PILGRIMS ALL

Pause for Reflection at Montes de Oca

We are all pilgrims.

Traditionally, a pilgrimage is an intentional journey to a destination considered sacred or significant in some way associated with a spiritual figure, an event or a practice. Many are the shrines, temples and sites worldwide to which pilgrims have travelled over the ages—many walking miles to such well known destinations as Mecca, Lourdes, Benares on the Ganges, the Wailing Wall, Deer Park, Jerusalem, Canterbury and Santiago de Compostela.
    Can the idea of pilgrimage also be symbolic of another kind of path we sometimes find ourselves on whose destination may be uncertain or unknown? Are pilgrims prepared and fit for the risks involved in stepping away from familiar landscapes—both inner and outer. All journeys offer opportunities to transform toward a heightened consciousness and greater self-knowledge.        
    Whether a physical journey to a destination, a path taken inwardly by intention, or one thrust upon us by chance, each journey requires taking risks, having resolve, courage, stamina and self-reflection. Each pilgrim would have the expectation to complete the journey successfully with a sense of accomplishment. Each may be accompanied by variety of feelings: vulnerability, uncertainty, fear, hope, sorrow, joy and often an element of surprise at the unexpected encounters along “The Way.”
    All great literature, or any story worth telling, involves the drama of a pilgrimage of sorts. Shakespeare’s King Lear unknowingly puts himself on a path of unintentional pilgrimage when he seeks affirmation of love from his three daughters, and will divide his kingdom among them, based on the profuseness of their expressions of adoration. His youngest daughter, Cordelia, refuses to honor Lear’s selfish and foolish demand and, therefore, is disinherited. His other daughters pass the test willingly with words crafted for self-gain. When they receive what they were promised, they exile him.
    All is lost—position, power and wealth. Most devastating is the betrayal, as he is thrust into the hardships of the Wilderness. He endures the outer elements of a raging storm, and the inner ones of anguish rage, despair, blindness and madness—all due to the arrogance of his ego.
    The once-king does not know where he is or who he is, until Cordelia comes to his rescue. His inner landscape has been transformed and in a sense he finds himself in the Promise Land of forgiveness, acceptance and unconditional love, what he had been seeking all along, but through a tragic flaw of the arrogance of ego.
    Ultimately, we all long for unconditional love and acceptance, and hope to find it here on earth, but, as “faithful” pilgrims, we must be submit to the challenges and demands, and enjoy blessings of our life’s journey, sometimes not knowing where our pilgrimage will take us to our destination, to the ends of the earth, or to the limits of our longing.
    One thing is certain, we will not end up where we started. If we are fortunate, we, like King Lear, can emerge from Wilderness to Promise Land.

It's Not Tomorrow Now

I visit my son's family as often as I am able on work days off, vacation time and holidays. They also visit us, but have busy lives with a young son, Finn, and visiting them allows me to be part of their lives for a time--and even lend some support with school, chores and dinner. When I visit, I always hate to leave and start looking forward to the next visit. I tell Finn when I am leaving and that I will be back soon.

On my last visit, I told him, "Nonna will be leaving tomorrow and I feel sad." 

Finn immediately said, “It’s not tomorrow now," a stunning realization for me, and, of course, he was right in his perception--"out of the mouth of babes." How foolish of me to jump ahead, and not remain in the present, not worrying about yesterdays and tomorrows. For him there was only the now.  

It’s never tomorrow now, nor is it yesterday or tomorrow now, but it is always and only NOW! 

Children are intuitive and so much wiser than we in that regard—of living in the present, and I am convinced that my grandson is unusually remarkable in his ability, not only to immediately sense that I was no in the "now" with him, but also to articulate that “deep insight,” even though it is a simple,  matter of fact reality we forget to live by. 

He was reminding me, "You and I are here together right now, so let’s enjoy our time and not think for even one second about a time when we will not be together—for that takes away from the time we do have.

I love you, Finn, for a lesson I may need to recall again and again--that in love and the best parts of life we do not live in time. 

There is only the present where "time touches eternity," and that is heaven on earth!

The Show Must Go On?

I am familiar with the night
Its silent stage
In darkness scenes open and fade

In a floodlight of memory
I re-enact my life
Animated by desire and illusion
The cold prompter, Fear, in the wings,
Fatal flaws illuminated

The Director, until now,
An invisible, mysterious, temperamental tyrant,
Alternately threatening and encouraging me
To perform.

I have the role for life—if I choose.
Oh! I’ve convinced myself
That I modify my part from time to time
Revise my method:
A subtle gesture here
An improvisation there
The truth is I have perfected the role 

into ritual

But, no one notices
Except one critic and well-wisher,
Accompanied by the beat of my heart
Acknowledging and reminding me
That only I can draw the curtain
Close the play
Retire the part
Audition for new ones.

My critic says: “I’ll put you in touch with my son,
A fabulous agent, a miracle worker, I tell you.
He’ll show you how to reinvent yourself.
In fact, he specializes in Rebirth.”

JAMES BALDWIN SAID:

Life is tragic simply because the earth turns and the sun inexorably rises and sets, and one day, for each of us, the sun will go down for the last. Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, which is the only fact we have.

