working for the workers

It comes back to me all over again, this week, why pizza delivery is still fun - and even, in a personal sense, still sustainable: I'm working for the workers. To try to affirm, in a broader social sense, that "We're all in this together" is great, but certainly easier at some times than at others. I don't know how to feel much sympathy for, much less solidarity with, those whose economic struggle right now is that they're losing their second homes, or their investment funds, or their annual vacation plans. But a night of deliveries to the houses, apartments, and trailers of the working people of Santa Fe makes very present the sharing of our collective little survival dramas and triumphs. It's real, and right here. A couple of images from this week:

At one of the run-down little homes in the Las Acequias neighborhood: I can barely tell the woman her total, in my heavy-grade-sandpaper laryngitis voice. When she hears me she turns to her son and exclaims, "Now that's determination! On the job even when you're sick!" and he hands me a $6 tip as they all smile in understanding. In another part of town, I might worry about people going, how can you be at work - in food service, no less - when you have a cold? In this part of town, I relax because people already know the answer: how else will you pay the rent? It's just that simple.

The Cosmic Casino Game that is tip work: with just a little trust, you find that the problematic equation of minimum wage + human generosity actually does work out pretty well. If I get 2 cents from a little kid in a trailer park on one run, it's highly likely that on the next, a young tattooed couple in a motel room will give me 8 bucks. This happens all the time, all the time. And I end up wondering, how do people with regular, predictable incomes ever find it possible to learn trust? At least, in the ever-important realm of provision, which money does help to represent...

Best line of the week, speaking of the Survival Drama. The customer from an Airport Road apartment complex calls back. Wants to add 4 sides of ranch to her order. Sure, I tell her, that'll be a dollar more. "Oh my God, no," she responds. "Nevermind."

impending

Tonight the finest rim of moon
suspended waiting breathless
a bowl offering to catch the light
of its sheltering sky's most brilliant star
shining and impending just above it

As evening grew this moonbowl waned
but I saw it satisfied
by all the light it gathered in
both from above and from its source across the meridian
even as it moved more into shadow and became less
yes – let the unseen embrace the visible
and supposed opposing aspects become one

All the transition opening offering of this Now
and still I hang back, hesitating, in suspense
today I said in conversation
I may just hold out hands soon
and catch whatever Life offers
I made the gesture cautious
typical – hands cupped close, supplicant-like
my friend said careful
you might find you have to do this -
and threw his arms wide
as if embracing Life back
in all its unimagined beauty
and my response to that is only
Yes

an ocean dream

"IT CAN BE ACCOMPLISHED, BY ONE WHO IS LIKE YOU, BUT IS NOT YOU."

This is the cryptic response we receive from the Oracle, when we finally seek its help. "We" (in this dreamstory) are a crack team of experts (top-notch scientists, but also something like channelers or empaths: healers). Our task is to heal the waters of this ocean, at whose verge we live. Something is out of balance in its waters, and all the life in it is suffering, and much of it is dying. One of the team has already spent hours diving, exploring, running tests, but he cannot fathom what to do. The Oracle that we consult is our trustworthy source of wisdom, of authority, of knowing. It is part high-tech computer system, and part ancient voice. Or maybe, it is the ancient voice, and we access it (or translate it, perhaps?) by means of a high-tech computer interface. We watch the twinkling multicolored screens, as their scans of the databanks run through all possible answers to our problem, and narrow in at last on a single image: a sea turtle. We're all astonished. We had expected something more complex. But we do see a shadow of resemblance: this is a creature that is like us, but is other. We recognize it in something of physical similarity - a creature that breathes, walks, and swims - and this much better than we do, because it is made for the ocean. But we also sense a kinship in its intelligence, in its awareness.

