Saturday, July 09, 2005
Do Unto Others
As you would have them do unto you. This exhortation from the Bible was beautifully demonstrated by a story told to me by a woman who had read my latest letter to the editor in The BI Times. Once, while rushing to get to the ferry in Pt. Judith, she noticed a large snapping turtle ahead of her. Oh no! she cried to herself. She only had 8 minutes left to catch the boat. There were four lanes of traffic the turtle would have to cross to make it to the other side. She pulled her car over to the shoulder and walked out into the road, stopping traffic. Cars cheered her as she walked behind the turtle until it was safely across. The dockhands held the boat and let her on, completing the cycle and giving and receiving when she pulled her car over and stood before those cars to say stop. I thank her for this story. I thank the turtle for letting us build a home on its back.
Thursday, July 07, 2005
Abundance Is Our Natural State of Being
Last night I saw so clearly how off track I was again and knew that if I continued on at this frantic pace I would crack again. Although I am relieved to have found a way of earning a living that I don't hate, I know that gardening is not the reason I came to earth. I am here to communicate, to weave a new reality with words, and while I can do this wherever I go, with whomever I meet, I am not fully expressing all that I have to share by the work I am doing to earn money, and my soul will not tolerate this any more from me, whoever I am--so I am not taking on any more jobs. The ones I have are enough. Yes, I could earn a few hundred more a week if I "hustled" but I will pay the price with my sanity. My friend Roark, a fellow writer, put it in perspective last week when someone asked him what his job was--"writing." When asked what he did for money he said he'd live on almonds and water if that was all he could afford. The REAL WORK has to come first for everybody. The jobs we take to keep ourselves safe are a distraction to keep us from the truth. Don't ask me who is keeping us from seeing the truth or why they would want to do this because I haven't figured this out yet. All I know is my own path, my own truth, and I can recognize when someone else is living their truth. To everyone dancing, singing, playing, biking, swimming, growing, all over the world, to everyone living with integrity, I say thanks, and promise I will honor my commitment to myself over the commitments I make out of fear from now on. Starhawk defines the sacred as that which is not commodifiable, the earth, air, fire, and water which give us life--all of thse things are for sale in the present day world, and our leaders are meeting right now in Scotland at the G-8 to decide who gets to make the most profit from the sacred elements. Today I read the police ringed my friends in the eco-camp in so they couldn't protest--but that public outrage turned against the police and they were allowed to leave the camp to speak up for the earth, for those of us who want to share resources instead of control them. No more lies. To myself. To others. Please join me. The fifth sacred thing is not yet for sale--our spirit--undefinable yet with us every moment, even when we sleep. We've been asleep collectively for a long time on earth, but more and more of us are waking up. There is nothing to be afraid of! The earth has everything we need, enough for everybody--please tell everyone you know there is enough for everybody. Blessed be.
Monday, June 27, 2005
Turtle Island
Turtle Island was the name for Earth according to many Native American traditions. Or should I say is the name--these traditions are still alive, even if the the actual people who created them and sustained them for eons are gone. They are being sustained by people everywhere who want to reconnect the earth--people like me who are reconnecting and wanting to teach others how to do the same out of a desire that is sometimes not easily understood. Does it matter on the cosmic level if the earth is saved or not? Everything decays and dies--I say what matters is how this decay and death occurs. All of us wish a good death, free of illness, in our sleep at a ripe old age after years of loving and learning. Don't you think the earth would wish the same? One of the things that Turtle teaches us is that all things ripen slowly over time. If we push the river the banks will collapse, the fields will flood, there will be nothing to eat. Important lessons for me this week as I resist being caught up in the summer rush to make money that captures Block Island's soul this time of year and puts it in a shark cage for a few months. The shark cage is what the locals jokingly call the jail here. I want to be free to live without fear. This may mean I will displease a lot of people who are expecting me to come through, to perform, but it is my own fault for capitulating to the system. Is it more important for me to make a hundred dollars or to write the following letter to the editor of the Block Island Times about the carnage I have noticed on the roads as I bike to my job sites? The earth does not need to be saved, in the sense that we are all already saved, but I do believe that we should act from good intentions, that to spread positive energy, to give voice to those who can't speak and who need to be heard, is part of eradicating the fear that keeps us in the shark tank, afraid we'll be devoured alive if we venture outside the bars. As the dimensional shift approaches,we have the opportunity to create much good karma on an individual and cosmic level by making conscious choices that show our respect for the bodies we've been given, and for our home Earth. I pray every day for the strength to act with right intention in all matters. I ask that my fears about survival be dissolved. I felt lighter after writing the following letter. I know people will laugh at me, but I also know I did the right thing.
To The Editor,
While riding my bike on Corn Neck Road over the past week I have noticed a blackbird, a box turtle and a goldfinch, dead - smashed or stunned by cars. I have also heard of two island dogs killed by cars in the past month. Many will say the dogs should have been tied up, or that the birds and turtle were in the way, but this doesn’t change the fact that these animals would most likely be alive if the drivers had been more conscious of what was in front of them, perhaps in less of a rush to get to the beach or to work.
The turtle, its shell cracked down the middle, was particularly upsetting to me. According to Native American teachings, Turtle is the oldest symbol for planet Earth, a symbol of the eternal Mother who provides us with all we need. With its slow pace, Turtle teaches us to be grounded, to stay connected. The smashed turtle - and this is not the only one I’ve seen – makes it apparent how easily disconnected we become from the island during the busy summer months.
While my heart aches at the current state of our planet due to our rapacious need to conquer and consume, I have hope. More than once, I have seen people stop to help turtles across the road. I don’t expect everyone to abandon their cars for bikes, but I ask you all to show respect for the creatures of the island, and thus the earth, by slowing down. The gifts you’ll receive by connecting with nature will be manifold and renewable. No act is too small to rebuild a sustainable Earth.
With respect for all creatures great and small,
Jen Lighty
Corn Neck Road
To The Editor,
While riding my bike on Corn Neck Road over the past week I have noticed a blackbird, a box turtle and a goldfinch, dead - smashed or stunned by cars. I have also heard of two island dogs killed by cars in the past month. Many will say the dogs should have been tied up, or that the birds and turtle were in the way, but this doesn’t change the fact that these animals would most likely be alive if the drivers had been more conscious of what was in front of them, perhaps in less of a rush to get to the beach or to work.
The turtle, its shell cracked down the middle, was particularly upsetting to me. According to Native American teachings, Turtle is the oldest symbol for planet Earth, a symbol of the eternal Mother who provides us with all we need. With its slow pace, Turtle teaches us to be grounded, to stay connected. The smashed turtle - and this is not the only one I’ve seen – makes it apparent how easily disconnected we become from the island during the busy summer months.
While my heart aches at the current state of our planet due to our rapacious need to conquer and consume, I have hope. More than once, I have seen people stop to help turtles across the road. I don’t expect everyone to abandon their cars for bikes, but I ask you all to show respect for the creatures of the island, and thus the earth, by slowing down. The gifts you’ll receive by connecting with nature will be manifold and renewable. No act is too small to rebuild a sustainable Earth.
With respect for all creatures great and small,
Jen Lighty
Corn Neck Road
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
Summer Solstice
Today is the longest day of the year, tomorrow we will begin the descent into darkness again--yet winter seems so far away as summer begins, the blackberry blossoms and wild roses blooming frothy white as I race past the stonewalls on my bike. The sun enters Cancer today and we have a full moon in Capricorn, a union which asks us to try to balance our inner and outer worls. "The world is too much with us, getting and spending we lay waste our powers, " wrote William Wordsworth over two hundred years ago, before the Industrial Revolution, before capitalism became the world's religion. Still, I try to find a moment where I resist every day. I noticed goldfinches flashing by my bike and the ripple of moonlight on the duck pond on Old Town Road as I rode home from my catering job serving sailors gourmet meals for a week straight. Half the food gets thrown in the trash at the end of the night and none of the bottles are recycled. No one notices or cares about the waste except for me, but I don't care enough to go back and recycle all their bottles. All I can do is not take jobs like this I guess--or when I do realize it is a test. An opportuniyt to look beyond judgement, to let go of my resentment of the rich, to further my dedicaiton to serving humanity by transforming our world.....my worms are churning in the bin out behind my yard. Worm tea to make tomoroow, when it is supposed to rain, and I can retreat to my inner life, regroup and reconnect with who I am in stillness. Blessed be.
