Communion

Walking, walking, I am only

finally, a self and soon no self

walking...

the gift of now is moving off the map

and out of time's entanglement

awed and stealthy, I approach

great spiral-branching ponderosa

press third eye to its broad trunk and hope

for sudden rush of visioning of all this tree has

known above ground and below

Nothing rushes in. It's All Good.

Only, then, a souvenir

a slip of bark from this soft lap of earth

It's Sunday and this is my only communion

my one small sliver of thanksgiving

my stolen bite of fruit forbidden

inclusion scarce but never all denied

never All denied

on the rising path I meet others

all are wrapped in their own silence

offer them quiet, cautious greeting

wary of disturbing that inherent peace

where they've for just one moment found themselves

if my souljourney's baggage gets too heavy

if the weight of all its labels (past and present)

and their sad centuries of accumulating loss

is too much heartache to carry further

(and if I need replacements for the set)

there's one I'd maybe yet engage

not for identity – that's another story

but for the dialogue that labels,

if used carefully, unlock

the word is Pagan

in all intriguing senses of its use

one who lives closer to the ground

outside the city, declining borders

the outsider, who's "not one of us”

and one who best knows Earth for her Divine

and one who doesn't know.

Voice of conquerors, establishers, insiders, will identify me

as they have before, as Other

I'll put my lot in with the notknowing

that beautiful limbo that's already been my home

all these unravelling and remaking years

I'll testify: I've known the Nothing –

it's been a good force

perhaps a God force

certainly a kind forgiving and embracing one.

Out of the treebasin, back on the plateau

The clouds to the west all have silver linings.

Where does that perspective come from?

Why linings? Why only within?

I am the one inside, for now, just opposite the silver.

I am wrapped in cloud, and looking out into the Light.

Wind presses on me, crawls into my lungs.

resuscitates, and whispers, BREATHE.

Thoughts go out to all the fellow travellers

who too are rich in nothing

who might embrace the label of know-Nothings

we've taught each other just by being

no more than our selves

with no more than we know

teachers, companions, portals to the infinite

in light of their own looking to light

walking blind with the sun in their eyes

walking on the true inside, looking out

calling me out of my shadow

into brilliance, and still calling

if

for Wayne, my brother on the Journey...

If some wise voice had told us

back in the beginning

run this far

dream this conscious

work the body to this end of exhaustion

we would do it, willingly

If the soul could make love

If the heart alone could create connection

we would already live

in such a sparking sparkling web of linking

of soul-sharing, of bright thinking

to leave enlightened abstract teachings

dull and lightless by comparison

No distance travelled will find us there

only ever more here – our truer goal

no river of tears will sail us

though it might avail us of the greater Flow

this is a journey each must see through

and we will in time and freedom from illusions

see through it indeed

and we will bring

to whatever other side of this

such heartfire as is seldom lit

such intention as deprivation only can distill

such Beauty as this sleeping world still dreams

and that – Love willing –

some kindred in this life's time

will have deep privilege of returning

wondering

Will wonders

never cease

opening

pain to perception

dull to quickening

knowing to nothing

moment to ever

Will disconnect ever give

way to connection

revealing

this vast secret of collective

guarded mystery of belonging

inside joke of interdependence

Life does give

and I am given over

and over

but cannot seem to really offer

Love does make

and I am unmade

and remade

a thousand wrenching times

I would even say reborn

still knowing next to nothing

of love or of making

How do people find it

possible to spin these sticky webs

and keep on living in them

How give all to weaving

these fragile finite fraying lives

then unravel them and start again?

How such facile words

of any life or lives outside of this

when this one shudders, shivers

grinds its gears

slips out of Motion and back in

and reincarnates here in this continuum

yet again

Life gives

Whose life is this? It's one crazy waking dream. But if it's mine, I want to keep it...I think....

This time last night Life and I were not on the best of terms. Those cold currents of experience it can bring in its flow. Undertows, at times. What seemed like a simple check-in with one of my housemates (who I see about once a week) suddenly expanded into an astonishing list of failures and offenses I had committed against her, both inadvertent and intentional. Half of which were not events I recognized or even remembered. The rapid escalation of hurt, and the seeming one-sidedness of the perspective, was like too many relationships out of my past, and too many memories crowded into the moment, totally uninvited. My mother, for 7 years of tragedy, blame, and drama. The ex who wouldn't give up, and was never wrong. The best friend of 10 years who turned on me, with a similar list of unforgivables. The other ex, who broke up with me by email with no warning, no explanation, and no room to talk about it anymore. After 20 minutes of this shock from my housemate, attempting various responses while trying to hold off the inner demons, I left the house barely holding it together. Forcing out the few clear words of explanation I could find, that may or may not have made any sense.