We leave the computers, head back to the shores, and find a nest of turtle eggs. There are at least a hundred of them. We take one off the top (it's unnaturally large, like an ostrich egg). We decide the need is so great that we will intervene: we tap the shell just to crack it, to speed its hatching. This bothers me, even in the dream. But awareness of the impending need of all the life around us leaves me hoping we'll be forgiven, in the greater scheme of things. The turtle emerges almost immediately. He is bigger even than the egg was, about 8 inches across, and a rubbery, almost translucent, olive green. He is aware of his mission: I see it in the dark and sentient look he gives me, out of murky eyes just a few shades deeper than the water's green-brown-gold depths at our feet. The water is deep, and drops off straight from the shore where we stand, so I set him on my foot for a jumping-off place. As he perches there for just a moment, I can feel a single beat of his heart through my shoe, much stronger than I would have imagined from a small creature. Then he dives into the water, which is full of swirling colors like a dark agate, and is gone. He will find our answers, and help us to achieve the healing our world must have.

Dreamgroup interpretations always allow room for multiple levels of understanding. As well as for the possibility of seeing every being in the dream as an aspect of the self. An approach which never fails to fascinate me.

At the personal level: this dream expresses my gratitude for the "team" of excellent people who are part of my life right now. Whose welcome, acceptance, and collaboration on various fronts is helping me to craft the healing my own soul seeks. Who remember me to various aspects of myself that I need to be connected with. Who are like me, and so wonderfully unlike me. Who let me know, the task is daunting, but it can be done.

At the collective: surely we do all need each other's input and expertise. Surely we are all the experts with our limitations, the baffled seekers, and the empowered healers, at once. Surely we are the interface of infinite complexity, transmitting the voice of the Oracle. And surely, we are the struggling, suffering, waiting ocean...

No-valentine's Day

To start with a little disclaimer: I got nothing, really, against
Valentine's Day. I'm happy for all the ones who have
somebody to be happy with. I admire all those who find the
courage to offer their hearts, despite their doubts. And I'm
having lots of fun this week, delivering dozens of roses and
other beautiful flowers to people. For me, for now, this is
just another day in a season of clearing. Of healing. Of
holding space. Of remembering what it was like in the
heart, before it was all hurt.

Another disclaimer: I never had one ex that was as horrible
as the words below might sound. These memories are a
composite of 3 most recent exes. Each of which offers
abundant reason to celebrate being single this Valentine's Day.

Maybe today, Friday the 13th, is the appropriate day to send
old energies like this out into the ether. A day we seem to
project our fears/worries/shadows onto, as it is...

The words are also written with thoughts of my friends
carrying heartaches, or heartbreaks, or who like me are
asking, why the HELL did I put up with being treated
like that for more than a minute? Here's to us all opening
our eyes, good and wide. And maybe then opening our
hearts again, when we're good and ready.

no more hurtful silent spaces

no more fights in public places

no more pretending not to hear me saying no

no more help with my isolation

no more ever indoctrination

religion politics or materialist status quo

no more sweet words that you don't mean

no more getting back together again

so you can be the one to break it off in the end

no communication vertigo

no 1 a.m. banging on my window

no need to answer “what do you mean by 'friend'?”

no more criticizing my looks, or my likes

or my books, or my language,

or my kindness

or my heart

as too bourgeois for your image

enough of your offhand condemnation

enough words of tender accusation

no new cracks opened up along the old fault line

another year to remember gracious

another year made large and spacious

by all the breathing room that you aren't in

another season of patience willed

another year with your absence filled

and I just might learn

to love myself again

3 almas en Mexico

Back again to Mexico...at least, in words. To make a path that the soul can follow. And maybe, from there, the body as well: I do hope to make another journey before another year goes by. For now, so many words and images still want to be remembered. Held up to light. They get too tangled up in the dreamtime otherwise, one wide deep flowing current of lifemagic much too swift to set a foot in. Here, then, is my effort to stick just a toe in that current (by means of repetitive water images, which refused to be written any other way). My gratititude to 3 of the most original inexplicable transformative souls that I encountered last summer, in Mexico City. The dream and surely the archetype of Cities, itself...