For while the tale of how we suffer, and how we are delighted and how we may triumph is never new, it always must be heard. There isn’t any other tale to tell. It’s the only light we’ve got in all this darkness. (James Baldwin)

No One Has Heard

No one can truly hear the song another sings
We cannot even hear our own
no words--only tones
rising to the rough surface
then sinking down into
the mystery of dreams

Songs of memory, songs of dread, songs of longing
Beyond this plane we have met

Will meet again
before birth, before earth
to create our themes and variations
all soul songs moving, mingling
quiet as grief

No one can hear
though it is our life's work
to listen and sing--
a choir in the blue air
among the stars

Poem at Michaelmas

I am self-contained
I bear my self within me
I am apt
I am alone

Poems and Prayers

Published in New View magazine, UK- Summer Issue 2010

Poetry is a ‘term’ often used to describe rhyming verse that expresses feelings. And, of course, anyone is free to write and call it whatever they wish; however, if a creation is to be "art," it must embody more than personal expressions. The art of poetry is in its ability to embody "living thought," in which the reader can sense the shaping, as truly as possible, of the "vision" or experience the poet is conveying. “Poetry… should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts and appear almost a remembrance” (Keats).

Great poetry can often strike us just that way, as both personal and universal, whether it be a simple haiku or an epic. Gilgamesh; The Mahabharata; The Odyssey; The Divine Comedy; Shakespeare’s plays (which are all poetry); Parsifal and other literary works and represent an age or culture, and also transcend it. Together, the greatest works of the ages can be understood as a kind of history of humanity’s evolution in imaginative form, and as moral guides for those who can see and hear. To be true to a vision or experience, and to re-create them in words (which are not just words) takes some effort and some understanding.

The art of poetry must involve interest in many elements and resources, both inner and outer. One might look to the classics (or other works of art) and compare them with mere verse. Yes, it is true that we are not slaves to the past, to conventions, or to any rules per se. In fact, in our time, we feel ourselves to be individuals free from the past and standards, which we perceive as limitations. But to disregard, or, worse yet, to be ignorant of how poetry evolved (or any other art for that matter) is to be isolated from true “originality.” Self-reference only, in an effort to express one’s feelings, can result in nothing more than sentimental verse, which has neither wide appeal nor longevity.

Students of poetry can begin to build a picture of and a sense for just what makes classics and other true poetry living, lasting and essentially different from mere verse or prose. What resounds in poetry that moves us so deeply and transports us so fully? The connections of poetry to nature's rhythms and to its inherent analogies to the human being and human experiences also must be considered. The poet’s vision embodied might dawn on us as though it is our own, as Keats suggests, because we recognize the truth and wisdom in it, as its ‘revelations’ transcend the personal and touch on the universally human. One can imagine that the first human utterances, chants, stories and prayers were all music and meaning.

In James Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, the young Stephen Dedalus is aware of “an unsubstantial image which his soul constantly beheld.” Ishmael in Moby Dick senses “the ungraspable phantom of life.” The Romantic poet, Shelley, spoke of “The everlasting universe of things which flows through the mind.” In “A Defence of Poetry” he writes, “A poem is the image of life expressed in its eternal truth.” Implied in all of these examples is the recognition of something that stands behind ordinary experience in the sense world, whose brilliance is felt and understood, yet is paradoxical and beyond definition. “A poem is the burning bow that once could shoot an arrow out of the up and down” (Yeats). The capacity of Imagination “sees” into and beyond that world into the "deep, deep well of the past," not only to our cultural/geographic roots, but, it can be argued, to our biological, psychological and even pre-historic origins (Campbell).

Imagination “subdues to union all irreconcilable things” (Shelley) and lifts the veil on a world often hidden to ordinary vision, which can become clouded by the intellect. The intellect categorizes, analyzes and separates. The imagination grasps the unseen and reveals the underlying patterns and forms which appear and reappear throughout the universe, nature and in the human being. It perceives those inherent relationships and similarities among things and unifies. It goes to the origins of things, which are the sources of inspiration, and the “sources of our strength” (Carson).

Behold the plant;
It is the butterfly
Held prisoner by the earth.

Behold the butterfly;
It is the plant
By the whole cosmos freed. (Rudolf Steiner)

For the true poet (and for us), insights like these are not simply ‘metaphors’ or mere ‘poetic devices’; they are revelations. They are realities to be recognized by the poetic "mind soul." Coleridge describes imagination as, “the living power and prime agent of all human perception in man’s infinite mind of the eternal act of creation in the infinite ‘I am’.”

Inspiration may seem fleeting, but can be trained. When poets are inspired, they are breathing in what they behold, whether it be a leaf, an insect or an idea radiating from within. They see, not with their eyes, but through their eyes, which Plato describes as the "windows of the soul." Therefore, they see with an extraordinary clarity. That which may appear distorted, common or uninteresting is transformed in the breathing out of the poet’s pen. The poet takes the “forms of things unknown” and “turns them into shapes and gives to airy nothing a local habitation and a name” (Shakespeare).

