i, i, i i

"For the Sufi, the spiritual life involves gradually letting go of everything we identify with as 'I'...letting go even of the letting go...even as things around you seem to be falling away...the divine life remains to resurrect a different sense of 'I am'.

-- Neil Douglas-Klotz, The Sufi Book of Life

Love does remain. Love with a capital L. Ever, always, wholly, unceasing, within, without, invisible, and always, also, available to be found.

Not for the first time, this book ever so kindly reminds me of something important I was neglecting. And opens to it at just the moment it's needed. Still marinating in that powerful Joan Osborne lyric I quoted last week. And also how intense a response I had to it. It's really how I feel: both the lyric, and my question in response to it. But that question - what if nothing remains? - is also, of course, limiting the view.

Friends who aren't reading Sufi thought but someone like Eckhart Tolle, perhaps, will probably recognize the understanding quoted above. There's 'I' and then there's 'I'. Or rather, there's 'i', right? There's that little, struggling, not-yet-complete 'i' that wants so badly - and so with the best of intentions - to live and love and grow and give and receive. And sometimes that dovetails with 'I', and sometimes it doesn't. And when the doesn't happens, sometimes the burning does.

This is to say nothing about the actions of other people in this process. About which, I will try not to say either. Except that what may not remain for me is trust, or hope, in certain realms of human relation. But this is, for the moment, about the bigger picture and what can, and does, interact there. 'i' am almost nothing, right now. 'i' am perhaps more nothing than i have ever been before. And yet. I had the great privilege of chanting with Sufis the other night. Dear friends have graced my home for dinner, and lively life-affirming conversation. Shimmering ancestral spirits danced around an opening portal in someone else's dream inside my dreamtime. A group of kids called me 'neighbor' on a delivery, and included me in their elated conversation about, of all things, trapping a possum on their front sidewalk. Time, energy, and work are, for blessed once, all available at the same time. For all these things, i will try to remain, for the Love that also is.

heard it on the radio 2

Also heard this on the radio yesterday, on a different note. Santa Fe is starting an hours/local barter program! They use a term I hadn't heard in other places, but that describes it well: 'timebank'. The kickoff meeting is tomorrow afternoon. Way to go Santa Fe! Check it out at www.santafetimebank.org. And when are we gonna do this in Albuquerque?

heard it on the radio

I am neither willing nor able to comment at any length on politics. I'm just unable to see what most of it has to do with human beings. But once in awhile a shred of something comes through that gives the subject an almost human face. Heard this last night on NPR. The story was the possible corruption of the upcoming elections in Iraq. Apparently it is being suggested that the government, in trying to exclude direct former supporters of Saddam Hussein, has done far too good a job, excluding supporters of positions other than their own while they're at it. Experts were of course consulted, and then, for the man-on-the-street perspective, they went to a 21-year-old waiter in Baghdad, who said this: "I'm sure the elections will go on, but how do we tell the honorable people from the thieves and liars?" I waited, holding my breath, at this. I so wanted the commentator to end the piece with, "And so we see that America has at last truly brought democracy to Iraq." But I guess they're not allowed to go that far with their comments, even on NPR. So I'll say it for 'em.

booking it

Just ending week three of Job #3 (for the moment): phonebook delivery. They go out every year at this time. This is my third season doing it, and the second in Albuquerque. It's not easy work, but it's lots of fun, for the somewhat compulsive, driven personality. You load a few hundred heavy bundles, bound in super-resistant plastic, into your vehicle. Bag up three books together, and carry them to the doorstep of every house, on every street, in a given neighborhood. I've been doing about 200 houses per day. I crash super-early every night, full of muscleaches, and wake still stiff and tired, with some idea of how it is to be 80. But it's honest labor, for sure. And it's saving my sanity: simultaneous soul and body detox. Miles of walking outdoors, sometimes jogging, balanced with several hours a day of weight-lifting (I figured, the first year, that half a block's worth of books in their bags weighs 50 pounds). And it meets those all-important criteria for the gypsy vocation: variety, motion, room to think, new faces every day.