This probably sounds like victim talk. God, I hope not. Of course, all these people in my life had their perspectives. Their reasons. Their deep roots, and the earth they were growing in. Of course, I had a part, because I'm far from perfection myself. Of course, we can't ever truly know another's pain. But what hurts, and the reason the hurt is deep and slow to heal, is that in all but the final case, of the past situations, I put heart and soul and guts and sweat and tears into trying to work it out. And it wasn't enough. Sometimes, we just can't know another's pain. Sometimes, we don't get to know anything at all. But I wish to God I could know why I keep getting so closely connected with people who repress, who store up such intense hurt, and then unleash it, in this way. There's gotta be something I'm supposed to learn from this.

But after way too many years, I am finally finding it possible, if not to do perfect communication under pressure, at least to ask for a few things that I need. When the weight of that pressure gets too heavy to carry alone. This has literally taken all of my life, so far, to learn. But last night, and today, I remembered, just a little bit. I held up my hands and said, to Life and to a few good friends: Can I have a kind listening ear, and a safe space for a couple hours? Can I have a few minutes of your thoughtful feedback, over the longdistance phone? Can I have another of those hugs that lifts my spirits so well? And, in every case, Life - and the friends - said, Yes, you can.

And English class, this morning, was a beautiful, peaceful, workable space in the chaos. We were three, for the first time today. Both women are motivated, curious, open, fun. Ready to go. Lots of questions, lots of initiative, lots of tangential discussion of the oddities of spelling and grammar (try owning all of your language's irregular verbs sometime, if you want to ease into engagement with the collective weight and obstruction of the human condition).

I hope I make it worth their while, these 2 hours a week. They're sure gonna make it worth mine. And keep me on my toes, too. L., the new student, smiled at me using scraps of paper to write spelling examples on, and volunteered to bring her kid's little chalkboard to the next class.

Go with the flow. The flow was something to be trusted again, by today. Let the conversations build, and rebuild the moments. Let the students create the class, too, with their questions and needs and interests. I knew that flexibility is what would make tutoring work, but didn't really feel it happening until today. We were talking so much, covering so much new ground, that we didn't get to most of the activities I had planned. Have to save health vocabulary, phoning the doctor, and Body Parts Bingo til next week.

inauguration

Is this just one of the odd come-together events happening around the country today, or is this just us - our little remnant of the wild wild West - here in Santa Fe? The only public place I could find to watch the Inauguration was a bar. It opened at 8 a.m. for the occasion, and served some drinks even. At any rate, it was a fine, shoulder-to-shoulder human celebration.

There was a little of the jeering and the bashing that I so hope we can get past now. Guess the people gotta vent their feelings, in whatever vocabulary they've got. When Bush appeared on the many TV screens around the room, there was a round of "BOO"'s, and a local drag queen (one of the hosts of the event) ran to the nearest screen and lobbed a shoe at it. Alright, that was a great move. A bit later, Cheney was rolled out in his wheelchair (wow! The implications - the vindications - of that sight. That's just too heavy to speak of, man). The voice on the PA announced the - sorry, I didn't catch the proper terminology - the un-swearing? swearing off? of the Vice President. A guy next to me yelled out, "CHENEY GOES FIRST!" and there was a cheer that shook the rafters. Alright, now we're done with the jeers...

On TV, one of the commentators gets caught up in the moment: "This is ALL REALLY HAPPENING."

Best crowd shot, on the Mall: a guy throws open his jacket to show off his T-shirt, which reads, "YES WE DID".

I won't try to recall all the beautiful lines from President Obama's address. Only to say I heard that sweet approaching music of Change, even now. Not just the change of government, of organization, of legislation. The change of essential things, within us and around the world. Let it be so...

Mobius trip

This latest bout with word/play (I'm not sure yet who won) was provoked by a passing disgruntled thought: is anybody out there actually reading my other blog, or am I putting all these earnest ideas into the Current for no reason? I know, it's mostly just ideas. But some of them do connect to tangible and relevant actions. Then I turned the thought back on myself: do these ideas really have anything to do with me? Can I have or claim any kind of attachment to them, when I'm barely playing a walk-on role in the human race right now?

My goal was to have these two blogs, one for the inner/creating/feeling world, and one for the outer/doing/change-effecting one. But, not for the first time, engagement with the social-political realm (apart from the most basic, necessary work like food rescue) just feels like the ego seeking a soapbox. And, living apart at present from a community, I'm really not doing that much. This page is presuming to have and to share these fascinating divergent sides of me, but maybe, in fact, I've only got one side to speak of: the inside.

