rot2

"...if everything were to decompose at the same speed, the end product would not be so valuable."
-- Stu Campbell, Let It Rot!

It's just a nice simple 70's book on composting. But for some reason, the metaphorical implications - the personal or the interpersonal implications, perhaps - of this one sentence have fascinated me more than anything I've read in the last week.

joining

One of those very basic paradoxes that comes along...so basic that it goes unnoticed, and finds a dim corner, and settles in...and you know how paradoxes, unrecognized (only seen in the rushed halflight of everyday barelyconsciousness) can drain the soul's energies...but how, acknowledged, they can catalyze, energize, help to real-ize....or do you know? And do I know? I can't actually explain this, in so many words, but I think I know it...

Anyway, my (current) paradox seems to be this: that in pursuit of the earnest goal of avoiding conflict, I frequently find myself generating more. In its unrecognized form, simple: the avoidance, and the fact that avoidance is often impossible, creates constant conflict. By definition. A definition that yes, many already know. But the paradox, once acknowledged: joining the battle, as it were, I join Life as well. Life being never either static or stagnant. Life being never avoidant (also, perhaps, by definition). Life being at times a battle, in a manner of seeing. Between free wills. Among mutually exclusive possibilities. Between diverse lives, all seeking to continue. Among near-infinite complexities of systems, populations, ecologies.

Joining: I wanted to find it, first, possible to stop fighting. Anything. Altogether. But this I didn't find. Only a turning, a whirling actually, an about-face. Instead of turning my back to the chaos, turning my energies into it. Standing ground instead of running, in small part. Engaging conflict (of whatever kind, on whatever level) instead of fleeing it, more. Reversing the flow, I hope, eventually. Or only my little current in the flow. Joining the battle and finding how many of us, in how many moments of shattering illusions, are in fact fighting on the same side. Arriving at a point of confluence, convergence that negates any concept of conflict. Simply because currents unite as we fight for, and for nothing less than, our lives...

I'm not saying I know anything here. Not, at least, anything new. Just trying to see a little more clearly. See my way to joining.

rot

Todo tiene que morir
para al fin
vivir
-- Charanga Cakewalk, "Vida Magica"

"Yes, rot is the word. Rot means death, and without death and rot there can be no new life... Nature never loses anything: she preserves and protects herself. It is only a fool man who squanders his substance and makes himself poor, and everybody around him, and the land he lives on too."
-- anonymous letter, quoted by Wendell Berry in The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture


One of permaculture's first principles, as I understand it, is this: don't do any work yourself that the earth is willing to do for you. In a practice concerned with the conservation of energies of all kinds, this makes perfect sense. Permaculture sites reflect this ideal in home-centric planting designs, landform-conscious erosion controls, and gravity-supported water recycling. To give just a few examples.

To stretch this principle only a bit, there are at any moment in this heedless headlong society many people who can do some of the work for us, too. And we the ones who can utilize the momentum of their less-than-conscious actions. All the food that gets made and then trashed -- or, now and then, donated -- there for those of us willing to collect and redistribute it instead of purchasing. All the designer clothes worn twice and then left for us at Goodwill. All of the earth's original and extravagant gifts to us, labelled "waste". Then treated as such, after any other understanding gets forgotten. Wealth on every side, worked for and then discarded, disregarded.

In the past couple of weeks, I've found entertainment and a small sense of purpose in stealing the bagged leaves of the citizens of Albuquerque. I suppose, if I had wanted to gather organic matter honestly, I could've started my own landscaping service and gone door-to-door asking to rake people's yards in trade for the takings. But they're already hiring somebody else to do the work. And then discarding the wealth of potential that's collected from their own backyards. And although I recently learned that a city composting facility exists, and although our municipal website (cabq.gov) assures its readers that collected 'green waste' is used in local parks, I'm skeptical. Due to the degree of manicuring that I see in almost all of this city's parks (where it does not seem very likely that composted organic material would fit with those mowed expanses of grass, which should not even exist in New Mexico). And due to the astonishing numbers of garbage bags that I've been seeing all over town, on my daily delivery routes. I'm skeptical that this is a city ready to recycle on such a level. Some "single family dwellings" have been supporting black-bag populations of over 20 by my count, thanks to the fantastic efficiency of hired leaf-blowers and the level of disconnect that requires every fallen object to be removed from the "landscape". Without any realization that it's part of that landscape for a reason. Part of a system created to recycle itself beautifully every fall, by means of the natural elements which people have renamed "waste". These homes, in fact, are in some of the city's most prosperous neighborhoods. But this kind of occupation of a space -- depriving one's homeground of the very materials that sustain its wellbeing -- is in my view (and Wendell Berry's) a poverty of the most essential kind.

So at this point, 20-30 large bags of "waste" have found a new home in my garden, which is about a quarter of an acre. The goal is to sheet-mulch as much of the area as possible, before the ground freezes and before the bags are all taken away from the curbs. (The next best thing for the land, I'm hoping, since I moved into the place too late in the year to think about cover crops.) Opening each plastic package, once on site, has been just a little Christmas-like. Many of the bags were filled with clean, dry cottonwood leaves that sang with a lovely raspy rustle as they sifted out. Three or four from the first house held the remains of somebody's-last-year's garden: mummified chile and tomato plants, which perhaps will tell their sun-stories to the bare ground as it waits for its own turn to support new life. One bag spilled out a cascade of elm seeds: our favorite garden plague around here. That one went right back to the trash. Another bag turned out to be filled with fresh green English ivy cuttings. Since the property where I live is surrounded by bare chainlink fences that could use some cover, I filled a 5-gallon bucket with some of the vines to see if they'll root and be transplantable later.

The next step in the mulching process was going to be an unimaginable number of trips with a heavy bucket, to water it down and give the decomposition process a jump-start. Since at present my only garden hose would be better used as a drip-irrigation system, so cracked and full of holes it is. And since in New Mexico we don't normally count on precipitation to help these processes along. But, happily, this morning proved me wrong in that regard. It's raining today: a precious, light, silvery fall that I think is what the Navajos call "female rain". The kind that brings no pressure or destructive force -- only quiet nurture. I was on the way out the door to work, but when I saw the rain I ran outside in my work clothes, and ripped open another dozen of the still-bagged leaves. Scattered them on the beds that were uncovered, and left the rain (with much gratitude) to do the rest of the work for me. Let the decomposition commence. Let the rot begin. Let death have its original, rightful place after the season of life and growth. Let Creation's gifts have their respect again, reclaimed from the denial of this consumptive, disposable, and (saddest of all) forgetful society. And let the giving earth offer the renewing work that it's here -- if we let it -- to do for us.

survival

survival mode:
you work so hard that you have no energy left to enjoy the results of your work
you get so tired that you can't sleep anymore
the paycheck is already spent before it arrives
the day overwhelms before it begins
the present feels not like a gift but another obstacle to be avoided
the energy is spent negating, refusing, or avoiding and there's none left for affirming, imagining, or advancing
every thought of give/share/cooperate/create is eclipsed by the list of unmet basic needs
future appears not as possibility but as more disaster recovery
reaction time to hurts, real or perceived, diminishes to one painful, imperceptible instantaneity
dreams and plans go overboard like deadweight on a sinking ship
a partner looks like an adversary, and their kindness looks like judgment, pity or anything else but kindness
breath forgets how to be prayer, or even nurture, or even maintenance, and becomes the sound of the heart retreating
all the answers all the blessings all the love that are still here, every moment, can barely make themselves heard over the small self's voice begging *please* for just an answer, just one blessing, just a little love...

