Earth invites. Welcomes. Embraces. Leaves the door always open. Like this:
Saturday, November 24, 2012
unobstructed
Unnecessary precaution..human clutter and fear ever trying to speak louder than the stillness...blocking of the seen and the not-seen and the nonexistent (and the no longer existent)...distracting signs where there are only openings...projecting the corrupt and the forgetful that we ourselves bring...or maybe, only, neglecting to clean up our own signs and symbols so we can walk unobstructed and free. This is how the fearmind wants us to see the road:
Earth invites. Welcomes. Embraces. Leaves the door always open. Like this:
Earth invites. Welcomes. Embraces. Leaves the door always open. Like this:
Thursday, November 15, 2012
immigrant
From another intellectual gathering where I sat in the back row in my leather jacket and scrawled highly subjective notes in the dark: some entirely unacademic thoughts on migration. On the many meanings of being an "immigrant" or an "outsider". On the spectrum of choice and no-choice, of needs inner and outer, of searches practical and spiritual, that heave us travellers onto all our very different roads. This came from a talk a few years ago at the Santa Fe Art Instititute. Their fall lecture series was titled "Outsider: Tourism, Migration, Exile" and featured, on this particular night, Iranian professor/writer/producer Hamid Naficy. Documentary footage which Mr. Naficy shared, about a young woman from India attempting to assimilate in this country, contained the resonant line "she will not use the language of her tradition". These words still reverberate in my head, with their significance to any of us who left behind our cultures of origin. Along with their languages (of prejudice, of violence, of smallness) which were unconscionable for us to continue. Those who migrate because physical safety or practical necessity says that they must are followed, at a reverent distance, by those of us who receive the same mandate from conscience and from heart. All of us starting over, often with next to nothing, taking on the labor of the search for new voices and new homelands (geographical, emotional, spiritual homelands) that are safe. That allow us to thrive.
Connecting also with a favorite line from T. S. Eliot: “For last year's words belong to last year's language/ And next year's words await another voice.” As well as the declaration to "speak your truth, even if your voice shakes".
impervious border defenses only defy with this:
the crossing denied is worth all imagined risk
hostile walls accost with their heartache stories
of an other motherland
for those who are living without
her past will not uphold her
and there is no future in the familiar
no nurture in nexus of home
the dry wells they have given her to draw from
do not quench or offer growth
she quits the austere earth of her known
for an unimagined country
silences the words that dessicate, dominate, and desecrate
obscuring all the sacred
she will go free, mutable, and if need be, mute
but she will not use the language of her tradition
this land lets a new expression rise
this here's words await another voice
choice of pure presence though imperfect
now is all the power that she owns
forward out from fear
she will speak and stumble
accept the stubborn strength
of a yet unmastered tongue
to shape approximations of her real
from an unseasoned lexicon
in a voice that shatters, shakes, diminishes, returns
but belongs to her and here
alone
Connecting also with a favorite line from T. S. Eliot: “For last year's words belong to last year's language/ And next year's words await another voice.” As well as the declaration to "speak your truth, even if your voice shakes".
impervious border defenses only defy with this:
the crossing denied is worth all imagined risk
hostile walls accost with their heartache stories
of an other motherland
for those who are living without
her past will not uphold her
and there is no future in the familiar
no nurture in nexus of home
the dry wells they have given her to draw from
do not quench or offer growth
she quits the austere earth of her known
for an unimagined country
silences the words that dessicate, dominate, and desecrate
obscuring all the sacred
she will go free, mutable, and if need be, mute
but she will not use the language of her tradition
this land lets a new expression rise
this here's words await another voice
choice of pure presence though imperfect
now is all the power that she owns
forward out from fear
she will speak and stumble
accept the stubborn strength
of a yet unmastered tongue
to shape approximations of her real
from an unseasoned lexicon
in a voice that shatters, shakes, diminishes, returns
but belongs to her and here
alone
Saturday, November 10, 2012
changing planes
Master storyteller Ursula LeGuin has a collection of short stories about people who travel to strange and varied places by way of a common interdimensional portal, which happens to be an airport. The book is wonderfully titled Changing Planes.
I had a little of that kind of travel last year. Just about a year ago, in fact. How did I not write it down yet? Since all of this writing is an attempt to give thanks for Life's crazy gifts, in whatever form they arrive?
It's my last night in Portland, Oregon. I've spent ten days here catching up with all the friends who I haven't seen in the almost five years since this city was home. It's been a beautiful time. We've affirmed that those threads of connection, fragile though they may be, can bear stretching out over time and distance, when enough love and goodwill spin them. I've waded through several waves of the nostalgia and what-if that let me imagine dropping everything and moving back here, and now I'm ready to get home to New Mexico. I've walked and bussed all the familiar old streets, from SE to NW, right now bejeweled with gorgeous falling leaves of gold and copper and garnet under rapidly silvering skies and the coming winter rains. I've drunk the best coffee and bought some used books and cheered for a poetry openmic and viewed a Zapatista documentary and danced with all the good hippies at the Laurelthirst. These last few nights I've been a guest at the very quiet Whitefeather House, a cooperative home started by an activist, UP professor, and a former catholic worker housemate. It's so good to know that the doors I helped open before are still open to me. I've felt grateful, in good company, at peace.