Thinking of one-sided entities brought Mobius strips to mind, and I looked the term up online (if it's on wikipedia, it's the truth, right? Ha.). What follows is partly a wikipedia found-poem. Probably too I should cite a much earlier influence, and thank Neil Peart for tuning me in, with many a Rush lyric, to all the wonderfully analogous elements of humanity and science. An influence further nurtured by five years' work in the field of artificial intelligence research and computer language processing, surrounded by geeky geniuses and their excellent wordplaying abilities. So, this might not be my final answer, if there is one, but it's an effort to settle the internal argument – am I really doing anything here that matters? - at least for the moment...

And, on that note of seeking and significance: happy First Day of Aquarius!

Just one initiating twist

creates uncategoried shape

with one true edge

one boundary – though paper-thin -

one persevering surface

one open pathway returning

to beginning with no borders crossed

with all the effort we expend

to define, improve, identify, and differentiate

does any making, turning or intent

manifest a truly expanded state...

with all the soul I test and tend

resisting always unexamined word and deed

do my best turns of phrase, of thought, of seeing

have really any offering to this world's need?

wikipedia describes a Mobius strip

as “a non-orientable surface”

by which is meant a figure

that cannot be repositioned

to appear its own mirror image

in fact, wiki further affirms

that the shape may be considered

“the source of all non-orientability.”

(Hard words for us lopsided self-reflective shapes

still seeking our trajectory on this plane)

However, the figure gains high praise

for its many practical applications

“A device called a Mobius resistor

is an electronic circuit element which has

the property of canceling its own inductive reactance.”

(Certainly a tendency that I would like to cancel

and someday reroute those wary generalizing energies

toward more productive, less reactionary use of power)

And this:

“The Mobius strip is the configuration space

of two unordered points on a circle.

Consequently, in music theory,

the space of all two note chords

known as dyads

takes the shape of a Mobius strip.”

(I cannot begin to fathom this

but the effort is a joyful dance through imagination)

The expositions continue and

the links are nearly limitless

and let us not begin even to click on

compact resonators

helical magnetism

high transition temperatures or

inductionless resistance

charged particles (it reads)

caught in earth's magnetic field

can move on a Mobius band

(it's all one Everything, always here, right?)

Yes! See:

“the Universal Recycling Symbol

is a form of Mobius strip”

all this rich data

embodies just a moment's idle theory:

all my efforts to grow and to acquire depth

still seem to leave me flat, one-sided

and unevenly reflective

but that one side's the inner side

and at the least it knows its source and inclination

though I may traverse it at ant-speed

with no attachment to point of arrival

despite the wish of ego and ideals for

clear and tangible accomplishment

there may not be an outer plane here

I only really know this one developable surface

rejoined at the center and wound around infinity

Tibetan monks and indie church

Ho boy. I went to church today. But, let me explain.

The motivation to visit this place, a local indie church that meets in a conference room of an office park, was their notice in the paper: 10 Tibetan monks would be their guests today, presenting "Sacred Chanting and multiphonic singing". The monks are in town on a national tour in support of their "refugee monastery" (their fascinating and sadly descriptive term) in southern India. The church is a DIY effort, organized by volunteers and led by consensus, that seeks to affirm the sacredness of all spiritual paths and the divine in each person. A great intention, for sure. But I could tell right away that my antisocial side (waxing toward the full, lately) was gonna have a little trouble getting through this. Friendly greetings, eye contact, so many hands to shake, optimistic brotherlylove singing with piano and guitar. And, too: fluorescent lights. Straightback chairs. Such close physical proximity to others. Yeah, this isn't easy. I want to leave already, and it's only just started. But at the same time, it's worth the effort of being here, in the grip of all these shallow discomforts, for this little insight: much of the stuff that makes me, and I think many others, uncomfortable in churches has nothing really to do with churches. It's the same stuff that makes me uncomfortable in classrooms, and in banks, and in doctor's offices: the well-meaning but artificial "comforts" of climate control, organization, predictability, and interpersonal social constructs that we've taken on by living far too much in cities, and buildings, and institutions. In structures, of whatever kind.

But I had to stay, and not only because this seemed a worthy and unusual human experience. I had to stay because of a dream. Years ago, after I had left the sad, sterile, intellect-suffocated church in which I spent all my younger years, I embarked on its healing and my own, in a series of dreams. In one of these, a row of monks, in coarse brown robes that looked Franciscan, stood at the front of the old church, and bathed all its members in a wash of light and sound, humming and chanting that shook the floors, stretched the walls like they were breathing, lit up the roof with a light like the sun's, both more brilliant and infinitely more gentle, and reverberated in my chest like ocean, like deep earth, like sound as a living being, even after I woke up. This was years before I had ever heard throat singing, or any monks' chants. I didn't even know much about Franciscans then. I only knew, for the first of many many times, that there was beautypower and lifebreath out there, that could so outshine and heal through all the impoverished experiences I had so far endured in the name of religion. This dream assured me, and was one of many such knowings that kept me alive to the hopeful search. So. I had to stick it out, today, and see if the singing of these monks, in a setting of similiarly absurd contrast, would prove as vibrant, as life-bringing.

