dream:

In front of me, there is a shelf, sturdy black wood like mahogany but light in structure. The shelves are empty. I start to turn away, but instead, like a child, get on my hands and knees, crouch low and look far into the back of the very bottom shelf.

There is a scene of miniatures--not very many, but all fresh and clean and new. There are people. A mirror that forms a lake. And bright green mountains, like the molded part of the children’s game: The Game of Life.

And this is my secret space.

Afternoon on a Hill

I will be the gladdest thing
    Under the sun!
I will touch a hundred flowers
    And not pick one.
 
I will look at cliffs and clouds         
    With quiet eyes,
Watch the wind bow down the grass,
    And the grass rise.
 
And when lights begin to show
    Up from the town,         
I will mark which must be mine,
    And then start down!



Edna St. Vincent Millay

The first day I looked for the book, I could not access the URL I’d been given. I had to research it on my own. I saw what it was about, became apprehensive, and stopped.

The second day I looked for the book, I felt broken by a movie that had activated old pain. I thought, well, someone has thought enough about you to tell you about this book. So I pulled into a bookstore. The book was out of stock. I felt so empty as I left empty-handed. I needed the book NOW. I walked into the night through double sets of double doors, two young girls behind me chatting. I held a door for them. I was nearly out of range when a sweet-pitched voice called--Thank you! I turned to nod, went on my way when the voice, insistent on reaching me, called again--Bye! and I cried hard to the car without a book but touched by human love: not so hard to receive, not so hard to give.

The third day I looked for the book, I drove in the rain to the library. Again the book was not there. But there were other books in the same section. I picked out three and sat in a purple chair.

The smallest was the gift.

A chapter by Ayya Khemaa that spoke so simply to the heart of my frustration. A chapter waving--hello!--by Thich Nhat Hanh called ‘Eating a Tangerine.’ About Budhha describing to children the eating of a tangerine in the same way I have written here about eating an orange. But this book framed it in a larger wisdom. A chapter on treating the unruly mind with kindness, like a puppy that wants training. And smaller chapters on even simpler concepts that bring an expectation of relief.

The book is called Breath Sweeps Mind. Edited by Jean Smith. I have the little book by me. I checked it out.

But maybe it’s not even about the little book but about the path of not-finding the first book. Maybe there is nothing I ever need NOW.

What will I find today when I don’t find the book?

I don’t like to dwell on the past.

But sometimes it’s good to have a history to examine. Because it’s good to know when you are spiraling back to a familiar unhealthy pattern. Because it’s good to remember the miracles in your life--to remember that miracles do happen.

Because we forget.

What is better, the glass bulb, or the flickering energy within the bulb?

The bulb alone is lightless. Inert.

The current of electricity uncontained is dangerous.

Together they make precious light.

So goes perhaps the relationship between quiet mind and wild mind.

Between two people. Within one person.

(Then there are the people, inside-out, the bulb lost within the electricity sparking furiously all around as they hurtle through life. What is life without dangerous gifts?)

The Bear settled back into his seat and closed his eyes, trying to feel, in the rushing forward motion of his life, the stars that framed his bones, and in his own large body his true geometry of light, the larger peace he knew he lived in but could not entirely find.

Rafi Zabor
The Bear Comes Home

It was the kind of early morning
where you don’t know yet
if the grey is cloud or sky.
The buttermilk sun
peeked from among the treetops
shone full on my face
then rose and disappeared
behind the dome of grey.
Sometimes even a small dose
goes a long way.

Watch out. Once you start thinking, it changes your life.

I awoke with a start, thinking about the meditation for peace.

Then I started thinking about my day ahead. I do have an early appointment with a financial planner who I have known a long time now, who likes me and I like her. I have some money to invest, savings for which I have only recently taken responsibility.

Then the trains of thought collided from opposite directions on the same track.

The meditation was inspired by one person’s desire to honor another person’s birthday. As I understand it, that person lost his siblings and parents to the atomic bombs in Japan in WWII. He has devoted his adult life to the promotion of peace.

The funds that my retirement savngs are in--and that I would likely be placing my other savings--invest in many companies. I suspect some of the companies have involvement in the manufacture of atomic weapons.

