Border Stories

“...the universe is a communion of subjects, not a collection of objects.”

            Thomas Berry

           

            I use to think of myself as being fairly intelligent, but I wonder if I am the wiser, or less so, by realizing how little I truly understand. I have lived here on the border with Mexico for ten years now and remain dumbfounded how people living within shouting distance of each other cannot understand each other’s language or that an imaginary line can create such differences in economic well-being.

            Even small things can reveal surprises and stories. I use to find a lot of objects left behind by those crossing the border illegally while out hiking along the jeep roads and trails. Some of the things I would find were left behind when they were apprehended by the Border Patrol; things like cigarette lighters, nail clippers, and toothbrushes. These are considered potential weapons. Other things like backpacks, clothing, and personal objects are left behind when the migrants make their connections for transport north. Vehicles are packed with twenty or more persons at times. There is no room for anything except what they wear or perhaps what can fit into a pocket.

            I would sometimes take found objects home. The lighters were handy. There were blankets, hats, nail clippers and all sorts of interesting things. In time these objects forged a connection that went beyond whatever practical use they served me. I say this in hindsight. It wasn’t my intent. I came to a fuller realization that there is no such thing as a small thing and no act without consequence. Sleeping under a blanket or holding something someone else has carried across the length of nations has meaning. I can’t say what it is and I fear defiling it by making feeble attempts. I often struggle to find words that denote significance without implying that something can be understood, but we all breathe the same air.

            A few years back I was working as a RN in the emergency room. A SUV that was seen driving from a mountain access road was pursued by the Border Patrol and eventually halted when strips laid in the road for that purpose flattened the tires. The driver lost control. The vehicle was overloaded with nineteen or twenty passengers and it rolled into cars that had been pulled to the side by the police. If I remember right, nineteen of the injured were brought to our emergency room. There were others that were flown directly to the trauma center and others were taken directly to the morgue. There were no drugs, no weapons, just people looking to work or to reunite with family.

             I understand the need for immigration control. I don’t understand how it mitigates our humanity. Maybe one has to be there, talk to these folks, see their hunger, their embracing of your smile or cowering in fear, to cover their wounds, or watch them die in order to see the weakness of our explanations and justifications. I hope not, although it does leave an impression. They are not concepts or statistics. They are people. Trust me, they are not so different from you or me and for all the suffering we inflict on these people I have come to believe that we, collectively as communities and as a nation, and we as individuals of these collectives are the greater losers for turning our backs on them. We lose a chance to honor something very worthy and to show gratitude for the good fortune we have.

            I am trying hard to say something, a gut feeling about who we are and I risk compromising my effort by saying too much or too directly, so, please indulge me one more story, one more experience that has become part of the worldview I hope to share. The beauty of telling a story is that I don’t have to decide what it should mean for you. My great hope is that you listen with an open mind. The Christian mystic Thomas Merton said in his book, ‘No Man is an Island,” that “A person of sincerity is less interested in defending the truth than in stating it clearly for he thinks that if the truth be clearly seen it can very well take care of itself.”  The onus is on me and if one person out there steps out of their citadel of concepts to be touched by the struggle of their fellow men and women, someone who would have contentedly and complacently kept their distance otherwise, I will feel fulfilled in my endeavor.

            This too happened while I was nursing. At the time I worked in the Intensive Care Unit. A young woman was rushed across the border by ‘Cruz Roja’ ambulance service and left at an outlying hospital. From there she was flown to where I worked, it being the nearest place with a surgeon. This woman had been pregnant and in the early stages of labor when the doctors in Mexico discovered that she was breach and recommended that she have a caesarian delivery for which payment was expected in advance. She did not have the money and went ahead with a vaginal delivery that left her hemorrhaging. They were unable to staunch the bleeding, even with surgery. She arrived at our hospital in severe shock and was given many units of blood and went into surgery twice again that night. She remained unconscious. She was dying. Truly everyone did everything possible. Truly, it was too late. She was going to die a needless death. The border guards would not let her husband across to be with her for the lack of the proper papers. They had one other child.

