This Is Me... Robert Daniel Smith, Poet, Anti-Fascist
(Right now, at this moment in time, one must insist upon a public declaration of anti-fascism.)
I am deeply thankful for the simple fact of my existence. I am a husband and a father. I am a poet. I fed the hungry... and today I garden, walk the dogs, still cook soup, and practice contemplative prayer along with the simplicity of home and pleasure...
I believe in the expansion of the idea of "self" into the "art of disappearance"... Growing food and gardening for beauty lead to art, adventures, and explorations... I am "plant-based" and continue my life of rebellion by wearing, mostly, denim overalls... For about fifty years now, prayer beads have been in my pocket: reminding that every breath is a prayer... breath-adoration-link-with-Divinity...
Ah, yes! Making love throughout the minutes of one's life is a secret of the ancient Taoist Immortals... Holding hands and walking anywhere together in silence or in conversation, unfolds the deepest recesses of soul: one into the other... until "Only One" remains... Michelle... my love... (So far, the twenty-0ne + most glorious years of my life!)
I live in a "bohemian" home: art can be anywhere. Books are everywhere. Everything has the "messy" feel and look: because we recognize the "one essential thing": sometimes called "soul"... Incense, pillows, and blankets for rest... music for mind and loving for heart...
Autobiography of a Yogi (Paramahansa Yogananda), My God and My All (biography of St. Francis of Assisi), Be Here Now, and Be Love Now (Ram Dass), the Eternal Tao Te Ching, and Siddhartha (Hermann Hesse) are a few of my life-long books of spiritual companionship. The Gospel-Tao is always unfolding for those who will cultivate loving-service and a countercultural spirit... The homeless and marginalized have been my greatest teachers... Shortly after graduating from North Salinas High School, I joined the Catholic Worker Movement and so began my vocation of serving the poor and community organizing... Thirty years later, my family and I moved to the Midwest (now living in River Falls, Wisconsin). "God is Alive, Magic is Afoot" (Leonard Cohen)
"My family! Michelle, love of my life, our twin sons Donovan and Devin, and the "icing on the cake of my life", our daughter Rose of Sharon. Their kindness towards me and their constant loving is the essential Sufi wisdom incarnate: "Resurrect before the resurrection"... And, I suppose, the best word is "namaste": meaning "the Divine in me adores the Divine in you"... Welcome into my world, my life, and into my poetry! And for those interested (and probably even more so for those not interested) here are some additional books that you should read and study: Rumi, The Big Red Book translations by Coleman Barks; The Wisdom Jesus by Rev. Cynthia Bourgeault; Listening for the Heartbeats of God and The Rebirthing of God by J. Philip Newell; Quantum Theology by Diarmuid O'Murchu; The Future of Wisdom by Fr. Bruno Barnhart; The Return of the Mother and Son of Man by Andrew Harvey; Earth Democracy by Vandana Shiva; The Marriage of East and West by Fr. Bede Griffiths; Psalms for Praying by Nan C. Merrill; Be Love Now and Be Here Now by Ram Dass; Loaves and Fishes by Dorothy Day; and Creation Spirituality by Rev. Matthew Fox.
Saint Paramahansa Yogananda
My favorite reading has always been biographies, all sorts of people. Once, while in High School, I was scanning the books in the biography section of our local library, when I came across a book near the bottom shelf entitled Autobiography of a Yogi. I checked it out and my life has never been the same. Some fifty years later I have multiple copies and one nearly always in my travel book bag -- even just for a long walk with my dogs because, well, you never know... Now here's a secret I've only told two people (this goes back to when I was eighteen or nineteen -- pondering the horrors of the Vietnam War, political assassinations, farm worker strikes, women's liberation, civil rights, and my place in the world)... I prayed to this Yogi whom I'd only recently discovered... Friends came over to my family home and we sat talking in the bedroom I shared with my younger brother. One, took from his pocket some LSD, gave some to the other friend, and offered my some... I said, "No thanks. I think I'll just meditate, but you go ahead." Nothing much happened and, after a while, they left. Some days later, another intense meditation followed by more pondering and then... Paramahansa Yogananda opened the door to my room, walked in towards me, and catching me by surprise, walked right into me. His electrified, vibrating, light form just merged into me, through and through, through cells and down into the subatomic realms of mere possibilities... When the yogis and mystics reference the Divine as "Bliss", they know by experience! My body was electrified with Yogananda's blessing and Cosmic Bliss... After some time: I don't know how long: Yogananda assumed his previous form of electric light and walked out of my room... No LSD required for that Cosmic Trip! Now, to the point: it took a few more years of meditation, pondering, catastrophic mistakes, a few lucky breaks, and then the Vision of a New Cosmic Dream arrived: what's a body to do with the surety of Divine Mystery but open a Soup Kitchen for the beautiful-broken souls wandering the city streets?