I have never been able to see any ethical reason for the continued development of nuclear weapons by any person or country. Even Einstein, whose work so contibuted to their development, was at the end of his life deeply disturbed by the ends to which his beautiful work had contributed.

I might have unthinkingly glossed over this contradiction in my life-everybody invests, right?- if I hadn’t this week had to reschedule this appointment to this day. Now, will I invest my small savings toward machinery of war on the same day that I meditate for peace? On the same day I honor a person who suffered such fundamental loss?

What do I really believe? What is the meaning of my ethics? What else am I missing?

What kind of conversation am I going to have with my financial planner?

Join me and others around the world in a meditation for peace. Wednesday, February 22, 10-12 PM EST, 9-11 PM CST, 8-10 PM MST, 7-9 PM PST.

If you are located in a different zone, I hope you can figure out the time yourself:)

Synchronized prayer and meditation. At the very least, when you join in at this time, you’ll know you are not alone as you focus your own heart and intention in support of ethical, creative, successful approaches to resolve hurt and hostility among humans. To grow peace.

~sut nam~
(meaning: ~truth name~
~truth is my name~
~truth is my identity~)

This mantra a part of yoga today.

A simple message that I usually accept simply.

Today I wasn’t so easily satisfied.

Even just looking at this blog--the content is as truthful as I can make it at any given moment.

But what goes into the choice of the content?

What are my motives?

And what truths do I elect to leave out?

The biggest problem for me this last quarter century has not been my few untruths, but the truth I kept hidden. Honest in what I had to say, but such large silences. I left out so much about myself in my interactions that who could know the truth about me?

Sut nam
an ideal for me to strive for, not an accomplishment.

I have thought all day about the birth uncle I never met who passed away this week, and about his sister, his only sibling, my birth mom who has my love and sympathy.

And I got an unexpected phone call from a birth uncle on the paternal side.

Life is rich and complex.

Friends fixed supper for me Friday night. Beans and rice. Spinach and tomatoes. Mango and strawberries. I felt so tenderly welcomed.

I have a teacher who is also a friend. She says we are out of our safety zones, that it is a special place to be.

She has a horse, four very large goats, two cats, one of whom is blind. She has three guitars and some recording equipment.

Every one of her animals rushed up to check me out, to be friendly. Even in the frosty fields yesterday.

She baked a chicken. We had penguin chardonnay.

She played the chords to a song I know the lead to. She sang melody and I harmony.

"The moment you come to trust chaos, you see God clearly. Chaos is divine order, versus human order. Change is divine order, versus human order. When the chaos becomes safety to you, then you know you're seeing God clearly."

Caroline Myss

I lifted this quote a long time ago from a Rob Brezsny horoscope. I saved it even though I didn’t understand it.

Today was a mucked up day, but perhaps much of the mess came from the head more than the situations. Once I let go of self doubt, half the muck was gone. The other half of the mess then became less menace, more entertainment even. A part of the challenging not-at-all boring game of life.

Perhaps I get it now. The quote itself oddly resurfaced--hello!--during the chaos of this afternoon. That moment I laughed and came to trust--

I was taught as a girl not to speak.

Even today, talking is like a second language to me. It requires some effort and concentration. I become self-conscious.

I did learn to listen. And I learned to write. I remember in first grade sounding out and writing: culer. Wow. It was thrilling--to me and to my teacher, Sister Eugenia.

This is what I like about keeping a blog:
each entry the release of a caged bird.

The Menil Collection of art in Houston is an enormously absorbing campus of galleries and chapels, with an emphasis on, among other areas, French surrealist and modern art of the mid-twentieth century, and African and European antiquities.

Inside the main gallery is a rather cluttered back room exhibiting objects owned or collected by the surrealist artists. Rene Magritte and perhaps Max Ernst among others. There were stuffed exotic birds, a faded astrolabe, masks, tribal ornaments from around the world, pipes, and other eclectic junk.

In that room, a small clear box contained perhaps a dozen arrowheads, intricately worked of glass. Different sizes and shapes, of clear and blue and green and amber glass. The carving and patterns delicate, lace-like. The points exquisite.

I assume a glass arrowhead would be of little practical use to a hunter, suggesting that they were created with some artistic impetus.