Luis

appearing out of nowhere at la danza's edge

I never saw you coming

wandering soul with shreds of dignity

interrupted teacher caught midsentence

unfinished shaman still emerging from your dream

overgrown dreds like a choked river's flow

slowed to stillness at the verge of a lake

long dead and buried but in memory so full

but your quiet voice is the flow continuing

the tale a river tells to one who hesitates

of travellers, ancestors

concheros cientificos y guerreros all one life

dancing the song of the stars

mending the ties with the heavens

drumming the heartbeats back into earth time

rejoining with the Source again

I can hear you, through the city's noise

and through the divide of language

we are meeting at the Center

blessed by the opening of this one moment

stone walls give the drumvoice back

and all El Centro is a great heart beating

all the life still lives, right here and now

we talk not just of ancient sources

but of every tributary

how we didn't realize Lincoln and Juarez

were almost contemporaries

who's damaged Mexico's economy more: the U.S. or Mexico

whether there's one source from which all religions flow

how “Mexico” is pronounced in the States

how many homeless men you can share your liter beer with

(they're begging just a sip, with their recycled tourist cups)

before you can't share it any more with your friend

our paths crossed twice, in this same current

in the evening when the darkness brought the rains

you could have told me so much more

but I missed the next meeting we arranged

and the inadvertent broken word left me

walking those banks for many nights to come

that heartbeat drum still telling of a way

I couldn't hear alone to follow

Isaac

you were not the one I was waiting for

you I never would have dreamed of

even in this dreamtime city

you appear already talking

well-travelled tweeds, white Einstein hair

and half a set of teeth compounds unfathomable accent

you have a story, and an attache of proof

letterheads, addresses, embassies ambassadors

perhaps a travel problem?

you only need a letter, and will pay

for my transcription from five sheets of borrowed paper

the task at hand is a history of crimes

from your long story of the road

abuses, slanders, thefts and wrongful detentions

demands of compensation from police up to the White House

who are named not just corrupt but terrorists

working with credit card companies, the Pentagon,

and Senator Edward Kennedy

Hitler and Stalin are called to account for crimes in WWII

and all the world is summoned to its reckoning

it goes on for an hour

you talk and I try hard to listen

that accent getting thicker and thicker while your words

mix dream, conspiracy, and possible real

loss and adventure round the globe

I work to show you my attention

because it's fascinating, whatever it is

"Really? The ambassador? 20,000 pesos? A swordfish?"

I record the letter as it sits

conspiracies, bad grammar, truth, humanity and all

there is no petition here – at least not for the State -

but I will hear this fellow human's case

because it merits hearing

you a traveller so far out there

so much further from home than I ever hope to be

lonely voice that seeks re-founding in the world

you pay me, visibly relieved, with Starbucks coffee

a banana from your briefcase

and these last words:

“You seem good person. Be kind, and very strong.”

Pedro

One unavoidable river crosses me

I'm open air just heading for the desert

Debo decirte: no busco un rio

but I do love to trace things from their sources

and draw the current upward if I can

You're miles and years from your own origin

but still brilliant, full of essence, clear

offering drops of lifetimes that you've known

stories increibles, questions que no puedo contestar

semillas y piedras preciosas

que ofrecieron los ancestros who once lived along your edges

traes todo la viveza y la oscuridad de aguas

que nacieron en los Andes y se hacen las bajadas

Can we converse like air and water do

elevated, transforming, all in passing?

ya estoy volando, y pasando tambien

I cannot take it with me but

quisas te puedo respirar un poco mas arriba

y me dejas mas llena de coraje, de imaginacion

like skies that draw and dance, impending

with the chance of rain returning

I will suspend and breathe this

I will not fall

I will not fall

but likely will remain for some time

cloudy over you

the day is alive

What an day is today! This is one of the most gorgeous and dramatic days I've ever seen in Santa Fe. Woke up to sun but with gathering clouds around the edges. Snow is already falling over the mountains, but something's happening to westward as well. While north and east are all postcard pictureperfect silverblue and snowmist, the south and west are an inexplicable solid wall of purple-grey-brown riot. Something Is Coming This Way. And it's going to meet in the middle, right over us. It's almost like the town's two divergent personalities have found visible expression. They've taken on bodies, and are gonna take it outside now, and fight it out.