Monday, June 13, 2005
Letter To The Editor
I wrote my first letter to the editor to the BI Times last night. Actually, it's my first ever. I thought I would share it here with you. Note the application of problem is the solution thinking.
To The Editor:
This letter is in response to Bicycle and Moped Safety Commission member John Leone’s statement in the June 11 edition of The Block Island Times that there is no opposition to the proposed town ordinance mandating that all bike riders on Block Island be required to wear helmets.
While I am wary of placing myself in opposition to anyone, especially the Police, who will be handing out $40 tickets to those in violation if the ordinance passes, I feel that this proposed ordinance reflects larger cultural issues in regard to our personal freedoms, freedoms which are rapidly eroding under the Bush administration under the guise of our supposed need for protection, a need created by casting a cloud of fear over all our daily activities, over a simple pleasure like riding a bike. I believe we have reached a point where this fear is so pervasive that most don’t even realize they are being controlled by it, certainly hardly anyone questions the need for its existence in the first place.
While I acknowledge that accidents do and will happen, I don’t feel it is the obligation of our government to regulate the personal choices of its citizens when the results of these choices will primarily harm only themselves. I realize the ramifications of not wearing a helmet effects members of the dedicated rescue squad and the personnel at the Medical Center, but do we suggest an ordinance banning diners at island restaurants from eating burgers and fries because they cause heart attacks? And we as a community, certainly avoid looking directly at the hordes drinking themselves into a blind stupor in the island bars.
Instead of giving the law further control over our lives, I suggest we apply some creative thinking to the problem by viewing the problem itself as the solution. Bikes aren’t the problem - it’s the presence of too many cars that creates accidents, cars often driven by people under the influence of alcohol. Instead of penalizing carefree, environmentally-conscious bikers, we need to come up with creative solutions that will reduce the number of cars driven on the island during the busy summer months, as well as address the issue of drunk driving, which I fear is often ignored in this community.
While this issue may not seem important in comparison with the larger political issues of our day, or just not important at all to those whose prime concern is capitalizing on the brief tourist season, I think it is worth examining on a deeper level in order to determine why we feel the way we do as members of a society who has elected a federal government that feels we need to enact more and more laws to protect us from ourselves. The traumatic head injury this proposed ordinance is supposed to protect us from is indicative of what I see as an injury to the collective brain of the United States itself. We are a brain-damaged nation numbly accepting whatever our government tells us instead of a union of self-empowered citizens able to determine what is best for us on both an individual and collective levels according to our local needs.
I considered not writing this letter in the hopes that the Police would let the ordinance, if it passes, slide for locals, but know that this attitude reflects the hypocrisy I wish to dissolve on all levels of our society. It’s true that we must think globally and act locally if we want to create a sustainable society based on respect and cooperation instead of fear. No issue is too small or undeserving of our attention.
I encourage the Town Council and members of the various town commissions to think creatively instead of on a reactionary level that creates the potential for hypocrisy in its citizens. As we examine our collective decisions, no matter how trivial they may seem on a global scale, I think we’ll find that the truth really will set us free.
To The Editor:
This letter is in response to Bicycle and Moped Safety Commission member John Leone’s statement in the June 11 edition of The Block Island Times that there is no opposition to the proposed town ordinance mandating that all bike riders on Block Island be required to wear helmets.
While I am wary of placing myself in opposition to anyone, especially the Police, who will be handing out $40 tickets to those in violation if the ordinance passes, I feel that this proposed ordinance reflects larger cultural issues in regard to our personal freedoms, freedoms which are rapidly eroding under the Bush administration under the guise of our supposed need for protection, a need created by casting a cloud of fear over all our daily activities, over a simple pleasure like riding a bike. I believe we have reached a point where this fear is so pervasive that most don’t even realize they are being controlled by it, certainly hardly anyone questions the need for its existence in the first place.
While I acknowledge that accidents do and will happen, I don’t feel it is the obligation of our government to regulate the personal choices of its citizens when the results of these choices will primarily harm only themselves. I realize the ramifications of not wearing a helmet effects members of the dedicated rescue squad and the personnel at the Medical Center, but do we suggest an ordinance banning diners at island restaurants from eating burgers and fries because they cause heart attacks? And we as a community, certainly avoid looking directly at the hordes drinking themselves into a blind stupor in the island bars.
Instead of giving the law further control over our lives, I suggest we apply some creative thinking to the problem by viewing the problem itself as the solution. Bikes aren’t the problem - it’s the presence of too many cars that creates accidents, cars often driven by people under the influence of alcohol. Instead of penalizing carefree, environmentally-conscious bikers, we need to come up with creative solutions that will reduce the number of cars driven on the island during the busy summer months, as well as address the issue of drunk driving, which I fear is often ignored in this community.
While this issue may not seem important in comparison with the larger political issues of our day, or just not important at all to those whose prime concern is capitalizing on the brief tourist season, I think it is worth examining on a deeper level in order to determine why we feel the way we do as members of a society who has elected a federal government that feels we need to enact more and more laws to protect us from ourselves. The traumatic head injury this proposed ordinance is supposed to protect us from is indicative of what I see as an injury to the collective brain of the United States itself. We are a brain-damaged nation numbly accepting whatever our government tells us instead of a union of self-empowered citizens able to determine what is best for us on both an individual and collective levels according to our local needs.
I considered not writing this letter in the hopes that the Police would let the ordinance, if it passes, slide for locals, but know that this attitude reflects the hypocrisy I wish to dissolve on all levels of our society. It’s true that we must think globally and act locally if we want to create a sustainable society based on respect and cooperation instead of fear. No issue is too small or undeserving of our attention.
I encourage the Town Council and members of the various town commissions to think creatively instead of on a reactionary level that creates the potential for hypocrisy in its citizens. As we examine our collective decisions, no matter how trivial they may seem on a global scale, I think we’ll find that the truth really will set us free.
Thursday, June 02, 2005
Joni Mitchell Morning
Today my sadhana included listening to Joni Mitchell's Blue, speaking the words love and gratitude over the water I drank, water doused with lavender, skulkcap, and st. john's wort to soothe my nervous system, summoning the spirit of those plants to aid me (I read recently that we don't even need to ingest the plants to enlist their aid, all we need to do is ask. Amazing), practicing several rounds of the Swimming Dragon, a form of tai chi I taught myself from a book when I was 22 and which I was surprised to discover Maria also practices, saying fading away as I breathed in and thank you, as I breathed out, as taught by poet Li-Young Li, a brief series of shoulder and back stretches and four rounds of sun salutations, after which I recited the mantra given to me by yoga teacher Jeff Davis and recited the Tube of Light as passed on to me by Maria. Afterwards I mixed ultimate green food powder with some O.J. (green food powder oxygenates the brain and is good for depression), ate some whole wheat toast with soy margarine and drank a gourd of organic yerba mate. Then I sat down and starting writing this litany, with which I complete the daily goals I set for myself with Maria the other day: To meditate and do yoga daily, to eat one organic thing, and to express myself creatively. I have done it all in the first hour of being awake! There are probably lots of days when I do this, but I am not mindful of it, rushing to get to work instead of giving myself credit for the work I am always doing. The work of being good to one's self in small ways is very important. I tend to become so focused on the larger goals of how I want to be that I give up on my daily practice, my sadhana slides into the dung heap and I follow it, wallowing in my self-perceived filth. I am part of a culture that knows deep inside that the way of life it is promoting is wrong, a culture that lies to itself, which means it is not authentic. However, I have the ability through my choices to separate myself from that culture. This is not the same as rebelling, which requires an antagonist. In my heart I am at peace with those who go along with the mass hallucination, although in my mind I grow frustrated sometimes and perhaps speak words that people are not ready to hear. This was an issue that came up in my soul retrieval. One of my wounded soul parts was an Amazonian woman who was trading some sort of fiber from her tribe to white colonialists. She paddled her canoe alone to their settlements. She saw what the white people were going to do to her people and spoke of it, but the men wouldn't listen to her. She even came up with a plan to expand their trade so that they would be more self-sufficient, but they wouldn't listen. They weren't ready to hear about their imminent destruction. One day as she was paddling, her canoe overturned and she became tangled up in the fibers and drowned. She died angry and feeling unheard and as her soul has traveled, finally entering my body, this need to speak and this anger has traveled through its new hosts. During the soul retrieval Tomma, the shaman who performed it along with Maria, went into the water and saved the woman. Tomma watched her go back to the village and live out the rest of her life. This time she stayed silent because she knew that her people were not ready to hear what she had to say. She had respect for where they were at, she operated from a place of non-judgment, which is much more difficult that judgment because it requires letting go of fear. Non-judgment means one accepts whatever happens as what is meant to be. Non-judgment means one dies in peace when the time is right and accepts the death, even terrible violent untimely death, as part of a pattern that must play itself out in order to balance dark and light. Tomma blew this healed soul part back into my heart. I am not surprised that this issue of speaking out when I should be silent is coming up so forcefully for me now. Integrating a soul part takes time and practice, and as sages so sagely say, things are often at their worse right when they are about to be released.
