Trail of Days 2
November 1, 2023
The very good news that I celebrate everyday is the twenty-one years I have been blessed with Michelle in marriage... Donovan and Devin are thriving as college freshmen, so too, is Rose of Sharon thriving as a freshman in high school... with a new principal in the Montessori School, Michelle again has the sense of "thriving" as a genuine possibility... And then there is me...
I have accepted the breaking that accompanies my everyday: for all that I left behind me in California... returning last year for a fiftieth high school reunion, and the opportunity to read a few of my poems, was another form of heartbreak: my Catholic Worker life had no visible-viable connection, so far as I could see, with anyone there... the appearance of "normal" was everywhere present... but, who knows how the heart still stirs even in heads nearly as white as mine...
But what really breaks my heart -- every single day -- is all the mindless-heartless-thoughtless violence that assaults humans everywhere: no one lives anywhere that is somehow exempt from the possibility of a violent death: no one. In one way or another, there is always someone who can play the role of "justifier": whether acts of terrorism, whether of response, or whether of simple, bald, hatred or rejection of the life of an "other"... Whether child, youth, adult; of whatever gender, race, or nationality; of whatever religion or none; regardless of any observable / knowable / unknowable fact of anyone: every single act of violence breaks the heart of someone, and to be perfectly clear: every single act of violence breaks the Heart of God... The Divine Consciousness does not know sides... indeed, is deeply within every side: no one is somehow exempt from the Divine Hug-Adoration: God-to-human with every breath, always and everywhere... If you think so, then your "God" is way, way, too small, and likely as not, way, way, too much like you...
If you have the inclination to pray, go ahead. But if that prayer has left out of your heart a sacred intention to commit the rest of your life to nonviolence and to justice, know this: your prayer was not to God...
September 29, 2023
This morning, while walking the dogs and bending to pick up the dog-poo, I was caught in a web of thought on the importance of identifying, first of all, as person. As I have but a few minutes to lay out a sketch of my thinking, I want to again underline the key of person. If you will engage with me in pondering this, is it not true that all of us are socially constructed to identify first by gender and secondly by nationality, followed closely by religion, sexuality, and political persuasion? And yet, before all else, we are each and all, persons.
Deeply connected, as if by a mystical umbilical cord, persons are beings with stories: personal thoughts, experiences, and dreams. Personal histories of touch, sight, sound, taste, and sex. Personal histories of pleasures and pains. Our stories are the Sacred Scriptures of our lives. It is as if, as our skin holds our bodies, our stories are the "sacred skin of the soul that is our every story"... lending itself to the cosmic development of the mystical "Body of Christ"... Persons are not expendable objects for disposal by governments, religions, terrorists, political parties, billionaires and corporate systems of power and privilege: persons are the high point of earth-evolution...
This, while walking the dogs and pulling from my raincoat another doggie-bag...
September 19, 2023
Meditation: attending to breath, I am breathing... Detaching from "I", the universe is breathing.
"How gently and lovingly thou awakest in my bosom, where thou
dwellest secretly and alone!
And in thy sweet breathing, full of blessing and glory, how
delicately thou inspirest my love!"
-- St. John of the Cross (from his poem "The Living Flame")
This is exactly what is so very difficult in any and every suffering: the slow necessity of disengaging from identification with "I"... The egoic-center which we so diligently build and protect, is based on the false psychology (culturally constructed) of a "separate" and "unique" self: an individual, and fundamentally isolated, "I". Desperately, we cling to the hope of "eternal life" for this egoic-center! And, this desperation compels endless conflict... "God against me, me against myself, us against them, and finally, me against God..." Or so we think...
But there is a different Way... One could call it "the way of the heart". Clearly, Jesus was all about releasing the heart from the cage of "I" and the prison of cultural constructs. He said, time and time again, the kingdom of heaven is within you... and proceeded to show the elements of intentional practice: look at the birds of the air! Blessings upon you poor! Woe to you rich! I was hungry and you fed me! Do not judge! Follow me! Love one another as I have loved you! The Franciscan interpretation of all of this was simple: less of me until only you!
The Catholic Worker Movement added to the Franciscan charism the insight of cultural, economic, and political connections: perhaps, perhaps indeed, we are actually supposed to feed the hungry! We are supposed to become actual agents of peace and justice! We are supposed to practice "open hearts, open hands"! Until the gradual opening of "I am breathing" into "the universe is breathing" unlimited possibilities of loving loudly in the everyday of our lives...
I was reminded, once again, of all of this as my son Donovan called me saying that he and his brother were coming home for lunch -- classes were over for the day... And so I jumped into gear: tossed some vegetarian burgers into the frying pan, chopped onions, cut tomatoes, opened the pickle and jalepeno jars, selected some hot chips, sliced the buns, melted some cheese... and as the door opened, sat two plates down on the table, as they exalted my heart by saying how grateful they were for both lunch and home... So, as I struggle with my practice of "disappearance", I've nowhere to go but into "everywhere" there is someone who is hungry...
September 9, 2023
For number of years now, Olav H. Hauge, has been one of my favorite poets. Hauge (1908-1994) lived nearly all of his life in his native Ulvik in Western Norway. Central to his life were the twin themes of poetry and his apple orchard. The book of his poetry that I especially treasure is Luminous Spaces which spans some seventy years of his writing with over three hundred poems, a selection from his journals, and a forward by his widow, the artist Bodil Cappelen. Here's a small excerpt from his journal dated 14 January 1958:
A poem is a universe: final, but still boundless, built up according to the same laws; harmony but also strife; tranquility but also unease; at rest but also en route; reality but also dream; lie but also truth.