            Death was no stranger to those of us there that night, but there was something so poignant, so intense that it cast a spell over the whole hospital. Little was said between us. When someone would try to say something their words would falter and fade, sentences were left unfinished, tears shed and all night long something happened that I had never seen before or since. People came to see her: nurses, doctors, technicians, people who had nothing to do with her care. They came as if on a pilgrimage and stood by her bed unable to really comprehend what we were witness to. Sadness welled like a great ocean wave that one never knows from whence it comes or why and at dawn she died. Her husband never made it to her bedside despite our pleas.

            I wrote a poem of sorts and it remains an expression of my experience that night:

“This sunrise

            the priest sets the crucifix

            at the bedside as

I watch

            sadness bloom and take faith’s hand

            for the last dance of a long night.

A small Mexican woman

            dies from birthing a child.

All night

            women came to embrace her

            in love and fear

            and beautiful incomprehension.

We were

            the end of the line

            of too many circumstances and injustices.

This sunrise

            seems to hesitate while

            sadness and faith dance on and on

            into a new day.”

            I recollect and reminisce on these events because it is like tilling the soil in the garden prior to planting. I aspire to fulfill an ache to explore what it means to be human, to be me. I do not hope to satisfy this ache, only to honor it. Sometimes it means turning aside from choices that are safer, more comfortable, or offer gratification of my immediate emotional needs. I am supported by a deep belief in our connections to each other and all that lives. I believe in an intrinsic inclination toward kindness. I believe this not because it is necessarily true, but because it is empowering. I am supported by you, and, I hope you find some support in me

           

Thank you.

            Be well.

            

Can We Do Better?

Utah Firing Squad Executes Convicted Killer

As reported by Associated Press

“Draper Utah- A death row inmate who had used a gun to fatally shoot two men suffered the same fate Friday Morning as he was executed by a team of marksmen- the first time Utah used the firing squad to carry out a death sentence in 14 years.

            A barrage of bullets tore into Ronnie Lee Gardner’s chest where a target was pinned over his heart. Two minutes later an ashen Gardner, blood pooling in his dark blue jumpsuit, was pronounced dead at 12:17 a.m....

            The five executioners, certified police officers who volunteered for the task and remain anonymous, stood about 25 feet away, behind a wall cut with a gunport, and were armed with matching .30 caliber Winchester rifles. One was loaded with a blank so no one knows who fired the fatal shot. Sandbags stacked behind Gardner’s chair kept the bullets from ricocheting around the cinderblock room.

            Utah Dept. of Corrections Director Thomas Patterson said the countdown cadence went “5-4-3...” with the shooters starting to fire at the count of 2.

            Gardner’s arm tensed and jerked back when he was hit. As the medical examiner checked for vital signs the hood was pulled back, revealing that Gardner’s head was tilted back and to the right, his mouth slightly open...”

            The atrocity here is so obvious, it is impossible to put it in words. I let the description speak for itself. I am tempted to wish all those who would justify our communal acts of violence and wrath could witness firsthand such brutality. I imagine that at least some would hesitate in the future before being an armchair god of life and death if we were all there in that room as this man was executed, together.

            And yet I know the anger I feel at this moment is just as insidious in hardening the heart and building barriers between me and my world, and others and their worlds. It is a raw energy that needs direction so the acts that follow bring positive consequences rather than perpetuating violence and fear. I wish for people like Gandhi to be among us, to help us, our world, but in my wishing I sense there are the seeds of many Gandhi’s among us, right now. If we cultivate the soil for these seeds, they can grow. And if we trust the practice of nurturing goodness, goodness can manifest. For some of us the fields we cultivate will be small, and for some they will be large.

            So, I ask these questions. How can this kind of punishment not rank equal to the very acts of violence that we hold criminal and abhor? What do we achieve by it? Justice? Does it deter other murders? Is our world now safer, kinder, or healthier? Does anyone even really feel better for it? I put these thoughts out there with my hope for a healing world; for us, for our children, and for their children.

Thank you.

Singing

            Dedication: To all of us who can’t sing, write, lead, love, hammer a nail, or talk to God, I tell this story, one that has been told countless times for ages and ages. It is true and I know it doesn’t stand alone, neither in my life or yours. I dedicate it with prayers for our well-being.