stories:1

She's been holding her own all her life. Left home young, never married, never had kids. When she says she's alone in this world she's not kidding. For the past several years her social security check has gotten her by, in a senior-rent-controlled-apartment -- but minimally so. Precariously so. She's getting tired of living on tea and rice. Of keeping the heat turned so uncomfortably low all winter. Of accepting -- sometimes -- the painfully well-intentioned kindnesses of friends or neighbors. Of the mind-numbing hours it takes to cross town or do errands on the bus. Of the loneliness seeping back in, ever since they closed the senior center for lack of funding. She tells me, "Lately, I find it much easier to get through the month if I don't go anywhere, or do anything." She's incredibly lucky to be well, mobile, active: not in need of health care, since that would be out of the question. She's good at living lightly. She spends much time meditating. She cares for her plants. Her housekeeping is immaculate. She writes or makes art, when she can gather enough found materials for it. She checks out books from the library, and is always engrossed in an autobiography, a spiritual seeker's account, a poetry collection. She's one of the most articulate conversationalists I know. Her striking, edgy sentences come out near-perfect, ready-for-print. I harbor a deep secret desire to write a novel based on her life. She's lived freely, adventurously, dangerously, generously. And now she's one more superfluity in a society that has no need of its elders, no use for its storytellers, and little compassion to share with those who didn't play their lifetime roles as consumers, or find a partner to play the role for them. Arriving at retirement age without IRA's, investments, or equities. In a job market that surely wouldn't give her a second thought, should she apply for the most menial work. Materially speaking, she's stuck. Her road stories alone would be worth their weight in gold, did we live in a world that knew how to weigh such things. Instead she's expected to live completely on a monthly sum that would only cover the entertainment budget for a lot of USAmericans. She wants to invite friends for dinner, or go out and join the human race once in a while, but she can't afford it. She describes for me in relishing detail the recipes taped to her refrigerator which she would prepare for her guests, could she only afford to buy the ingredients. She's fed up with the stress of stretching it all so thin -- money, energy, Life -- to the point that she's thinking of giving up her apartment and 'going nomadic'. Testing the street's mercy or the highway's charity sounds a likelier bet than counting on any grace from a society accustomed to forgetting the humanity of its members who can't pay the fees for membership...

quote: troublesome

"Our biggest problems seem to be meant to interrupt life and awaken us to our total capacity...You think the body is ill when it becomes troublesome, and you fail to realize that it is trying to dream, to communicate messages and create movements beyond your expectations."
-- Arnold Mindell, The Shaman's Body

working class

Ha. This post will begin by illustrating its own point. I want to say something about what gets discarded, lost, disregarded in the working life. And my words are going to be incomplete, insubstantial, hurried, because I have to be at work in 45 minutes. I want to contemplate an idea from a conversation years ago: that the phrase "working class" is really much more descriptive than we mean for it to be. It doesn't just refer to those who work for a living (as compared to what: those who coerce others to work? those who live off the results of others' labor?). It doesn't just identify an income or social-status level. It describes, at risk of cliche yes, an existential state. We are working class because work is, more or less, who we are. Who we become, after a certain progression of time and struggle. Because work becomes our state of being, as human beings. Because work becomes something fundamental about our personalities, and the way we see the world. Not about making money. Not just about holding down a position. Certainly not about offering a gift, an insight, or even a service. Not punching the clock day in and day out, although that comes a little closer to the point. The point, to me, is found in the collection of less-tangible phrases in which English makes use of the verb itself: working on it. working it out. worked up. working my way to something. The point at which it becomes existential, as well as undendingly hopeful, is this: we the workers are forever on our way somewhere. En route. In progress. The point at which it becomes existential, as well as deeply sad, is this: we may very well never get there.

Never get there, unless a number of things happen: unless more states, and this nation's government, sees fit, sees clear, learns somehow to see its human citizens, in order to pass more living-wage laws. Unless we, as communities, learn to share, barter, cooperate more, and so relieve our mutual burden of proof for the precious time we carry and care for in this life. Unless we, as individuals, learn to release, accept, and yes reach for a lighter and more liberated way of walking on the earth. Fewer needs, or - better yet - more clearly focused needs, which can be met within the fragile boundaries of a worker's income.

The bigger picture's been out of reach for me, most of this life. A very practical fact I believe I share with many workers who are too tired/too preoccupied/too unable to get off work to participate more in the democratic process. The personal level's one I've sincerely engaged with for a number of years now. More sincerely at some times than at others: I've always lived below what this country calls 'the poverty level' of income (full disclosure: I think one year of my life, with 2 jobs and no breaks in employment, I reported just over $15,000). Many years I've lived in the 4-digit realm. And many years, though not all, this was with the specific intent of keeping my freedom for things more important. But right now I'm working 6 days a week, simply because the opportunity presents itself. And it's nice to have opportunities after you don't have them for a while. It's nice to imagine, at least, that you're working your way up out of survival mode. But this is going to have to change soon, because winter doesn't support the gypsy circuit that well. And I hope that when it changes, I find it possible to move closer to the second type of progress I mentioned a minute ago: sharing. There are already a few of us sidling toward the barter system. There are many of us, really, cooperating in ways that we could augment with just a little further time and intention. And there are such lovely models already at work out there in the world, with which I would like to connect my energies: local currencies, hour banks, work parties, volunteer trades. All of them very tangible, very possible realities in which we could make work work for us all, not just for a few at the expense of the rest of us. Maybe one of these days real soon I'll work out my part.

quote: path

"The one who treads the path must be willing to risk the difficulties of the path; to be sincere, faithful, truthful, undoubting, not pessimistic or skeptical, otherwise with all his efforts he will not reach his aim. He must come whole-heartedly, or else he should not come at all....the qualities of the heart are needed, with the divinity of love as a first principle. Then one needs action, such action as will not hinder on the path of truth, such action as creates greater and greater harmony. And finally one needs repose, which makes it possible to learn by one day of silence what would otherwise take a year of study; if only one knows the real way of silence."
-- Hazrat Inayat Khan, The Inner Life

on the earth

Get off the highway for a minute. Get off the illusion-world's agenda for a space. Get off the clock for a few degrees of sun's arc through lapis sky.

Listen to the conversation between wind and ponderosa, until it comes through clearer than all the other conversations in your head. And the conversation mostly consists of this: SSSHHHHHH...

Let the lessons arrive for a minute, instead of constantly seeking them out. Read every science in the life around you. In the chaos, in the fractals, in the perfectly disordered complexity. Hear every hymn in the hum of bees, wildflowers, silence. Every question can be resolved with the variable of YOU entered into the equation of this place. Every. Only, you usually have to show your work. Sometimes lately, that work has been of the hardest kind. Offering. Releasing. Subtracting. Waiting. Accepting. Sometimes it's much more simple: put your feet on the ground and watch resolution arrive.

Sit on the earth, still, supported, till you feel it turning under you once again. Like a passenger riding smooth seas on a sturdy, unsinkable ship. Like graceful flight on a giant bird's back, secure between its wings. Stand your ground with the pines until they remind you how they do it: their feet aren't on the earth, they're in it. Sifting it while it subsists them. Breaking it down, while it holds them up. Branches lifted in constant gratitude to light.

The (most recent) (human) name of this mountain range is Sangre de Cristo. There was a time when I had to concern myself with how different minds processed this name, and all its historical associations. Now, I just try to watch where my own feet are going. And remember that I too am only recent, and human. Locally/colloquially, the mountains are also called "the Sangres". This is easy to grasp. These mountains are my blood. They run through my veins, even when they slip my memory, because of the transfusion of life they gave me 13 years ago. Their generosity helped save my life, when it was hanging by its last most precarious thread of hope. Their unconditional presence gave me back my ground, when I had almost faded out of the physical dimension. Their effortlessly sustained green and their constant calling of the thunder recalled life to my flickering soul. For this I have to come back to them, not often as might be but often enough. To give thanks, yes. To participate in their constant give and take of life, more so.

good work

An acquaintance I met on a farm here in Abq now keeps a blog on her life in Madagascar. She's there to do permaculture and community development with the Peace Corps. Actually, it sounds like she does very simple, personal, and spontaneous work, based on the needs and the limited resources of her village. One line from her most recent post stayed in my attention: she writes that while she likes her community and has much to be grateful for, "it has been hard to identify good work".