And it does. The monks most definitely erase the momentary unease of the rest of the service. A solid line of scarlet and saffron, one singing bowl, one small chime, and one microphone for the monk who seems to be the lead voice. And a wave of sonic healing that swooshes across and shushes and subsumes the room for 25 minutes. Deep, vibrating, round tones, like a massive engine powering up, that I associate with the Tuvan throat singing with which I'm more familiar. Solid middle-level hums and beams of sound, sometimes shaped into syllables, the most frequently occurring of which sounds like "JOY". And a thread of higher pitch that weaves in and out of the music, barely audible, often like a coyote's howl, and sometimes very much like the spirally static noise you might get while tuning through an old radio late at night, in between stations.

They move easily, eyes closed, between all these realms of sound, standing in complete stillness. The song is one long, spacious house with many different rooms, which are not separated by doors. At one moment the middle-hum rises, dives, lofts and the JOY! swoops toward the ceiling, almost gets away! like a balloon a kid has just let go. But it's caught, reeled in, smoothed down to silence, and suddenly the chant is over. They give us the blessing of 5 minutes of total silence afterward, for which the entire room is tangibly grateful, so intense was the sound, and its leaving, and our need now for a space to find re-entry.

I ended my visit as I've done more than once at such gatherings: sneaking out, from my last-row seat, before it ended. So as not to endure any more kindness from friendly extroverted strangers. So as not to lose contact with the healing just brought to the mind by way of the body. So as to continue the dream of grace, life, and healing, that travels so far into the places where words just don't go.

Mexico resurfacing

Carlos Fuentes, you stole my heart. Not for yourself - I was born about half a century too late for that. You stole it on behalf of your country, with your eloquent and brutal and revelatory writings about Mexico. You present the land, the nation, as a personality - as a person, almost - and one that I find a very deep sympathy with. Empathy, even, in many suprising ways. Empathy with the country's lifelong struggle to survive, to remain, in the face of attack, incursion, exclusion. Its multiple personalities confined to life in one body. Its essential wealth and wisdom, contrasted with the poverty and corruptibility of its historical circumstance. I have travelled through Mexico, the summers of the past two years, in search of this elusive and enchanting entity that I see in your writings, both fiction and otherwise. And not only have I begun to find some of it, but it's found me. It's not just tourism, this. It's a journey that seeks to understand some of the prime movers of my own life, and the life of the world in which I live. This search is a river that I can channel underground for a time, but it doesn't look likely to dry up anytime soon. Ongoing conversations with friends - last night the most recent - bring its flow within sight, or at least within tantalizing hearing. For now, I have to recognize it with this, the most mindbending quote gleaned from your writings, Mr. Fuentes, so far. And the quote with which my own idealist soul finds the deepest, most startling resonance.

"In the land of need that is Mexico, desire is a central fact of life and imagination. Western civilization, in a certain sense, has been one long road toward the encounter of desire and its objects. In our time, we realize that a permanent contradiction has presided over this journey: the desire of the Western world diminishes in inverse proportion to the number of objects capable of satisfying it. The desires and the objects have often been false, and today they are in any case diminished: smaller desires, smaller objects...

In Mexico, the impossible distance between desire and the thing desired has given both yearning and object an incandescent purity. The bridges drawn from the shore of aspiration to the shore of satisfaction must override, by force, all "realistic" contingency. In Mexican popular life, in our definitive acts of love and death, passion and revolution, art and celebration, opposites meet and desire is nothing but the acknowledgment of the estrangement previous to the reunion. It is, perhaps, even the condition for the reunion to take place. Death shall become life, revolution shall be a fiesta, passion shall become art, spirit matter, accident essence, and body soul. You shall be I. A mask, a word, a greeting, or a farewell, a way of walking or looking will be enough for the meeting to occur: any celebration that ensures that we come closer -- before sickness, death, separation, or distance triumphs all over again. A disguise, a dance are sufficient to obtain the desired beauty, courage, sensuality, identity: I shall be You. For after all, desire is love for something else; it is transfiguration. Desire must assail reality to meet its object, to recover the unity of the subverted Eden that is our country. The nostalgia of paradise lost, the impossibility of paradise future leave most Mexicans with no possibility other than paradise in the present, the most difficult of all paradises to inhabit because so fugitive -- the past one instant, the future the next."
- Carlos Fuentes, _A New Time For Mexico_

insomnia, undone (?)