            I was in the seventh grade and had grown up in a family that did not sing. It was assumed that we could not carry a tune. Up to this time I don’t recall even trying very hard, definitely at no more than a whisper or as a pantomime. No exceptions, not even ‘Happy Birthday’ was safe. I lamented this and deeply felt the lack in my life. I wanted to sing songs like other people. It did not seem to be too much to ask for.

            I enrolled into chorus at school. After a couple of classes the teacher took me aside to tell me that she did not think I could “fit in.” I could not carry a tune. I would be a burden on everyone else. Seventh grade chorus obviously was for young people who could sing and not for those who aspired to find their voice. Whispers became silence and pantomime a stone face. The only exception was many years later when I had children of my own. I would sing ‘Happy Birthday’ just loud enough.

            My story jumps almost forty years. Forty years! That’s a lot of time and a big piece of a lifetime! I had bought a cheap guitar and was playing with a friend of mine. We strummed chords and he sang folk songs. His voice was not particularly strong or melodic, but we had fun. After a while though, he became frustrated by my not singing and delivered the ultimatum to sing or he was not interested in us playing together any longer. Now, we were close friends and neither of us had large social worlds. We were important to each other. I knew he would not stand in judgment. He could care less about the quality of my voice. In hindsight I would say it was a matter of tough love. Whatever his intention, I had to confront all those people who told the child I was that he could not sing. It was a showdown with no escape, no whispering a tune or mouthing words. The more voices that emerged from my past, my fears of being inadequate, from other vulnerabilities; of being a fat kid with a hair-lip or a Jew or being shy, the more they shouted the more important it became to sing a fucking song! So simple, yet so hard. You know what I mean? I could not carry the weight of all those voices anymore. Now was the time. Now is always the time.

            I am not going to lament those forty years it took for me to learn how to sing. That’s just what it took. I am grateful that it didn’t take longer.

“I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,


When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,


When he beats his bars and would be free;

It is not a carol of joy or glee,


But a prayer that he sends from his heart's deep core,


But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings –

I know why the caged bird sings.”

            Paul Laurence Dunbar from his poem: Sympathy

Borders and Boundaries

            On June 2, a black bear was spotted in a backyard near Sierra Vista, also meaning that it was spotted near the Huachuca Mts. The bear became frightened as people and game officials gathered, and it climbed a tree. Seeking sanctuary in a tree in someone’s backyard, unlike in the forest, is to seek sanctuary in a dead end, sometimes literally. Consequently, it was deemed necessary to ‘tranquilize’ the bear rather than tranquilize the onlookers, and it was reported that the bear only suffered a bloody nose from tumbling out of the tree. Do bears suffer? Have you ever seen a bear stretched out and skinned? They have an eerie resemblance to humans. I have also watched them at play.

            Cookie-cutter backyards make for poor bear habitat. This particular bear was transported to the Peloncillo Mts. along the N.M. border. This is the probable origin of the concept of lateral deportation that the Border Patrol is fond of. Do you know that there are months when twenty or more bodies of migrants will be found in the desert who die of exposure? These people are as related to cartel members or terrorists as a black bear is to a killer whale. In case you were wondering about this...

            Did you hear about the migrant teenager killed near El Paso after he threw rocks at an agent who probably could have responded by flipping him the finger and walking or driving away? This story had gotten a lot of attention for a few days and it is unclear exactly what happened, at least to me, but a very similar incident happened here in Cochise County about six months ago. It was witnessed by other agents so we can be assured of two things; the rock was thrown and the agent had help if he chose not to kill the migrant. But he did choose to kill him. And he did kill him. And the investigation was dropped the week before a rancher was shot and killed near to the same location. There is probably not a direct connection in the way we commonly think of direct connections but many a wise man and woman, black, white, or otherwise, has realized that violence breeds more violence. Sad, isn’t it? You know the saying, ”Stop this train, I want to get off.” Lets change ‘I’ to  ‘We’, shall we? Communal nightmares only end with communal awakenings.

            Two weeks before the bear we were talking about was deported, another one that was rummaging around in free boxes, otherwise know as trash cans, in the Ramsey Canyon area, also in the foothills of the Huachuca’s, was euthanized. Killed. Studies show that bears that are laterally deported are more likely to die than survive for the simple reason that if the habitat could support another bear, there would most likely already be another bear there. I guess that is why they called it euthanizing, being that it seems to be less painful than dooming them to starve to death.