All of this is some of the "essential stuff" of my life. I really never say "God exists" because that would be plainly stupid of me. There isn't enough magic in the word "God" to cover the Mystery of I Am... Cosmic Consciousness is something closer to the Really Real, but even that comes with a bag of limitations, opinions, and definitions that aren't nearly exact as what the ancient yogis and mystics humbly explained: Mystery is better, not controlled by thought or words. Mystery is best, approached and adored as Trinity: Root Being, Dancing Consciousness, and Delightful Bliss, always new, with no beginning, and with no end... and, "Would you like some noodles and tea?" Namaste!
Dorothy Day, Saint of the Gutter Beautiful (Photo by Bob Fitch)
My favorite reading has always been biographies, all sorts of people. Once, while in High School, I was scanning the books in the biography section of our local library, when I came across a book near the bottom shelf entitled Autobiography of a Yogi. I checked it out and my life has never been the same. Some fifty years later I have multiple copies and one nearly always in my travel book bag -- even just for a long walk with my dogs because, well, you never know... Now here's a secret I've only told two people (this goes back to when I was eighteen or nineteen -- pondering the horrors of the Vietnam War, political assassinations, farm worker strikes, women's liberation, civil rights, and my place in the world)... I prayed to this Yogi whom I'd only recently discovered... Friends came over to my family home and we sat talking in the bedroom I shared with my younger brother. One, took from his pocket some LSD, gave some to the other friend, and offered my some... I said, "No thanks. I think I'll just meditate, but you go ahead." Nothing much happened and, after a while, they left. Some days later, another intense meditation followed by more pondering and then... Paramahansa Yogananda opened the door to my room, walked in towards me, and catching me by surprise, walked right into me. His electrified, vibrating, light form just merged into me, through and through, through cells and down into the subatomic realms of mere possibilities... When the yogis and mystics reference the Divine as "Bliss", they know by experience! My body was electrified with Yogananda's blessing and Cosmic Bliss... After some time: I don't know how long: Yogananda assumed his previous form of electric light and walked out of my room... No LSD required for that Cosmic Trip! Now, to the point: it took a few more years of meditation, pondering, catastrophic mistakes, a few lucky breaks, and then the Vision of a New Cosmic Dream arrived: what's a body to do with the surety of Divine Mystery but open a Soup Kitchen for the beautiful-broken souls wandering the city streets?
All of this is some of the "essential stuff" of my life. I really never say "God exists" because that would be plainly stupid of me. There isn't enough magic in the word "God" to cover the Mystery of I Am... Cosmic Consciousness is something closer to the Really Real, but even that comes with a bag of limitations, opinions, and definitions that aren't nearly exact as what the ancient yogis and mystics humbly explained: Mystery is better, not controlled by thought or words. Mystery is best, approached and adored as Trinity: Root Being, Dancing Consciousness, and Delightful Bliss, always new, with no beginning, and with no end... and, "Would you like some noodles and tea?" Namaste!
Dorothy Day, Saint of the Gutter Beautiful (Photo by Bob Fitch)
Lastly, I have a compelling need to write something about Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker Movement. Nothing in my life makes sense from the perspective of "normal". I entered into "adult consciousness" through the lens of the social ferment of the 60's and 70's: the Vietnam War, Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement, Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta and the United Farmworkers grape boycott and lettuce strike, the Women's Liberation Movement, the Black Panthers, the American Indian Movement, Gay Pride, and the beginning of the Environmental Consciousness... I followed the increasingly radical trajectory of Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. closely. But it wasn't until my Junior year in High School that I read Daybreak, Joan Baez' first autobiography. Everything coalesced in my mind in reading that book...
Daybreak records Joan's discovery of the Indian political leader and saint, Mahatma Gandhi. I read everything that I could find about him: nonviolence became my watchword. In a world continually convulsing from the dictates of war, violence, greed, exploitation, racism, sexism, and environmental destruction, the only sane response is resistance, agitation for alternatives, and radical lifestyle changes. Again, "not normal"... we are all taught to "go along to get along"... and so the Dominator Paradigm remains as firmly entrenched as ever... I chose the "hippies" and the rEvolution of consciousness, until eventually, I came across the Catholic Worker Movement...