Intuition is a way of knowing what is true. It is “the intellect’s being where and what it sees.” We might think of it as what Emerson called "self-reliance," that is, an inherent trust in experience and the inner voice that says, “Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string….The Eternal is stirring at our hearts, working through our hands, predominating in all our being." Poets are inspired, in touch with imagination and trust their intuition.

Though I mention Wonder last, it is the prerequisite capacity, without which the other capacities would not be as available. Wonder is an openness to beauty, goodness and truth, which we naturally have as children. When children are allowed and encouraged to experience beauty, they develop a sense of awe and reverence, which can not be taught. Look at a mountain peak; a blanket of stars in a dark sky; the "leaves of grass"; a child's shining face, "holding wonder like a cup" (Teasdale).

Conversely, an emerging sense of wonder can easily be crushed or thwarted if it is met with cynicism or negativity or other circumstances in a home or community. One can see its opposite in disrespect, a lack of sensibilities or in destructive tendencies and apathy, or just plain detachment from the immediacy, intimacy and impact of those sources of strength. Increasingly, all of these capacities are at risk of lying dormant with the use of and dependence on technology, which at the most basic, but essential level, separates or isolates children from the very experiences that can develop and build these capacities.

“Ah!” (an open vowel sound) emerges from us – in all languages – when we stand in awe and simply behold that which "is."  Something in us opens, fills a void, and may emerge in ways we could never have imagined--perhaps, as Wordworth suggests in his poem “Tintern Abby,” as "little unremembered acts of kindness of love," and for the poet (and us also as creators), as creations of beauty in all forms. The Greeks knew that wonder is the beginning of wisdom-- a foundation for creation of the beautiful. Dostoevsky went so far as to say that beauty would save the world, “Beauty is truth, truth beauty—that is all/Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.” (Keats)

Poems that convey a sense of the “living Word,” must emerge from poets as prayer calling upon the capacities of Wonder, Imagination, Inspiration and Intuition. Whether or not we think of ourselves as artists, we can all be creators with an understanding, an appreciation and a practice toward development of these capacities.

Tribute and acknowledgement go to Christy MacKaye Barnes, a master Waldorf teacher of students and teachers, for some of the thoughts conveyed in “Poems and Prayers.” She was an inspirational mentor who freely shared and passed on her insights, knowledge and love of language to many.

MYTHOLOGY AND CONSCIOSNESS

Upon the completion of The Masks of God: Primitive Mythology, Joseph Campbell considers his 12 years of research in comparative mythology as confirmation, “of the unity of the race of man, not only in its biology but also in its spiritual history, which has everywhere unfolded in the manner of a single symphony,” with “worldwide distribution” of such themes as, “fire theft, deluge, land of the dead, virgin birth, and resurrected hero…appearing everywhere in new combinations..." Commenting further on this phenomenon of common themes across cultures, which are expressed locally in endless variations, he suggests that, “No human society has yet been found in which such mythological motifs have not been rehearsed in liturgies; interpreted by seers, poets, theologians, or philosophers; presented in art; magnified in song; and ecstatically experienced in life empowering visions….Every people has received its own seal and sign of supernatural designation, communicated to its heroes [and prophets], and daily proved in the lives and experience of its folk." 

We, in the 21st century can still turn to myths and stories for edification and enlightenment, yet, they can also have negative ramifications when they are understood as exclusive and literal. While myths and stories form the basis for rituals and traditions of hope and comfort to communities, they also can (and have) become ideologies to be imposed on others who are seen as unworthy, lost and/or "less than." Don't we have many historic examples, as well as current ones, of marginalization, discrimination, and even violence against those who do not conform to the laws and doctrines of particular faiths, books or traditions deemed the ultimate and absolute truth?

Campbell reminds us that these stories and “revelations” have inspired many “who bow with closed eyes in the sanctuaries of their own tradition...[yet] rationally scrutinize and disqualify the sacraments of others...." If we were to look objectively, as he has, at the various traditions and mythologies of the world, we would see that these common themes and images are ubiquitous, and have developed “according to local need…” all over the world, as the ground of belief and values. Campbell finds that humanity has "chosen, not the facts in which the world abounds, but the myths of an immemorial imagination—preferring even to make a hell for themselves and their neighbors, in the name of some violent god."

What, then, could be an approach apropos to our ever-expanding, global consciousness? At this stage in humanity’s development, Campbell calls for an imagination of a “broader, deeper kind than anything envisioned anywhere in the past…” It would seem that it is now possible to embrace and embody the ambiguity, inclusiveness and paradox which is everywhere reflected in the universe, nature and human experience. James Joyce, an inspiration and subject of sudy for Campbell, articulates this possibility in Finnegan's Wake: "Utterly impossible as are all these events, they are probably as like those which may have taken place as any others which never took person at all are ever likely to be". 

We can only ponder what shape that imagination would take.  

Would it be a kind of “spiritual science,” an approach which both affirms the subjective, intuitive, human soul experience of life, and, at the same time, integrates objectivity and current realities? This approach would require standing outside one’s own soul self, and simply beholding. James Joyce clearly defined this experience in his theory of aesthetics, which does not require an intellectual analysis of art or beauty, but, rather a holding two or more things as possibly true and relevant to our own individuality, as well as in a wider sense applicable in other contexts.