And who was the artist? An American Indian who died shortly after making the arrow heads. He was the last surviving member of his tribe. A skill once necessary to feed a people was applied in the end toward a fragile wordless statement.

There were many pieces of art in the galleries that moved or impressed me. Those pieces of carved glass communicated a weightier and more poignant message to me than the thousands of other exhibited paintings, murals and sculptures put together.

I threw a party last night for my unquiet mind. It wasn’t going to slow down any way.

Viva the unquiet mind! I wrote essays on free will vs karma, on what kind of unquiet mind party I might throw (involving coyotes and tiaras--much more colorful than sitting around writing essays), on the meaninglessness of our activity. I typed up the January newspaper article about how a man threw a mouse into a bonfire of burning leaves. The mouse ran out of the fire back to the house, and burned the man’s house down. I brought in sunsets standing still, pink ribbons, Greater Gravity and vortexes--at the same time doing laundry and dishes, comforting the ill, and cheering on a son’s late-nighter.

The conclusions:
Karma beat out free will.

Sometimes we throw unquiet mind parties to run away from pain.

Sometimes when we are set on fire, we run away not for revenge but because of pain.

Sometimes we run away afraid we’ll set someone else on fire.

Sometimes we seal the pain in time bubbles and gravitational accidents and compulsive writing until it’s cool enough to handle.

Sometimes throwing parties for the unquiet mind goes full circle. We become aware of what we are doing. We return to quiet mind which perhaps is the point.

I walked up to Central Market, and to my right were a pair of people--a young woman and a girl--the girl carrying a white stick with a dark point, swinging it side to side. The woman, her face translucent, watched the girl walk, watched her discover with her stick the long row of shopping carts outside, and navigate to a dead end between the carts and a brick wall.

She didn’t warn the girl, and the girl laughed and the woman said this is not the best way for them to park their baskets, is it, and the girl turned around navigated back and they both laughed again as though blindness were a game.

I’d like to approach life in just that way.

The slowest and most beautiful sunset last night. I appreciated every moment as though it were the only moment.

In the middle of the night I woke up coughing. I have a chest cold. I got up, drank some water, turned on the TV. I saw a woman flying--snowboarding in the Olympics. She was truly flying, so gracefully swinging back and forth across the half-pipe, shining in the sun, the Alps shimmering in the background.

Then I saw cartoons on PBS--old cartoons in French. I couldn’t understand much of the language, trop difficile:) but one was a baby in blue who had a piece of chalk and drew his own story, his own moon, his own monster, his own waves and in the end his own bed. The second a goose named Petunia carrying a red book of wisdom that is revealed at the end as an alphabet book. And the third--ah, the third a Monsieur Racine. He was growing pears. Beautiful pears. Show pears. These men would show up now and again offering wads of money for the pear. M Racine would shake his head, non! And then he’d take a big bite out of the marvelous pear. Near the pear tree, M Racine finds an unusual animal--similar to a small elephant. He observes it, has someone record his observations. He sketches it and labels its parts and sends it to the Academie de Science. The scary men with the money appear again--perhaps this time for the mystery beast. M Racine says, Non! and again eats a pear. Then he appears at the Academie to talk on his discovey and the people watch the new beast with great interest. The creature starts to writhe and crumple on the stage. Out pop a boy and girl, bent over giggling.

And the men and women of the academie in their formal clothes and lorgnettes stare in shock. And then, M Racine and all the grown-ups begin to play, stand on their heads, jump and run and climb, chase each other around the podium.

M Racine, a happy man, returns to his pear tree.

Merci beaucoup, M Racine.

The earth spins so fast on its axis.
I watched the evidence this morning:
the shadow of a birdfeeder in transit
across a white wall.
It took less than half an hour
though I wasn’t timing it--
just watching.

There’s not much point to light all by itself, now is there?

It’s got to be caught by something, received by something, bounce off something to make much sense. Without shadow, light has no meaning.

No wonder there’s a universe. No wonder that we’re here. Without us, light has no purpose. We give light something to do. We define light for in our absence light has no definition.

I love this quote from Galileo Galilei:

The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do.

