some quotes

"The purpose of art is to lay bare the questions which have been hidden by the answers."
- James Baldwin







"Art is not what you see, but what you make others see."
- Georgia O'Keeffe

Tis the Season

A Rant: ...to be jolly, or tired, or just plain unamused. Things are not always so wonderful this time of year. So much pressure to spend, spend, spend. I am so over it. It has absolutely nothing to do with the amount of money I can afford to spend. I'm just over the commercialization of this capitalist holiday and how big business has hijacked a time friends and family show affection to one another. So I will not participate in the usual manner, but I will give and let my people know I love them.

The Immediate Past: I had a wonderful 4-day Thanksgiving weekend. So laid back. I feel like I caught up to myself after the hustle and bustle of vacation (which is supposed to be restful but wasn't physically -- though it was mentally and emotionally) and returning to work. We had a wonderful holiday at C & S' house. Lots of laughs. I realized after that day that I don't laugh enough. It's one of the reasons I enjoy my time with C & S so much. We always laugh so much. Fri, Sat and Sun was relaxing and restful. F has a cold so she wasn't into doing much and that always suits me.

We went to Borders with C & S on Saturday and I got the new Beatles remix album, "LOVE." I really like it. It's a collection of songs from their catalogue that have been remixed by George and Giles Martin from the original Beatle tapes. They sound so good. The remix of "Strawberry Fields" is wonderful as is the stark a capella of "Because." Glad I got it. I bought it with leftover birthday money. I went away with $168 in birthday gift cash. I gave F $60 because she had no personal spending $$ for vacation. I bought a banner for our shrine and some Nepalese mala bead bags at the Himalayan shop, 2 used art books, and a gift for F at an art gallery in Berkeley Springs, WV. I came home with $58. I've used some for gas and groceries but I still have some left.

Coming Events: This weekend coming up is the Buddhist Relics Tour coming to Jacksonville. As a KTC Board member I will be spending some time there as a volunteer. I am very excited about our group co-sponsoring this event with the Cambodian Buddhist Center. I also had absolutely nothing to do with it. Our Asst. Director Mike did all the work on this one.

I am looking forward to the holidays - coming and going - and I'm looking forward to visiting Clio in January. I will be going up to Atlanta for the Jan 12-15th MLK bday weekend. I hope to find cheap air tickets ($100 or less) or I will drive. I am going alone, will stay at her place, and just hang with someone I love very much and hardly ever see or spend time with it. I'm very excited about it.

Time Flies When You're Looking At Art

I’m astounded to sit here and write that Thanksgiving is only two days away. My mind FLOODS with cliché’s. “Where did the time go?” “The older you get the faster life goes.” “Feels like we just finished 2005, where did 2006 go?” And on and on.

But I don’t know where this year has gone. I guess its just gone the way of all the other years I’ve been alive. Not sure if time goes faster because I move slower now, or if it seems faster because I do less. It could be that I actually do more and spend less time pondering and resisting what I need to do. Yes, that could be it. NOT!

While my life is much more settled than ever before one search has not ended yet. That is the search for deeper meaning – in everything. I search for more meaningful art – mine and others. I search for writing and philosophy that will be so deep as to permeate my bone marrow. I search for words and facial expressions that will tell me that another human knows, truly knows, the depth of my feeling, and I, theirs. I think when I let go of this desire life will be pointless and I will fade away. Or maybe it be its most real.

I got the a new art book , “Plane Image: A Brice Marden Retrospective” in the mail yesterday. Frankye had ordered it for my birthday. I believe Brice Marden is the greatest living artist, not just the greatest American living artist. There is something about his work that moves me deeply. It has a depth and stillness to it that grabs hold of something within me. Something indefinable but palpable. I can only aspire to reach that in a picture I make. I’d like to be able to do that at least once before I die. I don’t care if it is only a 2” x 2” sketch on a scrap of paper. I will know it when I see it.

So another Thanksgiving coming. Delicious food served up by and enjoyed with close friends, chosen family. There will be less excitement about the holiday and the food. After all, I've done this 55 times. It's not new. So while the anticipation is no longer there, the satisfaction and enjoyment of it is more.