So I have had the sublime Joni Mitchell as my guide on this gray looks like it will rain morning. She is the ultimate musician to me. She sees right into my soul and sings it, unafraid to be naked and bleeding. In her new book the critic Camille Paglia says Mitchell's song "Woodstock" is one of the great poems of our era. She's right. Sometimes when I read contemporary poetry I think it is dull, has its head in the sand like an ostrich when it should be looking at the stars, that its antenna aren't working, that they arent' picking up the signals shooting across the galaxy, that most poets are so dulled by processing their own grief that they can't see the full spectrum of the possibilities available to them about which to write. Maybe that's the function poetry serves for us now--poetry as therapy--and that is well and good, not to be lamented, just accepted. Those who see beyond the word as therapeutic, who see it as a multidimensional tool to create reality, we can invent a new art form. We don't have to call it poetry, just as Jeanette Winterson says she doesn't write novels. She writes books. I don't write novels either, which is probably why my books don't sell. I have recenlty decided to call the book I wrote about Hawaii a mythological memoir. Just calling it a different name is enabling me to break free from the structural constraints of the novel, of what I thought it was supposed to be, and express what the book needed, my wild mind snarling like a tiger in the sugarcane.
Eat one organic thing, meditate, express myself creatively. The day has just begun. Who knows how many more times I will be able to do these things? But if I don't, it's ok. I kept my commitment to myself and can spend the rest o fthe day doing what needs to be done. However, I have a feeling that this commitment, if I stick to it, is going to open doors into new ways of being, that will enable me imagine my life richly, as the Lakota (and Jeff Davis) say.
So I have had the sublime Joni Mitchell as my guide on this gray looks like it will rain morning. She is the ultimate musician to me. She sees right into my soul and sings it, unafraid to be naked and bleeding. In her new book the critic Camille Paglia says Mitchell's song "Woodstock" is one of the great poems of our era. She's right. Sometimes when I read contemporary poetry I think it is dull, has its head in the sand like an ostrich when it should be looking at the stars, that its antenna aren't working, that they arent' picking up the signals shooting across the galaxy, that most poets are so dulled by processing their own grief that they can't see the full spectrum of the possibilities available to them about which to write. Maybe that's the function poetry serves for us now--poetry as therapy--and that is well and good, not to be lamented, just accepted. Those who see beyond the word as therapeutic, who see it as a multidimensional tool to create reality, we can invent a new art form. We don't have to call it poetry, just as Jeanette Winterson says she doesn't write novels. She writes books. I don't write novels either, which is probably why my books don't sell. I have recenlty decided to call the book I wrote about Hawaii a mythological memoir. Just calling it a different name is enabling me to break free from the structural constraints of the novel, of what I thought it was supposed to be, and express what the book needed, my wild mind snarling like a tiger in the sugarcane.
Eat one organic thing, meditate, express myself creatively. The day has just begun. Who knows how many more times I will be able to do these things? But if I don't, it's ok. I kept my commitment to myself and can spend the rest o fthe day doing what needs to be done. However, I have a feeling that this commitment, if I stick to it, is going to open doors into new ways of being, that will enable me imagine my life richly, as the Lakota (and Jeff Davis) say.
Troubled Water
Troubled Water
Who told you?
Did you see it live on TV?
The surf finally came that day
after a flat summer.
I had just learned to look
beneath the surface of the waves
I’d been riding since childhood days.
Peace reigned in the kingdom of striped bass
who patrolled the borders of our island,concealed behind rocks and curtains of seaweed.
Sometimes, when I came upon them,
I could have sworn they were asleep.
I shot them through the eyes to prove
they were alive, holding my breath
till my lungs almost burst.
I drove my spear
until it pierced the socket
and came out on the other side.
It’s just instinct--
fish don’t feel pain,
was the general consensus
of everyone on the beach.
I wanted to believe anything.
The surf finally came that day
after a flat summer.
I sharpened my spear tip with a file
and cursed the waves
which made the water cloudy.
I didn’t want to ride, I wanted to sink,
but I swam out to meet them anyway.
We watched to see if clouds of smoke
would blight the sun.
We weren’t that far away.
You might have thought we were crazy.
Our hair was matted and our wetsuits chafed.
You might have thought we should be locked away.
Some of us joked we lived in the mental hospital already.
All of us knew there was no escape.
A year later, we were ready
to defend ourselves
from the Second Coming.
We had clams.
We had lobsters.
We had bunkers
of Budweiser.
None of us thought
the attack would come
from within
our own ranks.
Did you hear?
The counter girl asked
when we rolled into town,
laughing and hungry for sushi.
There must have been
a raw silence
that rose up to meet her
when she leaped.
Most of us thought
bridges were built
to carry us across
the water.
She really believed
there was no escape
from the falling tower.
Someone should have told
all of us are crazy.
Who told you?
Did you see it live on TV?
The surf finally came that day
after a flat summer.
I had just learned to look
beneath the surface of the waves
I’d been riding since childhood days.
Peace reigned in the kingdom of striped bass
who patrolled the borders of our island,concealed behind rocks and curtains of seaweed.
Sometimes, when I came upon them,
I could have sworn they were asleep.
I shot them through the eyes to prove
they were alive, holding my breath
till my lungs almost burst.
I drove my spear
until it pierced the socket
and came out on the other side.
It’s just instinct--
fish don’t feel pain,
was the general consensus
of everyone on the beach.
I wanted to believe anything.
The surf finally came that day
after a flat summer.
I sharpened my spear tip with a file
and cursed the waves
which made the water cloudy.
I didn’t want to ride, I wanted to sink,
but I swam out to meet them anyway.
We watched to see if clouds of smoke
would blight the sun.
We weren’t that far away.
You might have thought we were crazy.
Our hair was matted and our wetsuits chafed.
You might have thought we should be locked away.
Some of us joked we lived in the mental hospital already.
All of us knew there was no escape.
A year later, we were ready
to defend ourselves
from the Second Coming.
We had clams.
We had lobsters.
We had bunkers
of Budweiser.
None of us thought
the attack would come
from within
our own ranks.
Did you hear?
The counter girl asked
when we rolled into town,
laughing and hungry for sushi.
There must have been
a raw silence
that rose up to meet her
when she leaped.
Most of us thought
bridges were built
to carry us across
the water.
She really believed
there was no escape
from the falling tower.
Someone should have told
all of us are crazy.
Thursday, May 26, 2005
Growing Wings
It's rare that I find a contemporary poem that seems absolutely necessary to my existence. A poem that makes "the top of my head feel like it's going to explode" to paraphrase Emily Dickinson. I came upon this Robert Bly poem in a flyer for The Great Mother/New Father conference on the sale table at the BI Poetry Project. I knew immediately that I'd found exactly what I needed--what I'd been searching for for months. I felt like the poet was not only speaking to me, but that it was written for me. These are the best poems I think, for they enter our bloodstream and our breath. The become part of us; they link us to a continuum it is all too easy to forget.
