compiled. That should keep me busy enough during the waking hours. When night falls, well, then I’ll make like that bear and take myself off to a quiet spot and snore away the long winter’s night.

Kinda makes me sleepy just looking at those droopy eyes.

This morning while walking I realized that there are dueling opinions about the state of the world (mine and the greater one) that play out in my head. There’s the complainer and the praiser—the first is dissatisfied with my body, my thoughts, my environments, accomplishments, attitudes, my neighbors, friends, the president, air, water and noise pollution, and on and on and on. This one, the kvetcher, seems to think it’s important to be vigilant about what’s not perfect, dilapidated, sliding, tainted and just NOT RIGHT. There’s some kind of belief that enumerating these less-than-perfect attributes is important—that be doing so one (well, I) will be in a better position to improve them. If I don’t remind myself 20-30 times a day that my back would feel better, I’d drop a dress size and extend my life a few months if I lost twenty pounds, well then, I’m not doing my job, which is, of course, to improve, to attain what I know is possible and best for myself. Otherwise, gulp, I’ve failed, I’m a loser and I’ll be back next time around weighing 350 pounds and have to deal with it all over again, only worse.

At our house here in L.A. we have a beautiful oval-shaped swimming pool in the back and a hot tub that we bought when we moved here. This morning, after walking the dogs and watering the plants I was feeling hot and sweaty so I jumped in the pool (which was pretty cold, since we don’t heat it) and then in the hot tub for a while, then back in the pool. Afterwards, I sat outside, relaxed, enjoying the sun. I realized it had been a couple of weeks since I had slowed down long enough to really see the world around me—the way the light plays off the water, the brilliant orange flower draping over the wall, the shimmer of the fichus leaves against the sky. Oh, I had noticed, but I hadn’t seen, hadn’t taken them in. My head had been too full of stuff that needs to get done, stuff I need to figure out, stuff I believe or don’t believe, blah, blah, blah. You know what I mean.

So, sitting there I felt the presence of gratitude, of the praiser, inside—in awe of the wonder of existence. I started thinking about the difference between the perception of how screwed up everything is and the perception that everything is just as it is supposed to be. Listening to the traffic out on the street and thinking of the people in the cars, in the malls, at work, at home, all across the country and the globe—thinking how few of them, how very few of them, ever stop, ever give over to the fragility of their lives, the precious moments that slip by, slip by, and are gone. It made me wonder what would happen if, instead of the bravado and posturing of politicians (like what we witnessed at the U.N. this week), these leaders, these men and women went together on a retreat to meditate, chant, write, speak in a scared circle, tell their stories, if they got real, and felt each other and the pain inside each other’s hearts. I wonder what would happen if each of us vowed to go past the fear and anger that masks our vulnerability and decided it was okay to weep at the sight of beauty, to sing out the truth, to affirm every moment of every day that what is here, what is now, will not always be, that we are here only temporarily and what we do while we are here is the legacy we leave those who come after us—our children and their children.

I’m not sure if the complainer will ever completely fade out of my head. She’s pretty tenacious. I’m thinking though, if I make the effort to slow down and catch up with myself, take in what “is” and see it as so very right and so very perfect—I might just get the upper hand. I’m not naive enough to think that I’ll see President Bush and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez sit side by side in a seminar to learn “nonviolent communication” and heal their differences. It does occur to me though, that the most important work being done on this planet today is by those who attend those conferences, who do go to meditation and poetry and yoga retreats. As often as it has been quoted, what MhaAtma Ghandi said will always ring true, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” It’s the only thing we really have control over, our hearts, our minds, the way we see each other as we walk down the street, the way we see ourselves when we look in the mirror. Why not live in kindness, in hope, in gratitude? Why not?

It’s a Saturday morning. A beautiful morning, cool and clear. I’m not going anywhere in particular today, have no commitments. You know, that song by, mmm…(it’ll come to me), but it goes like this…”Slow down, you move too fast. You’ve got to make the mornin’ last. Just trippin’ down the cobblestones. Lookin’ for love and feelin’ groovy.” Or something like that. Hari Bhajan Singh & I took Yoshi and Ria to the beach this morning for a walk, down to Will Rogers Park. You can’t take dogs on the beach in L.A. County so we walked along the bike path enjoying the sun and the sight of the ocean. Busloads of men, women and children had just spread out along the beach wearing plastic gloves and carrying trash bags and scouring the sand for candy wrappers, cigarette butts and any other debris left behind from beachgoers. It’s Heal the Bay day and I heard on the radio yesterday that in one day they pick up about 40 tons of debris from the Southern California beaches. The funny thing is that the beaches look clean on first look but obviously there’s a lot more under the surface. We helped out by picking up a styrafoam cup, a soda can tab and some other trash. Yoshi usually does his part by grabbing any plastic water bottles laying around, but there were none to be found today. I forgot to bring my camera so here’s a picture of the Santa Monica beaches I took off the web.