            I hike often in the Huachuca Mts. and have encountered both migrants and bears. When I meet up with immigrants in those high mountains, I am reminded that I belong to the family of man. When I meet up with bears, I am reminded that I belong to an even larger family of worthy beings. I am grateful for being born into this world, although I lament for the exploited and those cast aside.

            So, I have searched for an enemy and found that it is I, and it is you. It is nature-lovers who want to live in the mountains or deserts with privacy. It is the animal-lover who projects their emotionally driven ideals into game management decisions. It is the righteous who find justification for dominion over all livings beings. It is the lover of cheap clothing and beach resorts. It is all of us who can be more mindful, less fearful, and more respectful. Those bearing the brunt of punishment are at the end of a long chain of causes. Is the bear to blame for seeking food, or an immigrant for seeking employment?

            I really don’t know what else to say. I wish I knew something that no one has thought of before. I am sad for these things. I am compelled to ask hard questions, endlessly if necessary. I know that what little empowerment I have hinges on taking responsibility for it all, regardless of how easy it would be to lay it on someone else’s doorstep. I believe wholeheartedly that the vitality of life on Earth depends on diversity and that people do not deserve or need to be killed for throwing rocks.

Play

            Play is important, worthy of being taken seriously, and anything taken seriously should be able to stand up to some play. By playful I don’t mean tinged with sarcasm. Sarcasm, even when intermingled with mirth and humor is too serious. Play is openhearted, light in weight, unhindered to come and go. Serious is thought and feeling bound in emotional need. It is fear made solid and crazy made sane.

            Play does not mean less than wholehearted or being unworthy of effort. We are supposed to nurture life but a closed fist is only the shadow of an open hand. An open heart-and-mind is free to respond to life. This is a good thing.

            Of all the functions of being human, how did humor and laughter come about? We are fortunate.

            Thank you

Edith Warton was quoted as saying:  “Longevity and creativity rest on four things: being unafraid of change, having an insatiable curiosity, being interested in big things, and being happy in small ways.”

The Want of Language: the desire to, the lack of, and the search for completeness

            Of late, when I hear myself about to use the word spiritual, I feel trapped. It would be bad enough if it was only that I found the word inadequate as was once the case, but it has taken on an odor of repulsiveness and danger. The actual dictionary meaning is characterized by that which is distinguished from the corporeal. It use to be more inclusive of some of what we now relegate to the intellect, which seems to have become a function of the brain. And amidst all the divisiveness of what we are, whatever we are, somehow spiritual has gotten to be better or nicer, more important or more refined. I feel under attack. I do not want to be a second-class citizen to being an ethereal energy lost in sacred rapture. Why not? Because that WANTING means I cannot be what I fully AM; a human, a man, 58 years old. I have good days and bad days. Death awaits me.

            What I do want is spiritual growth to be a guiding principle among others in my life. What I wish for is a word that is inclusive, one that doesn’t have negative connotations toward my body or daily activities. Is there some way to speak and think without getting tangled up in the inadequacy of language to convey multiple meanings simultaneously? I feel stuck in a two-dimensional world trying to describe a box. All I can do is draw one rectangle after another and none of them can stand alone, literally or figuratively.

            What I suspect is that I won’t find what I’m looking for except in dialogue. If you and I were to dialogue, we might begin to recreate language with an understanding of our limitations, we might be able to use that which has been a source of entrapment as a source of expression and growth. It could be as if we took all the little drawings of rectangles, each from a different point of view, put them on cards and flicked through them quickly. Have you ever done that? Hah, look, a box!

            That’s why we need each other. That’s why we need each other in order to be that larger being and greater understanding that we already are. It is one more reason why we shouldn’t waste our lives competing with each other. But I have journeyed a long way from where I started, writing about the word ‘spiritual,’ and it still sticks in my throat. Can you help me? Please?

be well and thank you

Religion, elders, and making choices:

            If I had to choose a religious affiliation, it would be that of being a Buddhist. I would only do so reluctantly. Not because I have any problem with the label per se, or don’t think it’s the most appropriate, but this sort of identifying with a category is a messy and ambiguous endeavor, meaning different things to different people. What is it that makes a person a Buddhist or Christian or some other something or other?  Is it about belief? Or emotional comfort, belonging to a community, performing rituals? Reading books? Praying?  Maybe. Sometimes. All the above? According to whom?