RFK on the Campaign Trail 

RFK at the Ambassador Hotel, June 5, 1968 minutes before he was shot 

Bobby

I haven’t seen this film yet but look forward to it. I think it will be sad to watch. I know it will bring me back to that time in my life. 1968 was a difficult year for me. My life was in turmoil. I was suffering the throes of adolescent angst and engulfed in household filled with the same rage and unpredictability that the country was in. 1968 began the last year of my father’s active alcoholism. I was immersed in my own addiction to drugs and drinking. My sexuality was blooming and not in an acceptable way. I was trying to hold on to some semblance of sanity in a very insane and out of control environment. I was fighting to survive on many levels.

This all culminated by a physical breakdown in late May 1968. I had mononucleosis and was put to bed for the summer. I spent the first few weeks too sick to know where I was. I remember sleeping around the clock. I remember high fevers. I remember my grandmother coming to stay everyday with me while my parents went to work. I had never been so sick in my life, nor have I been since then.

I was in this state on June 5th, lying in bed my clock radio near my head on the night stand. The radio came on at the preset time and the voice of the commentator gradually permeated my consciousness. He was talking about the Kennedy assassination. It had occurred 4 ½ years ago. As I listened I wondered why they were talking about it now. Then I heard him say that Kennedy was in a coma. The commentator mentioned Robert Kennedy by name and the coming 1968 presidential election. I understood then it was not JFK they were talking about. I was shocked. I was a supporter, though too young to vote, of an RFK presidency. He was smart, well read, unafraid to express flowery idealism. I had recently seen him up close and personal as Marshall of the St. Patrick’s Day Parade on March 17th, 1968. I took a photo of him waving at us on the sidelines. He was smiling, his long hair falling in his face, his right hand pushing it back to the side.

This movie is supposed to be a snapshot of that day. Not just his assassination, but the people in the hotel that day. It’s a snapshot of their hope for the future and how hope died that day. That was my feeling too. Hope in leaders and in America did die for me that day. Not just because of Bobby Kennedy’s assassination, but because it was the last in a string of assassinations of people who were making a difference. I remember clearly the assassinations of JFK, Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr. and RFK. They were heroes, each of them, to me and my generation. They had a vision of the world and America that included peace, acceptance, and harmony. They were brave and put themselves on the line for their beliefs and paid the ultimate price for it. The lesson was clear. Don’t take the risk. Don’t care too much. As Dylan said, "Don’t follow leaders, watch your parking meters." Care too much about a leader and they will be killed. They will be taken away from you.

After RFK’s assassination there was a discernable shift in the attitude of my generation. There was an anger and bitterness there that eventually turned inward on itself. There was a war in Viet Nam that most of us disagreed with. In November 1968 Richard Nixon was elected president and the war Bobby would have ended escalated into a larger, more destructive war. There was no hope in sight for it’s ending, and in fact it went on for another 7 years.

The peace and love generation became a pissed off, hopeless mass of shiftlessness that took more and more drugs and dropped out in ever increasing numbers. Hope died and we became the cynics who money mongered in the 80's and who lead this nation now down a dangerous path. Never before had so many, dreamt so large and accomplished so little.

"We've had difficult times in the past. We will have difficult times in the future. It is not the end of violence; it is not the end of lawlessness; it is not the end of disorder."
~~Robert F. Kennedy, April 3rd 1968

RFK lying on the floor of the Ambassador Hotel pantry, shot but alive

Talking

I was talking to my therapist today, recounting all that has occurred in the past two weeks. I was amazed at how much had happened: I'd been out of town for 3 1/2 days visiting my parents, was told that my parents wouldn't be moving here, accompanied Frankye to the hospital for surgical removal of questionable skin lesions on her body, had lunch with Lori - first time since May, visited my ex and was amazed a how differently we now live, was moved out of the private office I had at work and into a cubicle, and endured the relentless media blitz of the 5th anniversary of 9/11/2001.