But this morning jolts me awake out of strange dreamtime journeys. Several companions and I are leaving the city, heading into the mountains, in a beat-up 70's station wagon. We're hurried and apprehensive, glancing over our shoulders. As the highway starts to climb and the canyon narrows, following the river, an object hurtles out of the sky and crashes onto the pavement just ahead of us. Then another, at our back. Large jagged pieces of an airplane are falling from the sky. One lump of metal looks like part of an engine, and another is clearly the tail of a Southwest Airlines plane: blue with red trim. Our driver grips the wheel and fixes his eyes on the road. But then with a bang! a tire blows, and we skid to the asphalt's edge. We laboriously repair the tire, which has exploded into frayed edges, and continue on. More plane parts thud awfully all around us. Then the tire goes out again -- but this time, when we stop, we find that it's only popped off the rim and is an easy fix. If we can just keep moving, surely we can outrun whatever disasters are unfolding, in the city at our back and in the skies above us...
Waking is paralysis and pure disorientation, the first few moments. I can't tell where I am, or if I've escaped the danger. Then the reality of this space replaces and I realize: I'm due at the airport -- on a Southwest flight -- in two hours. What in the world is going on here? Why such a disturbing dream at a tranquil moment like this? Should I be terrified? I decide to put off that last question until I've had breakfast and some coffee. At the diner down the street, I call the friend who's offered to take me to the airport and ask if he's got a little extra time to meet me here and talk. He is kind enough to get there 30 minutes early, and listens to my dream story with interest. He's got a similar respect for the dream world and its guidance. We agree that maybe proceed-with-caution is more or less the best option. And perhaps, as the dream seems to suggest, to keep the eyes open for a repeated opportunity, whose second iteration appears less serious than the first.
Two nights earlier, this same friend invited me to the event of the trip that most fed the soul (and for Portland, that's saying a lot). We saw Latif Bolat, a Turkish Sufi singer, in concert at a Buddhist temple. Mr. Bolat had saturated an already sacred space with the beauty of his voice and his playing of the traditional stringed baglama, with stunning photos from the Turkish tours he leads annually, with humble and witty stories of his country and his religion. It was hard to leave such a lovely venue, when the evening was over. And it's a surprise, now, to see him standing at the other side of the airport waiting area. Cautiously I approach him, introduce myself as having been at his show, and thank him for his performance. He's as nice in person as he was onstage, and it turns out we're waiting for the same plane. His next stop is Santa Fe. Surely this flight must be blessed, with such a luminous passenger as this one. Maybe I'm wrong to worry about tragic skyborne accidents. Maybe I should clear my mind, remember a lifetime of undeniable protection, and get on board. Or, maybe there's a message here that's only mine to consider, and doesn't affect the others on this flight...
Then our plane wheels up to the gate, below the wide picture window. The sight of that red-and-blue paint job sets the adrenaline flowing again. I take a walk down the hallway and put it out of sight for the moment. I breathe deep, and ask for just a little more clarity. Just then a woman's voice comes over a loudspeaker. With our sincerest apologies, Southwest passengers, we seem to have overbooked this flight. In the next half hour before it leaves, we welcome any volunteers whose schedules are more flexible to come up to the counter, and exchange your seat on this plane for another one later today. We'll give you a travel voucher for your cooperation.
Alright then. Seven of us approach the desk, are thanked and checked off the list and shown another waiting area. The red-and-blue plane begins boarding, and Latif Bolat and the others leave the room. I say a sort of prayer for them, that maybe the singer's light will diffuse over all the passengers. The seven of us are informed that we'll have a 3 to 4 hour wait. I call my friend and tell him about developments, and he offers his wonder and affirmation (two qualities that have always made him a fine fellow traveller on the life-trip). I hit 'restart' on my worried mind, and remember myself into the flow of mystery and magic and providence. All is well. When our new plane rolls up the window -- still Southwest -- it's painted in blue and gold this time. We board and fly to Albuquerque without incident. And a week later I receive an email from Southwest with a voucher of equal value to the flight just completed. Which will open the portal to a return trip to Mexico, a few months later...but that's another story.
After some time, I got past the irrational fears enough to check the one proof I have that the first plane also arrived safely: Latif Bolat's website. And he does seem to be alive and well. http://latifbolat.com/bio.php. It seems that Life, for its own mysterious and unseen reasons, only needed me, at that moment, to get on another plane...
I had a little of that kind of travel last year. Just about a year ago, in fact. How did I not write it down yet? Since all of this writing is an attempt to give thanks for Life's crazy gifts, in whatever form they arrive?