I learned this year that there's more to the gypsy circuit than I knew: the company has a few dozen free-footed people who sign on year-round, and follow the outfit nationwide. Most of them live in RV's, or camp trailers. They rent space in a park, or find someplace to park in each city. I was into the idea until I learned it doesn't pay any better than the local work: independent contractor rates, which means you're paid per route, not per hour. Which means your wage depends precisely on the extent to which you are willing to haul ass. Which of course, I do, and I calculate it just at living-wage, most of the time. But there are no travel expenses provided for the gypsies. And that wouldn't make the migration worth it, unless you just really had a reason to get outta town already. Or you really had nothing better to do. But it's a fine picture, for that: Albuquerque in January, Tucson in February, Phoenix in April, Seattle in June... Albuquerque and Portland, apparently, are booked at the same time. Further confirming my suspicion of that portal connecting the two.

This week I got a route that covers 4th Street from Osuna to Los Ranchos, and all of its barely-paved side roads. Deep North Valley. I forgot how it's more like rural Texas up there, almost, than New Mexico. Feed stores and boot stores and meat dealers and trailer parks. Old homes turned into antique/junk shops. An equine hospital whose sign reads, "Now accepting horses and mules". I've found a fascinating way to travel without spending any money, for sure...don't know if this is exactly where I wanted to GO... Guess workers can't always be choosers though. If you had to be in Texas, this is a nice time of year for it.

dream: the poker game

Excitement runs high in the small, crowded room, where the poker game is going way better than we hoped it would. We all sit or sprawl on the carpet: there doesn't seem to be any furniture in this place. Just people, about 20 of us, all good friends and fellow communitarians. The dim lights and the warmth add to the sense of comraderie. There are quite a few players in this game, and some of them - all those we're competing against - don't seem to be here in the room. Apparently we're playing on teams, and also remotely - perhaps by telepathy. There aren't any communication devices in sight, but we're in contact with all the others. We can hear their voices, although we can't see them.

We started the game off slow. Played it safe. Small, careful bets. Then all of us, collectively, started tuning in to our luck and our intuition. There's a flow here, and we joined it, and we can all dig it, and it's beautiful. Now we're making bigger, crazier wagers on every hand, and they're paying off. Every time. There are shouts, exclamations, voices cheering each other on, as the elation builds. Then it's the final round, and yes! we won the whole pot! All of us, together. Lot of way-to-go's and back-slapping and laughter. It's a small fortune we have between us. More than anybody's seen in a long time. Everybody's talking at once about what they're gonna to do with their share. One guy's paying off his debts. Next to me, three people talk about pooling their money, and buying two shops that are for sale in our neighborhood - get involved in the creative local economy. They sound so happy about the job security and the sense of participation this will bring them. I've been real cheerful about my own wins, until I hear these guys. Then I realize we're not having quite the same conversation. Though it was a cooperative effort, and we all played the same game, made the same bets, and shared the same success, somehow it worked out different for me. My big win is $40. I decide not to tell anybody this, and go on smiling and congratulating as the others make their plans. But I make some general comment about the outcome to one friend, watching surprised as he pockets a thick stack of cash (I thought he was among the ones I know who aspire to a life of voluntary poverty). He replies, smiling, "Yeah, poker can be pretty lucrative..."

I don't think this is about money. Sure, there are feelings there I could look at. How my life compares with others. How the choices that I've made with money have played out, or not. But I think the theme here is something more elemental. Like maybe opportunity. Or energy. "You've been living small-time, you should play for higher stakes"? "Pool your resources more with others, even if they're insignificant?" I don't know. It's not like I was cheated or anything. My bets were as risky as anybody's, but there was some reason the winnings worked out like they did. But the sadness is the feeling I wake with: we had so been all in this together, and suddenly, it seems, we're not...

backward: quote

If the preceding quote is my present, maybe this one is aspiration: release, clarity of mind, if not of heart... Maybe it's a thought of a seed of a start of a maybe of where it goes from this moment...forward or backward? Maybe. Anyway, it's more found-fragments lifted from Hillman.