            I am much more comfortable just saying that I follow a Buddhist path. It doesn’t matter to me what that makes me because I didn’t know what I was before either. I do what I do and believe what I believe and I don’t need to know what it adds up to. That’s actually part of my path: I do things and trust the bigger picture to the bigger picture. You could even call it God. I don’t usually, but I could. My God responds according to what I am and what I do. My God knows the truth of who I am and my God doesn’t need proof of my allegiance or proof of my worthiness. My worthiness to be alive is proven by my being alive. That's the way I see it.

            I find it difficult to adequately describe what I call a ‘path’, because it is much more than its components. It is not separate from who I am and the life I live. That’s why I am more comfortable calling it a path rather than a religion or belief. It includes what might be judged as attainments and shortcomings except that there really are no successes or failures. It is work in progress. If I needed to describe it someone, they would have to be willing to add up the pieces in order to get an idea of what it means to me.

            I have been reading a book of interviews with elderly Benedictine monks and nuns. These are people that have been committed to a religious way of life for sixty, seventy, or more years. Reading their stories and hearing their thoughts, I can see and feel how they have been shaped by their faith and everyday activity; they radiate a love for the spiritual life and community and they themselves appear like jewels. They so embody their paths that they are living examples of what would otherwise be no more than lofty ideas. The transformation happens day-by-day, year-by-year, guided by their faith and the principles of their religion.

            I don’t think one needs to be a monk or nun to engage so wholeheartedly, but I do think one needs to be willing to make intentional decisions, some of which might appear to be sacrificial at the time in order to nurture this lifestyle. I am not too confident that a spiritual or religious life can be squeezed in or added onto an already full dance card. And there’s no getting around the time element and the challenges we face. I guess we all have to ask ourselves where it is that we want to go with our lives and what it takes to make it happen. No one can do it for another although we can help or hinder each other profoundly. And there’s no neutral ground to retreat to. Even our passivity or avoidance has consequence.

be well and thank you

Fences, spotlights, and watchtowers

The temple of my spiritual practice lies within concentric rings of fences and walls, spotlights and watchtowers, guards and protocols. Being that I go to a prison to sit with inmates, it could be that I mean what I say literally. Being that my practice is to step aside from all that hinders an awareness of that which I am, it could be that I mean what I say metaphorically. I am thankful that I am not physically incarcerated.

            When we sit in silence and bring our attention to the present moment, the circle of vinyl-covered cushions borrowed from the sofa becomes a sacred place. There is a story of the Buddha (Buddha meaning an awakened one, indistinguishable from the awakened you and I) walking along with his disciples. He stops and says, “This would be a good place for a temple.” The god Indra steps up and sticks a blade of grass in the ground and replies, “There, I have built you a temple.” It is reported that the Buddha was pleased.

            Out in the prison yard, alongside of the track and basketball courts, there is a small dome-shaped skeleton of a structure. Once a week, barring lockdowns and such prison business, the Native Americans are given the opportunity to have a sweat. It does not look like much from the outside, but I imagine that to enter it with the legacy of tradition, ceremony, and community is to step into another realm of being, and, of course, the departure from another realm. I have noticed with interest that even the inmates who do not participate and are not Native American seemed comforted by its presence and use.

            So, just what makes us a prisoner? Or a victim? What hinders us from our potential at this time and place? I wonder about the concentric rings circling the being that I am. Are they protecting me or imprisoning me? Is it worth the price to be safe? Deadened is safe. Dead is even safer.

            But there is another kind of dying, a dying while alive, and a dying that is also a birthing. It is entering the sweat lodge moment after moment, coming back to it like we come back to our breath in meditation. It is to be fearless. It is our birthright.

"The earth is my witness."

