In loving memory

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DR. KING! We love you and miss you.

Death...and so much more

Kabir. The son of a Muslim weaver in Benares, born around 1400. He was influenced by Sufi poets and Hindu thought. He is regarded as a great religious reformer and the founder of a sect to which nearly a million northern Hindus still belong. Here is one of his poems, translated by Robert Bly, from his book "Try to Live to See This!"

Friend, hope for the Guest while you are alive.
Jump into experience while you are alive.
THink and think while you are alive.
What you call "salvation" belongs to the time before death.

If you don't break your ropes while you're alive,
do you think ghosts
will do it after/
The idea that the soul will join with the ecstatic just because
the body is rotten---that is all fantasy.
What is found now is found then.

If you find nothing now, you will simply end up with
an apartment in the City of Death.
And if you make love with the divine now, in the next life
you will have the face of satisfied desire.

Then plunge into the Truth, find out who the Teacher is,
believe in the Great Sound!
Kabir says this:
"When the Guest is being searched for, it is the intensity
of the longing for the Guest
that does all the work.
Look at me...you will see a slave of that intensity."

Post-Graduation and Pre-Seminary

A Hard Decree Last Night God Posted on the Tavern wall A hard decree for all of love's inmates Which read: If your heart cannot find a joyful work The jaws of this world Will probably Grab hold of your Sweet Ass. ~Hafiz~

The above poem by Hafiz was relayed to me by Ken Butigan, my Pace e Bene mentor for the year long training program. I wish I could say I feel something in this moment as I read over it, feel what I felt the morning he read it over the phone. I don’t know what is wrong with me lately, I feel so tired, so creativeless. Yesterday, I did have a sudden visual--though violent--of what sexism would look like, if it were a performance art piece. Thinking upon the structural violence so laden in our society and culture, I wrote “When men are sexist and in turn commit cruel acts towards women, through deeds of lesser acknowledged violence, what becomes of women? Conversely, when women act cruelly towards men, much in the way men are sexist towards women, what becomes of men?" These images of the wounded males and females bleed out in our everyday lives. One piece, one limb at a time being severed from the body of the victim. Cuts and bruises fill out the bloated bodies of these people and no one looks. Instead, they turn away from an gruesome scene of mutiny. The rendering of these dazed corpses, obliterated at the orifice of culture and society is an awakening for us all. “What do you mean, how I view women?” asks the sediment-laden rogue.” Oh wow, I am filled with doubt and suspicion, regret and disbelief. “How could this be?” I muse.

Do we get up day after day to garden the soulless antiquated generation of yesteryear? Do we muster our lives up again, rousing the wild child within, to knock it down with structures of seemingly innocuous violence? Where is the crone to watch over the children? Where is the sage to guide the thirsty spirits of the young? Life is to be loved and laughed. We are to play with the ever changing prisms of this light, the light that lighteth up every woman and man. For it is within this light that we drink of man and grace; peace and death; love and swarthy chaos. This is how we make it into the next world. We make the disorder and clean up the provocative mess, filling up the trashcans with heaving lessons and growing ivy. Twining around our bodies to let us know how far we have truly come. These thoughts, if only lifted up to God, could prove useful. Why? They encompass the dialectical nature of the universe itself, of all there is. These thoughts could bring joy and contentment to the hardest of minds, the scrutiny of those who have fought and lost. The curling smiles would rest and trickle on the lips of those once wounded and now rapturously captive to belligerent love. Of course, we would be beholden to the Truth of this Way; this Way of containing the pieces of life which once cut, and now renew. The love of God blinding us in grandeur. The brilliance too much to relay here, it is only important to mention, and the mind can run from there. When peace is still, this Way, this Hard Decree from Hafiz will be ratified. And the torn pieces of those who have suffered from a sexism only unknown to the beatific, will be caught in the shade of an evening star off the coast of our spirit.

Her

One-night God

“Don’t leave me. Stay with me a little longer.” This says the still small voice of God. The voice that vibrates within me, as a man retreats from the wanton bed of his lover. Why should I stay? I feel complete and filled; resonating in the night’s passion. An unexpected nag is pulling at me, brushing my back with glossy fingernails. Ah, this God smiles, knowing completely of my weakness to Her. And so I stay and turn another time in blinding radiance and twisting Truth, known only in the smallness of a woman’s hand, the tremble of a breath broken.

