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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Here is the piece I wrote for Poetry Evolution this week with a few photos of the Metolius River that is just a few miles from our place in Sisters, Oregon. It has always been a special place for me because when I was a child my best friend, Betsy, had a cabin at the head of the river (it springs right out of the ground at the foot of Black Butte) and we would spend summer and winter days there playing–riding ponies, canoeing, croquet and hours of reading and playing board games. It is a magical (and very, very cold) river that winds unfettered until it merges with the Deschutes.

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Like a River

Last month at the meditation course in New Mexico there was one class where we did a guided visualization along with a kriya to open up to guidance and clarity. It was a hot day, my back ached and I was hungry and ready for lunch and feeling the familiar resistance to the effort of concentration and stillness. As we got deeper and deeper into the meditation, though, I felt the strength of the process, felt myself giving way, opening to what might come through. Centering on the inhale and exhale, as well as holding the posture and the mudra, all brought more and more energy, a peaceful surge of strength and projective focus. In the last couple of minutes, as the mind chatter lessened and the body discomfort eased, three small words slipped through the veil, three words that landed with an impact that took my heart completely by surprise, brought tears, a welling of gratitude and recognition of the union of all in this vast universe.

Immediately following the meditation, my hunger having disappeared, I pulled out my notebook and pen, sat at a bench in the shade and began to write, write in response to the message:

The ripple, the roar, tidal pool flow, going, round a bend whirl, twirl, engulfing falling running, clouds reflecting, bowing branches turning down, the ground, the bounds of all solid, lost, found, counting stars on the surface, stones flung upon the floor. The bottom not solid, not sound, not caught, taught, swells with flotsam, buoyant with loss, whatever is tossed, floats, wants the journey, hears the call to merge to seek the expanse, beloved all, waters call never ending, the pounding, beckoning…come, come, leave the shore, leave all mammals, birds, meadows and falls, how sun finds day, the tears of the moon, the cottonwood snow, the pauses, move on, move on—chant of love, eternal mantra—always so, always so, always so.

Since that day I have been writing a little bit here and there to connect with this phrase, to find out what it has to divulge, what I need to learn from it. I have found a poem or two from it. I have begun to see life more and more as that eternal flow, as liquid, as fury, as calm, contained, overflowing, moving, still, all the many aspects of a river. Just a couple of days ago I was reading a short essay about Pablo Neruda by Edward Hirsch from his book, Poet’s Choice, where he quotes a portion of a poem of Neruda’s called “The Heights of Macchu Picchu.” Two thirds of the way down I came to the lines, “like a river of riving yellow light / like a river where buried jaguars lie.” I would have thought it mere coincidence if there was only one line that began “like a river” but that there were two…I knew that this was a confirmation, a communication from this incredible poet to keep on, to keep going down that river, an assurance that there was much to be learned, many blessings to be garnered by such an endeavor.

I leave Oregon tomorrow, travel back to Los Angeles, but I will return in a month, to a land where rivers abound in the mountains and meadows. I will carry these waters with me as I continue to write and to meditate on the river, to dive into the depths, to risk the icy cold, the loss of breath, to experience crystal clear moments of transcendence, to one day reach my ocean.

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The Head of the Metolius

If you look really closely you can see a small bridge. To the right is the cabin of my childhood friend, Betsy.

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Winding through the Ponderosa Pines.

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To go out and return, to step into the fire and come out shining, to face the fears inside and triumph. This is what we hear in fairy tales, in epic books of ancient times and today in the movies and in song and even comic books. Repeated over and over are the stories of rising up, of falling, and of rising again. It is what sustains us, what gives us hope that this life is not about accummulation and status and power, that we have a higher purpose, that we were born into this world to leave it a better, more enlightened place. Mary Oliver, in her poem When Death Comes, says:

When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real,
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.

This past week I went to New Mexico for a few days to renew and revitalize my spirit. It was hot, in the 90’s, and dry and my body put up a fuss. I had to sit on the floor, cross legged. I had to meditate for long minutes and even hours. No, I really didn’t have to do any of this, in fact it was my choice all the way, but there is always The Grumbler, who insists on blabbing away, insists on coming up with any number of reasons why I’d be better off sitting by the side of a pool with a lemonade rather than submitting myself to a discipline, a test of my grit. But, as Mary Oliver says, I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world. I never have. To me it is far more frightening to think of breathing that last breath knowing (and we all know) that I did not give it a go, that I did not walk into the belly of the beast and tame that beast, the one that dwells in my fears.

As poets, as writers, as artists we are the singers of this world. We bring what is necessary to the attention of the people. It is a duty, a duty we take up because we must, because if we do not tell what we see, tell what is in our hearts, do not bring to light that which is beyond this illusiory world then this whole mess of human existence stays just that…a mess. What we seek is wholeness and when we know that we are more than flesh and bone, thought and emotion, when we know that we are spirit, then we can rise when we fall, we can triumph.

I love the poetry of Charles Bukowski. Yes, it is rough and mean and edgy sometimes, but in this man was a lion’s heart. He knew pain, both physical and emotional. He could have killed himself (and almost did) or someone else and no one would have been surprised. He could have stayed a bitter and hateful person until the day he passed and no one would have blamed him. But he did neither. He wrote. He wrote poetry. He saved himself through his song. He gave himself a chance to know his greatness. Here’s one of my favorite poems of his, if i had failed to make the struggle. It really says it all.

if I had failed to make the struggle

there would be no peace, no solace, no
wisdom.
night would follow night
like a string of ants
come to carry you
off.
in a world cluttered with the falsely
famous
there would be no
escape.
you would face a hard impossibility while
chewing on your toast
or cleaning your
teeth
or waiting for the
result
of a photo finish
or a cancer
checkup.

there would be no voice to
listen to,
no acceptable
god.
even the laughter you once
enjoyed, they would have
stripped even that from
you
and left you
to be worn down
finally
like water upon
stone.

in the beginning youth
fought them
off;
middle age was there to contemplate the
wounds;
and now
maturity
is here to record
a simple
victory.

… is sending me away…away from the desk, the keypad, the screen–to the east, not too far, to New Mexico where the sky is forever and the air dry and sweet. It’s one of my places of refuge, of regeneration. Usually I go for a week or two in the summer for our 3HO Summer Solstice to share with the 1500 travelers the restorative practices of kundalini yoga, meditation, healing, prayer, singing, dancing, walking, talking, eating and vibing together on the ancient land we call Ram Das Puri where the Native American tribes of the southwest gathered for pow-wow and a sacred healing walk in past times. The souls, both visible and invisible, that reside there during these ten days seek to raise their consciousness and the consciousness of the planet. This year I will not be there, but rather participating in a 3-day course focusing on a Sikh prayer written by Guru Gobind Singh, the tenth and last, of the Sikh Guru’s. I look forward to filling up with the food of this powerful meditation. It is truly the juice I need right now. My candle is burning a bit low. So, I’ll be back with photos and thoughts from the Land of Enchantment on June 15th. I may be able to post while I’m gone, but then again, may choose not to. Loving all your comments and good wishes. We’re only getting started. Who knows where we’ll go? Peace, love, light.