It's fascinating to think that a third world country and this one might have a struggle in common: the challenging search for "the good work". Or what, in circles of my acquaintance, finds the name "right livelihood". With all we don't share with the world, with all we here have purportedly secured as a nation, why is it still so very difficult -- even in this country -- for well-intentioned human beings to make satisfying contributions to their society and their own lives? I think about the words of Peter Maurin, one of the founders of the catholic worker movement: his dream was to create a world in which it was "easier for people to be good." A vision we don't seem, individually or collectively, to be nurturing -- or to be able to nurture -- with enough heart. Not enough to go around, anyway.

In the last month I've applied for two jobs here in Abq. Having my fill of less-than-sufficient work over the last decade, I only apply now for positions that are sure to meet the needs of budget and of conscience. Thereby ruling out about 90% of the ads in Albuquerque, which are either soul-numbingly corporate or criminally low-paying, if not both. But there were two last month that could've met those needs. One, a 'farm assistant' for a local nonprofit that links at-risk youth with traditional and progressive agricultural projects. The other, a delivery driver for a local CSA. My cover letter to the first attested to a lifetime around farming and gardening, a 100-hour basic permaculture certificate, a deep admiration for what I know of the organization itself, and my current effort, maintaining a community garden and engaging kids with knowledge of healthy diets and food sources. To the second, I offered an intimate knowledge of the entire metro area with 10 years' professional driving experience, as well as enthusiastic support of their agenda. Neither job ever called.

So this is what I'm wondering: who's my competition for this good work? Who are they calling, if I don't even rate a preliminary contact? I could understand, when I applied last year at a popular nationwide food market opening a new branch in town, that with a rumored 2,000 applicants I didn't stand a chance. But, farm assistant? Really? Are this many good-hearted, simple-living progressive types out of work right now? Is "the economy" really in such bad shape that the general labor category on craigslist has been inundated by a surplus of admin/professionals desperate enough to get their hands dirty? (Or is my resume in even worse shape than I think?) And if there is such a contingent of unemployed "cultural creatives" on the loose, what are they doing all day? What else are they up to during "business hours"? Why don't I hear of their calls for meetings, forums, salons, charettes, free workshops? Or even for more political demonstrations? What are they doing with their time? Are they really finding ways to do the needed work of the world without worrying about how to pay the rent? And what, if they are somehow transcending the practical and the material to engage right livelihood and satisfying activity, is their secret?

Here's my secret, with regard to work: in truth, I don't really care anymore. Last year was the hardest ever, for me, financially and perhaps personally as well. By both measures, I got close enough to zero (below it, at times) to arrive at last at this imminently relieving perspective: ULTIMATELY, IT DOESN'T MATTER. Which is not, for a moment, to speak cynically. It's to speak of release, and the liberation that comes after all else goes. It's to speak about how deep losses refine priorities. And how simplicity finds many paths in to the center (or, by how many paths from the center simplicity finds us). While I would love to give my time and energy to a socially-developing, personally satisfying job, until one decides to give me half a chance I'm pretty happy with pizza. As well as with the work that's my real priority. Which, at every moment, is learning to see, to listen, to reflect the Light. And which, in this moment, is learning to love someone. Not only that, but to accept being loved. To journey into such mysteries as these, such incredibly good and difficult works, I'll gladly give up what little I've still got. Including the need to know how anybody else works it out.

quote: what can I do?

"Probably the most commonly asked question of people just arriving at a deep concern for the ecological crisis is, “What can I, as an individual, do to make things better?” The simple answer, which I learned from living among Zapatista villagers, is nothing. Because we have to stop acting as individuals if we are to survive; the Earth won't be affected by our individual actions, only our collective impact.

The Zapatistas’ slogan, "Para todos todo, para nosotros nada" ("Everything for Everyone, Nothing for Us") rang true in the mid-1990s and still rings true today. But this slogan has a certain mystery. The demand “nothing for us” runs so counter to anything any of us — the resource-hungry individuals of the so-called First World — would ever think of demanding. As the saying goes, no one ever rioted for austerity. Yet, without feeling cheated, we need to build our capacity to live by another old saying: Enough is better than a feast..."

--From "What the Zapatistas Can Teach Us About the Climate Crisis", by Jeff Conant. Entire (excellent) article at http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/08/04-0.

Wow. Surely there are many others who, like me, keep asking "what can I do?", and find their intimidation at the world's state quickly disintegrating into despair. But these words offer something of a new approach to the question. More than that: I think they offer an invitation to a new way of asking the question. I, for one, am in desperate need of an alternative to the futile practice of envisioning how I, personally, can in any way mitigate the actions of BP, the U.S. military, the banking system. I, along with many of willing hearts (but lacking the time and resources to invest in full-time activist work) am in desperate need of something I can do. And in fact, I don't need to protest. I think one thing this world has a surplus of is the stating of the obvious. The NO's seem more than obvious enough already. And the relations between various choirs and preachers already confirmed. What's needed is more room to listen. What's needed is the breathing room in which to begin, at all, to listen to new possibilities.

In this quote I read, not easy answers, but ways to introduce oneself to possibilities. As well as alternate ways to do something in the world. Having enough, and knowing it, is surely something to do in a country whose consumption is so criminally disproportionate to the world's. Accepting nothing, when appropriate -- when, in fact, it liberates -- is doing something profound. (Rioting for austerity, in my personal opinion, could be a beautiful thing, and I like imagining what form that might take). Contributing to a "collective impact" is excellent, and needed where it can be done. But this offers a act preliminary to even that: prior to connecting with the larger network is the upgrading of a personal operating system based on individuality at the expense of all else. Or, to be slightly less critical: individuality, and individual survival, imagined before anything else is imagined.

"Everything for Everyone" doesn't exclude us. It includes us, in a way we've rarely allowed ourselves to imagine. And surely, in a way that our socioeconomic structure, feeding on our sacred life energies as it does, has not permitted us to imagine. What this quote offers to me is an invitation, not to think about invalidating my own wants or needs, but to open up more to the idea of being included. Whatever form, practical or mysterious, that might take in the everyday. I'm not going to specify what that form might be, to myself or to others. Only to pay attention and see what turns up.

stormlight

you spent the night with me again
shared my free and fragile perch
beside another indeterminate road
darkness never really fell
dreamtime made its motion felt
but not its forward pressure
shadows only wheeled, deepened, enlightened by turns
around bluegold opalescent light-diagonals
summer thunderheads were cumulating
over the western mountainsides
and sunflowers the color of monarch butterflies
the glow of undiluted sunlight
profused themselves on all sides
surrounding, taking no sides
complementing the cloudviolet
with a shelter only slightly less impermanent
and exposed than niche of wire mesh fence
we stationed ourselves in

trying to head off the storm again
sincerity and patience admirable
for knowing it would probably fall the same
luminous detachment as commendable in this space
as in daylight's tangle of desire
the only difference, there, necessity
and here at last truly freed from need and time

a struggle elemental as before:
still the gorgeously oppressive sky before it smothers
or distill those heavy stormclouds
and pour out all the life I/you/we deserved
but no, as here: never all cloudcover
and never really clear
no more to make of this lowering and exquisite potential
than of the last promise of abundance passing over
only sun seeking release through insufficient fissures
and your face, for a moment, gilded in stormlight

that laughs at the obstacles

Carne asada grilled outdoors, by an Argentinean. Tinny Tecate from a can that looks way too much like Coca-Cola (the can, not the beer). An embrace, a kiss on the cheek, or a handshake from each person on arriving. None of those noncomittal waves at the room in general, like I'm used to getting by with. I like it so much better - me encanta - the way Spanish-speakers greet each other.