     The story of Siddhartha’s (soon to be the Buddha) enlightenment includes his resolute determination in the face of Mara’s (the personified spirit of delusion, fear, and greed) temptations and challenges. As a final challenge, Mara demanded to know by what ‘right’ Siddhartha had to take the seat of supreme enlightenment and who would verify it. Siddhartha reached out and touched the ground, “The earth itself is my witness,” he said. The earth shook and trembles and Mara and his assembly of demons left.

     I think there is more to this than a verification. I think that touch was a touch of absolute unity. The earth was not just a witness to the truth but IS the truth and the mother of all beings that express it in their particular way. The truth for Shakyamuni Buddha does not reside in Heaven, in concepts, hidden in foreign lands or languages. It is not reserved for people of a particular color, IQ, belief system, rituals, or geography. The truth is the truth. It is what it is. It is here, and it is now. It is you and it is I. It is alive. The Buddha’s life story is my life story, and yours.

     The Zen teacher Dogen wrote, “Grasses, trees, and land that are embraced by this way of transformation (awakened consciousness) together radiate a great light and endlessly expound the inconceivably profound dharma. Grass, trees, and walls bring forth the teaching for all beings- common people as well as sages- and they in turn extend the dharma for the sake of grasses, trees, and walls.” Like some would say, “It’s all one love.”

     I’m not sure why I have such a profound resonance with this “The earth itself is my witness.” I’m OK with not knowing. Not knowing why keeps it from becoming a museum piece. It is the invitation to trust and the vastness of not knowing along with the grace of trust are my refuge and birthright. For me, not knowing and truth do not oppose each other. Truth is simple. Truth speaks for itself. There are lots of ways of listening.

    

     Zen poet Ryokan wrote:

“The rain has stopped, the clouds have drifted away

     and the weather is clear again.

If your heart is pure, then all things in your world are      pure.

Abandon this fleeting world, abandon yourself,

Then the moon and flowers will guide you along the Way.”

J.

Last week I heard that J. killed himself. I was surprised to hear that, as were most people I know. He was friendly and sociable, helpful and well known. He worked at the thrift store, and if you live in Bisbee you go to the thrift store if you need to get something, get rid of something, just feel like shopping or getting out. It’s our version of the mall. I did not hear any of the details at the time.

     Sometime later a friend said that she had heard that J. had been a user of a certain street drug. Hearing that became one of those moments when I could clearly watch my thoughts and feelings emerge and take shape. The hearsay was irrelevant to me; the sadness of his passing and my imagining his pain or anguish was unaltered. But, I did think of how sometimes, some of us tend to hide behind that sort of reasoning, as if this made his suicide more comprehensible and in some way, more remote as something that could happen to us or someone close to us. Even the possibility is a threat and so we create distance and separation.

     YET, and I can say what I am going to say without having to exclude our individuality, if we finally face our own mortality and the full kaleidoscope of the human condition as it lives in us, we might not feel so threatened and compelled to build boundaries. Even though we are all born with and into different circumstances and create more conditions as we live, there is a basic condition of the mind and the ways it responds to life that is prior to our differences. It is not ours in the sense of yours or mine, but ours in a collective sense. I don’t know what the pain J. suffered was, but I know what pain is, and I think we are all capable of responding in ways that harm ourselves. If we don’t, we are fortunate and it is by the grace of the whole world. We should bear witness to those less fortunate.

     I grew up in a Jewish home and being aware of the holocaust was akin to learning how to walk or talk. As I grew older there was a shift and I realized how important this awareness was to all of humankind, not solely as a horrible event in Jewish history. There are reasons why the world should never forget, that it is not enough to forgive, punish, and pay retribution. Remembering is the only true justice because what we need to learn over and over is its very possibility. It can happen again (and has with no less horror.) This kind of expression of hate, violence, and fear is part of the full array of being human. It does not belong solely to the other guy or other nation or some other time. This acceptance of who we are, individually and collectively, is the starting place of healing and transformation. Denial lets our demons and fears rest in the dark until another day.

     Often our world seems too big, too incomprehensible, and plain old too crazy to respond to in the ways we would like to. I’d like to share one of the greatest of inspirational sayings and teachings that I know, one that has been etched into my mind; from Mother Teresa: “You   cannot not do great things, only small things with great love.” I hold the belief that when we break the boundaries between ourselves and others we make ourselves available and capable in ways we cannot quite fathom beforehand.