Salvation! in the form of a tiny little pill, that gives me back my sleep...all natural/herbal, of course, from our excellent family guru. 9 beautiful hours of oblivion, 3 dream cycles: this is wealth, to me. Couldn't ask for anything more, today.

Dream 1 clears out memories of partnership-as-it-was, with an ex who would not, could not show me respect and healthy space. My compliments to the Props and Lighting Department on this one: the scene is a construction site, piles of upturned earth on every side. The weather is heavy cloudcover, looming low. And my getaway vehicle is an electric blue mini-stunt-bike.

Dream 2 is partnership-as-it-could-be: a stand-in leading man showers me with carefully chosen birthday gifts and innumerable small kindnesses, and my greatest difficulty (true to life, this) is just to keep receiving...

Dream 3 is a graduation celebration for a large group of us who have just completed a training course of some kind, in a Spanish-speaking country. There aren't enough details given to know what country, or what kind of course - only that our work is a success, and many strong bonds of friendship and community have been begun. In a crowded house of warm welcome and humming conviviality, we pose for group photos, receive our certificates, and plot future journeys over dinner. Lots of laughter, jokes, friendly self-deprecation at our struggles to overcome language barriers (we, the students, seem to be from all over). We write up a list of our linguistic progresses, and hang it on the wall. Looking out a window, I see the industrial sector of the town in which we are headquartered, and the high-desert landscape beyond. Blue mountains rim the view, with a white dusting of snow. This could be central Mexico (is my Props Dept. adding unnatural precipitation?). It could be Santa Fe, at that.

Waking lucidity: one beautiful practice my old dreamgroup turned me on to. Empowered awareness in the dreamtime is, of course, the eventual goal. But why not start when we're awake? To say, as I walk under cobalt skies, with actual snow-dusted lapis mountains at my verge: "This could be Santa Fe...Wow, it IS Santa Fe, at that!" "I'm walking, I'm on my own two feet, I'm capable of any motion, in any direction, that I choose: what a crazy miracle." "I choose, next, to walk through this bright-painted coffeeshop door and find myself in Mexico again..." Well, it can't hurt to try. Two outta three. But this dream brings to mind - it was already in mind - that I have to bring out some more words about journeying, and in particular of Mexico, soon. There's many dreams there that ask to be brought to light again. To further lucidity.

wake

This isn't poetry, it's detox. Mind will take one third of the blame for a night such as this, and body another third. And the third third I give to Carlos Fuentes, for words that burn to the core of the being and the doing...

"There's only one frontier we dare to cross at night...The frontier of our differences with others, of our battles with ourselves."

"If it is necessary, our atomized consciousness invents love, imagines it or feigns it, but does not live without it, since in the midst of infinite dispersion, love, even if as a pretext, gives us the measure of our loss."
(both from _The Old Gringo_)

Woke in quiet of storm's wake

sleeping in the bed that I unmade

facing a wall aslant at a 45

angle of light from an opaque sun

on unsettling side of sky

comes to land on twisted limbs

legs are on backwards, feet point to heaven

arms stretch blind, a guess at forward

heart still lying

under the desk where it rolled

in a struggle the night before

spasms once and starts to beat again

ears ring with perfect clarities whose

last words are caught just sneaking out the door

rise up and try to follow them

with eyes split into diamond facets like a dragonfly's

while muscles crystallized with memory of every pain

crack open and remember motion once again

scars sing with atmospheric violence still rebounding

back into cloudbank height from which it fell

through this flat white ceiling's good intentions

that don't protect from elemental shifts

the beauty is still out there

if I can just remember where the window is

or track a blind path to the door

and stumble into light's remaking

The Other Santa Fe, part 2

A few more images from the Other Santa Fe:

It's not all working-class struggle, and it's not only an immigrant town. It does have a couple of charter schools. The community college. The city's small business incubator. And a Buddhist temple - which is located behind a trailer park. But if you go out on a Saturday night, or if you even go to Allsup's, you better be wearing your cowboy hat or you're gonna stand out.

On the subject of trailer parks, I'm fascinated by the difference between outer and inner, of so many mobile homes. Such expressions of dedication, creativity, doing a lot with the little you got. A battered aluminum door is just as likely to open (to the pizza delivery driver) onto 40-year-old shag carpet and Goodwill couches as onto saltillo tile, crystal chandeliers, and movie-size television sets. The momentary visions I get, of home and family and life-in-progress, leave me often full of wonder and bemusement. Here's one, from last week: as the door opens, the family of five is just starting up a karaoke program on the wall-size TV. The song cued up on screen is "Rio" by Duran Duran. An 11-year-old boy holds a wireless mike, in the center of the living room, and is playing with the settings on the program. "Canta en espanol", says his mother. "No, I wanna sing it in English!" he replies, and just then the music prompts him to sing out ("DOWN IN THE CITY"), as his father hands me the money and the door closes on the scene.