Dinner starts around 11, and this seems nothing out of the ordinary. Our host brings the meat, balanced on a heavy wooden slab, fresh from the grill in the order of our requests: first the rares, then the mediums, last the well-dones. A dozen small courtesies at the table, that I never learned as a child but wish I had. Half a dozen dirty jokes, of which I understand all but the punchline (and, for the most part, wish I hadn't). Jokes that make their object the indigenous country person or the status-seeking city-dweller, or the particular South American nationality of whoever sits next to the speaker. If other topics lag, there's rapid-fire commentary on soccer, for which ardor does not seem to abate with the end of the World Cup. Somebody asserts, "You don't have to know soccer to be a commentator. You just have to know how to talk."

I didn't come here expecting to be at the center of the conversation. To say the least. But it's fascinating: much the same dynamic appears that I encounter at English-speaking parties. What I find is that I really don't know how to connect with the greater part of the conversation. And not for language, but for diversity of life experiences. For lack of pop-culture education or recent TV viewing. For dislike of raising my voice across a yardfull of people. But it all becomes the same workable challenge: navigate the mostly unfamiliar waters with an accepting grace, with a dash of ironic detachment, with genuine appreciation for the inexplicability of other human beings.

And, just as in English, one or two astounding conversations may surface from the static, tuning in like surprise radio stations out on the late-night highway. This night brings two such gifts. One, the life-story of an Ecuadorian who spent 10 years in Amsterdam and New York before settling in Albuquerque with his partner and young son. The other, a Texan who grew up in Spanish-speaking South Texas, but who asserts when somebody labels him chicano, entonces, that he never once heard of the Chicano Movement until his university years. He tells me about a year of digging latrines and building schools with the Peace Corps in Paraguay. Of having missed being witness to the assassination of a vice-president, by only a few city blocks. And of watching a kind and intelligent group of Franciscan nuns, after the coup that removed a corrupt local boss, avoiding death threats and bringing the inspiration of local power back to the people well before the government presence finally arrived in the pueblo.

Somehow, a lovely paradox grows here. Unexpected and welcome as a volunteer flower in my barely-surviving vegetable garden: spending time with people who speak a language different from mine is easing the sting of separation that's lived with me, sad and parasitic, all of my English-speaking life. When factors less essential than the medium of communication seem the obstacles to connection - personal interests, personality types, social class - it's too easy to be distracted, alienated, by what divides on the surface. When the language itself instigates the separation -- a divide that can't possibly be crossed in the space of an evening -- I'm relieved from duty to my anxiety and expectation, to simply enjoy the state of unknowing. Supported, of course, by the kindness of a few translated words here and there. By the knowledge that I am progressing, however slowly, toward that elusive prize of bilinguality. And by the fact that the beautiful fellow traveller who brought me to this gathering has already gifted me with a connection that bridges all of the above. A connection that laughs at the obstacles of language, life experience, expectation, pessimism. That builds bridges in total disregard of reason. That ignores the voices in my head to tell me, You may not understand it all but you are, in fact, understood.

gypsy list

- the dizzy disorientation of waking up alone in a strange bed (not even a bed, a truckbed): a reboot for the mind
- the loveliest slant of new light, anywhere, at 6:30 a.m.: a few of earth's resources still unexhausted
- the edge to early air that makes even the familiar a mystery
- the crazy root-tangle of inscrutable dreamtravels: product of a manageable discomfort, an acceptable level of insecurity, an intentional degree of self-unmaking
- the gratitude for the essentials: water. stretches. public restrooms. that extra hat or pair of socks at 3 a.m. sheltering tree companionship. moments of profoundly unbroken silence. the birds that begin to imagine light at 5. strong coffee on waking. so few needs. in-dependence, for a blessed moment.

eckhartquote

"Greatness is a mental abstraction and a favorite fantasy of the ego...The great arises out of small things that are honored and cared for."

-- Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth

dream: the book canyon

We're all walking, slow and single file, along the tops of the books that form the edge of the canyon wall. It is a still and starless night. This path is the only route to wherever it is we all have to go. And these are large books. Much taller than normal ones, and wide enough for our feet to fit between the covers, in the groove the pages make. Most of us are carrying different heavy things, which makes our careful balance --one foot in front of the other, out of one book and into the next -- an exquisite challenge. Since accompanying our every step is a deep blue vertigo swirling up out of the 200-foot drop immediately to our right. It's dingy dark and heavy-shadowed down there in the canyon. I can't see the bottom. But as far down as I can see, the cliff on our side, the one whose top we walk on, is made entirely out of books. Long, incomprehensibly long rows, sitting one neatly on top of another just like in any library, only without the shelves. Different sizes and colors. They seem to be supported on their left side, the direction in which all the spines are turned.

Most of the walkers seem supported, too, or able at least to hold themselves up. Except for me. For some reason, the gravity coming out the canyon to the right is becoming more than I can handle. It reaches for me, tugs at my clothes like gusts of wind, bends me sideways at times til I'm teetering onefooted on the verge, almost losing my balance. As the others trudge on quiet, without complaint, I'm flailing around like a leaf at the end of a branch. It's getting harder by the moment to resist this precarity that wants to blow me right over the edge. Finally, leaning out impossibly right over nothing, then an overcompensating stagger left, and I fall off the bookroad. And land on soft ground, only a few inches lower, and completely stable. Somehow I thought the fall would be more precipitous this way as well. But I'm safe here. Bowed over on my knees and gasping for air, but safe. And I decide just to hug earth and breathe easy for a few minutes. To my right, all the others continue on, apparently oblivious.

nothing

"Knowing I knew nothing, and nothing was exactly enough.

...I wondered how I would write when I knew the words for nothing."

-- Mary Sojourner, bonelight: Ruin and Grace in the New Southwest

Nothing's happening here. Really. Nothing changes much from one week sliding into the next. Nothing appears on the page, or finds its way into coherent words. Nothing comes to mind. I'm doing next to nothing in the way of work, or of service to the world. There's been no time, either, for that matter. For about a week, at least. It stopped, dissipated, disappeared. I'm not sure. It probably went down the same river as all the thoughts that didn't surface. In all, I've accomplished next to nothing so far this year. Almost. Maybe if I can only work a little less - struggle a little less - try and want and need and expect a little less - that achievement will truly happen. And then, maybe, I'll be able to write something that's really worth anything.

garden photos

The two neighbor kids and I threw together this 'lasagna compost' (covered with straw, at right), at the end of April. We layered cardboard, newspaper, straw, and food scraps, and wet it down when we were finished. In just over a month it got no attention at all, except for being watered two or three more times. The space to the left is the way all the soil on the site looked, originally. Here I've dug down a couple inches (the most that's possible in this clay and rock) to move the compost over and start again.

I only meant to try and do the job right this time. But when I moved the first effort, this is what I found underneath:

Beautiful, dark earth that could be dug about 8 inches deep. Well-hydrated and ready for the tomatoes and jalapenos that will need a home soon. They're in the little greenhouse right now. You can see it at the back of the photo.

As soon as I saw this success, I started two more sections of compost. By the time they're ready in a few weeks, we should have enough plants to fill them all. At that point we'll be using about 50% of the site. I thought we'd be lucky to make use of 20%. Thanks again to Raven for the idea. I really didn't believe it'd work til I saw the proof.

link

A poet vents anguish and affirmation: the BP oil leak and the awakening we need -- and could still have -- in policy, consciousness, and language:
'Killing' Ourselves to Death
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/05/29-1

an imminently readable article

Thanks to the friend who re-re-reposted this. Pass it on some more. This burdened idealist heart can't often handle discussions of looming contingencies, such as peak oil scenarios. But this article is concise, pragmatic, action-oriented. Large-scale but very human-scale as well. A relief from the tragedies of present news and future apocalypse. Though there are plenty of both and they also deserve their acknowledgement. From those who are capable. I'm not capable. Heart starts breaking at any effort to even glance at a photo of the Gulf, for example. I'm only trying to do the work that I can find. Starting with honesty about the place where I am. And then working in the place where I am. Which is what this fine article is all about.