Dover Beach
by Matthew Arnold.

The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanch’d land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the {AE}gean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl’d.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

*************
This morning while meditating I was thinking about what a perfect tragedy life is. Not one of us bounces through life without losing so much, without grieving, without having to constantly let go of what we love, what we cherish. If we cling too tightly we are sure to find our arms empty, our hearts bereft. If we do not reach out to hold and to risk, we turn to stone, are ground down into fine sand. The only way to make sense of it all is to see that it doesn’t make sense, really, all this do-dah around us. A new BMW, a house ini Malibu, being a rock star or having a seven figure bank account is not worth the proverbial hill of beans. We arrive naked and we return naked. We get old (most of us anyway) and lose our faculties, to one degree or another. This life slips away and when the reel of the film has run it’s course and the credits are running–well, then it’s too late to write another script, to rewind and edit the shots. On the other hand–there’s the Divine Comedy of it all: Don’t Worry, Be Happy, Chop Wood, Carry Water and Be Here Now. If we slow down, if we remember to breathe, remember it’s all temporary then there is beauty all around, there is the essence of the divine, we come into awareness of the unity of all.

It must’ve been Saturday morning, how there’s that feeling of relaxation in the air and how the stress of the city has eased just a little bit–it must’ve been this that got me thinking, along with the fresh sea air and dreams that stirred my consciousness the night before and, well just being a human being trying to sort it out. Yeah, it happens. Now it’s time to go back outside and find some cobblestones to trip down. La, la, la, la, la, la…feelin’ groovy!

The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin’ Groovy)
( Simon & Garfunkel )

Slow down, you move too fast
You’ve got to make the morning last
Just kickin’ down the cobble stones
Looking for fun and feelin’ groovy!
(La,la,la,la,la,la, feelin’ groovy)

Hello, lamp post, whatcha knowing?
I’ve come to watch your flowers growing
Ain’t ya got no rhymes for me?
Doot-in’ doo-doo, feelin’ groovy!
(La,la,la,la,la,la, feelin’ groovy)

Got no deeds to do, no promises to keep
I’m dappled and drowsy and ready to sleep
Let the morning time drop all its petals on me
Life, I love you, all is groovy!
(La,la,la,la,la,la, feelin’ groovy)
(La,la,la,la,la,la, feelin’ groovy)

I was just milling about in my Squaw Valley poem file and thought I’d share with you the last poem I wrote. Well, truth be told it isn’t exactly a poem–unless you chose to call it so. It was one of my goals (although not one that I was married to) at the workshop to try out new forms, writing a different kind of poem each day. I had done pretty well with a prose poem on Monday, an abecedarian on Tuesday, Wednesday I did an ode (in a “primative sound”), and Thursday a list poem. On Friday I read a “conversation” poem” in Sharon Olds’ group that had really been a tough one to write and even tougher to read. Sharon urged me (more like laid down the gauntlet, in her oh, so, gentle way) to take the poem I had written and go deeper into the subject, let it rip, find out what I really wanted to say and write that for my Saturday poem. This was a daunting task considering there was a dinner party that night and I could barely stand up straight and keep my eyes open as it was after the poetry blitz of the previous six days.

I did try. Oh, I sat in front of my computer until midnight but it wasn’t going to happen, no matter how much I tried to dredge up the fury from within. I did want to come with something to Saturday morning’s workshop so I thought I’d write a letter…take a lighter approach and just let myself get silly. It was fun and I felt the pressure lift as I gave myself permission to take what Sharon had said with me and let it settle in. I would write that poem another day. Sometimes I (feel free to insert “we” here) just have to accept my limitations–and maybe they aren’t so much limitations, but opportunities to go easy and let myself slide. Nothing wrong with sliding now and again. You never know when you’ll get a good laugh out of it.

(The “C.D.” in the title is C.D. Wright as she was the group facilitator that morning.)

********

Dear C.D. & Respected 12 Poets of Squaw Valley Poetry Day 7,

It is my sad duty to inform you that today is the day I have failed. I have not brought a poem of any means, have not finished my week with a roar, rather I offer you a whimper. I didn’t mean to disappoint. Ah, kept at it until there was little left of me but acid. But, my dears, it was not to be this day, this sun drenched morning in Bar One. I must look into your soft eyes and say to you that there is nothing here that will light them up or (most desirably) evoke a tear or moment of deep introspection to swell the chest and provoke an almost indiscernible nod of the head, sway of the torso, inner glow of epiphany.