Growing Wings
It's all right if Cezanne goes on painting the same picture.
It's all right if juice tastes bitter in our mouths.
It's all right if the old man drags one useless foot.
The apple on the Tree of Paradise hangs there for months.
We wait for years and years on the lip of the falls;
The blue-gray mountain keeps rising behind the black trees.
It's all right if I feel this same pain until I die.
A pain that we have earned gives more nourishment
Than the joy we won at the lottery last night.
It's all right if the partridge's nest fills with snow.
Why should the hunter complain if his bag is empty
At dusk? It only means the bird will live another night.
It's all right if we turn in all our keys tonight.
It's all right if we give up our longing for the spiral.
It's all ri ght if the boat I love never reaches shore.
If we're already so close to death, why should we complain?
Robert, you've climbed so many trees to reach the nests.
It's all right if you grow your wings on the way down.
----Robert Bly
Growing Wings
It's all right if Cezanne goes on painting the same picture.
It's all right if juice tastes bitter in our mouths.
It's all right if the old man drags one useless foot.
The apple on the Tree of Paradise hangs there for months.
We wait for years and years on the lip of the falls;
The blue-gray mountain keeps rising behind the black trees.
It's all right if I feel this same pain until I die.
A pain that we have earned gives more nourishment
Than the joy we won at the lottery last night.
It's all right if the partridge's nest fills with snow.
Why should the hunter complain if his bag is empty
At dusk? It only means the bird will live another night.
It's all right if we turn in all our keys tonight.
It's all right if we give up our longing for the spiral.
It's all ri ght if the boat I love never reaches shore.
If we're already so close to death, why should we complain?
Robert, you've climbed so many trees to reach the nests.
It's all right if you grow your wings on the way down.
----Robert Bly
Wednesday, May 25, 2005
Building Bridges
Believe it or not, I've been asked the question, "So where's the bridge?" by people who want to come to Block Island. I worked for years in a B &B and had to answer all the mundane questions of people who were so obsessed with the details of planning every minute of their holiday, it was obvious they were in need of a vacation. One of the best things about living on Block Island is that there is not a bridge! Islands like Jamestown, RI or Key West, islands you can drive to, are just not the same as one's you actually have to try to get to, islands that you can't get to on some days (today for example, the boats and planes are canceled due to high winds), or that you can't get off. This is a good test if you're an island person or not. If you get stuck on Block Island and are glad, you are an island person. If you fret and curse the weather, you're not, or are just not ready to be one yet. What are island people like? John Donne famously wrote "No man is an island," meaning we are not alone, that all of us are connected through our mortality. No matter where we go, we end up in the same place, a place we can't see with our physical eyesight (yet.) An island person knows one has to build bridges between people in order to survive. Many island people also have a deep propensity for solitude, a feeling that one is actually an island, separated from the rest of the world from the thousands of moods of the sea. How to live with this conundrum? I will admit this has been difficult for me. I have removed myself from mainland reality because I could not cope with the mass cultural brainwashing I saw taking place. This was not a conscious choice at first, just a natural resistance, a preservative instinct. I wanted to generate my own images, not be told what to see. After many years of connecting to myself, of exploring who I am and why I am here, of taking internal risks while playing it safe on the outside (many island people could care less about "careers." We know that what you do is often a cover up for what you're doing inside), it is time for me to build the bridge that will connect my vision to a larger reality, to be of service in whatever way I can.
In 2002, Suzi Brown, a girl who grew up on Block Island, killed herself by jumping from the Newport Bridge. Suzi jumped the day before the first anniversary of 9/11. I remember sitting on the beach that day wondering what the waves would bring, knowing that something was going to happen again. I never thought it would be something from within our community. Like most of America, I thought it was going come from outside.
In 2003, Rachel Tonner, another island girl, overdosed on heroin and died in the Port Authority in New York City. I view her death, which the whole year round community witnessed, as a slow form of suicide. Throughout the writing of Bluebell: The Apocalypse Diary, I felt deeply connected to these two. I began writing the book the week Suzi died. I knew Suzi a little bit, and Rachel was a good friend of mine who I loved. You know the saying that deaths come in threes? Well I felt all along as I wrote the book that I was the third person in this trifecta. I was aware that what I wanted to achieve was a spiritual death that would help me bridge their deaths for other people--I never wanted to physically die. I wanted to examine why they chose to die--what their souls were saying to us by making this seemingly unexplainable choice.
However, when you ask for a vision, you sometimes receive more than you bargained for. As I went through this process, I lost my way. I was scared and my fear made me confused that I would physically die too. Yes, one could say that my biochemistry was screwed up and made me go over to the dark side (I just skimmed the totally reductive Against Depression, by Peter Kramer, and disagree with his assessment of depression as simply a physical disease that can be treated like any other. Why? Because I don't believe that any disease is simply physical).
All I can say is that the intensity of the experience was what was needed to complete the book--this is what was wanted from me. This is what my soul needed. I know what my soul needs from how powerfully something grips me. When I am drawn towards something so powerfully that to resist feels like I'm dying, I know I have encountered what my soul needs, which is so often contrary to the needs of my ego, sometimes of my body itself. It doesn't matter if anyone reads Bluebell, because I embody this journey now, but I do plan to publish the book at some point in the near future so I can share my journey directly--telling the truth is important and a necessary step in healing.
Healing is a word I have had some issues with recently, since to me it implies that there is something wrong in the first place. If you believe, as I do, that everything one experiences is something one attracts because it is necessary for the soul's growth, then there is no such thing as sickness. Just an imbalance that needs to be corrected in order for the experience to be fully integrated. So I have been trying not to use this word lately, since, if you believe, as I do, that our words create our reality, that using the word healing will stop me and others realizing that we always receive what we need.
There are many bridges to build--forgiveness is a key material in the construction of them, and acceptance is a key component in the construction of forgiveness. I do my best to accept where others are in their lives and ask the universe that they do the same with me. (I ask the universe because sometimes asking actually people doesn't go over well. One has to be "on the same page" as they say sometimes in order to not be misunderstood, thus creating more anger.)
ne of the bridges I am building now is a writing workshop based on my alchemical journey. I will be teaching this workshop next April at the Block Island Poetry Project founded by my friend Lisa Starr. I will also be offering it at some point at a wonderful new bridge being built on Block Island right now. My friend and spiritual teacher Maria DeMarco has brought her non-profit Concordia, Inc., to the island. She is transforming the Beach House B & B, the home of the amazing Ccopaccatty family, into a center for health and art. I am incredibly excited about what she will bring to the community through Concordia, and am looking forward to participating in the center. The first thing I will be doing at the Beach House is a permaculture site analysis. Maria and the Ccopaccatty's want to turn the property into a permaculture site! For someone with no hope of buying property on this island, this really proves that dreams do come true, that to imagine one's life richly, as the Lakota say, will bring your dreams into fruition.
In 2002, Suzi Brown, a girl who grew up on Block Island, killed herself by jumping from the Newport Bridge. Suzi jumped the day before the first anniversary of 9/11. I remember sitting on the beach that day wondering what the waves would bring, knowing that something was going to happen again. I never thought it would be something from within our community. Like most of America, I thought it was going come from outside.
In 2003, Rachel Tonner, another island girl, overdosed on heroin and died in the Port Authority in New York City. I view her death, which the whole year round community witnessed, as a slow form of suicide. Throughout the writing of Bluebell: The Apocalypse Diary, I felt deeply connected to these two. I began writing the book the week Suzi died. I knew Suzi a little bit, and Rachel was a good friend of mine who I loved. You know the saying that deaths come in threes? Well I felt all along as I wrote the book that I was the third person in this trifecta. I was aware that what I wanted to achieve was a spiritual death that would help me bridge their deaths for other people--I never wanted to physically die. I wanted to examine why they chose to die--what their souls were saying to us by making this seemingly unexplainable choice.
However, when you ask for a vision, you sometimes receive more than you bargained for. As I went through this process, I lost my way. I was scared and my fear made me confused that I would physically die too. Yes, one could say that my biochemistry was screwed up and made me go over to the dark side (I just skimmed the totally reductive Against Depression, by Peter Kramer, and disagree with his assessment of depression as simply a physical disease that can be treated like any other. Why? Because I don't believe that any disease is simply physical).