This is my relationship with a God who loves me and implores me to stay, not to go. But I do. I leave every day. Every morning I get up and put on my clothes, not to look back at the disheveled lessons and smeared make-up stains which spill my life’s work. Sometimes I just can’t stay for breakfast, I can’t face those eyes. The eyes of Her, who will call me to come back and be with Her for Eternity. This is the spiritual life incarnate; hard and cold, strewn about and tossed out like a one night stand. I live for God and love, leaving when it is good for me. Kissing Her on the cheek, I crawl down the steps before the sunrise can touch my skin, slinking into my own bed and falling under the shadows.

It is only when the burning begins again--the aches, the sadness, the yearnings--for something more than what my finite brain fathoms, that I run out of my loft, into the benevolence of careful caresses and trembles. It is curious how the tumbling of our souls starts and ends, she into me and I into Her. I imagine this match is as good as it will ever be and still I vacillate between the way it is and the way it is supposed to be. My purpose is revealed in these moments between midnight and dawn, I know what holds me. Why should I go? I feel afraid of swallowing up into the cool black air. What will happen to me? The fire plays against Her skin and I look deep into these eyes. The eyes of a Love only recognized in seconds of silent prayer. Those utterances, inwardly released humbly from the lips of lovers of Mystery and Spirit.

“May I begin again?” I ask this of Her. “I don’t want to leave. Not now, not ever.” The secret marriage is Her. Then I remember a voice, a haunting father that I had once: “The spiritual life is hard and cold; it is loving and doting; as it is childish and codependent. It is waxing and waning; shifting and stretching; as it is constant and mercurial.” The remembrance flashes through my mind, leaving me to pull closer yet. The fall and rise of Her pregnant stomach haunts me now, as I lay in a blanket that reads out like a scroll; a litany of the way lovers do. Spying the script, I carry it to the fire and it illuminates, cursive gold letters stinging my fingertips in the dancing embers. I stay with it, smoothing the edges, and feel frenetic. The insecurity lifts my body and I rise to rest in Her arms. Maybe I will stay. At least for a little while.

The Pull

This is a different entry. A different post after a very long time of silence. Quietude is good. But there is a time to come out and speak. And in the speaking, listen to your voice as if you have never heard it before. Who knows, maybe you never have?

Autumn found me growing. Twisting and changing like roots far beneath the cavernous oak tree that is my life. I dreamt of life there, seeing myself like a fetus—clutching at the branches, which wrapped around my torso, my legs, and my arms. My hands became chafed, bloody, and sore from the constant struggle. Oh yes, there were moments of respite. And these moments were glorious. I experienced periods with my true Self. A Higher Self of authenticity which has been seeking to emerge for far too long. Visibility, recognition, not by others as much as by myself. This was the key to me not losing myself in the currents of nesting vines in my hair and biting limbs scraping my sides.

I began to realize important pieces of truth about nonviolence. Studying the four gunas, the four energy levels that place nonviolence at the top, I came to realize I had not been practicing nonviolence. This moment of despair and realization left me confounded and dizzy. My head felt full of cotton the morning after I experienced a rage out which involved two different people via phone calls. I found myself in full immersion within the third guna-Violence. I called my dear mentor and friend Ken at Pace e Bene and he congratulated me for not living in Avoidance, Accommodation—the first and second energy levels respectively. Whoopee. I am so glad I have graduated to Violence, I thought. Yet, I did feel this shift was important and moreover, a pull was guiding me. This pull, which had been like a benevolent guide through loneliness, joy, and everything in the liminal state. One could call it my Virgil to my Dante. He, sometimes carrying me up the terraces—through purgation—sometimes offering pieces of wisdom, sometimes nudging me to answer the question ‘who am I?’

But I digress, and I am dizzy yet again. Dizzy with overwhelm and paralyzed in feeling. For what I really wanted to write about was a person of yesteryear. Yet, for some reason I find myself choking on words, and my fingers frozen at this keyboard. Thus, I will just remember him and smile in gratitude for his memory. I learned too much at one time and suffered a bit at once. This has always been my problem—doing things too fast, not allowing for the process to happen for me. And so I lost him. I am not the same since and not sure if I want to be. So it is.