No. I must disappoint. And no one (least of all myself) wants to disappoint but it seems my fate to do so on this our last morning, our last poeming around this table. I do so with my head held high and my integrity in tact as I know you would want me to, as I know you will, with your immense empathy be kind, say not that this does not qualify as a poem—remark that it is neither abecedarian nor sonnet, that it would be far better a work of art to cut the first line, scrap the title or point out that the syntax does not match the tone.

It is my fervent wish that today’s offering does not, in your generous and kindly eyes, diminish the esteem I have so ardently striven to engender in this last week so much so that you consider striking me from the blue-sheeted email list as an outsider, one who didn’t rise to the moment, failed to do the assignment given to follow up yesterday’s poem where I had reached down my throat, ripped out my heart and thrown it on the page, the oh, so gentle suggestion that I do it again, only this time go deeper, go for the gut, dragging the kidneys, pancreas and spleen along with it. I do hope that you will understand, in your benevolence, why, instead I chose to obfuscate, to defer, to wave the white flag of surrender.

And so dear ones, fellow poeteers, we must part on this fine day to return to our abodes across the land. I wish you well in all your revisions and may your submission acceptances be many. I hope to meet you all again one day, one bright and clear morning in this fine valley where bears eat Hagen Daaz in the kitchen, ants milk aphids for their sweet poop and poems grow like lichen on every rock and tree.

Humbly,
Hari Bhajan

July 29, 2006

Per the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language…Revise: 1.To prepare a newly edited version. 2. To reconsider and change or modify.

It’s funny how you can go along pretty much okay with yourself, feeling like your making some headway in your trek toward being a worthy person, one who is kind, does the right thing, works hard and never backs down from the difficult tasks of life. We fool ourselves. I fool myself, get on my figurative high horse and ride about my day thinking I’m pretty decent because I am a vegetarian, oh, and I meditate and well, haven’t drank alcohol in 30-something years or consumed any other mind-altering substance. I’m a “spiritual” person, I help people…ya-da-ya-da-ya-da. Oh, yeah, there’s a lot to get all blown up about when you’re adding up the score.

Then the day comes, oh it’s a sunny day and the birds are singing and the sky is blue and all is la-di-dah and you’re just rollin’ along, being who you are and doing what you do and then, and then it hits-the realization, loud and clear, as if it was blaring out on surround sound: You are a Hypocrite. Oh, yeah, it’s as brutal and unflinching as that. Now I’m switching this conversation to the first person, the I, because now this conversation is going to get specific-about me-about my particular hypocrisy. (The latest in a long string of them, I might add.) It was on the day of my spiritual teacher’s birthday, after a day of getting up early to meditate for two hours, spending the day with friends, in nature, walking, sharing food and talking about this, that and everything. It was the conversation part that stood out for me when I went to bed that night, the realization that several times what I had said about others was not particularly kind, was actually seeing not the best in that person, but their worst, or where they were weak, where they failed.

This month I am facilitating a course on revising poems. This is what this post started to be about. Obviously that went nowhere. I was a paragraph into it and it was stale and stilted. What was really gnawing at me to be written was about revising the self, revising habits, beliefs, perceptions. There is always a “reason” we can find to justify our behavior that takes the world a step or two away from better: what we were taught, how we were treated, what we had to do to survive physically or emotionally. Our past does form us, this is true and, as long as we remain unaware of the effect that it imposes on us, as long as we chose to keep on living with our pain and the pain we cause others, we are stuck in these habits and they run our lives. Once the cat’s out of the box (is that the right expression?), once we are aware, there must be honesty, complete and utter ‘fessing up to the behavior and the thought processes behind the behavior that we perpetuate and believe are a part of who we are. The next steip is to come to the realization that they are not who we are. Then, and only then, can we can revise them effectively.

Oh, boy, was my ego trashed when I confronted it with the evidence: You’re very sly about putting people down. You don’t say it to their face, just in casual conversation. You deny there’s anything wrong with it. Everybody does it. You deny that if the tables were turned you wouldn’t be hurt. You deny the impact on your own consciousness, the toxicity of your words. This is how the Self must talk to the self-without blaming, without condemning, but straightforward and with the mirror set directly in front of the heart and mind so that nothing is slipped under the rug, nothing left out to be excused or mollified. I have never attended an AA meeting but I know enough to get that to cop to the addiction, the habit, is the first step in the process of recovery. Taking responsibility is utterly essential, but it doesn’t stop there. Without meaningful revision of one’s life–making a confirmed effort to amend one’s self through removing the old habit and inserting new responses to situations–eventually the stronger, the more entrenched ego-self will overrule all the good intentions of the higher Self.