All I can say is that the intensity of the experience was what was needed to complete the book--this is what was wanted from me. This is what my soul needed. I know what my soul needs from how powerfully something grips me. When I am drawn towards something so powerfully that to resist feels like I'm dying, I know I have encountered what my soul needs, which is so often contrary to the needs of my ego, sometimes of my body itself. It doesn't matter if anyone reads Bluebell, because I embody this journey now, but I do plan to publish the book at some point in the near future so I can share my journey directly--telling the truth is important and a necessary step in healing.
Healing is a word I have had some issues with recently, since to me it implies that there is something wrong in the first place. If you believe, as I do, that everything one experiences is something one attracts because it is necessary for the soul's growth, then there is no such thing as sickness. Just an imbalance that needs to be corrected in order for the experience to be fully integrated. So I have been trying not to use this word lately, since, if you believe, as I do, that our words create our reality, that using the word healing will stop me and others realizing that we always receive what we need.
There are many bridges to build--forgiveness is a key material in the construction of them, and acceptance is a key component in the construction of forgiveness. I do my best to accept where others are in their lives and ask the universe that they do the same with me. (I ask the universe because sometimes asking actually people doesn't go over well. One has to be "on the same page" as they say sometimes in order to not be misunderstood, thus creating more anger.)
ne of the bridges I am building now is a writing workshop based on my alchemical journey. I will be teaching this workshop next April at the Block Island Poetry Project founded by my friend Lisa Starr. I will also be offering it at some point at a wonderful new bridge being built on Block Island right now. My friend and spiritual teacher Maria DeMarco has brought her non-profit Concordia, Inc., to the island. She is transforming the Beach House B & B, the home of the amazing Ccopaccatty family, into a center for health and art. I am incredibly excited about what she will bring to the community through Concordia, and am looking forward to participating in the center. The first thing I will be doing at the Beach House is a permaculture site analysis. Maria and the Ccopaccatty's want to turn the property into a permaculture site! For someone with no hope of buying property on this island, this really proves that dreams do come true, that to imagine one's life richly, as the Lakota say, will bring your dreams into fruition.
Friday, May 20, 2005
The Internal Tsunami subsides
I apologize for upsetting people with my blog about my suicidal thoughts. For some reason I am being pushed to be as honest as possible. Some people might wish I would just not talk about the way I feel maybe, but I had really reached a point where I could not do that any longer. Transparency has always been a word that comes to mind when I think of how I want to be. No secrets. An open heart. As for feeling suicidal, it is not abnormal as some have said to me......it is something that many people I know feel, most of them artists or activists who are deeply engaged in the processes the earth is going through. I agree, the death of this cycle we are going through is exciting and intellectually I am curious to see what is going to happen, but emotionallly, this is not so. The thing that separates artists from other types of people is their emotional engagement with the world. It is hard to separate the feelings one has from one's self. I became my feelings to such an extent that I lost objectivity. I am not sick. I do not have an illness. I may have a disease--as in "dis-ease," or a lack of ease....but I am only a symptom of the dis-ease the earth is suffering right now. Artists are teachers. Have you ever had a teacher tell you write what you know? I took that to heart.....I had no other choice if I did not want to be insane--which I define as being off-balance. Being insane is just as valid a reality as any other, it just makes those who are more balanced, or off-balance in another direction uncomfortable. All diseases are diseases of the mind. They may manifest on the physical level, and we can treat them on the physical level by rebalancing our bodies--which I recommend doing wholistically rather than through the medical model, which does not even believe in the world I live in. So yes, when asked to admit I had a mental problem, I had to say yes, even though I knew that my definition of a mental problem was not the same as the person who asking. My mental problem was that I, in full knowledge of the power of the mind, could not find the strenght in my mind to bend my thoughts toward balance. I think what I'm goign through may be akin to the alchemical process--in order to make gold the alchemist burns the dross off lead---the dross was my negative thoughts. I think I took this on to such a large extent that I did actually internalize the tsunami that was predicted. If so, then I saved thousands of lives possibly. (I'm sure there were others involved. I'm not that egotistical.) I have also been thinking,based on a vision of a green serpent that appeared to me in meditation, and on some other factors, that I am in the beginning stages of the awakening of kundalini. This awakening also requires the burning off of negative thoughts and energies, a process which I've read is far from pleasant. As a Capricorn, I am a person who has incarnated to bridge the material and spiritual realms. Also, a person who is tested often. Capricorn is ruled by the Devil. Not to say the Devil is evil, it's more like the Devil is the voice of doubt that stops one from being one's fully self, from living authentically. Again, I apologize for upsetting people. It is especially hard to know that even these words of explanation may not be understood by some who love me, that they will make people think I am even more delusional and insane, but I offer them in the hopes that they may create a bridge of understanding between my side of the see-saw and theirs, in the hopes that we can find balance.
Thursday, May 19, 2005
Creative Recovery
The following words are from The Artist's Way, by Julia Cameron, a book that teaches the art of creative recovery, loosely based on the principles of 12 step programs. I came upon them in an old journal and wanted to share them as something that helps me--the key to contentment is all about remembering--who we are and why we came here. All of us are creators of the dreams that we lead. All of us are Gods.
I am a channel for God's creativity, and my work comes to good.
My dreams come from God and God has the power to accomplish them.
As I create and listen, I will be led.
My creativity heals myself and others.
I am allowed to nurture my artist.
Through the use of my creativity, I serve the goddess.
My creativity always leads me to truth and love.
My creativity leads me to forgiveness and self-forgiveness.
There is a divine plan of goodness for me.
There is a divinge plan of goodness for my work.
As I listen to the creator within, I am led.
As I listen to my creativity, I am led to create.
I am willing to create.
I am willing to learn to let myself create.
I am willing to let God create through me.
I am willing to be of service through my creativity.
I am willing to experience my creative energy.
I am willing to use my creative talents.
I am a channel for God's creativity, and my work comes to good.
My dreams come from God and God has the power to accomplish them.
As I create and listen, I will be led.
My creativity heals myself and others.
I am allowed to nurture my artist.
Through the use of my creativity, I serve the goddess.
My creativity always leads me to truth and love.
My creativity leads me to forgiveness and self-forgiveness.
There is a divine plan of goodness for me.
There is a divinge plan of goodness for my work.
As I listen to the creator within, I am led.
As I listen to my creativity, I am led to create.
I am willing to create.
I am willing to learn to let myself create.
I am willing to let God create through me.
I am willing to be of service through my creativity.
I am willing to experience my creative energy.
I am willing to use my creative talents.
Monday, May 16, 2005
The wave didn't come yesterday. Well, there were lots of waves touching the island, more than anyone could ever count, but The Wave is of another sort. It was supposed to wash us all clean, to sweep us all away, to leave behind those who were meant to be here now on earth to embody the new consciousness that has been birthed here in the energetic realms. I'm still not sure what would have happened to me if the wave had come. I still don't feel like the earth is my home. I still dont' know if this makes me a failure or if I am just supposed to accept that I have no work left to do here and move on to somewhere else. All my life I have felt an exile. A lone wolf. A former lover, also an artist, says that's just how all artists feel. We represent that feeling of exile and go through it for all of humanity, who feels it to some extent, just not as strongly. All I know is that I have reached a point where feeling like an exile is unbearable. Nothink makes me feel at home. Not even my art. My words just take me further out into to the open sea, but the sea is not the right metaphor, because the sea, while alien, is of the earth. My words take me into the complete unknown. Into black holes. Dark matter runs through my veins, not the hot red blood I know would gush out if I took a knife and slashed my self open, and I have been angry enough to do this in the past couple of days, barely holding the anger in--why--because I judge even my own anger. I don't want to make a mess or disappoint anyone. I see myself as absolutely pathetic. As a person undeserving of love who has failed whatever my mission on earth was. I can't even just enjoy the simple pleasures that come with every day. I am a complete fraud, walking around making small talk to forget how lonely I am and saying yes to things I dont' want to do and don't believe in. I don't care about anything.