Dorothy Day, Peter Maurin, and the Catholic Worker were talking about (and living) the rEvolution as they could. Houses of Hospitality and intentional communities of radicalized young volunteers could (and did) make a difference in the lives of countless people: from among the suffering poor. Personalism was (and is) the essential working philosophy of the Catholic Worker: everything shifts whenever one looks at the world and specific issues through the lens of the dignity of the person: of every person. Every social institution should be organized so as to further the development and liberation of every person to the fullest of her / his potential. "Radical" is a word often tossed around by persons incapable of deep thought: it is impossible to be "radical" without "going to the roots" of issues, problems, or challenges. The Catholic Worker Movement continues to be a living exploration of "roots"... hence, it is genuinely "radical"... (One can be "extremist", "treacherous", "treasonous", or simply violent, cruel, racist, sexist, hateful, greedy, or stupid without being "radical").
One "joins" the Catholic Worker Movement by simply showing up to volunteer at a House of Hospitality. Or if there is no such place near you, you can put up a sign in your front window identifying yourself as a Catholic Worker, and start doing what you can: maybe you find or purchase a copy of the Benedictine Divine Office and start giving attention to the "hours" available to you for conscious prayer; or maybe, after your "normal" job and working hours, you make some sandwiches and take them out to where homeless people gather and pass them out: that's what I did. And one thing after another led to my thirty years of "running" a Catholic Worker House... Without a vision the people will perish (according to the Hebrew Scriptures) and so I followed the vision as it came to me through those years -- to the continual dismay of Boards, city officials, community members, and intimate relationships: why can't it ever be good enough? was the question always hurled at me...
Food is not all that a person needs! That seemed obvious to me. If you make a list of everything thing that you truly need, why would you think that everyone else wouldn't need those same things? And so, the rEvolution takes root and grows... by little and by little, the impossible becomes less forbidding, until it sort of just naturally slips into What if? Why not? and What next? Such is the best of the Catholic Worker Movement, and for that matter, of any life worth living...
Paradise is to see only God. -- Marguerite Porete
The world exists only as an appearance; from beginning to end it is a playful game. -
-- Shabistari
The one that brought me here, will have to take me home. -- Rumi
Daybreak records Joan's discovery of the Indian political leader and saint, Mahatma Gandhi. I read everything that I could find about him: nonviolence became my watchword. In a world continually convulsing from the dictates of war, violence, greed, exploitation, racism, sexism, and environmental destruction, the only sane response is resistance, agitation for alternatives, and radical lifestyle changes. Again, "not normal"... we are all taught to "go along to get along"... and so the Dominator Paradigm remains as firmly entrenched as ever... I chose the "hippies" and the rEvolution of consciousness, until eventually, I came across the Catholic Worker Movement...
Dorothy Day, Peter Maurin, and the Catholic Worker were talking about (and living) the rEvolution as they could. Houses of Hospitality and intentional communities of radicalized young volunteers could (and did) make a difference in the lives of countless people: from among the suffering poor. Personalism was (and is) the essential working philosophy of the Catholic Worker: everything shifts whenever one looks at the world and specific issues through the lens of the dignity of the person: of every person. Every social institution should be organized so as to further the development and liberation of every person to the fullest of her / his potential. "Radical" is a word often tossed around by persons incapable of deep thought: it is impossible to be "radical" without "going to the roots" of issues, problems, or challenges. The Catholic Worker Movement continues to be a living exploration of "roots"... hence, it is genuinely "radical"... (One can be "extremist", "treacherous", "treasonous", or simply violent, cruel, racist, sexist, hateful, greedy, or stupid without being "radical").
One "joins" the Catholic Worker Movement by simply showing up to volunteer at a House of Hospitality. Or if there is no such place near you, you can put up a sign in your front window identifying yourself as a Catholic Worker, and start doing what you can: maybe you find or purchase a copy of the Benedictine Divine Office and start giving attention to the "hours" available to you for conscious prayer; or maybe, after your "normal" job and working hours, you make some sandwiches and take them out to where homeless people gather and pass them out: that's what I did. And one thing after another led to my thirty years of "running" a Catholic Worker House... Without a vision the people will perish (according to the Hebrew Scriptures) and so I followed the vision as it came to me through those years -- to the continual dismay of Boards, city officials, community members, and intimate relationships: why can't it ever be good enough? was the question always hurled at me...
Food is not all that a person needs! That seemed obvious to me. If you make a list of everything thing that you truly need, why would you think that everyone else wouldn't need those same things? And so, the rEvolution takes root and grows... by little and by little, the impossible becomes less forbidding, until it sort of just naturally slips into What if? Why not? and What next? Such is the best of the Catholic Worker Movement, and for that matter, of any life worth living...
Paradise is to see only God. -- Marguerite Porete
The world exists only as an appearance; from beginning to end it is a playful game. -
-- Shabistari
The one that brought me here, will have to take me home. -- Rumi