Campbell laments that there is currently no mythology which fits the times. Things are changing too rapidly for a relevant mythology to develop. He also believes that any future mythology would have to be about the earth. This may seem obvious, but wouldn't it also involve humanity on the earth? It is, after all, humanity that is the "voice of the earth" and, at the same time only species that continues to endanger the earth, squander its resources, and marginalize, enslave and endanger other humand for its resources. Still, it is only humanity that can create a world worth living in, speaking for, and ultimately dying for. Clearly we are not at a stage of consciousness en masse. Only an earth-threatening crises could force us to move in another direction. Many believe that climate change will be the impetus to get us there, but hopefully before it is too late (some believe it is already too late). 

     Campbell makes reference to Black Elk, a Lakota holy man, one of the last of North American indigenous peoples who had lived in harmony with nature for thousands of years. In the mid 1930's John Neibhardt interviewed Black Elk in his effort to record a way of life that was that once existed before European contact. In Black Elk Speaks, we hear Black Elk say:  “I am going to tell you the story of my life, as you wish; and if it were only the story of my life I think I would not tell it….It is the story of all life that is holy and is good to tell, and of us two-leggeds sharing in it with the four-leggeds and the wings of the air and all green things; for these are children of one mother and their father is one Spirit."

As a young boy, Black Elk had a vision:  “I saw more than I can tell and I understand more than I saw, for I was seeing in a sacred manner” (50). He spoke of seeing the “sacred hoop” of his people,...one of many hoops that made one circle, wide as daylight and as starlight, and in the center grew one mighty flowering tree to shelter all the children of one mother and one father, and I saw that it was holy." He refers in part to the rapidly and tragically transformation of the West, forcing Indian peoples on to reservations, with all the grief, loss and confusion that ending a way of life must entail. Black Elk laments that in his old age he felt the loss and the betrayal of his early vision with the slaughter at Wounded Knee: "I, to whom so great a vision was given in my youth, you see me now an old man who has done nothing, for the nation’s hoop is broken and scattered. There is no center any longer and the sacred tree is dead."

     In the introduction to the 1989 edition of Black Elk Speaks, Vine DeLoria, also an Oglala Lakota (Sioux), notes, “If the old camp circle, the sacred hoop of the Lakota, and the old days have been rudely shattered by the machines of the scientific era, and if they can be no more in the traditional sense, the universality of the images and dreams must testify to the  emergence of a new sacred hoop, a new circle of intense community….”

Although DeLoria seems to be referring to the community of Lakota peoples, we could, as Campbell does, think of the "community" as the future global community, whose members understand and experience life as something, “far more fluid, more sophisticated than the separate visions of the local traditions, wherein those mythologies themselves will be known to be but the masks of a larger….timeless schema' that is not a schema." The consciousness that could create such a community must be both subjective and objective, taking Black Elk’s imagination of the hoop of the nation and DeLoria’s "new circle" as a potential reality and not just a metaphor. In this way, a new mythology will hold the treasure from the past, respecting the local and specific traditions equally with the global, universal ones.  May it come to pass!

It is clear that Campbell’s research and insights went to the foundation of myths, way down into the "deep, deep well of the past," not only to their cultural/geographic roots, but to their biological, psychological and even prehistoric origins. He found that wired into our psyche and physiognomy is our ability to both create and respond to images, symbols and stories which are metaphors for our experience of being alive. Could it ever be that humanity will arrive at a point in its evolution of consciousness to live “decently, without rancor or revenge” on this green earth—the only place we have to share in the here and now? Will we ever take time in our lives fraught with distractions—of pop culture, of politicians shaping their own version of reality; of manic technology/ social media, to acknowledge the legacy of mythology as a “timeless schema”?  Perhaps not yet universally, but certainly we, as individuals can commit to live, not by some narrow interpretation of one or another book or ideology, but rather in support, affirmation and validation of all that is truly human, good, beautiful and true in story and myth.

Then, might we be able to live, not by the stories/myths, but with them and allow them to live in us.

REFERENCES

Campbell, Joseph. The Masks of God: Primitive Mythology. 1959. New York: Viking Press, Inc.1959.

Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth. DVD. Mystic Fire Video, 2001.

Neihardt, John G. Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux as told through John G. Neihardt.1932. New York: Williams Morrow Company, 1989.

HOUSE ON SIXTH AVENUE

Maria and Antonio DiGuilermo (Williams)

 outside their row home on Sixth Avenue

in Conshohocken, PA

This is what my father-in-law told me happened to him when he was boy living in on Sixth Avneue, Conshohocken, a small town outside of Philadelphia: “When I asked my father for a dime, he picked me up and heaved me against the wall.”

His father worked hard in a cement factory, and at other menial jobs for long hours in the cold, sometimes away from home for periods of time. An Italinan immigrant, he, like so many others lie him, left what was probably a rural poor village with no education, skills or prospects for the future. He came with a wife Maria and their one child at the time in1903. The family grew each year quickly include eight other children. Their small back yard was a garden of tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, fruit and herbs, and grapevines to make wine--all to sustain them through the winters.

There was always dinner on the table when the man of the house came home and took his rightful place as lord and master of his domain. However meager, inadequate the "kingdom" might have been, it was likely the only place he could command respect and deference, while women took their designated places caring for as many children as were conceived and everything else involved in managing a household.