     I am sorry of J.’s passing. He must have been hurting. His helpful friendly manner showed that he had a lot of love and compassion to share. I hope his passage will be guided by that love and that compassion.

Be well.

Fleeting Dreams

Jan.22, 2008

“The great net

has been hauled in

close to shore-

how many living things

are tangled in its meshes”

                                    Saigyo

         It was not too long ago that I was spending a lot of time walking; in town, in the desert, and in the mountains. I had a lot of restless energy and had to keep moving. I walked, chanted, looked around, and listened. I made an effort to avoid thinking, thoughts being the burden they were. Even walking myself tired, nights were torturous and sleep eluded me often.

         But lately, with the turning of the seasons, things have changed. I am no longer consumed by my anguish and anxiety. I have taken up running and it being mid-winter, the days are short and pass quickly. I do miss those walks though, they have  rhythm and texture of their own and after many hundreds of miles there developed a deep connection between something within me, the way of walking, and the world I move through.

         Santoka Taneda was a mendicant monk of the early twentieth century. He spent his life walking, composing poetry, begging, praying, and taking care of each day and each day’s events as they arose. One of the haiku that he wrote goes:

Going deeper

         And still deeper-

                  The green mountains

         During the last couple of weeks I have become enamored with the color of the sky. It seems so intensely blue. The air shimmers with clarity, and the vividness of the landscape not only compensates for the open and broad expanses of the desert, but also is enriched by it like heavy, thick swatches of pure pigment on a canvas. The golden yellows of dried grasses, the green of the oak groves, the rocky landscape, and the dusting of snow on the high peaks; all of it seems embraced by that boundless blue sky like a great mother watching in silence- patiently and knowingly.

         So, the other day, in spite of being worn out from a run, I went into the hills. Some of that old anxiety was rearing its head and I needed to be outside. My house, any house, would be too small. I took my fatigue,

sorrow, gratitude for being healthy, and appreciation for a beautiful day with me like one big collage. I meandered; there was no hurry, and when I fell into thoughts I would bring myself back to what was around me.

         Nearing the end of the walk, as I was going through a wooded area on the side of a hill, there was a hunter on the trail ahead of me. He was peering through a spotting scope, and I approached quietly so not to spook whatever he was watching. He pointed out two does feeding on the opposite hillside and a buck in the valley below. It was bow hunting season for hunters and mating season for the deer. He said that he had a buddy down there, somewhere, stalking the buck.

Octopus traps-

         Fleeting dreams under

                  The summer moon

                                    Basho

Oh, no one is spared. Nothing remains outside the mesh of this net. But I like to believe that we humans can at least wake from the dream enough to understand it for what it is, unlike the octopus waiting in its small world for morning to bring its death. I stood there and watched the drama unfold, alert for the sound of a bowstring releasing an arrow.

Is it crying from an arrow

from the fishers of Suma?

                  hototogisu

                                    Basho

And a commentary:

         “According to Basho, the fisherman was trying to scare off crows that had come after the fish being dried in the sunshine on the beach. Also alluded to is the fact that Suma was the site of a fierce battle between the Genji and Heike clans in the twelfth century.”

         I wonder, if the arrow was shot at a crow, why is it that the hototogisu ( A cuckoo-like bird) cries out? Is there an unseen connection? Perhaps a connection without meaning? How many living things are tangled in the great net? This ‘ great net’, does it span only space, or time as well? Are the dead warriors of the past crying out? What exactly was the drama that I was witnessing? What was my part? Your part?  Would I hear the bowstring, the high-pitched cry of a deer, and the clatter of hooves and rocks as the does ran off leaving the young buck behind? As it turned out, they moved out of range and it was over for now. I walked on, the deer walked on; and the hunters, too, went on their way.

         That moment passed, but all things born are things that die, and all that we have collected to distract us, prop up our stories, or create a sense of safety- all of it will pass as if it never was:

Summer grasses:

         All that remain

                  Of warriors’ dreams

                                             Basho

Despite the ephemeral nature of dreams, we all live a dream. In a way they are our containers and bodies. For all that is born, all selves, are dreams, as fragile as a dewdrop on the grass; as real as the moon reflected in water, yet, yet….. We can ‘yet, yet’ endlessly, like a dog chasing its own tail.