It's my last night in Portland, Oregon. I've spent ten days here catching up with all the friends who I haven't seen in the almost five years since this city was home. It's been a beautiful time. We've affirmed that those threads of connection, fragile though they may be, can bear stretching out over time and distance, when enough love and goodwill spin them. I've waded through several waves of the nostalgia and what-if that let me imagine dropping everything and moving back here, and now I'm ready to get home to New Mexico. I've walked and bussed all the familiar old streets, from SE to NW, right now bejeweled with gorgeous falling leaves of gold and copper and garnet under rapidly silvering skies and the coming winter rains. I've drunk the best coffee and bought some used books and cheered for a poetry openmic and viewed a Zapatista documentary and danced with all the good hippies at the Laurelthirst. These last few nights I've been a guest at the very quiet Whitefeather House, a cooperative home started by an activist, UP professor, and a former catholic worker housemate. It's so good to know that the doors I helped open before are still open to me. I've felt grateful, in good company, at peace.
But this morning jolts me awake out of strange dreamtime journeys. Several companions and I are leaving the city, heading into the mountains, in a beat-up 70's station wagon. We're hurried and apprehensive, glancing over our shoulders. As the highway starts to climb and the canyon narrows, following the river, an object hurtles out of the sky and crashes onto the pavement just ahead of us. Then another, at our back. Large jagged pieces of an airplane are falling from the sky. One lump of metal looks like part of an engine, and another is clearly the tail of a Southwest Airlines plane: blue with red trim. Our driver grips the wheel and fixes his eyes on the road. But then with a bang! a tire blows, and we skid to the asphalt's edge. We laboriously repair the tire, which has exploded into frayed edges, and continue on. More plane parts thud awfully all around us. Then the tire goes out again -- but this time, when we stop, we find that it's only popped off the rim and is an easy fix. If we can just keep moving, surely we can outrun whatever disasters are unfolding, in the city at our back and in the skies above us...
Waking is paralysis and pure disorientation, the first few moments. I can't tell where I am, or if I've escaped the danger. Then the reality of this space replaces and I realize: I'm due at the airport -- on a Southwest flight -- in two hours. What in the world is going on here? Why such a disturbing dream at a tranquil moment like this? Should I be terrified? I decide to put off that last question until I've had breakfast and some coffee. At the diner down the street, I call the friend who's offered to take me to the airport and ask if he's got a little extra time to meet me here and talk. He is kind enough to get there 30 minutes early, and listens to my dream story with interest. He's got a similar respect for the dream world and its guidance. We agree that maybe proceed-with-caution is more or less the best option. And perhaps, as the dream seems to suggest, to keep the eyes open for a repeated opportunity, whose second iteration appears less serious than the first.
Two nights earlier, this same friend invited me to the event of the trip that most fed the soul (and for Portland, that's saying a lot). We saw Latif Bolat, a Turkish Sufi singer, in concert at a Buddhist temple. Mr. Bolat had saturated an already sacred space with the beauty of his voice and his playing of the traditional stringed baglama, with stunning photos from the Turkish tours he leads annually, with humble and witty stories of his country and his religion. It was hard to leave such a lovely venue, when the evening was over. And it's a surprise, now, to see him standing at the other side of the airport waiting area. Cautiously I approach him, introduce myself as having been at his show, and thank him for his performance. He's as nice in person as he was onstage, and it turns out we're waiting for the same plane. His next stop is Santa Fe. Surely this flight must be blessed, with such a luminous passenger as this one. Maybe I'm wrong to worry about tragic skyborne accidents. Maybe I should clear my mind, remember a lifetime of undeniable protection, and get on board. Or, maybe there's a message here that's only mine to consider, and doesn't affect the others on this flight...
Then our plane wheels up to the gate, below the wide picture window. The sight of that red-and-blue paint job sets the adrenaline flowing again. I take a walk down the hallway and put it out of sight for the moment. I breathe deep, and ask for just a little more clarity. Just then a woman's voice comes over a loudspeaker. With our sincerest apologies, Southwest passengers, we seem to have overbooked this flight. In the next half hour before it leaves, we welcome any volunteers whose schedules are more flexible to come up to the counter, and exchange your seat on this plane for another one later today. We'll give you a travel voucher for your cooperation.
Alright then. Seven of us approach the desk, are thanked and checked off the list and shown another waiting area. The red-and-blue plane begins boarding, and Latif Bolat and the others leave the room. I say a sort of prayer for them, that maybe the singer's light will diffuse over all the passengers. The seven of us are informed that we'll have a 3 to 4 hour wait. I call my friend and tell him about developments, and he offers his wonder and affirmation (two qualities that have always made him a fine fellow traveller on the life-trip). I hit 'restart' on my worried mind, and remember myself into the flow of mystery and magic and providence. All is well. When our new plane rolls up the window -- still Southwest -- it's painted in blue and gold this time. We board and fly to Albuquerque without incident. And a week later I receive an email from Southwest with a voucher of equal value to the flight just completed. Which will open the portal to a return trip to Mexico, a few months later...but that's another story.
After some time, I got past the irrational fears enough to check the one proof I have that the first plane also arrived safely: Latif Bolat's website. And he does seem to be alive and well. http://latifbolat.com/bio.php. It seems that Life, for its own mysterious and unseen reasons, only needed me, at that moment, to get on another plane...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