James Howard Kunstler:
Ten Ways to Prepare for a Post-Oil Society
http://www.alternet.org/environment/47705?page=entire

not just my voices

...far from it, in fact. Such a relief that I have no need (as is, I fear, the ego's trap for many activists) to hear my voice as the only one being raised. Voices are indeed heard, on the immigration front, from all manner of surprising directions. I was happy to see this week's Alibi (Albuquerque's indie paper, www.alibi.com) devote its cover and several articles to the subject. I know that so many of intelligence and heart are adding their voices daily, both locally and nationwide. And here's the latest unexpected voice to come to my hearing:

"Can you recall a time when American athletes have come out in solidarity to support a particular political viewpoint? Indeed, it’s rare when American politics becomes intertwined with sports, and when it does, those events are usually premeditated, oftentimes-brash actions by individuals. However, on May 5, the National Basketball Association’s Phoenix Suns banded together to protest Arizona’s new SB1070 bill in one of the most beautiful political statements in my recent memory, for it simultaneously spoke to immigrants’ rights, political news organizations who could care less about sports (and vice versa), and proponents of the idea of basketball as a “team game,” and perhaps, American government included in that idea."

Read the entire article at http://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/2010/05/17/los-suns-bring-basketball-to-spiritual-progressives-arena/.

to the voices

Sigh. Why I never write about politics. It's not the comments from other people (of which there have been none, to the last post) that I can't take. It's the ones from the mob of voices in my own head.

While, thankfully, I don't seem to count any racists or extreme conservatives or status-quo-preservers among that number, there is quite the contingent of anxious PR-agents, devil's-advocates, and all-around backside-coverers who lose no time in suggesting all the BUTs and YETs that I forgot to anticipate and respond to. And on a subject containing as many possible points of view as there are people, there's no lack of such voices. Well, I'm not making the effort now to presume to answer all such challenges. Especially when, so far at least, they come from my own mind. Only to suggest a couple of things, on the immigration argument. And these aren't totally original points either. But they do, I think, deserve a little more hearing.

One, and this is the most basic to me and I'll say it as basic as I can: what if we let people be humans first, and political entities second? That is, what if we first made the vast concession of acceding our own categorizations to however we perceive that we got here, on this planet (created and gifted with life? miraculously evolved? matter from the void?), in the first place? Or, more practical and present, what if we recognized our mutual existence as living, breathing beings with the same basic needs (water, food, safety, shelter, opportunities for self-sustenance), as a fact occurring before such things as nations, governments, and borders? This is the most foundational, most astonishing assumption of the discussion, that I fail completely to understand. And an assumption that seems to be intrinsic, unquestioned. But I question it not least because I understood it to be woven into our Declaration of Independence, and our Constitution. Although my suspicion is that the disparity comes from too many arguments being made by people who have never had a moment to have to imagine these basic human needs not being met. Have not ever been required to acknowledge their own humanity, at such an essential level as that which our founding documents affirm and protect.

And second. What if, instead of such talk of "securing" a geopolitical boundary, we looked at how many boundaries are already more-than-amply secured around life in this country? Boundaries between those who have their basic needs met, and those who don't? Rather than artificial geographic constructs crossing not only history and culture, not only need and desire and commonality, but equally fundamental, vast, and real things such as ecosystems and watersheds...what if we looked at how clearly, as a man-made political entity called "country", we've already secured many other borders? Across such frontiers as access to healthcare, basic community participation, communication, and meaningful work? No, we don't look at those lines, and it's not just due to prejudice against that "Other" perceived as arriving from outside those lines on the map. It's because we can't acknowledge how many of the so-called "us" in this country are aliens to its essential benefits. Even in light of the - yes - remarkable mobility and opportunity available to all who, again, are able to first meet their basic survival needs.

I know, now I'm preaching to the choir. Probably everyone I know can more or less agree with me here. All my friends and community members who, like me, don't have health insurance, and never have. All those who long to be more of a voice in the life of their community, but can't because their less-than-living wage requires them to work nights and weekends. And the recent immigrants I know, who for lack of a 9-digit number are unable to compete - not with you, policymakers and loud reactionary voices, but with ME! - for a housecleaning, landscaping, or service industry job. These are the voices that I, reluctantly and less-than-articulately, raise my voice for now and then. Despite the despair that I get from the newspaper. And despite the chorus of naysayers in my own head.

criminal sanctuary

Gooood morning. Here's the headline with which the Journal welcomes us to today: Albuquerque, according to our newly elected mayor Richard Berry, will no longer be a "'sanctuary' for criminals". His new policy for the city directs that "Federal agents will check the immigration status of everyone arrested in Albuquerque — regardless of national origin". This will be accomplished with the efforts of Federal agents working at the city detention center. He assures, however, that "racial profiling with not be tolerated", and that the status of victims and witnesses will not be checked. Well, good for that at least. But I had to appreciate the responses cited in the article. A spokeswoman for the local El Centro de Igualdad y Derechos says it's "disingenuous" for the Mayor to make such a declaration, since Albuquerque has never officially been a place of "sanctuary" to begin with. And an ACLU speaker appreciates the Mayor's promises about profiling, as they provide motivation for all those concerned about basic human rights and dignity to monitor, even more closely, whether such promises are kept in our city.

And it motivates my own little thought, since I first started hearing about Arizona. Before it comes here (and, Love willing, it won't), and before it tries to become the kind of fearmind and unconsciousness that threatens all people, and not just one race or background or nationality: let's all start carrying our passports with us wherever we go. And if we're stopped, for whatever violation or routine inquiry, let's demand that consistency is enforced. Let's make sure that our tax dollars, and our collective need for national security, and our paid law enforcement's time, is well and rightly spent. Let's make them check every one of our right to be here. Let's offer them the opportunity to prove, on each and every available occasion, that this is not "racial", not about a legal system somehow upheld by actions based on the outward appearances of people. And that our states' and country's laws are upheld on princicples more valid than contingency and suspicion. Let's remind them that, since a nation consists ultimately of its people, not of its statutes, which I understand are written for the people (if of and by are too much to ask), that action in the name of "national security" does, in fact, affect the nation. And that's us. Every one of us.

For a bit of relief to this story, I just checked out another: the cities of Tucson and Flagstaff are suing the state of Arizona over SB 1070. And, interestingly, their reasons are not political, ethical, ideological, but imminently practical: the cost of local enforcement, and the loss of dollars from tourism. You can see the whole story here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/05/arizona-immigration-lawsu_n_563908.html

And as for me, I'm off to plant some more corn in my own little criminal sanctuary.

garden probably?

It's starting to look like a garden, anyway. Two box-greenhouses are repaired now (for photos, see www.veggiegrower.net). I transplanted more seedlings into the second one. Then started a circle for the "companions" - corn, beans and melons - in a spot where we may or may not have chopped the clay and rock into a fine enough consistency for planting. Half an hour before sundown, 3 kids materialized. One was the second-grader from last week. "Do you need help?" he asks. "Sure!" I tell him. He carries the watering can, and a 4-and-6-year-old brother and sister follow him. We bring water to all the new seedlings, and the transplants from last week (most of which have survived their minimal maintenance). Then I ask them, "Do you want to make lasagna compost?" They're up for anything. The friend who helped me work the ground there suggested this as a kid-friendly project. It's layers of organic and non-organic material (cardboard and newspaper, alternating with vegetable peels, leaves, straw), stacked and then watered down. The goal is quicker decomposition, and usability as compost or mulch. We'd probably have a lot better odds of achieving this goal if we'd done a more careful job of it. But the light is fading, the parents are getting ready to go, and the kids are alive and full of energy. So we careen around the place, carrying boxes and bunches of straw and cans of water, until we have something sort of resembling a pan of lasagna without the pan, and we're all splashed with water and dust and have straw in our hair. As the mothers start to call out, "!Ya vamos!", I exclaim (in Spanish, and hopefully loud enough for both the kids and their moms to hear), "I hope the parents aren't mad at us for getting dirty..." The kids all repeat their names for me, and I tell them, "Come back next Wednesday, if you want!". "Tomorrow?" asks the younger boy. Well, sure. I'll be here tomorrow too. And I'll welcome you, neighbor, if I see you, just like you all are welcoming me.

garden potentially

The wind has hardly stopped blowing, the last two weeks. Maybe when I make it back to the garden plot, today or tomorrow, it will have been so kind as to just sweep away all that gritty, depleted clay and leave us a clean slate to start from. I did find some free topsoil on craigslist, but haven't had a moment to think about getting it yet. For now, I've added a few bags of compost and pre-packaged topsoil (isn't it weird, that you can buy dirt), built a two-sided compost bin, and set out some little plants that friends gave us. Along with a dozen jalapenos that I bought, so there would be something visible for the people who come there. Can't have too many jalapenos, surely. On my visits I carry gratitude for the help that's been offered so far. One good friend came with me to clear weeds and break ground. He brought his own shovel, an hour or two of hard work, and a blessing spoken over the space when we finished. Another brought tools and helped me repair the first of the little greenhouses, the essential first step to making this place habitable for young growing things.