The wave didn't come yesterday. Or did it? Has it been coming for months now as I slowly let go of all doubts and fears, so slowly I don't know they're being swept away? It would be easier if they were washed away by something as obvious as a tsunami. To die is easier than to live in some ways. Does anyone else feel these things? Are you being swept away and are you struggling against the current that wants to erase you becuase you are the only thing you have to hold onto when you go to sleep at night?
The wave didn't come yesterday. Or did it? Has it been coming for months now as I slowly let go of all doubts and fears, so slowly I don't know they're being swept away? It would be easier if they were washed away by something as obvious as a tsunami. To die is easier than to live in some ways. Does anyone else feel these things? Are you being swept away and are you struggling against the current that wants to erase you becuase you are the only thing you have to hold onto when you go to sleep at night?
Friday, May 13, 2005
How To Commit To Life
How To Commit To Life
You head toward the mud. It’s a habit.
You’re not a great blue-heron, you just
like the way it feels between your toes
and the challenge of staying upright.
The mud is full of dead things,
most of them unrecognizable.
Under the bridge, no one can see you.
For once, the water doesn’t reflect anything.
You’re safe. You push your thoughts away
before shame sends you running back to the
yellow house looking for some errand that has to
get done right away or the world will fall apart, right?
You pray for instinct to lay its hands upon you.
Your hands reach down and pluck three bits of broken
china from the mosaic of oyster and clam shells
decorating the mudflats.
The air is thick as water, if you didn’t know better
you’d think you had gills and could flash by this scene
like the schools of minnows who flee under this
bridge when the sun is bright in summer.
The blue willow painted on the surface makes you weep.
Champ plunges a clam rake off the dock to your right.
No distractions, you say to yourself.
You close your mind to the gentle humor in his face.
You don’t let yourself think of how you love to watch the seals
get knocked off the rocks by the waves.
On the left, two great black-backed gulls squabble over
a flounder, plucked live out of the shallow water.
They tear its guts out as it flaps on the flat
with their livid yellow beaks.
You’ve been careful to hide what you’re feeling
as you went about your daily business, maybe
with a little less purpose than everyone else,
but with enough verve that no one suspects you
when you hoist yourself up on to the bridge and
look down at the current, your eyes seeking
the center of a whirlpool for a clear sign.
You don’t see the surface, only what’s beneath.
All of you calls to the rocks, to the ripples,
to the currents crashing at the tip of the island,
to every wave that has broken on every beach.
You raise your face.
The wind from the north blows through you.
A dissonant chord rings.
You move closer to the edge as it dissolves,
clashing against the solid walls of guts and liver and kidneys.
But then they break down--your organs--and your
rebellious cells pull you back from the edge with a will
you hadn’t known they had. You have.
Silence arcs toward you in the form of a gull as sure of its way
as a boomerang that flies out into space and turns back without resisting.
The gull returns to the flounder, still flopping on the mudflat.
It won’t be long now.
How will you ever be able to say what made you
step off the bridge and walk back to the yellow house on the hill,
past the rock painted with the American flag,
where for the first time, the word freedom isn’t ironic?
All you can say is the mallard with the emerald green head
swam side by side with his drab mate.
All you can say is my heart is not these three bits
of broken china plucked from the mud by instinct.
You head toward the mud. It’s a habit.
You’re not a great blue-heron, you just
like the way it feels between your toes
and the challenge of staying upright.
The mud is full of dead things,
most of them unrecognizable.
Under the bridge, no one can see you.
For once, the water doesn’t reflect anything.
You’re safe. You push your thoughts away
before shame sends you running back to the
yellow house looking for some errand that has to
get done right away or the world will fall apart, right?
You pray for instinct to lay its hands upon you.
Your hands reach down and pluck three bits of broken
china from the mosaic of oyster and clam shells
decorating the mudflats.
The air is thick as water, if you didn’t know better
you’d think you had gills and could flash by this scene
like the schools of minnows who flee under this
bridge when the sun is bright in summer.
The blue willow painted on the surface makes you weep.
Champ plunges a clam rake off the dock to your right.
No distractions, you say to yourself.
You close your mind to the gentle humor in his face.
You don’t let yourself think of how you love to watch the seals
get knocked off the rocks by the waves.
On the left, two great black-backed gulls squabble over
a flounder, plucked live out of the shallow water.
They tear its guts out as it flaps on the flat
with their livid yellow beaks.
You’ve been careful to hide what you’re feeling
as you went about your daily business, maybe
with a little less purpose than everyone else,
but with enough verve that no one suspects you
when you hoist yourself up on to the bridge and
look down at the current, your eyes seeking
the center of a whirlpool for a clear sign.
You don’t see the surface, only what’s beneath.
All of you calls to the rocks, to the ripples,
to the currents crashing at the tip of the island,
to every wave that has broken on every beach.
You raise your face.
The wind from the north blows through you.
A dissonant chord rings.
You move closer to the edge as it dissolves,
clashing against the solid walls of guts and liver and kidneys.
But then they break down--your organs--and your
rebellious cells pull you back from the edge with a will
you hadn’t known they had. You have.
Silence arcs toward you in the form of a gull as sure of its way
as a boomerang that flies out into space and turns back without resisting.
The gull returns to the flounder, still flopping on the mudflat.
It won’t be long now.
How will you ever be able to say what made you
step off the bridge and walk back to the yellow house on the hill,
past the rock painted with the American flag,
where for the first time, the word freedom isn’t ironic?
All you can say is the mallard with the emerald green head
swam side by side with his drab mate.
All you can say is my heart is not these three bits
of broken china plucked from the mud by instinct.
Thoughts on home
Is the earth my home? This is the question I have been asking myself over and over again for the past couple of months. It seems funny to ask, since I have been weeding for a living and the earth is right in my face. I inhale it. I dig my fingers into it everyday. My fingers are so dirty I can't scrub the dirt off. Sometimes the earth smells so good I think of course I belong here, and when I open my heart to the robins and gulls who chirp and swirl around me I know the earth is my home. It is only when I look up and reenter the world of people where things go awry. Maybe because it is people who I blame for making the earth into a place that I don't want to live. I know though, that I must let my mind soar like a hawk. That I have to see everything that is happening on earth now as part of a natural cycle of decay, as natural as the decay and death of my own body, or of a beetle I unearth with my spade. And I must fully accept that I was born at this time for a reason to witness and be a part of what is going to happen to the earth. I must accept reincarnation in my heart, not just as intellectual idea, and that above all, I must remember that I choose and create every experience that comes my way. I have been living with the psychic pressure of tsunami building in me ever since I read that one was predicted to hit the east coast on May 15. ACtually, I 've been living with this pressure my whole life. May 15th is in two days. Everything has fallen away. I have reached a point where I don't care what happens really. This isn't because of despair, but because I feel like I at least accomplished two things that I was sent here to do. Wrote and published Siren, awakening people who read it to the possibility of apocalypse, and finishing Bluebell: The Apocalypse Diary. No one's read it yet, but I am the living embodiment of its ideas. We are waves of sound and light. My wave touches all of you. Will it crash and break on the beach? Probably. But it will also sneak up on the shore like a lover's kiss as you sleep.
Thoughts on home
Is the earth my home? This is the question I have been asking myself over and over again for the past couple of months. It seems funny to ask, since I have been weeding for a living and the earth is right in my face. I inhale it. I dig my fingers into it everyday. My fingers are so dirty I can't scrub the dirt off. Sometimes the earth smells so good I think of course I belong here, and when I open my heart to the robins and gulls who chirp and swirl around me I know the earth is my home. It is only when I look up and reenter the world of people where things go awry. Maybe because it is people who I blame for making the earth into a place that I don't want to live. I know though, that I must let my mind soar like a hawk. That I have to see everything that is happening on earth now as part of a natural cycle of decay, as natural as the decay and death of my own body, or of a beetle I unearth with my spade. And I must fully accept that I was born at this time for a reason to witness and be a part of what is going to happen to the earth. I must accept reincarnation in my heart, not just as intellectual idea, and that above all, I must remember that I choose and create every experience that comes my way. I have been living with the psychic pressure of tsunami building in me ever since I read that one was predicted to hit the east coast on May 15. ACtually, I 've been living with this pressure my whole life. May 15th is in two days. Everything has fallen away. I have reached a point where I don't care what happens really. This isn't because of despair, but because I feel like I at least accomplished two things that I was sent here to do. Wrote and published Siren, awakening people who read it to the possibility of apocalypse, and finishing Bluebell: The Apocalypse Diary. No one's read it yet, but I am the living embodiment of its ideas. We are waves of sound and light. My wave touches all of you. Will it crash and break on the beach? Probably. But it will also sneak up on the shore like a lover's kiss as you sleep.