For immigrant families all over America, their homeland would became a misty but precious memory in the new world without the familiarity and warmth of land and language, the villages and an extended family for support. In the old world at least there were the beauty of landscape, the blood ties, evenings with friends before a hearth fire and maybe there was a song to comfort, temper and deepen a young soul. While here in America there may have been other opportunities, the comforts were few. Of course, neighborhoods then tended to be of one or another ethnic group around a parish church, which allowed the immigrant residents to gather togehter for some for cultural and social customs and traditions.

My father-in-law was the youngest of the nine brothers and sisters. I never heard him speak a word against his father, whom he obviously respected (but maybe also feared as a child?). Antonio DiGuielermo was a proud, hard-working, man who had lived his short life as best he could, fulfilling his responsibility to provide the bare necessities for his family after arriving in a foreign land to start over. Maybe that is all that this father, uneducated and unskilled, living day to day could manage in his life, if he was lucky.

Considering the hardships involved, providing the necessities was a deed in itself. He and others had to move swiftly, unawares, from childhood to adulthood, sometimes without even the bare of necessities—let alone the reflection for self-awareness and empath. He must have struggled mightily to bring those necessities to his own family.

Everyone else assumed their parts, as well, some no less challenging then the father's role. The wife's: to bear children, work day and night to care for and feed them; wash and sew clothes by hand; keep the house in order; tend the garden, put up harvest for winter; and wait on the father when he was home. There may not have been much understanding at that time that children are individuals with their own experiences, minds, desires, hopes and potential. Rather, they were hungry mouths to feed and sturdy bodies to put to use--and they were to be "seen and not heard."

These are the impressions I had from the stories my father-in-law told over and again through the years, some as subconscious burdens, no doubt, to bear through a lifetime. And I heard no other stories to displace the ones of a stern, unforgiving father, with not a glimmer of warmth (if there was time for such). I had, however, heard my father-in-law's fond memories about his mother, who lived into her 90's. I was fortunate to have met her when I came into the family. Still, there was an unspoken sense that any transgression on the father's part toward his wife or children could be rationalized in the context of the hardships of his and maybe existence in general.

Decades after the father man had crossed the threshold from earthly trials, probably inhis 50's to whatever lay beyond, my husband and I took my father-in-law, already in his later years, along with Rosie, one of his widowed sisters, to visit Mary, the oldest living sister and her husband Lou. There was a warm welcome, a huge meal, and later time to sit around the table to reminisce with laughter and tears. The topic turned from childhood memories of their neighborhood, to long-ago holidays spent all together at the small row home on Sixth Avenue, to their early married years with young children Then, inevitably, the conversation turned to Carmen, the youngest brother who had died at age sixteen.

There are always memories or stories repeated in families, some happy, some tragic, which have a way of casting a certain mood that can fills the inner and outer spaces of a gathering. This was such a one. I had heard about Carmen many times, but now I heard about him from Rosie, who revealed her own experienc of being a little girl in that house. Perhaps it was the first time her brother and sister heard about her recollections. Rosie was a sweet, delicate women, almost bird-like in her movements and child-like in her demeanor and speech—an open, generous soul. She became somber as she remembered the events surrounding Carmen's death.

One day, over 60 years ago, she was getting ready for school. It was a bitterly cold morning, and the innocent, young girl was doing what girls do joyfully, combing her hair and singing a song. Her father stormed in and shoved her out of the bathroom. Carmen was still asleep, having been ill the night before. She remembered that her father shook him awake and dragged him out of bed despite his illness, so he wouldn't be late to walk the distance to the dairy farm, where he would work outside all day.

That afternoon, walking home from school, Rosie said she heard a voice, “Who do you want to lose, your father or your brother?” As she got to this part of the tale, her face transformed into that of a grieving madonna, with confusion and pain she must have felt at that very moment so long ago. She said she the thought, and said outloud to us, in her characteristic way, “Ooo, I can’t choose between Pop and Carmen.'”

She didn’t have to.

When she got home, she found that Carmen had died that day (later they found of pneumonia). Rosie didn't say what that questioning voice she heard may have been: her conscience, her fears, her wishes to have family harmony, ESP, or even the prophetic voice of God. She just told the story, and we listened. I was stunned, trying to comprehend the effects of on the rest of the family, carried through a lifetime. Nothing was said in response to Rosie’s story that day about questioning voice. There was a silent moment when we all took in what she had shared and also to honor the memory of their lost brother. Then the mood, meaning and images evoked by Rosie slowly faded.

I had the sense that my father-in-law and the others had to ignore, at least outwardly, the implication that their father was as cruel as the facts of Rosie's story confirmed, and that his sister, as well as the other siblings may have been as deeply affected by their childhoods and the loss of a brother that could have been avoided.

What did it mean, I wondered, that the family never openly spoke to each other about the relationship of Carmen’s death to his having been forced to work on that bitter cold, last day of his young life. At the least, it meant that no blame was openly attributed in order to preserve the family mythology and to have avoided the open reckoning of it.