Here, too, is the Santa Fe I live and work in: Saturday night karaoke at the bowling alley. Five 20-something guys gather round a table, dressed to the nines in full mariachi costume. All immaculate black and white, silver conchos down the pant legs, red bow ties. They take turns getting up, between the other local kids who are doing predictable pop music, to perform very competent Norteno ballads, properly dramatic intonation and all. Then two of them get up at once and do an equally impressive -and dramatic- rendition of System of a Down's "Toxicity". Is there any other city, I ask, where you could see this happen?

The Other Santa Fe

Talking with various friends in Abq this week, I was surprised, in turn, by their frequent surprise at my mention of The Other Santa Fe. The one whose citizens work for a living. The one I work in, and in which I spend at least half my time.

South Santa Fe really is not the same town, quantifiable in a number of ways, as the City Different with its reputation for world-class culture and world-class snobbishness. It doesn't have any internationally famed cuisine, movie-star sightings, designer clothing stores, or opera venues. It has the mall, the Wal-mart, the airport, a new supersized movie theater. It seems to have some housing within the reach of working families and single people. It has about half a dozen trailer parks that are each home to a hundred families or more, and unknown numbers (probably even to city offices) of smaller trailer courts and cheap-to-very-cheap apartment buildings. It seems to have some of the area's best urban open space, thanks perhaps to a progressive shift in leadership (or maybe to the construction, over the last decade, of "affordable" housing on such a grand scale, to such a profit, as to give developers a little openness of heart with all that land that they had to work with?)

And it has - one of my favorite aspects - a Spanish-speaking population almost comparable in numbers to its English speakers. I won't attempt to get into the socio-economic implications of linguistic or cultural enclaves, because -- well, because I'm no expert, and I got no grounds to speak on that subject. Or need to. I'm only going to say I thoroughly enjoy the other-ness of this other city. Who, as far as I can tell, doesn't give a damn what the uppercrust and the enlightened of Santa Fe society are doing, only minutes up Cerrillos Road from them. I also much enjoy the consistent opportunity to practice my Spanish on the job. Because I dearly hope to be fluent, one of these years. And because the Flow changes, when I get to move even for a moment in a realm of communication that seems to use both brain hemispheres equally: knowledge, and imagination; grammar, and the very necessary good humor and humility of a learner.

Santa Fe Domino's Pizza inside joke: about 2-3 times a night the phone rings, and the person who answers can't take the call, because they only speak English. They put it on hold and call out, "SPANISH!", to which any of half a dozen of us who speak it will come a-running. The other night the phone rang, and there was a quiet minute after it was answered, where it seemed nobody was doing anything. Tommy, one of the long-timers, one of the bilingual drivers, looks around and grins. "ENGLISH!" he calls out. It's not that far off, really, from how it is there.

Today might've been a record: I think half or more of the phone orders I took were Spanish calls. Maybe that amazing statistic I heard, about the language demographic of Santa Fe County, could be true after all. At any rate it got more fun (and easier to get past the blocks of the brain and of phone communications in general) as the day went on. The high point was when a woman came in with her young daughter, who she was clearly rehearsing their order with so the daughter could be translator. It comes up again and again, in reading, in ESL training, in observation: the fragile (and not always helpful) power dynamic created when parents have to let their kids do the talking for them. So I stepped up and said, "Puedo ayudarle: cual es su numero de telefono?" And was delighted to see both mother and daughter at once say "ha!" and brighten with bemused but pleased smiles.

ESL, week 3

Third meeting today with my ESL student. We're supposed to maintain confidentiality, but I hope it's okay to say a little bit about what I'm learning - so much - from my efforts to be a "tutor" and my weekly conversations with her. So I'll call her M.

She's got it together: courage, motivation, sense of humor. Ready to learn English, the most illogical language in the world, while caring for 3 kids and a husband. I think in just a few more meetings I'm gonna be working to keep up. Every week I get all uptight, I worry that I don't have the ability or enough of a lesson plan. And then I get there and it all goes fine. Today when I arrived at her house, M was wearing a t-shirt that said, "If you're rich, I'm single." She had a question about the shirt. Not the overall meaning - she had that already. She just wanted to be sure she had the word "if" right.