It wasn't until I discussed all the other stuff that I was able to talk about 9/11, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the grieving I am still doing about the destruction of the trade towers and the massive loss of life - then and now. Part of my grieving included Hurricane Katrina and the lack of response to citizens in dire circumstances and life threatening conditions. We talked about it being cummulative and not just in the past five years or so. But in the course of my life, the history I have witnessed or participated in that has left scars that silently sunk into the texture of who I am now at age 54.

I talked about remembering a time when I believed that survival at all costs was the most important thing. I talked about what it felt like to have given that up - to instead consciously wanting to not survive a horrific attack or devastating natural occurrance. I asked if she thought I was depressed. She said no. She said she thinks that cumulative grief layers on top of one another. She said no one can grieve 9/11 because we went to war so quickly afterward and there has been so much death and violence since then. That coupled with the horror of the tsunami, followed by Katrina, has created layer upon layer of grief and sadness that can't be healed. The times we live in are so volatile that there is no time in between horrors to grieve and heal and adjust. That sounds right to me.

What I am left with is simple joy at the simplicity in my life. I like the quiet dirt road I live on. I enjoy being around the animals that live with us. I enjoy Frankye and the routine we have settled into. I like my job. I like my friends and the laughter we always enjoy together. I like the 9 year old car I drive, the dirt around the house, the high trees that house many birds, squirrels and raccoons and the quiet at night when wildlife is settling in. I enjoy painting and drawing in my sketchbooks in the evening while listening to the television or talking with Frankye. When I pass out of this life someday I will go with no regrets and missing nothing. I am already holding on to it all less tightly.

Thomas Merton On War

I listened to our illustrious president last night. His speech to the nation on the 5th anniversary of 9/11 was an infomercial for the Iraq war. Nothing he said justifies this war. Nothing he said convinced me that the threat of Saddam and terrorism is taken seriously in Washington. The actions and the way the war is being carried out is testament to that. The war exists to fulfill other priorities (nameless and unknown) and other agendas. The cynic in me believes that to be solely monetary. It is probably more true than not. I have long believed that America's goal is not to spread democracy, but to spread capitalism, with America as the chief producer of goods for sale.

But again, I am a cynic when it comes to this administration and capitalism and big business.

I include a quote from Thomas Merton on the morality of war, and the motives for going to war. Am I cynical, or is this just the way it is?

“Hence it becomes more and more difficult to estimate the morality of an act leading to war because it is more and more difficult to know precisely what is going on. Not only is war increasingly a matter for pure specialists operating with fantastically complex machinery, but above all there is the question of absolute secrecy regarding everything that seriously affects defense policy. We may amuse ourselves by reading the reports in mass media and imagine that these “facts” provide sufficient basis for moral judgments for and against war. But in reality, we are simply elaborating moral fantasies in a vacuum. Whatever we may decide, we remain completely at the mercy of the governmental power, or rather the anonymous power of managers and generals who stand behind the facade of government. We have no way of directly influencing the decisions and policies taken by these people. In practice, we must fall back on a blinder and blinder faith which more and more resigns itself to trusting the “legitimately constituted authority” without having the vaguest notion what that authority is liable to do next. This condition of irresponsibility and passivity is extremely dangerous. It is hardly conducive to genuine morality.”

~~From Passion for Peace: The Social Essays of Thomas Merton, edited by William H. Shannon (The Crossroad Publishing Company, New York, NY, 1995) pages 113-114.

Avoiding September 11th

I'm avoiding writing about the 5th anniversary of 9/11 by publishing this meme (ripped off from Mad Organica.)

1. Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 18, find line 4. Write down what it says: "When his group finished boot training, Rauschenberg told the"

2. Stretch your left arm out as far as you can...what do you touch first? 8 auspicious symbols banner

3. What is the last thing you watched on TV? JAG

4. WITHOUT LOOKING, what time is it? 5:30 pm

5. Now look at the clock, what is the actual time? 5:32 pm

6. With the exception of the computer, what can you hear? NPR, women in my office talking

7. When did you last step outside? 2:05 pm

8. What are you wearing? a tie-dye company t-shirt, black pants, black shoes

9. When did you last laugh? Earlier in the afternoon when Cameshea told me Hazel can spell 2 words, her own name and the word pool

10. Seen anything weird lately? the remembrances of 9/11 - just because it is 5 years

11. What did you dream last night? Who knows?

12. What's on the walls of the room you're in? I'm in my cubicle at work and there is maroon fabric on the walls. I have some photos, a painting of mine, a pic of the Buddha, a metal sun, a pic of XVII Karmapa's caligraphy...