Whatever may have transpired after Carmen's death, I have no knowledge of, but I do know that people, in general often do not question the what, how and why of their lives (including myself) to avoid the pain, and maybe it is better that way in some cases. Still, I can only hope that there was also tenderness, love, and yes, the pain of remorse felt in the heart of the father, head of the household on Sixth Avenue— if not seen by others. Even if only brief moments of doubt before sleep, or upon waking--the way a small shaft of light and warmth edges its way into a dark room through a door left slightly ajar.

On the Pitfalls of Fundamentalism (of any kind)

God and Satan were walking down the street one day; the Lord bent down to pick something up.

He gazed at it glowing radiantly in His hand. Satan, curious, asked, “What’s that?”

“This,” answered the Lord, “is Truth.”

“Here," replied Satan as he reached for it, "Let me have that--I’ll organize it for you.”
(Ram Dass)

ALL THE DIFFERENCE

What is it that slowly begins to threaten all that appears to have been built up? All that a soul first anticipates, desires, creates, expects and lives with, then may realize that all is not well. And what is life then if not creation and destruction--random or intentional? Attributed to Socrates is the pronouncement, "The unexamined life is not worth living." The nature of life seems to be that once it establishes itself, with our many illusions: what we think we want, need, must accomplish, wish were true for ourselves and others, it is unlikely that we intentionally step outside to observe in order to examine and make changes. It might happen that circumstances arise that force us to go in another direction, or we may tire of the pain and suffering we endure and feel determined to change, but the feeling fades, we falter, and continue on the same path instead of the "road less travelled," where we may learn that nothing is as it appears to be.
    Whether our life is examined or not, there still may be suffering and many tears. But if examined, there may also be understanding which will be worth the effort. Take that road! If we do not, we will continue to tread the same path, too fearful to veer off the familiar into the "undiscovered country." Like Dante at the beginning of his journey into light, we may see the only way to go forward is to face the obstacles, that is through hell. It is only a true desire and the will to free ourselves from the anxiety and desperation that we can move forward.
    Sometimes we are forced under a brilliant light cast by pain of any kind to see with more clarity, which can guide us toward change. Very rarely do we turn with deliberate intent to observe the forms and patterns that hold us in place. It is hard to turn, as Plato revealed in his "Allegory of the Cave." The prisoner remains in chains, gazing forward into the shadow forms, rather than into the harsh source of light.
    By the time I turned to look at the pattern of my life, however safe it may have appeared to others, I felt it was a path through a garden overgrown—some parts green, dense and thriving; some withered and dried; some blighted, or swept by storms, and here and there completely barren spots, as if from draught and darkness. Even if forced to look, it takes a long time--maybe a lifetime--to understand what we see how we have lived. There are those who never look, those who look and turn away, convincing themselves they have not seen what they saw. Some look, but are not prepared for what they see and may be shattered. Then there are those who look, open to own what they see, or integrate what has been, and eventually can say, as I have, “This has been and ever will be part of my life.” When I had looked long enough and hard enough, I thought I saw a glimmer in the distance, beyond an overgrown path with obstacles ahead. I am a wayfarer, still on my way toward the light.

The Wayfarer,

Perceiving the pathway to truth

Was struck with astonishment.

It was thickly grown with weeds.

“Ha,” he said,

“I see that none has passed here

in a long time.”

Later he saw that each weed

Was a singular knife.

“Well,” he mumbled at last,

“Doubtless there are other roads.” (Crane).

On the Anniversary of My Brother's Death

My Brother, Ron died of an overdose on March 4, 2004.

excerpt from: Soul Biography (work in progress)

Our family had grown to include a brother and another sister. I don't know if my father had all the conventional hopes a father has for a son. I suppose expectations for children are often not realized, as hopefully children develop their own expectations for themselves to become who and what they wish. I do know that my father was harsh in some ways, and maybe more so with my brother. I wonder if my mother spent whatever emotional energy she had—energy a woman might invest more in a male child, hoping to be appreciated and understood by a son more than by a husband. All this is speculation on my part, and questions that have remained beyond his death.
    Looking back, it seemed that early on my brother began to spin a dark web around himself—one in which every member of the family was eventually caught up. That he was a troubled soul became increasingly clear as the years passed. He went his own way, and lived by his own rules. In his younger years, he would go off from the neighborhood leaving everyone to look for him, later there was some vandalism, getting into fights and other sorts of minor incidents—which happened more often into his early teens. He often became the center of concern and attention, as was need. When he enlisted in the army, at first he  seemed to benefit from the rigour and regimentation. When orders came, as was expected, for him to serve in Vietnam, we were all concerned.
    Not long after I had married, Ron came home from Vietnam addicted to heroin, was assigned to a rehab before being discharged, but when he came home for good, he remained addicted on one substance or another. And so, continued life on his own terms—ones that brought him up short of any chance for balance in body, mind and soul. Instead, his life was one long descent into self-destruction, tragically playing itself out over decades, and leaving a lifetime of sorrow and despair for the rest of the family to cope with.
    In and out of rehabiliation, probation and jail terms, he never left the home of our parents who seemed to enable him, alternately calling the police when things got unmanagable, and then droping charges, as they must have felt helpless, hopeless and guilty for what any parent might feel was a betrayal of the unconditional love expected and often felt by parents. The rest of the family suffered, argued, disagreed about what to do or not do. The typical family get togethers for holidays and/or celebrations were never predictable, and, if they happened at at all, were usally interupted by crises involving my brother.