I love how DIY the work is. The trainers encouraged us not to spend money or overdo it on presentation, just to get creative with what we could find. Bus schedules. Toys and action figures. Paper plates and pipe cleaners. We did an incredible vocabulary and grammar lesson today with only some words I wrote on little scraps of paper. I didn't even intend to do grammar for a while yet, but there it was.

This is fun. And I guess I'm not doing too horrible a job, either: today M asked if her neighbor, who is interested in joining us, could start coming next week. We'll be a class soon!

re:connections

Well the train's alright. Although if you take it you might want to find out if it's Okay To Burn in Bernalillo...we were delayed there for 30-40 minutes, as there was apparently a fire on or near the tracks.

3 days in Abq gave me all the friendly communications I was asking for and then some. I found them in their homes, on the sidewalk in front of Winnings, and up on ladders painting unexpected murals in the South Valley. Two friends gave me the gift of listening to my Mexico stories, helping me try to track that journey as it resurfaces, like some underground river, and asks to be followed again. Think I was able, overall, to do equal amounts of speaking freely and listening deeply this week - kind of unusual for us introverts. I'm reconnected now. What a privilege I got - a life in two cities at once!

O, Community

You ground me. You clarify me. You break me apart, and gleefully build beautiful things of the shards. The search for Community is gonna be the death of me - or else the Life....

Words won't really describe this moment. But some words, most likely, will have to make the effort. Spent last night with my old catholicworker community, here in Albuquerque. I've come to rely on the landing space that they offer, when I'm in this town between migrations. I've come to expect energizing, boundary-stretching, unpredictable conversation, whether it journeys into the politics of peace, the integration of spiritualities, or the humanizing of social service efforts. But I will never be prepared for the experience of being knocked off my feet by the sudden, chaotic, and root-deep healing that co-conspirators in community can work on each other. And which they do, at times, with deep awareness and intention. And sometimes, without beginning to imagine what they do.

I was just sitting on the edge of a conversation. An unattached observer, an unagendaed participant. And then suddenly I was in, and going under. Caught in the whirlpool of emotions and associations that a just few words released. This was water way too deep for me. There were profound differences in perspective, strong words for strong needs being expressed, with a kind of candor I'm not often in the same room with. Life experience so far, for me, hasn't found the strength to support any of these things very well. Differences. Candor. Needs. I deeply admire them all, and they scare the hell outta me. That lifelong dread of (more) conflict surfaced: ready for flight. The others saw me coming apart. They offered me the chance to leave. But I didn't. I suddenly had to stay for this. This is an open door, and there's light pouring out of it. There's intense, radical honesty going on here. There is also profound listening, receiving, humility, and recognition. There is real-time, flesh-and-blood-and-soul healing. It's painful - and I'm not even on the receiving end. But slowly, I see the simultaneous liberating face of it. And I find I can speak my few words into it, and even my feelings. And I can join in. This is transformation happening - not of ideas, opinions, concepts, but states of being. Ways of relating. Internal programs. Things that many people hold onto for years. For their entire lives. Things that the people in this room may have held for years. And now they - we - are consciously, powerfully letting them go.

It was something like watching a vast river canyon being formed in minutes, instead of the centuries it should take. It was like that on the inside. It was the inner and the outer, at once. Time-lapse: the picture moves unimaginably fast, but we witness it in slow motion. Impossible forces shifting, here in the possible, inarguable present. Unreal becomes reality. Becomes suddenly normal, and okay. There's a crash of boulders, a mass of sliding earth, and now there's a lush deep still river flowing.

That this may sound dramatic might reflect the perspective of where I start from: an early life of, in many aspects, spiritual poverty and emotional abuse. To say that isn't dramatic - it's just what was - but it makes a lot of "normal" things awfully dramatic by comparison. Like healing. Like openness. Like resolution, and acceptance. Or, this might just point out that I'm too damn sensitive to energies and emotions. That's also true. I'm exhausted today. Totally depleted. But I'm deeply grateful to have been there for this. And I'm grateful to my community for another step toward the goal of every day's journey, to be completely human, awake, alive...

railrunner

Just took the Rail Runner for the first time, Santa Fe to Albuquerque. Our new commuter train lives up to all I've heard so far, and improves on the accounts of overcrowding (but the first few weekends were free, so everybody tried it out then). Today I had a square of four seats to myself, on the upper level looking east. Not only is it a new road to travel (the track parallels I-25 probably less than half the time), but the higher vantage point gives an almost-bird's-eye view of the land. Not a hawk, maybe, but a low-flying bird that's not in too much of a hurry...
I forgot how claustrophobic public transport makes me, with its recirculated air and unopenable windows. But the blessed momentary state of Not-Driving, and relief from the expending of energies or resources, made it worth the confinement. And it was fun to remember what a wonderfully non-rational view the soul gets of the city, from a train. You miss completely all the nice presentable fronts that every house is required to offer. And you stick your nose into their cluttered, asymmetrical back yards, where the real lives are going on.