I did really listen. And what came my way was a detailed recitation of what happens in the Sidney Poitier movie, Lilies of the Field. I learned that it can be hard for people with different native tongues to communicate. That sometimes, Bible stories in different languages can be helpful. That what feeds a man can be very different from what feeds a bunch of nuns. That it’s ok to be independent, but its even better to accept the help of strangers when it is offered. Even when it’s some old bricks and a chandelier. That sometimes a man needs a glass of cold water in the face to heal what ails him. That it takes a community to build a chapel. That there’s a lot to be learned in the desert. That a movie in black and white can be colorful.

And that listening, really listening, to one’s mother is good. I thought I’d learn more about her, but learned more about me as well. It may not cure what ails me, but it pushes me on to the next step.

Thanks, Mama.

I have blue jays on my balcony--three great blue and white birds. There is the bully among them--chasing off the titmouse.

At the first opportunity, the titmouse returns.

It is windy. The sun is shining. Blue blue sky.

I guess I could make some parallel between nature and my own life, but I’ve had enough about me. Enough talking. Enough writing.

It seems I’d like to listen, really listen.

Even with the grieving and tears, the hard work and the acknowledgement of pain, there are gifts in the dark work, talks in parked cars, walks in dry creek beds, jazz players dressed in black, and soon to fly.

And we leave the music, and the funeral is over, and the emotion--a love for everything--remains, and so it is time to be children again, to play.

I awoke happy, dreaming of gerbils, I awoke with love for many. I left early in the morning to send that love, and it rained on me and I got lost and walked and walked down Prickly Pear and Waterline and found my way and returned to the woods.

There were no signs, no natural wonders to share--unless a joyful flying pig on a rooftop means anything to you.

Sylvia thought how all parents wanted an impossible life for their children—happy beginning, happy middle, happy ending. No plot of any kind. What uninteresting people would result if parents got their way.

Karen Joy Fowler
The Jane Austen Book Club

1 plus 1 is 2
2 plus 2 is 4

Simple facts.

1 plus 1 is 10
2 plus 2 is 11

Simple facts.

Can’t see this?

Try 1 plus 1 in base 2. 2 plus 2 in base 3.

Sometimes we need a different language, a different framework to be able to see simple truth.

Have some fun. Learn a new language. Behaviorism, surrealism, Christianity, geometry, Polish, string theory, rhythm and blues, baseball. See what you can see.

I have a black and white photo of laundry dancing on the line.

A poem about the different sound a spoon makes compared to a fork when dropped into their slots.

I have recipes, a sewing basket with a bit of a baby blanket in it.

Feathers and cloth for costumes.

Boxes of children’s school work.

A purple chair.

An old hockey stick for unjamming the hinge of the attic door.

An ode to a tree down the street.

A cat’s collar.

A time capsule buried in a stone wall.

I am shedding these things.

They are so good, have meant so much.

I don’t know what’s next, yet I keep pushing outward, even as I hold these things inside.

In dancing with a partner, it is traditional that there is a man and a woman. The man leads, the woman follows.

But in real life, the dance may involve two men, a parent and child, an individual with a broom. The woman may lead the man, and only pretend to follow.

The best dance is when both partners truly hear the music, and there is no telling who has the lead.

I love the statue of Barbara Jordan. Larger than life. Sitting in her chair. Open book, glasses in her hand. Intelligent face expressing gentleness and strength. Her feet crossed very humanly at the ankles. Perhaps a lace half untied?

I visited Paris in 1996. One thing I took home with me was the public embrace of sculpture. Statues to represent events, emotions, places, ideals. Some to represent the person they portrayed. And so many were women. Jeanne d’Arc seemed especially popular.

Do you know at that time, the only public statue (outside of churches) I could think of in the US that was female was the Statue of Liberty?

And she was a gift of the French.

We are a masculine country. We honor only half of our psyche.

Well here in Austin there has been some remedy of that imbalance. And Barbara Jordan is a part of it.

So. Why is she in the basement? Such a beautiful statue of a powerful woman in the baggage claim area of the airport. She deserves SO much better. Couldn’t she at least be at the curb of the ticketing area where she could see some sky?

I played guitar this morning. Sometimes a musical instrument gives voice to things we have no words for.