Culture
generation fermentation decay
looks backward and reaches back
for invisibilities, to make them present
to peel, flail, excite individual sensitivity
so that it can again
notice the again
be in touch with these invisibles
orient life by their compass

the back wards display the backwards
recurring forms that do not change
which repeat in every age
these forms of chronic disorder
are the gods in disguise
seeing through to them
is a grounding act of culture
see through the manifestations of time
into the eternal patterns

think again of your own backward back ward
the timeless incurable aspect of the soul
nursing it and sitting with it
tracing the invisible mystery in it
letting compassion come for your own chronic disorder
moves you from future thinking to essential thinking
upon life's meaning and death's
upon love and its failure
upon what is truly important
upon the small things
necessitated by the limitations
begin to hear differently
watch differently
absorb more
confronted with the unbearable in my own nature
I show more trepidation
which is after all the first piece of compassion

Finally
I come to appreciate the chronic itself
more than slowing down
more than an occasion for tolerance
or instruction in survival
I come to see that things chronic
have nothing to do with civilized time
either future time when it will be better
or present time and adjustment
rather
the timeless structures of being which accompany us
keep company with us
may continue beyond
in the shadows of the gods
are the very gods themselves

-- James Hillman, from an essay called "Chronic Disorder"

*

Suns are in the sky now
Suns are in my veins
Throw me in the fire
Love is what remains

-- Joan Osborne, "Hallelujah in the City"

And if nothing remains?

ibringwhatilove

Saw a really beautiful film last night: Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love. I go to about 2 movies a year in the theater: with prices what they are, it's so rare to feel like I got my money's worth. But I'd have paid more for this one. And would recommend it, as any of several stories. It's an inspiring poor-kid-makes-it-big bio. It's a well-paced musical documentary. It's a gorgeously filmed window onto the people, culture and religion of Senegal, West Africa. And it's a balm for all the open hearts who still believe that boundaries can be transcended, acceptance made a reality, understanding be the river on which human beings travel together.

Ndour was already an international success two decades ago. He won Africa's first platinum record. Not just for Senegal. For Africa. He sang with other big names at G8. I was impressed with his music already, but didn't realize his was the soaring voice that joined Peter Gabriel on the live version, long ago, of "In Your Eyes". And for those activists I've known whose vision limited them to denying that music can help change the world, or that beauty and politics can mix: Youssou's success brought him to Washington to testify before Congress on work to end malaria in Africa, and inspired a grassroots "urban ecological movement" by youth in Senegal's inner cities. And the website says he launched his international career with the help of Senegalese taxi drivers' fraternal organizations in France and Italy.

But the heart of the movie is the record called "Egypt", his project, with Arabic musicians, about the beauty and the history of his Muslim faith. Senegal, I learn from the movie, is 94% Sufi Muslim. And the songs, stories, and glimpses of religious life woven around the story of this controversial recording -- and its long and difficult road to success -- are as real and from-the-heart as I would've expected from a Sufi context. Truly inspiring.

The movie's here in Albuquerque for 3 more nights. Looks like it might tour the West Coast after that. You can watch a preview at http://www.ibringwhatilove.com/.

voice and silence

The voice, essential expression of self that it is, comes out of the center of the self. You have only to speak to feel the proof of this. So it makes sense that when you're in pain, or in recovery, or lost and wandering somewhere in the blue in-between distance, your voice wouldn't be so easily found, either. Right?

My voice has, apparently, been somewhat dislocated of late. The last two months' grief have seen it dwindle to, sometimes, just an echo of itself. It wants, often, to fade out like a mountain stream whose spring has dried up. That's only the feeling, and only sometimes. Of course its source isn't really gone. But the voice, often, is. So that people around me - even the people I know well - have been saying a lot lately, "Sorry? Could you repeat that?" And the hell of it, the even-deeper-drought of it, is that I can't tell it's happening. I can't tell that my voice is quieter, less than normal. Just like, maybe, a stream that flowed by your home everyday and was slowly drying up wouldn't appear smaller. Until suddenly it was disappearing.

But yesterday Life sent a little rainfall. In an unexpected form. I got invited to speak on the radio. One of the coordinators of the Peace and Justice Center passed me at my Winnings table, and asked if I could help her out. They record a weekly community calendar of justice-related events, and they use two voices alternating to give it some depth. The recording session was at one, and she hadn't found her second voice yet.

We meet at the KUNM studio on campus a few hours later. We have a room to ourselves for one hour. It's easy enough reading through two pages of announcements, in turn. Even my Spanish pronunciation, required for one event, comes out passable. The coordinator, who is from Ecuador, has a gorgeous accent and intonation both. I'm relieved that mine fits in. But even better, on the playback I hear almost no trace of the Texan twang that was there for so long. This in itself is a terrific gift...