14. What do you think of this survey? It beats writing about 9/11

15. What's the last film you saw? Silverado

16. If you became a multi-millionaire overnight, what would you buy first? Lots of free-time - no more working for a living.

17. Tell me something about you that I don't know. I don't know who you are so how would I know what you know?

18. If you could change one thing about the world, what would you change? I would change humans to be evolved beyond violence of any kind

19. Do you like to dance? Yup

20. Imagine your first child is a girl, what do you call her? Sarah

21. Boy? not sure, but not Joseph

22. Would you ever consider living abroad? If the USA became unliveable

I'm outta here............

A Stack of Journals

 

The Road Less Traveled

There was an airplane crash in Lexington Kentucky Sunday. The press is reporting the cause of the crash was pilot error. The pilot took off from the wrong runway, one half the size of the runway assigned, and as a result the plane was not able to reach the speed necessary for successful liftoff. Forty-nine of the fifty people aboard died.

I often feel like I have taken the wrong road. Sometimes I can't find the road. Sometimes I don't know a road is ending and that I need to turn off onto another road. Sometimes I don't even know I am moving, what to speak of whether I am on the right road or any road.

The spiritual practice I follow is called a path. Movement again. Movement in a direction. Like a road, a path insinuates a direction prevously traveled. In the case of a path, it is a less frequently traveled narrow direction...a road conjures images of a wider, faster, more traveled and established direction.

The road is often used as a metaphor. The internet is called the "information super highway." Practicing eastern philosophies is referred to as "being on the path," and regret is often depicted as "the road not taken." No wonder we get tired by the time we reach our 50's and 60's. We've been in motion physically, mentally and spiritually, from the time we were born. It's exhausting.

Meditation is a good way to stand still and be still long enough to rest the spirit and the mind. But if you do it right your meditation will gradually move you deeper into yourself. Again, movement, regardless of how slow.

We live in constant motion on an orb that turns in place one full rotation every twenty-four hours. We move so constantly we don't even realize we're moving. Our heart beats, and our lungs expand. If we are alive we are moving. When we stop moving, we stop being alive, and then the living move us out of the way.

I'd rather be on a path than a road. Roads are too crowded and move too fast. It's too easy to get caught up in the direction of the traffic. It's too easy to miss your exit ramp. It's much better to be on a less traveled path so you can stop and rest along the way, enjoy the sights and see who is on the path with you. It's also much easier to ask for directions when you get lost.

Remembering Crow

Last night our friends Christy and Sue took us out to dinner. As usual, we had a wonderful time. Laughing, talking, more laughing, enjoying food together. The laughter always feels so good. In the course of the conversation Sue told a story of her daughter, Andrea's, puppy getting out of the fence and running down the block. It was a funny story, but also a scary one.

While listening to how the dog ran away from and then chased Andrea, I was reminded of Crow and how she loved to bolt out doors or fences and run. I learned early that if Crow could see me she would keep running. As long as she could hear my voice or see me she felt safe enough to keep going. One time she got away from a friend of mine who let her out the door and watched in horror as she ran down the street. My friend ran after her, and ran after her and ran after her. By the time I got in the car and searched the neighborhood for them they were 1/2 a mile away and both exhausted.
I adored Crow. She was sweet, sleek, beautiful. She was, even at almost aged 10, playful as a puppy. I always felt safe with Crow. I felt safe with her and how she felt toward me and I felt safe in the world with her by my side. She was a good friend, a good pet.

A month before Crow's 10th birthday she got out of our fence and went through a hole in another fence onto a very busy street where I live. She was killed on that road on February 17th, 2004. I still miss her so much.