Still, I have learned more about nonviolence in this last year than I ever have. Not only from this experience of a “him”, but from the trip to the Middle East, the vigil at the School of the Americas, crossing the line at the Nevada Test Site, demonstrating at Creech Air Force Base against the drones, to name but a few. I have participated in a nonviolent training program through Pace e Bene. This program has forced me to go deeper than I thought was possible. Ah, but now I bore myself with details and find that I am not writing from my heart.

The heart: what I reconnected with and opened after years of cold and winter. The autumn found me beneath the cavernous oak tree that has been my life. Twisting and turning amongst the roots, the branches that have held me back for so long. But only one mattered, the umbilical cord which wrapped round my outstretched hand. This fibrous cord pulled me out of my underground past. Lifting myself up above ground, I had hit the path running. Now it is time to keep the momentum and come out of the silence.

Yesterday, March 19, 2010, marked a day of invasion. Seven years since the beginning of the Iraq war. It also marked a day of departure of a person in my life. One year. Peace, be still: A moment of silence for all those who have lost. For all those who have and are still suffering. A moment of reverence and homage to the Great Mystery, for all the beauty that comes into our lives unannounced.

The question

Sacred activism. The perfect fusion of the political with the spiritual. Andrew Harvey's new book entitled "The Hope" focuses on this theme. We are called on this planet to be agents of change, agents of peace and justice. Whether we realize it or not, this is our purpose. Everyone's vision of how that will look is different. I remember one time I met a man who when asked if he was a musician, he responded with, "I pray through music." That was his service. What do you pray through?

Deconstructing Womyn and A Way

What is woman/womyn? What does it mean to be this thing? How are we supposed to navigate in this world? We are pressured to be beautiful, yet not too much so, lest we be viewed haughty and vain. We are demanded to be bright and charming, yet not too much so, lest we be branded intimidating and brash. We are forced to be oozing sexual chutzpah, yet not too much so, lest we be thought of as whores. Vaginal laser surgery, breast implants, botox on your lunch hour, permanent makeup, face-lifts, butt-lifts, cellulite reduction, anti-aging creams-creams for the eyes, the mouth, the neck, the hands-sun spot removal, electrolysis, and let us not forget the illustrious bikini wax. Can I get a witness?

Thusly, it is exhausting being this thing called womyn...and expensive (ah, capitalism). However, it is only such, if we allow it. I have said NO to this hegemonic structure. I have been slowly saying NO for 10 years. It took me awhile. I grew up in a fishbowl existence where my self-centered fear of people watching me, was not entirely inaccurate. It happened-the Preying-over and over again. The power was taken from me at a young age.

Our young women are not being fully nurtured and held closely to our hearts. What is happening? When are we going to learn? One out of every six women have been victims of an attempted or completed rape at some point in their life. 9 out of 10 rape victims are female. Every 2 seconds someone is sexually assaulted and 44% of sexual assault and rape victims are under the age of 18 (see www.rainn.org). Our girls are hurting. We need to protect our girls. We need to give them permission to live full bright lives, whatever shape that takes. We need to give them permission to be human and embrace their size, shape, and color. This is so paramount to our future. We do not live in a vacuum. We are interconnected, all of us, every single thing on this planet.

This has been made abundantly clear to me in the last few months, shockingly so. It is so stunning, this stark reality, that sometimes all I can do is break down and weep for all the daughters and sons, the parents, the sisters, the brothers, all of us. But I don't weep from a place of fatigue and bitterness. I weep because I realize we are hurting, we are suffering. This planet, this life hurts. There is pain that I have experienced and there is pain I will never even know about. But, when one follows the path all the way down, digging deep into the core of all that is-tracking the path from violence into the stillness of nonviolence-one becomes a conduit of wholly integrated compassion. And it is there where the beauty lies. It is there where the hope resides. It is there where the freedom resides. Freedom from anger, fear, desperation, isolation. Because within the still small place is a haven called sacred interconnectedness. This is the liberation. This is Freedom.