I'm leaving my house with a couple hours til work, and the hope of finding a wireless spot on the way. Heading south down Cerrillos turns up spots that are either closed, or overly full. It takes 3 tries to land (and even then only thanks to the generosity of another laptop guy who offers to trade me tables since he's got battery power). In the process of this search, I'm driving down and back along the very rim of the storm front, which is howling in on winds made visible by the earth, trash and leaves they've picked up and thrown into the air. As I head east for one last stop, soft rain begins to fall. As I get out in the parking lot 10 minutes later, it is sleeting into snow. And just as the snow gets really enthusiastic, it starts thundering. WOW!

One constant in the experience of storms in the desert, for me, is wondering if the thunder will come. And trying to remember the last time that I heard its voice. It brings such power with it. It restores Life again. I don't know any other way to say it. It is a thing that present, and that essential. Rain, sleet, snow fill our land's thirsty water tables and rivers and reservoirs. And thunder fills the emptied places of the soul with re-membering to Possibility.

the face2face project

Has anybody else heard of this effort? This would bother
some people that I've known. The ones without a sense of
humor. Or (much more important) without a living
breathing sense of reverence and wonder, for the scope of
healing actions that humans are capable of. Even in the
wounded and suffering Middle East. I think it's one
of the most suprising and beautiful things I've seen in a
while. Here, respectfully borrowed from their site
(www.face2faceproject.com), is the project's statement
of vision:


***********

FACE2FACE

When we met in 2005, we decided to go together in the
Middle-East to figure out why Palestinians and Israelis
couldn't find a way to get along together.

We then traveled across the Israeli and Palestinian
cities without speaking much. Just looking to this world
with amazement.

This holy place for Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
This tiny area where you can see mountains, sea,
deserts and lakes, love and hate, hope and despair
embedded together.

After a week, we had a conclusion with the same words:
these people look the same; they speak almost the same
language, like twin brothers raised in different families.

A religious covered woman has her twin sister on the
other side. A farmer, a taxi driver, a teacher, has his
twin brother in front of him. And he is endlessly
fighting with him.

It's obvious, but they don't see that.

We must put them face to face. They will realize.

We want that, at last, everyone laughs and thinks when
he sees the portrait of the other and his own portrait.

The Face2Face project is to make portraits of Palestinians
and Israelis doing the same job and to post them face to
face, in huge formats, in unavoidable places, on the Israeli
and the Palestinian sides.

In a very sensitive context, we need to be clear.
We are in favor of a solution for which two countries,
Israel and Palestine would live peacefully within safe and
internationally recognized borders.

All the bilateral peace projects (Clinton/Taba, Ayalon/
Nussibeh, Geneva Accords) are converging in the same
direction. We can be optimistic.

We hope that this project will contribute to a better
understanding between Israelis and Palestinians.

Today, "Face to face" is necessary.
Within a few years, we will come back for "Hand in hand".

************

Do, if you have the time, watch the absolutely wonderful
video #5 on the site (in "video" pulldown at top of page):
Jewish, Muslim, and Christian leaders talking about the
many faces of God, and then pulling crazy faces of their
own in front of the camera, to be pasted giant-size on the
Separation Wall...

And here is a site with more astonishing photos from
the project:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jerusalem_peacemakers/
sets/72157605777480600/

If you have a bit more time and room for inspiration,
please check out my other blog, where I've posted yet
more recent actions of unity and affirmation, in the midst of
the suffering. The systems and the powers may be failing
their/our collective humanity, but the people are surely not...

what I got

for my birthday: the elevation that stays after conducting energies between good-hearted, visionary people. a cold. 4 hours sleep. time for breakfast at my favorite coffee joint. blue blue skies, and healing sun. two invitations to continue two profound soul-making conversations. dos abrazos fuertes, and an invite to share a meal soon. a most welcome affirmation: "fellow traveller". two kind phone calls, from friend and sister who knew. an easy night at work. a $4 tip from a college girl! And this sort-of-blessing, over the phone, from my grandmother (who said it with a smile, with a wry kindness): "I'm glad you're getting older. You don't have any choice, you know..."