         I think of a chapter Dogen wrote called ‘Expounding a Dream Within a Dream.” The way I understand it is in the form of a question that we have to ask for ourselves, over and over again:  Does the dream dream you?; do you dream the dream?; or does the dream dream the dream?

Thank you and

Be well

Waking up

grabbing a few crackers

   I notice, they are yellow,

      doves are cooing and the coffee smells good

Journal entry, March 29

     I grab a handful of crackers and my cup of coffee and something strikes me as being different from just about every other morning that I do the same thing, and I realize, it IS different, really different. It is this morning, not any other morning. I see this as clear as day. It is not an assumption and nothing I could say now could convey what a resounding realization such a seemingly obvious thing can be. And if that wasn’t enough, I realize it is not only what I see, hear or smell that is different, I am different, at least I certainly feel different, and that is very different from most mornings when I pretty much feel the same.

     I slept well last night. I slept long. I dreamt and

things happened in my psyche. I am well rested. It was an unusual morning in that it was already light when I got out of bed. I think back to the moments of awakening. While I was not quite awake I was nobody in particular. I could have been anybody but then I became me as I put on some clothes. The tape started to run and I heard the stories, the needs, wants, fears, and scenarios of whom I am suppose to be. Yesterday’s voice drowned out the stranger’s joy of waking, of hearing birdsongs, of feeling rested, safe, and healthy.

     The moment lingers and it has not yet become all a story. I am carrying that moment like a found treasure, like a smooth black rock I once found on the ocean’s shore. Meanwhile, it has turned into a quite beautiful day. The colors are vibrant and the sunshine is so deliciously warm on my skin. 

Dead Ants

Once there was a man hauling firewood. He was loading his cart for the journey and even though the cart was getting very full and the wood was very heavy, he kept saying to himself, “One more piece.” Finally the cart collapsed, its axle snapped and the cart was ruined. His child, still very young, said, “Dad, how about taking out that last piece you put in there?”

So many dead ants

here,where yesterday

I put poison

Roadside Trash

This is something I wrote a number of years ago but other than that is as current for me as ever. This is my first posting on my first venture into the world of Blogs. I thank you for visiting.

“Everything I encounter is my life.”

Roadside Trash: dedicated to Kosho Uchiyama

Picking up trash as we take walks has become something Suzanne and I do. The other day as we walked along Airport Rd., picking up Bud Light cans, pieces of smashed lawn chairs, and fast food wrappers, it struck me very forcefully how this small act fully empowered me to change the world.

For most of my life, I would walk past the garbage of the world, maybe shake my head, and pass judgment on “those people”. Perhaps I would hesitate, but would usually decide that it wasn’t ‘my’ trash, and would continue on my way. I can’t say that I felt any better for this decision and it was a long time before I rebelled against my habit-energy and began to pick the trash up. What happened? I guess as time went by my affinity, or awareness of my affinity, with the ground I walked upon grew stronger, and my practice helped me let go of the need to pass judgment on “those people.” Also a combination of events, including a near-death experience brought home the lesson that life is too short and precious to be a prisoner of who I use to be or think I should be.

Now when I walk along I feel free to take responsibility and ownership of my world. It is my world! My earth! And, my trash! And I do something about my world that I believe to be of benefit.

Of course there’s this demon in me that rears up and ridicules me. It says, “ What difference do you make? And what of all the horrible pollution, wars, so on and so forth?” Well, what I realized the other day was that all the pollution, hatred, and greed in the world is cumulative. When six billion people are hateful, the world is hateful, and when six billion people are kind and loving, the world will be a kind and loving place. And it happens one by one; you and me- we are it. Just as all this trash was put here bit-by-bit, we can pick it up bit by bit, and honestly, even if I get to the end of the road only to start over again, it’s OK. Maybe a couple of people will see me and decide to stop throwing trash out of their cars. Maybe someone else will decide to carry a bag with them on their next walk. That would be wonderful, but if not, it is still OK. I will still walk along taking care of my world, picking up my trash, and in general doing the best I can, perhaps becoming a bit larger or more mature. If not, that’s OK.