As we rounded La Bajada, 20 minutes into the trip, a voice on the intercom announced that for the next 25 minutes, we would be passing through Indian land, and to respect the privacy of Pueblo residents, photos were not permitted. Very cool. It was a surprise to realize, after 10 years in northern New Mexico, I still have never seen half of the 8 Northern Pueblos. Probably because I wanted to respect their privacy. Though I'd like to make it to more feast days, when visitors are welcome. Hope they're alright with the train passing through their centers...

We were delayed twice - once to let an Amtrak pass, once for something we couldn't see. But the train ran smooth, and stayed close to schedule. Total trip time, from my current home in lowermiddle Santa Fe to my former home at Winning Coffee in Abq: 2.5 hours. And a total cost of $1, for the bus from the station downtown. The train's free to Santa Fe residents until March. I've been wondering why Abq wasn't included in this break as well, until a witty former coworker here at Winnings just cleared it up for me: Santa Feans' incentive is the new Albuquerque Economic Stimulus Plan.

insomnia (day 17)

drifting into night's unclaimed hours, a boat rocking backwards with landing rope trailing from its front end...in the visible world, snow falls, floors creak, a novel waits with reluctant bookmark (reading resonates more loudly than living)...the required schedule cancels out the essential - becomes the essential...cannot synchronize with the rhythms of my house...cannot align with the houses in my chart...cannot but sympathize with the syncopated stuttering rhythms of this weary body-house...a sleepful night is always one step forward and then two back...a dreamless night is ground gained but wisdom lost...a night navigating the dreamtime leaves soul wiser, more wonder/full but so less at peace with waking options...dreamjourneys of fearless travel, of beloved community, of reckless and courageous schemes, of souldeep companionship perfected in timing, protected from intrusion of time...bluegold sheltering skies, turquoise shadows, gentle sea air though ocean's still invisible...how can I be awake again...how am I here in the desert again...the desert is the first place...the desert is the only waking place...the desert is the ground of the dreamtime, the bedrock, the safe high lookout, the vantage point...but still, meantime, the boat rocks in innersea, closer to the shore of arriving than to its departure...closer to sun's return than to its leaving, but consciousness still hasn't left yet...

reclaiming

Best overheard bar conversation of the week:
"I'm married; you're not, you're not."

A 50-something guy says this, rapidly as if ticking items off a list, to the man and woman on either side of him. I think it was a comment about their seating arrangement. But the woman next to me and I both heard it differently, and burst out laughing at the same time. "Tell it like it is! Nothing like honesty!" she exclaimed. I was having mental images of entering a bar as something like going through customs: What have you got to declare? Maybe the bouncer separates the customers into two lines, a long game of duck-duck-goose. Or, in a really honest world, they separate themselves. Although "Looking" and "Not looking" would, of course, be a more useful distinction in that case...or maybe "Lonely" and "Not Lonely"...

In either case, I found myself (as in, my self and I re-connected) in the latter of those categories, last night at one of the liveliest bars in town. Not only did I find a seat in a quiet back corner that 1) gave a clear view of the excellent band, 2) rendered me invisible to all the lonely hearts wanting to dance or attempt exasperating conversation, and 3) brought fine attention from the two wonderful bartenders, who refilled my water glass continually while smiling, "Sure you don't need anything more?" No, thank you kindly. I truly don't need anything more tonight. Desirelessness: what a beautiful space it is. I was getting needlessly attached to some things, some lovely ideas with little or no reason to be. Now those energies are being reclaimed. Diverted back into the larger Current's flow, to water the next growing season.

tired

I am tired
of always being tired
of the deja vu way that days flow into each other
of living alone, even though I have 3 housemates
of the exact correlation of income and expenses
(and how the second seems to adjust so well, to fit any increase in the first)
of hearing of other people's travel/vacation plans at the next table over
of trying to figure out how other people take vacations in the first place
(without quitting their jobs, my usual solution)
of my own self-pity (definitely)
of not knowing what to replace self-pity with (it takes energy, for one!)
of the scarcity of real communication (a welcome balance for the self-pity)
of my inability to engage with real communication, when it does come along
(see self-perpetuating cycle, above)
of all the righteous save-the-world conversations of social/political bent
of my apathy, inability, and exasperation toward such conversations
of the disproportion of conversation to action (mine, and others' both)
of all the people who just don't LISTEN
of the energy required just to stay ahead of the pain my early life gave me
of trying to let the farsighted vision of the desert compensate for the sight/smell/sound of water