Okay, so, I am still in the phase of acknowledging fully the mean-spirited part of my self that continues to insist on staying in the game of my life, insists it’s okay to see less than the best in others and to speak about it. On the plus side, I did make a vow that night, in prayer, in surrender, that from that day forth I would cease to speak unkindly about anyone–to choose instead to either find the best in them and speak of that, or if I could not, to say nothing and to know it was my lack of compassion preventing me, it had nothing to do with anyone else. I’m going on a week with this personal revision. I can say it’s not easy. Truth is, it’s an old groove that I can slip into when the opportunity is there and not even realize what I’ve said until much later. It’s a matter of diligent awareness and concerted effort to stay on track, to stay committed to the process of “preparing a newly edited version” of myself, one that has a lot more to offer and brings myself, and (this is my personal conviction) the whole planet, one millimeter closer to living in peace.

In the last week I’ve watched, let’s see, four movies on DVD. That’s a lot more than I would normally do in a week’s span but I’m not at home and am indulging myself, getting caught up on my list. I brought two Netflix movies from home; Transamerica and Vera Drake, both of which I liked, especially Transamerica. The acting in both was superb and there were no flashy actors or big production scenes, very much story and character driven. Last night I watched The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada with Tommy Lee Jones. Whew, that was intense and sometimes funny and what was so wonderful was how the two main characters influenced each other and changed each other during their odyssey across the Texas/Mexico desert. Just now I finished watch Duma, a movie about a young boy, a cheetah and an African man all finding their way home, with wonderful scenes of Africa and super music. It’s funny how three of the four movies involve traveling long distances–the hero’s journey, facing hardships and conquering fear and finding friendship and love and acceptance and yet do it so differently and deftly.

Movies have always been a source of inspiration and emotional revelation for me and when I wrote my MOVIES I LOVE list it was amazing to see how many showed up on that list. I know there are still even more that will come to mind and be added as time goes on. It is not easy to get films made these days (was it ever?) and I have the utmost respect for those artists who endeavor to make a film that awakens the viewer to themselves, to history, to cultures and civilizations, to alternate paradigms of perception and that seek to open the heart and further peace.

One good source for great movies that you may never see in a theater is the Spiritual Cinema Circle, a subscripiton based movie-a-month club. There are feature length films, as well as shorts and animated films. I’m always looking for good movies so email me with any recommendations you might have.

Yesterday I took my first walk out into the woods, a familiar path that starts across the paved road from our house here in Sisters and within fifteen minutes intersects with a dirt road that winds back around to the pavement again. Just as I reached the dirt road a blue bird flew by me. I don’t know if it was a “bluebird” or a bird that was blue, but I had to follow it. I had my camera and I wanted a picture to take back and try to identify it in my bird book. The bird wasn’t co-operating, however, and just when I would have the camera set up to take a shot, would flit off another twenty feet further into the forest. I followed it, kept my eyes up to keep track of its whereabouts, so camouflaged against the smokey sky. After a few more minutes the bird disappeared and I sat down on a large log to get my bearings and to just be there quietly for a few minutes.

The snag was right in front of me, just a few yards away. The only dead tree still standing in the area. The beauty of it caught be off guard. After all, there were all the majestic living pines all around it. Maybe it was because it was the first day I felt really present and here in this place. Maybe it was because the blue bird had led me to it. It’s hard to say, but I had to come close, to walk around it, feel its rough and smooth skin, peer inside its hollowed belly, where I imagines so many creatures had bedded or foraged or hid from predators. From all angles it was stunning in the symmetry of its form, more majestic than an Olympic torch, more sacred than an altar candle. All around were the bodies of other trees, much larger trees than the live ones that grew around them. I imagined them still alive, the elders, giants of the forest, with a thousand rings in their trunks. I felt deep sorrow in that moment. I felt regret. I would have liked to have seen these aged ones. It was also a sorrow for my own ignorance–for how little I know of the forest and how it has been changed–what once was, what will never be again. In art, in poetry, in story and song is the opportunity to bring the spirit of what we can never fully replicate, what has forever passed, into a form that passes it on, gives it an afterlife. The blue bird, the graying stumps, the snag–I thank you for the moment and the blessings.

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The Snag

Splintered,
chiseled bits
list into, sift
into silt,
while it
lifts still
its kindled
spike,
its withered
tindered whirl,
to ink,
the insistent,
the invisible
firmament.

Hari Bhajan

8/19/06

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