Most of our studio time is spent editing the 2-4 minute spot. She shows me how to run the complex audio program, which looks like the readout of a lie-detector test or a heart monitor. We identify and cut out all superfluous pauses and audible in-breaths that would distract our hearers. The program's best feature, in my opinion, is an item on a pull-down menu called, "Generate Silence". At times it's a little too abrupt to just cut out a breath, which after all creates a natural pause that enables comprehension. So we use Generate Silence to add a sliver of pure quiet into the speech. A counter lets you measure the length of the quiet space, and just a tenth of a second is enough. I tell her I'd be so happy to have this function to use in regular conversation. She gets it right away, and laughs. All those people uncomfortable with silence (really with themselves), who might find as much relief as I would, at one free moment where no words were needed. All those who haven't learned the graceful rhythm of give-and-take that creates true communication: I'd paste into the ether between us just 1/10 second of nothing, and there would find the space that a non-interrupter like me needs, to have a voice. Of course, I'd never impose this silence on top of anyone's speech. Only insert it quietly, in the in-between. Just like in the program, there's always a place for a breath of spaciousness, if you magnify those frantic needles and spikes of sound closely enough.

And for sure I'd add it to my own inner conversations. That worrisome muttering that won't give itself a break: Generate Silence. The aching electricity of heart-mind-pain that keeps me awake at night? Add one minute of kind, unimposing Nothing, and surely acceptance and release of consciousness would be possible. Every memory of his beautiful smile or his generous enthusiasm or all those lovely lovely words that he took back in the end...Generate Silence. Oh yeah.

For the moment, though: I do in fact have a voice. One that's audible, clear, and useful for something. KUNM has recorded proof of this. It'll air sometime this afternoon. Maybe those soundwaves will even travel further out, from there - cause who knows, really, how these things work - carrying threads of my voice and my life, woven in with all the others. Generate Connection, in someplace or some inbetween that I haven't heard of yet.

quote: reparation

(This book, a sort of extended essay on an outsider's enchantment with the state of New Mexico. This chapter, an effort to understand the deep value of the state's "Indianness" - his term - tragic history included. At this point, he's talking about the Long Walk, the forced relocation of the Navajo people from their lands to Bosque Redondo in 1864. But by the end of the quote: I'm wondering if anybody else has ever suggested such an appropriate - and completely doable! - action as this writer does. And if not, why in the world not? Am I just lacking in information? Does it take a New-York-via-California transplant to make the argument this land has been crying out for, these centuries? Come on, New Mexico: why?)

"As part of General Carleton's plan to bring down the Dine', army troops under the command of the legendary Kit Carson destroyed some five thousand peach trees on Dine' lands. Before the conflict began, Carson had been a longtime friend of the Indians. Dee Brown states that of all the atrocities committed by Carson against his old friends, the one act for which they never forgave him was the destruction of their peach trees. To Carson the trees were simply a component of the Dine' economy, one that, ironically, had been introduced to the Dine' by European settlers. To the Dine', for whom the origin of the acquisition mattered less than its essential nature, the trees were sacred. Lupita Johnson, a Dine' of the Towering House Clan and a ranger in Arizona's Canyon de Chelly (where the peach trees were destroyed), turns to white legend for a comparison to what her people suffered when they lost their trees, their land, their way of life. It was, she says, the equivalent of Adam and Eve being expelled from the Garden of Eden...

The native peoples of this continent continue to confound those of us who found them here when we arrived...Partly we are disconcerted because we know in our hearts that our victory over the Indian, if that is what it was, had nothing to do with moral or cultural superiority; victory, hollow thing, was an accident of gunpowder. Invented in the Far East, introduced into Europe during the thirteenth century by a Christian friar, it came to America in the guns of the conquerors. Had it travelled instead in the opposite direction, across the Bering Strait and down the North American continent, the Queen of England today might be Sioux, the Washington Redskins might be known as the Nanticoke Savage Whites.

But mostly, I believe, we are deeply troubled because the Indian reminds us of the monstrous truth in our past, which we have tried to hide behind the obscuring mists of myth and legend and which we continue to deny as vehemently as Germans and Russians until recently denied the truth of theirs. Our self-deception will continue to torment us until we bring it into the open, make it the centerpiece of a great national discussion, seek reconciliation with the Indian, and come face-to-face at last with this long-repressed but central fact of our history. Perhaps we can begin by planting ten million peach trees as memorials to the ten million or so Indians who were killed in order to secure this continent for whites. However we proceed, the walk will be long. But it will certainly be worth taking."

-- Robert Leonard Reid, America, New Mexico