     His life may have been more of a mystery to him than to any one else. There was always a kind of innocence about him and naive incredulity on his part that anyone would be concerned with his life at all--his intelligence and talents fading and finally disappearing into addiction. His association with other troubled souls, the disruption and dysfunction of family life, eratic behavior, verbal abuse, and sometimes violence became the norm.
    I wonder if the meaning of his life was to move us to break the silence, denial and blame lack of self-knowledge, to force us to "take a stand," to help each other, to acknowledge what we lived. We did all of those things from time to time, but never were able engage my parents to reorder their priorities so that there were hopes, dreams and energy for all their children, and for each other. And with endless crises, overdoses, jail terms, court cases--how could there have been a plan that worked, an order of priorties? But that was my wish, my hope.
     He was found dead in a flop house--the realization of decades of fear come to pass. When the police came to tell our parents the bad news, before they could get it out, she asked if he had killed someone?  For a mother to even imagine that could happen, or even that a child would live the life he had and end in tragedy, is still incomprehensible.  But she had seen him at his worst, and feared the worst.  

    Later, when I looked at his death certificate, and the thing that struck me as the most tragic—even more than, “Manner of Death: accident. Cause of Death--adverse effect of drugs—self-administered,” was the line which read “Never Married.” I don’t know why that reality had more of an impact than the other facts listed. Was it because it affirmed that my brother had none of the ordinary experiences of the joys and struggles of human relationship most people have in life. He did have extraordinary highs and long downward spirals, which never resulted in the motivation to live differently--and so a life-long, lingering sadness of a lost soul, leaving a family wondering if anything could anyting have been different, better.  It must be that it all was as it had to be.
    Now, I look back with less emotion, less judgment about anyone’s motives, actions or shortcomings. Why? Because I have had to look at my own human failings and have learned how life can catch us up like a butterfly in a web, like a leaf in the spindrift of a stream—not able, willing or even aware that we are so fixed for a time or a lifetime, not aware that the slightest movement could set us free.
    My brother was a butterfly; he was a leaf. Death set him free. 

    May perpetual light shine upon him.

Over the Rainbow with Finn

Finn and Juju

Our grandchild, Finn has brought such warmth, hope and happiness into our lives, mine ("Nonna") and my husband’s ("Juju"). This new experience, like most in life, has been filled with various emotions, memories, wishes, intentions, but always felt as a blessing. And like any experience there is what we ourselves bring to it and what is brought to it by others. We need only to observe and to reflect, especially when a new being comes among us. We now are living in between the memory of what it was like to be new parents ourselves and how it is to be new grandparents.

     Waiting for Finn to be born was like a long and beautiful dream come true, our own child and his wife starting a family. With the extra long labor of his mother Sanne, at home with a midwife, there was concern for her and the child. We waited. Although our son told us not to come to town until we heard there was a birth and all was well, like disobedient children, we left immediately so we would be nearby until our first born grandchild arrived and we could see him.
     Finally, we were called a day later and made the short walk to see our first born grandchild. The magic had begun. On the walk that beautiful fall day, we saw a rainbow above the town in the direction we were heading. We arrived and tiptoed upstairs to enter the candle-lit room. In the glow, there was the newborn in the sheltering arms of mother and father. It felt like (and always must be) a holy place into which an infant is welcomed with awe and love.
     Finn has been tresure and constant source of joy and light in all of our lives. He is beautiful, healthy and bright. We all notice and comment on the skills and abilities developing in his body, in his thinking, and marvel at his responses of inner and outer gestures toward others. We marvel at his curiosity and interest in everything around him, at his dexterity with legos and puzzles, in matching colors and shapes. Most notable are his interactions with others, seemingly tuned in to situations with sensitivity and reciprocity.
     We also remark on his incredible memory, as he has begun to articulate where and how something has happened, accompanied with hand gestures and facial expressions, which are most charming and endearing. He is responsive, helpful, wishing and able to participate in all daily activities, like making breakfast, sweeping the floor, washing the dishes and putting his toys back into their proper places. He loves books, pictures, songs, stories and verses. He is fortunate that his mother and his maternal grandmother (Mormor) can, and sometimes do, speak to him in their native Norwegian language and share their love of all outdoor activities, we all have also provided cultural and creative experiences, reading, museums, music and art.
     He looks like his mother, who is beautiful (inside and out), with his light hair, delicate build and blue, blue eyes which look out in a certain way, as if to say, “I know who I am, and/or “I know who you are.” Sometimes he will just look with a very intense, thoughtful gaze and then maybe say a word or thought which reveals a kind of wisdom or insight most remarkable. He wants to do everything and usually learns everything on a first try with a “Finn do it,” or “My to do it.” He can, and he does! He likes to watch videos (when permitted now and then) ones deemed acceptable/appropriate and sometimes necessary in a pinch. It is adorable to see him all comfy and settled with his little snack tray, enthralled, as he lifts a little morsel to his mouth, with an amused smile at the adventures of his animated favorite friends, Kipper, Kaiyu or Hungry "Pillar" (caterpillar).
     Finn has always loved and looks for the moon (moona). This seems so connected to who he is (was or will be). I see this moon love as both what he is attracted to and what he is: everything that is rythmic, bright, mysterious, pure, reflective, but, most of all, circling round the things he loves, as well as attracting those around him into his brilliant sphere of beauty and light. Also, when he talks about the stars and angels, he becomes them, and we all look on with wonder.
     The most wonder-filled thing about Finn is that he thrives on having lots of people around, and when the extended family sit around a table for a meal, or gather in a room, he seems most joyful and content, as we are welcomed into and know we are an important part of Finn’s world and his tender, open heart.
     It seems as though he is like his parents in so many ways. Both his mother, Sanne (aka Mama/Mommy/Mama Mia) and father, Rob, (aka Papa/ Dad/Papa Pia) are creative, energetic, multi-talented, thoughtful, responsible and caring people who love and respect each other. So Finn gets to sew, bake, go for long walks and make things at a craft table with mother, and with his father play drums, build things, draw and wrestle. We all put him first, with patientce, kindness and humor. Ultimately, what Finn is heir to is an exemplery experience of the good, the beautiful and the true. At least, we try to reflect that back to him.
     We do not live so close to Rob, Sanne and Finn, so are unable to be part of their everyday lives, but close enough to visit over a weekend in upstae New York, preferably a long one. Those visits to them and their visits to us, we anticipate beyond imagination. Later, we recall and share something Finn did or said, which may have been ordinary, but seemed amazing because it was our Finn and filled our hearts. Then we again begin looking ahead to the next visit--our lives the deeper and richer for them. They are precious  times in the glow of our dear, growing family, in which Finn has become the center, being the first and only grandchild--for now.
     With Finn’s arrival, a special place has been created within us that is all longing in our hearts, like a nest tucked away among the quiet, fragrant pine boughs or a hidden teasured bowl waiting to be filled with his presence. 