Thursday, April 28, 2005
The Worm Bin
While flipping over rocks at Three Sisters today, I was delighted to come upon several red wrigglers! I had been searching through manure the past few months for the critters to no avail. Now that spring has sprung they are everywhere, wriggling through the wet soil up into the sun. Now I can start my worm bin. What is a worm bin, you may ask? I certainly had no idea before I went to EAT. The purpose of a worm bin is to create worm casings which you can use fertilizer, either putting them directly onto your plants or by brewing worm tea. They are easy to make. Just get a garbage can and poke some holes in it so the worms can breathe. Toss in some newspaper and some food scraps and some red wrigglers, and the worms will do their thing, digesting your food scraps into succulent casings. It sounds grosser than it is. The casings actually look and feel just like soil, not like the manure which they actually are. A worm bin is more practical than a compost pile if you live in a city. You can put it in your basement or under your kitchen sink. The worms should be red wrigglers, not the larger earth worms. Red wrigglers can be mail-ordered, purchased from a bait shop, or dug yourself--horse manure is a good place to look. To make worm tea take a handful of casings and add it to a five gallon bucket of water. AT EAT we dumped in two bottles of blackstrap molasses as well, since the sugar promotes bacterial growth. The tea should be aerated by stirring it for an hour or by hooking it up to a pump (like for an aquarium) if you don't want to do it yourself. Here on BI, a wormbin is economical as well, since we have to pay for our trash by weight at the dump. Plus you get to have pets!
Wednesday, April 27, 2005
Sadhana
Sadhana is a Sanskrit work meaning spiritual practice. It is doing the same thing day after day until it becomes an unconscious habit, like tying your shoes, only sadhana relates to more intangible things like the emotions. My hope is that if I do my sadhana every day I will be able to deal with my emotions the same way that I tie my shoes.
Sadhana
A scent upon the surface.
A dew covered mountainside at dawn.
Insects pass their mantra on to the bush birds
twittering as the sun strikes the far side of the valley.
Callused fingertips. A shaky hand.
Not many years left of doing.
A stooped woman leans forward to pick tea leaves.
Heavy basket slung across her shoulders. Crooked hips.
Who do you belong to the same way
the leaves belong to the branches?
The air is so humid she pretends she is swimming.
Nobody ever taught her, but she knows how anyway.
The game is to forget what you’re doing her mother told her.
When she was a girl she used to believe clouds had faces.
Do the branches wonder if they belong to the roots?
She’s lived her whole life in this valley.
At the end of the day she sits on her porch drinking tea.
The insects take up the mantra as the moon peaks.
Her children have all moved to a far distant city.
If she could write, she’d tell them how the earth turns when
she stands in place.
Vultures draft on currents of air she can’t feel so close to the ground.
There’s a road leading out of the valley.
I still might take it, she thinks.
I still might learn to write.
One last sip.
What do the leaves at the bottom say?
Go to sleep, old woman.
There’s work to be done in the morning.
Sadhana
A scent upon the surface.
A dew covered mountainside at dawn.
Insects pass their mantra on to the bush birds
twittering as the sun strikes the far side of the valley.
Callused fingertips. A shaky hand.
Not many years left of doing.
A stooped woman leans forward to pick tea leaves.
Heavy basket slung across her shoulders. Crooked hips.
Who do you belong to the same way
the leaves belong to the branches?
The air is so humid she pretends she is swimming.
Nobody ever taught her, but she knows how anyway.
The game is to forget what you’re doing her mother told her.
When she was a girl she used to believe clouds had faces.
Do the branches wonder if they belong to the roots?
She’s lived her whole life in this valley.
At the end of the day she sits on her porch drinking tea.
The insects take up the mantra as the moon peaks.
Her children have all moved to a far distant city.
If she could write, she’d tell them how the earth turns when
she stands in place.
Vultures draft on currents of air she can’t feel so close to the ground.
There’s a road leading out of the valley.
I still might take it, she thinks.
I still might learn to write.
One last sip.
What do the leaves at the bottom say?
Go to sleep, old woman.
There’s work to be done in the morning.
The Internal Tsunami
It is rainy on Block Island. Ducks splash in roadside puddles, water pools on the street and the ground is soggy at Three Sisters, where I've been making sandwiches for the past few days. So much has been going on for me internally that I haven't been able to channel my thoughts into a permaculture focus, so I haven't written in a while. Maybe I should anyway. Restricting myself to permaculture only is in a way, focusing on product over process. With permaculture as my umbrella, the frame which guides my thoughts, then everything I go through is part of the process and equally valid, even if I don't relate specific permacultural facts in every post. This makes me realize how sensitive I am to criticism, how much I need approval. When I first started this blog someone wrote to me and told me I should have more ecological information and not so much personal information. I have felt self-conscious ever since if I don't write some "facts" in every post, which is ridiculous considering this is my blog! Self-censorship is an issue that has come up a lot in the poetry seminars I have been participating in at The Block Island Poetry Project. I like to think that I don't censor myself, that I go as deep as I can and don't fear what my audience will say or think. Compared to some, I think I don't, but I know that I do censor myself sometimes. Not because I'm afraid what I say will shock others. I've gotten over that. But because I'm afraid of the emotions I raise. Afraid of what they will do to me. Will they burn all that consumes me away so I will be free of the pain they cause? Or will they destroy me? This is where being an addict comes into play. Everytime you take a drink or eat or have sex in a non-sacred way, or whatever it is that you repeat over and over to numb your pain, you are stamping down that emotion so you don't have to feel it. I do this with food every day, and it is very painful for me. Recently I realized why I crave salty food so much. Most people seem to crave sweets, which signifies a need for nurturing. While I do need to be nurtured, I seem to act out my addictive impulses with salty food. What does salt do? It asbsors water. Water represents emotions. Every time I eat salt I am soaking up the emotions I am afraid to express. More and more I feel rage and despair building in me, like they are gonig to burst out of my body, like my body is not large enough to hold these feelings. I go about my daily business as best I can, but the strain is very difficult and exhausting. I feel like I am leading a split life. Like there are two of me walking around. I bet everyone feels this way, but I have a feeling that most people just push the feeling away and keep numbing themselves. Recovery is a process.....not a product. We are never "fixed." There is always a new door that appears before us. A new room calling to us in our dreams.
I call what I have been going through for the past month my internal tsunami. I got word from some folks on the Breaking Open The Head forum that an east coast tsunami was predicted for may 15th of this year. Many synchronicities made me feel that this was going to happen, that I was going to die in a tsunami. My name--Whitewave--the asian tsunami, which occurred on my birthday--the name of my publishing company, Tsunami. The name of my first book "Siren" and my second "The Apocalypse Diary." --and the many poems I have written in the past three years that feature a great wave sweeping everything away. I have since shifted focus to an internal tsunami, experiencing everything being swept away inside me, which is a more productive thing to do ultimately than to worry about finding higher ground on May 15. I am at a point where I almost don't care if I die, which isn't as bad as it sounds. There is actually peace to be found at this point, especially since I know intellectually we are all one--all part of one energy--an endless wave-but to know something intellectually is not the same as to know it in your heart. In my heart I feel separate, disengaged, despairing. Thoughts of killing myself come every day. I am lucid enough to know that these thoughts are part of the wave that wants me to let go--so dont' worry, I am not going to actually kill myself. I am just being honest with my words because my goal is to become transparent, to grow as much as I can, to be as simple as a bluebell blooming amongst lily of the valley at the foot of an ancient oak tree. I don't know what I have to do to feel the union I know intellectually. I learned something very important from the yoga teacher and poet Jeff Davis, who came to BI to teach at the Poetry Project. I asked him what one should do when one is experiencing dark emotions. He said the thing to do was to not attach one's self to them. To recognize that one is experiencing them, but not to fully identify with them. He said that this applied to what we perceive as positive emotions as well. Emotions are our teachers and the more we experience of all of them, the more our hearts grow, and the deeper our souls become. I asked him what I should do since I couldn't disengage and observe my emotions. He said "practice." And that is where things like yoga or meditation or AA come in. I have written here I think about how I think addiction is a substitution for ritual. It makes sense that practicing yoga or going to an AA meeting is something that would lead the ego out of attachment and suffering. Since that weekend I have been doing yoga again everyday, and while the dark emotions are still with me, I do feel better that everyday I am practicing. I knwo that if I stick with it this will work,because the one time I was uniequivocally happy was when I did yoga everyday for four months. Jeff Davis was a great teacher. I recommend his book "Journey From The Center To The Page."