And here are the first twelve words from his poem "The Chopping Block":
It's tough to be
the block beneath the axe
-- I've felt it...
We, each of us, have vast luminous spaces in our minds and hearts as we pick and reject the pieces of life that have meaning, purpose, and the hope of bliss to hold dearly as we would a lover.
This thought reminds me of my favorite Frida Kahlo quote: Make love. Take a bath. Make love again. Frida would be the first to say that this "making love" thing might also mean to spark a revolution... but always, to adore something or someone... refueling as it were...
September 5, 2023
"The cosmos is an infinite and eternal intelligence." -- Ervin Laszlo, Philosopher and Systems Scientist. Twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, he has published more than 75 books.
Along with health and financial challenges, late July through August came with a bleak and dark night of the soul. Not so much as a crisis of faith, but as an "emptiness", through and through... Michelle remained steadfast in kindness, as did our three loving "children"... My poetry has been nonexistent since "Mountain Cloud"... Reading the prayers of the Divine Office has been like sucking on hot coals... But, on the other hand, we have been blessed with a first real apple harvest: our steady work on building soil out of a wasteland is, literally, bearing fruit... and so the heart begins, once again, to soften and to find a certain delight in "holy simplicity"... more time with the hoe... more time in the solitude of a garden that, itself, practices remembrance of the Mother...
Our twin sons, Donovan and Devin, start their college experience tomorrow: those wee boys locked in incubators so many years ago now, are simply wonderful young men: creative, supremely funny, and constantly kind: loving Michelle and I, and adoring their sweet, sweet, little sister who is, like them, moving into another big phase of her life: high school! Even in the midst of my spiritual / physical struggles, they are each, always, so amazingly kind and loving... And as for Michelle, she begins another year of Montessori school-life, with a first, second, and third grade class... holding hands while walking and talking is our favorite way of making love... and anytime, under any tree, is a great place to stop and kiss...
I am certainly hopeful that my energy, both physical and spiritual, might rebound and stick around so I can step into Autumn, and a lurking Winter, with sacred delight as my pleasurable companion of grace... May it be so for all of us... and may we finally put behind us every weapon of war...
July 18, 2023
Mountain Cloud
always an invitation
sit
still
listen without thought
absorb
become
mountain cloud
rain river valley field
flower soil bee humus
everything is food
for the soul-empty-mind
that reaches humbly
for the offered delight
loving-only-by-loving
only gifting-only gift
I find it quite interesting that my life-long passion for spirit received its first big kick-in-the-pants by means of Joan Baez' autobiography "Daybreak" while a junior, and then the following year, early in my psychology class, a soon-to-become-best-friend, handed me his copy of Hermann Hesse's "Siddhartha", saying, "I think you might like this..."
Like it I did! And everything changed into visions of possibility: Ram Dass, Yogananda, St. Francis, Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton: with friends like those, you can see why and how I became forever weird! The Hindu way of "naming" the Divine Oneness is saccidananda: Ultimate Reality experienced as Being (sat), Mind-Consciousness (cit), communicating Bliss (ananda): in an endless flowing-gifting-knowing-unknowing: Waying...
Ancient Chinese sages spoke and wrote of Tao-Way... Do you catch the connections between "weird" and "Ultimate Reality" in Tao-Way? Chinese hermit-sages intuited the sage-poem of Diane di Prima, "Rant": the only war that matters is the war against the imagination... those sages went to the mountains to "recover" their "right mind", and so approximated weird... I went to the "mountain" of a Soup Kitchen... wearing the Medal of the Immaculate Conception (how weird is that?)
Ah! Or, so it seems to me! Those Taoist rascals wrote "Without-Name is The Origin of Heaven and Earth. Has-Name is The Mother of Every Earthly Being" (Tao Te Ching, translated by Benjamin Hoff). "Tao-Way" is a "Two-One": variously described as Mind / Void and Dark Enigma, valley spirit, or as dark-female-mother of-all-being. Simultaneously, with no separation at all in any way, "Tao" (pronounced Dow) and "Qi" (pronounced Chee) are the essence and core of Taoism... Sorry for bringing up Qi, but if one is "empty-before" (Tao), then Qi is the necessary "full-after" and both fully Tao, like the two sides of a coin ...
What's the connection with the "Immaculate Conception"? No doubt the Catholic theologians who insisted upon declaring this Marian insight as dogma were not pondering Taoist metaphysics! But in my wandering cloud mind, "Immaculate" is the "empty-before", while "Conception" is, obviously, the very "full-after"... Tangled up in the metaphysical blues of these ponderings, I queried "Who are You?" The answer was immediate: I am your Mother...
[All of this is a sort of, Zen Buddhist "koan" (a "confusing" question that requires an "answer" that does not rise from the analytical mind). Perhaps the most famous koan is "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" Since there is no "correct" answer, any answer depends upon the moment, it might be as "out of the blue" as "It's raining the taste of radishes"...] Still, and still, the Universe is speak-pleading, "I am your mother... only by saving one another can there be life!"
March 22, 2023
Tao knows what she is about. -- Thomas Merton
At this moment, you cannot doubt the green mountains' walking. -- Dogen
For those who have been following along with this "trail of days", you will certainly know that I have been "gone" for awhile, but all the while following the old saying that "if you have nothing to say, then say nothing." This, of course is not to mean that I have not been either thinking or continuing to experience life: which I have: and for which I am most grateful!
For now, I've got to run! I'll be back either later or tomorrow!
(To Be Continued)