I have other little buddies now. Noodles, a/k/a dachshunds. Frankye and I have 3 of them. An old girl named Alice, and 2 young boys named Ben and Yeshe. They are the cutest little dogs. They're playful and loving and fun to watch. They can be maddeningly stubborn if you're stuck on having it your own way. In that way they are an exercise in patience and live and let live. I love them. Different than I loved Crow, but I love them all the same.

Toosday

This past week I feel like I'm walking through life in a dream or a fog. I'm there, but nothing is clear. While that's happening I'm also very busy at work, making art in my journal, reading two books, doing a crossword puzzle daily, watching TV, playing with the dogs, talking with Frankye, cooking, spending time with friends and family, web surfing, meditating, listening to NPR, and feeling sad for the state of the world.

At work I've planned out my major projects for the next 9 months, with stop and start dates for each leg of the project. I do this every year at this time since a few of my projects are step intensive and need to occur several times throughout the school year. Aside from a trip to my parents for Labor Day and a vacation in West Virginia in November with Frankye's brothers and sister, my personal life is not that planned or specific. I know I will be going to work most days.

There are some things up in the air. Our cat Dolly is really winding down. She is old and frail and slow. She's hanging in there, and doesn't seem to be uncomfortable at all, just not energetic. There's a possibility of our best friends moving away. If Christi gets a job she has applied for they may be out of Jax by December. Their good fortune would be our loss and sadness. Of course, there are no guarantees that I will even survive long enough to complete this post, what to speak of living to experience anything on my calendar to date.

The other day I was listening to NPR and Wolf Blitzer was talking with people to get their opinions about the terrorist plot the British discovered and prevented. People kept saying, "this is a different world now," or "the world is no longer safe." The only thing different is that Americans are now experiencing the same fear the majority of people in the world have experienced for a very long time. We now live like the third world. Not economically, but in terms of the rule of law, the unpredictability of mass violence and horror or catostrophe being perpetrated against us. All this is how several billion people on the planet have lived for a long time. It's an oxymoron, but we are less free because we are in less control.

I have started an adjunct page to this blog called, My Sketchbook, which will feature doodles and drawings from my journals. It's only for visuals. I'll continue using this blog for writing.

So that's Tuesday in my world here in Jacksonville.

Hooked - again

I was thinking about the Pema Chodron interview again. It's not been far from my mind since the first time I saw it. That's something I do often when I hear something that either makes sense or seems as though it will with some effort on my part. Pema Chodron mentioned an article she read by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche called, "Working with Negativity," as being instrumental in her journey to becoming a Buddhist nun. Here is the first paragraph:

We all experience negativity -- the basic aggression of wanting things to be different than they are. We cling, we defend, we attack, and throughout there is a sense of one's own wretchedness, and so we blame the world for our pain. This is negativity. We experience it as terribly unpleasant, foul-smelling, something we want to get rid of. but if we look into it more deeply, it has a very juicy smell and is very alive. Negativity is not bad per se, but something living and precise, connected with reality.

The article (actually a chapter in the book: The Myth of Freedom) "hooks" you right away. It's very good. Trungpa Rinpoche was a very advanced Lama, well versed in western culture and so his writings are filled with metaphors and parables relevent to a western audience. I have read a few of his books, but there are many more available. Sometimes I need to catch up to what I consider my lagging teachability. I am often exposed to more than I can understand at the time I am introduced to it and need to grow into being able to learn from it. Trungpa is often that way for me. All of Buddhism is very often that way for me. It takes a while for each morsel of information to trickle down into my inner core.

NEWS Hooked

The news is just about the same - different but the same. The Israel-Lebanon war proceeds, more civilian deaths than military deaths (not that that should matter), a large portion of which are children (that does matter!). It's such madness. The war on Canal View Drive seems to be subsiding, but as pride dies slowly, so does the rift between the married siblings.

I watched Bill Moyer on Faith and Reason on PBS Sunday afternoon. Pema Chodron was the sole guest. I've watched it 3 times so far and will probably watch it 10 times before we erase it.