Well, I planned to write a blog today about bio-remediation at Abby's behest. She actually said she missed me! All the rain inspired me.......but I had to get to all this other stuff for some reason. All I can say is that it is part of my process. If people want info about ecoology there are plenty of places to get it right? Anyway, bioremediation, in a nutshell, is a process of treating contaminated water or cleaning up waste through natural means. It can be done by building marshlands to treat wastewater (marsh plants are masters at cleaning water) instead of having to chemically treat the water, or through using fungus. Did you know that mushrooms can break down toxic wastes, including nuclear waste? If you're interested in learnign more google Paul Stamets. He is a researcher in the pacific northwest who is doing amazing things with mushrooms that gives solutions for even the most dire environmental problems. The great thing about bioremediation is that it is another way to get off the grid. Cheaper and more efficient and better for the earth and the body. And aren't we the earth's body too? It even says so in the Bible. God created man out of clay, and Adam created woman out of his rib. While I would argue with the order of events here, not that it matters on a spiritual level, but on a political matter it certainly does, I find it kind of funny that the fundamentalists who claim to interpret the Bible literally are very often the ones who are so disconnected from the earth that they are the ones most invested in destroying it. George Bush anyone?
No more words left today, but I will try to write through what I'm feeling, because if I'm not sharing it, then what good am I?
I call what I have been going through for the past month my internal tsunami. I got word from some folks on the Breaking Open The Head forum that an east coast tsunami was predicted for may 15th of this year. Many synchronicities made me feel that this was going to happen, that I was going to die in a tsunami. My name--Whitewave--the asian tsunami, which occurred on my birthday--the name of my publishing company, Tsunami. The name of my first book "Siren" and my second "The Apocalypse Diary." --and the many poems I have written in the past three years that feature a great wave sweeping everything away. I have since shifted focus to an internal tsunami, experiencing everything being swept away inside me, which is a more productive thing to do ultimately than to worry about finding higher ground on May 15. I am at a point where I almost don't care if I die, which isn't as bad as it sounds. There is actually peace to be found at this point, especially since I know intellectually we are all one--all part of one energy--an endless wave-but to know something intellectually is not the same as to know it in your heart. In my heart I feel separate, disengaged, despairing. Thoughts of killing myself come every day. I am lucid enough to know that these thoughts are part of the wave that wants me to let go--so dont' worry, I am not going to actually kill myself. I am just being honest with my words because my goal is to become transparent, to grow as much as I can, to be as simple as a bluebell blooming amongst lily of the valley at the foot of an ancient oak tree. I don't know what I have to do to feel the union I know intellectually. I learned something very important from the yoga teacher and poet Jeff Davis, who came to BI to teach at the Poetry Project. I asked him what one should do when one is experiencing dark emotions. He said the thing to do was to not attach one's self to them. To recognize that one is experiencing them, but not to fully identify with them. He said that this applied to what we perceive as positive emotions as well. Emotions are our teachers and the more we experience of all of them, the more our hearts grow, and the deeper our souls become. I asked him what I should do since I couldn't disengage and observe my emotions. He said "practice." And that is where things like yoga or meditation or AA come in. I have written here I think about how I think addiction is a substitution for ritual. It makes sense that practicing yoga or going to an AA meeting is something that would lead the ego out of attachment and suffering. Since that weekend I have been doing yoga again everyday, and while the dark emotions are still with me, I do feel better that everyday I am practicing. I knwo that if I stick with it this will work,because the one time I was uniequivocally happy was when I did yoga everyday for four months. Jeff Davis was a great teacher. I recommend his book "Journey From The Center To The Page."
Well, I planned to write a blog today about bio-remediation at Abby's behest. She actually said she missed me! All the rain inspired me.......but I had to get to all this other stuff for some reason. All I can say is that it is part of my process. If people want info about ecoology there are plenty of places to get it right? Anyway, bioremediation, in a nutshell, is a process of treating contaminated water or cleaning up waste through natural means. It can be done by building marshlands to treat wastewater (marsh plants are masters at cleaning water) instead of having to chemically treat the water, or through using fungus. Did you know that mushrooms can break down toxic wastes, including nuclear waste? If you're interested in learnign more google Paul Stamets. He is a researcher in the pacific northwest who is doing amazing things with mushrooms that gives solutions for even the most dire environmental problems. The great thing about bioremediation is that it is another way to get off the grid. Cheaper and more efficient and better for the earth and the body. And aren't we the earth's body too? It even says so in the Bible. God created man out of clay, and Adam created woman out of his rib. While I would argue with the order of events here, not that it matters on a spiritual level, but on a political matter it certainly does, I find it kind of funny that the fundamentalists who claim to interpret the Bible literally are very often the ones who are so disconnected from the earth that they are the ones most invested in destroying it. George Bush anyone?
No more words left today, but I will try to write through what I'm feeling, because if I'm not sharing it, then what good am I?
Friday, April 01, 2005
Breaking Open The Head
The words have been coming in different ways for the past couple of weeks. I apologize to anyone who has missed me! I am almost done with my poetry manuscript--or at least I think I am. It is hard to tell when one is done in poetry. I would like to direct people to a really incredible forum at www.breakingopenthehead.com. I have been writing a lot here lately. Click on discussion when the website comes us. It is based on Daniel Pinchbeck's book, Breaking Open The Head: A Contemporary Journey Into Psychedelic Shamanism. I highly recommend the book and the forum. I have been learning a lot from the people on the forum...I will get back to permaculture soon, but right now, I would like to say that it is OK to feel angry. Any of you who feel angry, let it out! Just don't hurt yourself or anybody or thing.
Thursday, March 24, 2005
I have been pretty overwhelmed lately. Definitely not together enough to tie anything I'm doing or feeling into permaculture, thus the long silence. I went through the supposed last stage of my initiation this past weekend. Initiation into what, I kept thinking? This question is what kept me from feeling inititiated I think. In the past, we had actual tribes to be initiated into. Now we have the feeling of the tribe,which is much harder to understand. I'll admit, I couldn't feel it in myself. What I was supposed to be feeling, according to my teacher, was a feeling of unity. A realization that everythign I have experienced so far, and that everything we have created no earth has been an illusion--what she called "playing in the backyard." The end of the initiation process was supposed to bring me "home," where all the concerns and games we play in the material world drop away. I couldn't get over my anger at the material world. I couldn't let go of my personal frustration at being a poet in a culture that doesn't care about or value poetry. I couldn't let go of my anger at the rape of the earth. What I have realized, is that I need to feel these emotions first, or again rather, I have felt them before, but somewhere along the way they became intellectual concepts before I had released them fully. So now I've been crying a lot and trying not to gorge myself on nachos when I'm depressed. I found out an interesting thing this weekend. My teacher was talking about why we crave sweet foods, saying it is because we feel a need to be nurtured. I asked her why one would crave salty food, since this is what I crave. She said that eating a lot of salt is a way to avoid feeling emotions--think of the way salt dries up water, what a cracked piece of land looks like after days of drought. So I am accepting that I need to feel some ugly things before I can feel at "home." And I encourage you to do the same, and to realize that something we see as ugly is also beautiful if it enables us to become fully present and whole.
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