     Then, all is shining and golden, all giving and loving, all receiving. And the bowl is brimful.

A HUNDRED THOUSAND WAYS ~ HEART PICTURES

Published in New View Magazine (January 2010 issue)

Pentecost, El Greco

Joseph Campbell, in his comprehensive exploration of mythopoeia, observed that, for the ground of human existence, humanity has “chosen, not the facts in which the world abounds, but the myths of an immemorial imagination.” Indeed, the mythologies of the world, often thought to be divinely inspired, are many-layered, rich, symbolic road maps of and for humanity which speak in and to the heart.

     The heart realm encompasses imagination--fertile ground for knowing and understanding, but in different ways at different times in an individual's, as well as humanity’s evolution. Two stories, one from the Old Testament, one from the New Testament suggest a shift or transformation of human consciousness.
     The Old Testament story of the Tower of Babel tells of the descendants of Nimrod in the land of Shinar who sought to build a tower to reach heaven. God responds, “Now, nothing will be restrained from them which they have imagined to do.” He confounds their common language into many languages, so they can no longer communicate to complete the tower, and they are to be scattered over the earth. In essence, they were planning a "raid" on the Holy, an invasion of heaven to display their power and to keep and expand their prominence and reputation. Their efforts were thwarted, as their motivations were not out of humility, faith, or spiritual practice toward moral development—all thought of in most religious traditions as acceptable and necessary ways to approach, know and/or experience the divine.
     A counter part to the Tower of Babel story can be found in the New Testament in which, perhaps, the chosen people are those whose hearts open to “other than words.”
     After Christ's crucifixtion and death, on the third day, it is told that he rose from the dead to walk again on the earth and appeared before his followers on Pentecost, meaning "fiftieth," or approximately seven weeks after harvest/Passover.  The gathering included the twelve apostles, his mother Mary, other female disciples and his brothers (Acts 1:14). He had told his diciples they were to await a baptism, not from water, but from the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit descends upon the group, usually portrayed as a white dove hovering above and a flame of enlightenment over each of the heads of those gathered. They begin to speak in tongues, as again language is confounded, but miraculously, they hear and understand each other in their own language.

     "Then they were all amazed and marveled, saying to one another, “Look, are not all these who speak Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each in our own language in which we were born? Parthians and Medes and Elamites, those dwelling in Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya adjoining Cyrene, visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs – we hear them speaking in our own tongues the wonderful works of God.” ("On Pentecost: What language Was Heard?" Fr. Ted Bobosh).

    Now, for the first time, the diciples understood who Christ was and what their mission would henceforth be. They received understanding and would teach over the earth what they had learned in the three years as diciples. With patience and devotion, they had been unknowingly building an “inner tower” (or temple) to reach the heavens. Simple fisherman, lovingly motivated, they had struggled to learn and understand, but in a moment they were enlightened, not though the letter of the law, but through its Spirit. 

     In the end, they harvested the fruits of Christ's parables and other teachings—seeds cast that had taken root in imagination and were felt in the heart. One could say that in freedom they were blessed with understanding beyond words. They had held themselves open to what Martin Buber describes as, "…the unconditional mystery which we encounter in every sphere of our lives and which cannot be comprised in any formula.”