Last Wednesday I had help from one of the kids -- hopefully the first of many. A second-grader, waiting for his mom to finish English class. Everybody said he had been nothing but trouble in the classroom, and I might find him hard to work with, but I thought he was great. He shoveled dirt, carried water, was polite and friendly, and made remarks that showed he was thinking for himself about the whole process. I told him, come back next week and help us again if you like. But the woman who lives and works at the center of this community told me, a few days later, that he came back the next day -- on his own -- and watered all our little transplants. That bit of information is probably the most encouraging thing I've heard in the last week.

Right now at home are some tiny sprouts, lamentably late, that will soon show themselves to be corn, chard, radishes, and others not yet identifiable. Two or three tomato plants are ready to move. More seeds just went in yesterday. Many gardeners recognize the planting of every seed as a prayer. With so many thoughts right now of frustration and unrecognized potential -- in me, in this world of struggle -- I wait for these specks of possibility to green into the visible answers of YES so much needed in this moment.

the Distance

Here's the dream I woke up with this morning -- such a perfect representation of last night's inner state. One of my excellent companions in the lovely community where I live is getting married. They're full of joy, and I want to celebrate with them. I look for a suitable gift, and this is what I find: change for a $20. In that inexplicable ambivalence that comes with so many dreamstates, I shrug my shoulders and accept this as, apparently, the best I've got. It's only on waking that I groan with recognition. Yeah, this sounds like too much time in the pizza business. But it also sounds like too much time spent with ambivalence and shrugging of shoulders.

I was trying, last night, to answer that question again. The one about the Distance. Between here and there. What is and what could be. What we are and our achingly beautiful potential. And how we manage to live, in the meantime, with the disparity. Yeah, I know, it's dangerous territory. But impossible to avoid, sometimes. Even if I end up feeling like I have little more than pocket change to offer, to Life or to the question, when I try to meet the moment with my gifts...

garden maybe

The plot thickens. To be more accurate, it hardens, calcifies, solidifies completely. Given half a chance, or half a year. Anyone's who's ever worked a piece of land in the desert, especially a sometime-neglected one, knows what I'm talking about.

No one had started working this little plot of land yet, when I finally made it back here. It's just a solid sheet of clay holding a rock collection. Baked dry by another year of New Mexico sun, and hard freeze, and more sun. Mustard grows dense in the small sections that were cultivated last summer. Three short rows that held corn are now just-visible ridges. Two young trees seem to be holding their ground alright. The box gardens, overflowing last year with tomatoes, greens, and basil that I started and other volunteers nurtured, are empty and falling apart. Trash has drifted in from the street. Outside the low adobe wall, cars honk their horns and kids swerve by on bikes.

This place has been the gathering point of a true anarchist community, and a true spiritual work, for about 10 years now. I met its instigators 4 years ago: a woman of about 60 and a man of around 70, both devoted to lives of simplicity and service. They've treated me like family, even when I lose touch for months. Like this time. They always welcome me back, open-armed, when I come round. I want to start the garden for them. As well as for those who live here, and their kids. Much of the neighborhood's residents - and the focus of this outreach - are families of immigrants. Most from Mexico, a few from points further south. Largely without "legal status". Largely without the comforts taken for granted by most who live in this country, or in this town. The work of the community here is about connecting these families with the basics that they need to live and work and survive. Food and clothing (all donated), work opportunities, legal and medical advice, English classes. And - because it should be a right, not a luxury - fresh organic vegetables. If we're lucky. If we're blessed.

I'd rather do this the permaculture way. Careful, slow, planned. Build the soil over some time. Blanket this poor earth with mulches and compost. Introduce a colony of earthworms. But these kids need healthy food. And the instigators want to give them a chance to learn a few things about the life of the earth that breathes, just beneath their surrounding of concrete and asphalt. Their lives are even more transitional than mine. Who knows if they'll even live in this neighborhood next summer or not. Learning is now. Not to mention eating. Planting is now.

Except, it's raining now. And there were insatiable winds yesterday. And I have to work tomorrow. At two jobs. So far, my only work here has been clearing some weeds. I'm a little frustrated. It's a bit late in the spring to be starting a garden from the ground up (and down)...

Maybe I oughta ask for help with this project. Maybe I've taken on more than one person can do. We could surely open young minds to a wealth of beautiful knowledge, with a team of unofficial teachers. There are people all over who know so much more about gardening than I do. But here's the catch: the only guaranteed part of the project is the work. Not the when or how, and not the students. The kids will show up, if they do, while their parents are here for English class. Or when they pass by on foot, or on their bikes, and get curious. And unthinking neighbors, or those with even more struggle than the ones who participate here, might steal the vegetables, like they sometimes did last year. Who can I invite to participate in something this unpredictable?

Here's the offer: a lot of work. We provide all the materials. No guarantees of success. Anybody interested?

uncloser

These are not my beautiful words, but the beauty that Life brought this morning. A foundpoem from today's reading in The Sufi Book of Life (Neil Douglas-Klotz).

sometimes fear induced
hurt in the past
causes part of us to close
a clenched fist
experienced "ourselves" "failing"
illnesses or intoxications
very dense boundaries
emotional-somatic scar tissue

every being
already contained
heart of the One Being
lift the veil

expand your boundaries again
be as porous as you need to be
for this moment of your life

this does not mean eliminating
we need enclosure and container
only the One expands and contracts you
no other source of need
or bounty

Uncloser
open from the inside
reverse the direction
of contraction and incubation
the same radiating, creating energy
gradually expands from a center
in all directions
unfold into a larger circle
rhythm of your heart returns
to that found
in the heart of the holy
ONE

rumiquote

o this is so my life. here and now.


Love flies without limits.
Cuts through all veils.
Rejects the life you knew without looking back.
Gives up on feet entirely -- much too slow!
Sees right through appearances.
Ignores obsession and addiction.
My soul remembers its source:
I was in the potter's hands while
he mixed clay and water --
a new home for me, I think.
The kiln is hot. I'm trying to escape!
Willing, unwilling -- what does it matter?
No longer resisting, I get kneaded and molded,
just like every other lump of clay.