A cormorant flying high
above the river
lost a feather

Rocking gently
lit by sun
the feather drifted
across the water
above my head and
toward a dry gold field

still floating

Why wonder where
it will land?
enjoy the moments
of the feather’s dance

I was hijacked by meditation today. And the bucks returned. And I had to remind them that I am female, and must be treated in that way.

Which even then seemed an odd thing to say--I who have always so wanted to be equal and not separate.

near the end of the day
as I walked in the woods
now fragrant
after the rains

I startled two bucks
and they startled me.
They stood face to face
among the juniper and oak

One moved to my left,
the other to my right,
and I spoke kindly to them
as I passed.

They had grand antlers
and muscular forelegs
Two fierce big dudes
And one small human

and I don’t know why we were together
and why that made me sad.
Perhaps their wildness subdued
by the narrow greenbelt they inhabit.

I walked from the woods
into the neighborhood
cars whizzing by
and my heart felt large
outside of my ribs

then they came in one wave, and another
dozens and dozens of gulls
intent in flight
west-north-west over Austin suburbia
their white wings
catching the lowering light

They were silent and purposeful.

They were beautiful with light
wings beating toward sunset.

And I walked on to the store,
and when I emerged, bags in hand,
the sky was ribboned in rose,
big and open
like an expansion of my heart.

The deer are not mine but I share their space.
The gulls are not mine but they bring me pleasure.
The sky is not mine, but holds my heart too big for me to carry.

This is in memory of bus trips
or perhaps men on buses
the first when I was 5
overdressed in petticoats and patent leather shoes
Lafayette to New Orleans
the bus crowded, my mother and sister way in the back
the man with the white hair
let me hold his heavy gold watch chain
I felt safe and slept against his vest.

When I was 16, Baton Rouge to Lafayette,
the wizened man with cataracts
and a brown plastic jesus in the ribbon of his hat.
He carried dozens of tiny pads of pastel papers
every single sheet rubber-stamped by hand
messages to share about God and Love
and messages for me.

at 21
the boy my age with his guitar
he got off after only the first leg of a long journey across Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming
miles of unbroken moonlit snow
the towns with their Christmas lights
and bars and churches, bars and churches
I kept his address many years in my book
I never wrote
afraid to not hear back
or afraid I would.

at 52
Zurich to Ebmatingen
the goth of 18 with his guitar
his wrist wrapped with gauze
oozing blood from a fresh tattoo
my God a beautiful soul in black
with halting English
a short-order job
and the seed of an impossible possible dream
he pressed his ipod to my ear
I listened to his favorite songs
and it was hard to tear away at my stop
he didn’t stop talking to let me go

at 52
Singen to Zurich
the equinox
and hurricanes on my mind
the silent man
with what the Sumerians called ‘eyes of life’
staring from across the aisle
at times kindly
at times defended
he had a foot in each of two worlds
and I, defended in my own world,
did not make room for this man,
nor did he ask, yet he is the one I write,
who silently pats me on the back.

of course there are women on buses
poignant stories for another time
all with themes of escape
or the rescue of broken children.

I’m told at one and a half
I was found by a neighbor I didn’t know
at the city bus stop at the end of Fernhill Street
with nothing but a diaper
and the housekeeper’s purse and umbrella.

I didn’t make it onto the bus that day
but I’m still so restless to go.

I am rethinking my long planned break from the blog, having not even missed a day yet!

I felt tired of transparency and wanted only to hide awhile, suddenly self-conscious. And it’s true I’d abandoned my fiction of late.

Then, in the middle of the night, I awoke to write stories of men on buses, the driving 3/4 time of REM Day Sleeper drumming in my head for the third day in a row, and I am reading Parrerra’s Descent of the Goddess.

It rained hard in the night and is perfectly clear in the day--a beautiful day, the sky an eggshell blue, and the air a kick to the chest, and I heard the drone of a small prop plane.

I feel again comfortable in the moment
and glad for the slow elegance of the universe
with its thrilling ups and downs contained within.

Happy for the rain and for the sun.

I’ll post when I feel like it for awhile and ignore my own rules. I'm afraid I love to write.

Seldom, very seldom does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised, or a little mistaken.

--Jane Austen, Emma

With that bit of wisdom, I bid farewell--at least for the month of February--to start a new job and to work on fiction where perhaps the truth lies.

Pun acknowledged.