At one point during the conversation Pema Chodron talked about Shenpa aka "being hooked, as in addictions". She said you can see it physically happening in people. You can see the escalating anger and how the eyes glaze over. You can see that on TV when Bush talks, or the Israeli P.M., or Hezbollah leaders. They are hooked into what they are doing. They are hooked into their anger, into being right. They are so hooked they are killing children and somehow seeing it as worth it. Israel is allowing how many of their citizens to be killed by bombs because they are angry about 2 abducted soldiers? That is not clear thinking. That is emotion driven shenpa.

It is so easy to see shenpa in the world and in others. So difficult to see it in myself when I am in process. When I am in full blown hooked behavior I am at my stupidist. I am oblivious to the most obvious and as ignorant as can be. It is blinding.

Given my own blindness I can understand how leaders with armies can cause so much destruction and death when fully engaged in their escalating anger. They can't see the hundreds of dead children lying in front of them, they only see the 2 soldiers who were kidnapped 3 1/2 weeks ago. They can't see the pain and suffering their bombs cause, they only see that they are justified in causing the pain. It's really quite sick, and frightening. Frightening because that anger can erupt anywhere at anytime in the world. I can only wonder when and how the tide can turn or be turned.

One of Pema's points was that we can only unhook ourselves. So if I unhook myself and no longer allow my anger to escalate, will that make the world a safer place? I think the answer is yes and no. The world as a whole? No. But my world, my little local world can be made safer for me and others known and unknown if I learn to not be hooked in my addictions.

No Words

Watching

The War, The War

Searching for the Middle Way

Buddha taught the middle way. From today's Buddhist Beliefnet:

Let me tell you about the middle path. Dressing in rough and dirty garments, letting your hair grow matted, abstaining from eating any meat or fish, does not cleanse the one who is deluded. Mortifying the flesh through excessive hardship does not lead to a triumph over the senses. All self-inflicted suffering is useless as long as the feeling of self is dominant.

You should lose your involvement with yourself and then eat and drink naturally, according to the needs of your body. Attachment to your appetites--whether you deprive or indulge them--can lead to slavery, but satisfying the needs of daily life is not wrong. Indeed, to keep a body in good health is a duty, for otherwise the mind will not stay strong and clear.

This is the middle path.

-Discourse II, From "The Pocket Buddha Reader," edited by Anne Bancroft, 2000.

I don't think the Buddha would have spent a good deal of his life teaching the middle way if it was something most people around him were doing. In that way, I am not different. I am also not different in that I need to be told over and over again, reminded, told in different ways, different parables, within different contexts.

My impulse is toward extremism. I have often thought, and feared, that I would probably have been ripe for the Nazi youth movement had I grown up in Germany in the 30's. I fear that I would have been susceptible to that kind of extremism. Not because I am anti-semitic, but because I would let myself get caught up in the intensity, drama, and energy of the extremism of nazism. I hope not, but it has passed my mind on occassion.

In the current climate of violence that we live in, there are all kinds of extreme ideas going around. Last night on CNN there was a report on how conservative Christians are believing that we are on the verge of armageddon. There are millions in this country who believe in the rapture, in armageddon, in a 1000 years of peace after Jesus returns. That's a pretty extreme thought. There a extreme Muslims who believe that if they commit suicide by killing infidels they will go to heaven and be gifted with 37 virgins. That's a pretty extreme idea, too.

My own sense of facination with the morbid is related to extemism. I'm facinated by stories of serial killers. I've watched countless films and news footage of the holocaust. I watched videos on the internet of 4 Al Qaeda beheadings. If it is fiction, Stephen King, horror movies, I won't watch it or read it. It has to be real.

I remember when the movie Gremlins came out. I went to see it with friends. It was a completely fantasy based film and it frightened me so much that I kept having to leave the theatre and walk out into the lobby. There I was, me and a group of 4 year olds, waiting for the scary parts to end so we could go back into the theatre. Yet I watched the beheadings, with sound, and while cringing, watched every second of the video. That's pretty extreme and my own impulse to see humans at their worst, whether it be executioner, serial killers, or genocidal dictators, is also extreme.

I'm not sure why I have this impulse. Perhaps it is my way of seeing my own life as the middle way, between psychopath and saint. But if I need to go to those extremes to see the middle way I don't think I will make much progress on the eightfold path. So I search on to find the middle way.