--Rumi

re: juvenation

For...Raven...continued healing, continued journey.
And hope you'll forgive a bit of plagiarized correspondence.

from left ocean's edge
from renewed acquaintance with abundance
you wrote of time and you stretched out together
catching up with yourselves again
loosing hours and expectations
breathing sweet oceanic ions
watching kids and flowers blooming
on their own mysterious calendars

your reach for consciousness
so consistent and commendable and alive
always stretching in and upward for advances
but these tides do have their ebb
necessary regression to bring up
new life from unseen depths
and Love might ask us now and then
to go in over our heads, right,
only for the deepening of our hearts?

you also wrote about showing kindness
to those kids, as to yourself
I titled a reply "re:juvenation"
then saw the word wake and arc into
its playful sleeping components
not only "to recover" or "recharge"
but also "to become young again"
what a miracle
time's neither one-way nor unstoppable

here's to now being wise and wide and spacious
time in all ways open, so much more than linear
here's to finding that sweet secret again
and letting it stretch luxurious into all it loves

time does seem to be playing with us now
draw us backward with its unexpected tidings
lose us in spacious intermissions
making and unmaking, growing us young
slowing when we think it should accelerate
and also, joyfully, the opposite
inviting us back to when we
didn't know too much
returning us to beginnings
and -- such grace --
beginnings to us

2 links to the good work

Two links to my Portland lifetime that I wanted to share. Both of these blogs are clear and articulate windows onto the life of the Catholic Worker movement, and perhaps how it fits into the larger realm of justice, anti-militarism and peace work. I'm so glad these guys are out there!

http://www.catholicworkerportland.blogspot.com/
http://hastingsnonviolence.blogspot.com/

elevating craigslist

Okay, I'll be honest: this was a late-night, split-two-six-packs conversation (and the others can drink a lot more than I can). But I think we've got something here. My sister, her travelling companion and I were talking about all the improvements we'd make if we could hijack craigslist for a day, just for fun, and take its already-useful categories of communication and connection to the next level. Incite people to think about where our shared potential could take us if we really got outside of our shared boxes.

I know some like to laugh at craigslist. And sure, plenty of the site's readers use it less-than-intelligently. To further their own shallow wishes, petty rants, and stuck-in-the-material perspectives. But surely there are many of us out here who also see its potential for collective progress. It's already a beautiful expression of the anarchist/personalist paradigm: let's ask each other directly for the things or the help that we need. Let's get free of our structures, of hierarchy, of money. And we could get even more free together, if we took the conversation further into Reality in all its aspects. Explore mystery. Practice radical honesty. Disarm with humor. Share wisdom, intuition, dreams, and other forms of travel.

So here are just a few of our ideas. Some in fun and some sincere. Wanna add any more to the list?

women seeking unavailable men (or women)
low-confidence men seeking critical women
strictly codependent (for those ready to be honest about it)
life swap (my unfulfilling 9-to-5 for your starving artist struggle...)
gratefully-missed connections ('you have no idea how lucky we are that we didn't meet!')
alternate realities (a discussion forum, a travel share?)
dreamshare (a forum, or a search for partners in lucidity?)
can you help a fellow human out? (not with money, but insights, connections, or introductions)
free ideas (outgrown perspectives, unneeded anxieties, crackpot theories)
listening volunteers (I have time to hear you out unconditionally; let's meet up!)
blessings and affirmations (a counterpart to 'rants and raves')
misplaced objects (a forum for locating all those odd items you lost when you moved out of your last apartment)
will barter for love (enter your suggestion here)

quote

(The crazy philosopher/genius Mr. Saramago does not use punctuation or line breaks in his dialogues. I have added these to make this taste of him a little easier to process.)


"'Does that mean that something could still happen?'

'Not just something, everything.'

'I don't understand.'

'It's only because we live so sunk in ourselves that we don't notice that what is actually happening to us leaves intact, at every moment, what might happen to us.'"

-- Jose Saramago, All The Names

eviction

What's the opposite of "invocation"? A sending away rather than a summoning? That's the intention here. And these words aren't for any person, but for the leftover critic voices that stay after the people leave. Those residual carcinogenic energies shared by all the people in my life who ever thought it was their place to judge or categorize or find me not good enough. I'm just sick and tired - really - of giving these voices free rent in my head. Maybe "eviction" is the type of prayer I'm looking for here?


You
have
no power
over me

and you are overrated
but neither am I over you
thanks to your too long overstaying
your already tenuous welcome

you do not make me
the same Love makes and
unmakes us both
in the arms of infinity
without reservation
and you will not make me any less
any more

you never knew me
as I am known
by the One All
by the knowing completeness
by the beautiful Unity of Love
you thought it fine
to appraise a broken shard of me
to undo and uncomplete me
to take me, apart
to analyze and separate me from my Source

enough this taking liberties
that were never yours
they're my liberties
enough borrowing voices
not yours to begin with
you're no deity or even guru
or even friend
enough obstructing Life
which never finishes with us
I recreate myself and am
re-created entirely
Love and Mercy never stop their
vast creative liberation

damn this condemnation
banish all this separation
sweep away this alienation
would you just let me BE
bless the embracing regeneration
that speaks peace in every moment new
including if you'd let it
to you too
I let it count me IN
imperfect and in transit as I am
and I will not let you count me
any more

and from that grace alone
I say go
but also may you truly
rest
in
peace

quote

"Dervish Hasan understood things differently. He believed that members of this world were responsible for specific duties, but among them there was a group, whether man or woman, who lived under constant trial and tribulation and were wanderers. If this group did not have any means of expression, it would fall to denigration and meanness, or to madness and debility...[others become] the particular group who have no choice but to follow the path of Sufi tradition, for in no other way could they find happiness.

But if women [in a restrictive society] wished to know more, they of course could. The only problem was that from then on they would become wanderers..."

-- Shahrnush Parsipur, Touba and the Meaning of Night

a little good news (from Oregon)

Tuesday, February 16, 2010, 9:56am PST
Employees now own Bob’s Red Mill Natural Foods
Portland Business Journal

Bob Moore turned 81 on Monday. To celebrate, he gave his company to his employees.

The long-time CEO of Bob’s Red Mill Natural Foods launched an employee stock-ownership program, effectively making Bob’s Red Mill a company owned by its 200-plus employees.

“It’s been my dream all along to turn this company over to the employees, and to make that dream a reality on my birthday is just the icing on the cake,” Moore said in a news release.

The announcement was made Monday during an all-company meeting at the Bob’s Red Mill headquarters in Milwaukie.

Moore said the shift to an ESOP won’t change the make-up of the company.

He and his wife, Charlee, founded the company in 1978, growing it into a successful provider of whole-grain food products. In the past decade, the company has averaged annual growth between 20 percent and 30 percent.

Chief Financial Officer John Wagner said that the ESOP will help recruit new talent while also setting up a succession plan once Moore — who remains active in daily operations — steps down.

dream/space/time

So much given in the hours of darkness. Silence: surely earth needs the respite of quiet as much as we do. Sleep itself, such a miracle of regeneration. And then, of course, dreams.

Dream/time: maybe not so much another timeline as the same one, the "known" one, magnified. A ruler measuring micromillimeters instead of just feet. A chance to get inside the current instead of riding only its surface. Stepping, for a moment, both inside and outside this consensus called regular time. The gift of looking back and, sometimes, forward. And now and then -- acutely awake -- into the embering heart of the present.

Dream/space: a mirror appears on the narrow room's confining wall, doubles habitation. Where one moves suddenly is known for its true expansiveness. Reality is finally fully engaged, an experience perhaps similar to what a friend named as "felt sense". Room to move, breathing room, available space for supposed impossibilities. Capacity to use essential senses that wait constricted, if not suffocated, during waking hours. Remembrance: so much more around us, and so much more going on in it, than we acknowledge. Our own given and natural altered state. The space we need access to, to truly inhabit our lives.

The week's gift to me of these things: in some dreamspace, I sit in complete tranquility and observe the composition of a love poem. Not so much that I watch a person write - more that I watch words materialize on a page. The page is like smooth parchment and the words move, mutable and momentary, like peaceful smoke or calm breeze through tree branches. The entire poem is made of anagrams. Each line praises the attributes of its beloved one in a new sequence of namings that turns inside out, somersaults over itself and becomes new celebration, reusing all the same letters, before starting over again in the next exuberant line. There is no where or when. There are no people or objects, other than the words and the page and the life that suffuses them. There's no me, to speak of, and no need to move or act. I am only observation. And in holding attendance to this lovely happening, I'm given a dose of timeliness and spaciousness that, quiet but potent in its joy, travels with me still into the waking journey.

no holidays

Yesterday finally finished a major rush of seasonal work: six weeks, seven days a week, at three jobs. Gotta follow the work when it comes around! And I'm sure enough grateful for it, too. Even more so after about eleven hours of sleep.