Thanks, people in my world, for your gifting.

a map of the day

Spill the coffee. Blot the page. Let go the words. Send the transmission anyway. Accept any and all invitations to feel. Remember every opportunity to have heart, to take heart. To take it back, if necessary. Make the detours: share the work, accept the calls, say yes to the small and manageable kindnesses that channel kindness back in return. Be late to non-essentials, and don't apologize. See the timing work out just fine anyway. Trust the beauty of the timing - if only in retrospect. Trust wherever possible. Fill in the conversational gaps on the drive down. Acknowledge it all as the same conversation - because, so often, it is. Don't forget to breathe the kindness of the day's clear air, and its future invitation (as yet, unclarified). Read of hope whenever possible. Talk of healing, at every opening. Hold welcoming space for all the friends still out there on the blue highways (and let them offer Motion, to your stillness). Spend some time with infinitely patient horses, and inexplicably beautiful cottonwoods (who only appear lifeless but are certainly not). Share in the unconditional fellowship of dirty dogs. Hang out in the treehouse til your friends get home to let you in. Build a fine meal out of whatever you've got. It's warm enough, welcoming enough, to eat it outdoors with the sun caressing the shoulderblades. Find, once again, that there's just enough to go around. Weave the ravelled dreams back into the possible, one thread at a time...

2 more from Carlos Fuentes

2 more quotes from Carlos Fuentes, from last year's reading. For all my anarchist-leaning, world-embracing, and amazingly-still-hoping friends. The first, for those feeling less than ecstatic, after the elections and their hoopla, perhaps. The second might sound facile, but could grow in meaning, for those inclined to let it. So that's all I'm gonna say about that.

"This revolution has now degenerated into a government."
- a Mexican general in 1917
(quoted in A New Time For Mexico)

"for the nomad the world is already perfect."
- CF

gratitude

In the latest Exciting Episode of "Give Pizza Chance"...

As word of job losses or layoffs creeps a little closer to the places and people I know, I find more and more gratitude for my steady 20 hours a week as a pizza delivery driver. Even if I gotta wear a dorky outfit. The fast food business, for now, does seem to be recession-proof (which, of course, I have mixed feelings about). But they're grateful mixed feelings. The literacy department at the community college laid off half its staff this week, due to loss of funding. Not only a blow to the 5 or 6 people who are now without jobs, but also to the neighborhood community learning center - part of the ESL program - which is now closing due to the loss of the people who run it. And just when I had helped talk one coworker into applying for the program, and was about to tell a couple more about it. He'll still get a tutor, at least: there's no money involved there. We tutors are all volunteer and so we have our job security. But here's to finding a lot more local collaborations that don't involve money, toward our collective sustainability, our mutual security and support...

So really, it's not hard to be grateful for my job. Not only does it continue to be better pay and a better work schedule (for a night person, and a single person, evenings are way too long otherwise). But it's also just plain fun. I work with some great people. Some entertaining people. A buncha comedians in matching outfits, some nights. The simple comraderie, the constant unpredictability, the steady activity are always welcome alternatives to waiting out life at a desk somewhere. My boss is calm, a good communicator, always on top of things. And the customers are still the best and worst part of the job, but much more often toward the positive.

It's not all that often that a customer calls out, "Wait! Come back and let me give you some more money",...but that happened not once, but twice, last week. It's not that often that I get such a great tip that fairness (and a kind of long-time, unspoken driver policy) asks that I give a share of the wealth to all the inside workers that made the pizzas. But that was the case tonight, with a $22 tip from a department store manager. It's hard to imagine a 10-hour shift passing in the blink of an eye, at most other jobs. And the job takes the cake for its truly odd moments. In what other line of work are you ever required to ask a topless woman for her I.D.? I had to do that, the other night. A dancer at Cheeks paid for her order with a credit card. And came out wearing only black underwear and high heels. I felt a little bit overdressed, in my pants, 2 shirts, hat and jacket. All in a night's work...

In the week ahead, it looks like I might have the privilege of seeing a different beautiful friend on every consecutive day. Wow. And I get to play the Conductor - connecting the currents of ideas and energies between people, toward the more complete use of hearts and resources. This week, that involves two friends working with horses, healing, and kids. This is the real work: helping to channel these energies toward the destinations they seek. It's the kind of opportunity that makes the everyday labor - as well as the spaces that part-time work leaves open - well worthwhile.