My last day of Valentine flower deliveries was, surprisingly, the most satisfying. All week it was roses by the dozen, plush animals and chocolate to offices and homes. Yesterday, I got the deliveries for the workers. The ones who live in a world where holidays don't have quite the same meaning. Making your living in a service industry means that all these days which society at large calls "special" are days that you will spend in attendance on that society, enabling it to be "special" for them. Yesterday I went to Target, Applebees, and Taco Bell. I took roses to women on the staff of a hospital and a nursing home. It was a great reminder: it's not only our expectations about holidays that are being preserved by the hard work of many, mostly invisible, members of a community. It's also the much more basic and essential needs of safety, health, emergency service. Supports that probably even those of us who work holidays take for granted, as somewhat-members of a somewhat-functional society. I'll remember it a little more, after yesterday. Maybe send more thoughts out to those laborers of all kinds. Even on days when I'm at work along with them.

quote

"In the rest of the world everything is burdened with the unreality of matter; here, we levitate. Our days recover the freedom to invent themselves, and thanks to the strange arithmetic that results from adding nothing to nothing, our days can follow one another in a significant way -- I mean, they are able to keep their meaning."

-- Laura Restrepo, A Tale of the Dispossessed

across

I'm looking right now at a scrap of paper covered on both sides with writing. Most of the words are not in English. In some places the writing overlaps. Words and dates are circled, underlined, crossed out. They're written at right angles, or opposite each other, as would happen when two people, sitting at a table, each picked up the pen by turns from their side. Maybe you have a scrap of paper like this one. They're beautiful artifacts of communication. They're a record of a moment when bridges were built and gaps of understanding were bravely crossed. I am fortunate to have several such pieces of paper among my treasures.

This particular scrap, two nights ago, was a meeting with my friend from Turkey. I still wonder how we're friends, every time we talk. He's at least 15-20 years older than me. He has a Ph.D. in metallurgical engineering. He is Muslim. But we met as fellow pizza drivers - both getting by in our own meantimes, while hunting down what we really want to do. We talked first about travel, culture, food, books. We found some simple common ground. He expresses that wonder and reverence for Life that's bridged more than one gap in past friendships. Tonight I want to see how strong that bridge is. I'm here to see if we can talk about religion.

I'm telling him about the Sufi circle I've just met. I want to put them in a larger context of understanding. He's astonished that there are Sufis in Albuquerque at all, much less multiple groups. He begins - with understandable pride - to outline their history, much of which originated in Turkey. First I get a list of the various branches and their founders. Then, when I ask about Sufism's relation to the larger world of Islam, I am offered a helpful 10-minute lecture on the succession of the Prophet Mohammed and the subsequent branching into Shia and Sunni. Who, he says, can be distinguished by the fact that each follows a different founder, while embracing the practice which the _other_ group says that it in fact embraces. He draws an 'X' at this point, showing the paradoxical overlap. I can't tell if he's being ironic, or simply observant of humanity's contradictions. He does seem to have a quietly dry sense of humor, even though his speech is always dignified, intelligent, precise. But there's not quite enough common linguistic ground here for some of those subtleties.

I've been working for a long time to gain a second language. Spanish, that is: not Turkish.  And it's happening, surely though slowly. It's been a real gift to find, when a bilingual conversation occasionally finds a gap it can't cross in English, that I can sometimes jump in and complete the thought from the Spanish side. Just a few sentences, just a couple words can complete the needed bridge and keep us moving forward. Thought I'd never make it even to this level of fluency, really. But tonight's conversation reminds me what a miracle it is that communication happens at all. His English is fairly strong, but it has its gaps now and then. And I don't speak any Turkish. There are moments when he struggles, reaching for an abstraction or a philosophical footing. And when you don't have any knowledge of the other's other language, all you can do is listen. With presence, openness, and at times maybe a little imagination. It's a great practice to be reminded of. And it isn't only needed across different languages. How I could wish, so many times, that others had found such presence with me. To reach with heart, patience, and wonder toward an idea, or an experience of mine, that didn't translate into their personal lexicon. Rather than rushing to fit it into some syntax that left me misunderstood, if not judged for something I wasn't saying at all. In a very real sense, we do each speak our own language. At any rate, it's a valuable reminder for me. A practice I can try to maintain with others. Including, even, on the treacherous ground of speaking in English.

Thankfully, we don't spend all our time on history or ideology. He moves to the question I had hoped for: what's it about for you? After a little very basic sharing about the practice that I've experienced, he says, putting a hand over his heart, "But how does it feel?" And I know we're not talking about emotionalism here. This is about getting to the center. I tell him, simply, that it's about as real as it gets. He seems happy at this. "It makes no difference what one experiences mentally", he affirms, tapping his forehead, "if one is not also (pointing at his chest) experiencing heartily." It's a bit of a reach for vocabulary, but really I think his slip of words says it just about right.

There's also another, ulterior motive for this conversation. One that has nothing to do with mind or spirit. Well, maybe not as directly. I want him to show me some of his culinary expertise. He brought samples of his cooking to work a couple of times in the past. They were incredible, and I've been hinting at a wish for recipes for a couple years now. Tonight as we part ways on the sidewalk he says, "Call me in a couple weeks and we make the baklava." Now those are some words I've been waiting for.

delivery/conductivity

Flowers, phonebooks, and pizzas to the people. Bilingual goodwill efforts to the business owners on Bridge from the River to Atrisco. Clothing and a new community-making option, right there in the neighborhood, for the women of Casa. Supplies, common acquaintances, and offer of support to the new women's artisan cooperative. And also the card of a friend seeking multilingual people for a entrepreneurial/service effort (could be further employment for the women at the co-op, whose origins literally span the globe). The Google map site, for views of the old hometown, to the friend who hasn't been back to Mexico in 11 years. Contact info for free English classes, to all the guys at work (they're all getting into the idea, it seems). Except for the one who's already enrolled in two classes at once, making up for all the years he lost, in the factory in L.A...

And what comes back to me? A new back-of-the-hand knowledge of the north and south Valleys of my town. Miles of walking uncountable and uncounted. Clearing the blood under sun and cloud and snowfall, heading (sometimes) away from the grief and impotent, unfixable anger and toward whatever comes after. Two soul-restoring nights of live music, good company, barely-room-to-shimmy dance floors full of happy fellow human beings. Dreams that attempt to right a wrong or two, if only by putting the heavy shoes for a moment on the other's feet. Birthday wishes from friends I didn't think even knew the day. Generous invitations to share food, drink, conversation, from more than one who did. And all the kindness that, however unanticipated, always seems to come with bringing random stuff to total strangers with no expectations. Stay open to the current. Keep the current open. The energy of these connections is always alive, hidden and waiting in the circuitry...

*******

Love is here
and now and here and now
refugees with unreasonable courage say it
a few unbound from pain's consensus speak it
brave fugitives of convention call it clear
and all with nothing left to lose cry it
with their dissolution's liberating tears
there is as much Love as there is hate
fear greed apathy hypocrisy cynicism doubt
yes there are surely those
but there is as much Love as there is
everything else there is
and more

the door opens inward
the door opens outward too
why are we my inner selves
still stifling each other
in this collapsing anteroom
redressing wounds
retelling disaster's epic
repeating news of chaos looting scarcity
when just beyond are all the healers
all the medicine
and all the us
that we could need for regeneration?

we acquiesced for far too long
all my survivors to all of theirs
let confidence in distrust take the day
grafted their unmended pain to mine
and helped to hold the door against the Light
but even through the closure it illumines
reaching radiating irresistible
and even barely moving I can
feel a way forward by the incandescence igniting
all around the edges

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/.