‘The Puzzle’
Someone who keeps aloof from suffering
is not a lover. I choose your love
above all else. As for wealth
if that comes, or goes, so be it.
Wealth and love inhabit separate worlds.
But as long as you live here inside me,
I cannot say that I am suffering.
– Sanai….
Don’t speak of your suffering — He is speaking.
Don’t look for Him everywhere — He’s looking for you.
An ant’s foot touches a leaf, He senses it;
A pebble shifts in a streambed, He knows it.
If there’s a worm hidden deep in a rock,
He’ll know its body, tinier than an atom,
The sound of its praise, its secret ecstasy –
All this He knows by divine knowing.
He has given the tiniest worm its food;
He has opened to you the Way of the Holy Ones.
– Sanai
This is a pretty large edition… working on it over the last week, hunting this, hunting that… The weather here has been pretty darn hot, and continues to be so. I was fine with it until yesterday, and had a meltdown. Not a pretty sight! Anyway, here we are with first, some updates on Turfing, Friends & EarthRites Radio, and then into the new stuff.
I hope you enjoy your visit!
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You can now follow Turfing via Twitter! I will be announcing updates for all things EarthRites at: http://www.twitter.com/EarthRites
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Visitors From Afar….
We were blessed with an evening and morning visit from Roberto & Leslie coming south from an art show in Bellevue, on their way home close to Grass Valley, in the Sierra. Monday late afternoon, hanging out. Roberto & Leslie came to us from Laura & Dale Pendell, their neighbors by a few miles. Roberto popped up on my FB account earlier this year, and we have been having some great conversations along the way.
We have lots of common interest, and experiences. Beginning a conversation with the two of them is like you have been friends forever. Of course, this may be very true. I have been blessed with good companions, fellow travelers, friends, family and lovers in my time on this bright and shining sphere.
We had a great time, first some drinks, then a visit to Caer Llwydd, then up the street for dinner at our local Thai Eatery. We came home to a very, very warm house, and finished the evening with Absinthe, laughter, and good company. They headed south early on Tuesday and made it home safely…
If you get a chance, please check out their website. First rate Art, and very wonderful at that. I love the marriage of art/function. Not enough in our world. Roberto & Leslie bring a bit of beauty with them on many levels…!http://www.hiddenspringdesigns.com/
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Radio Free EarthRites, is possibly going away. We are trying to save it, but at this point it is off the air, and it looks like it will not come back as we have known it. Our gracious host in the UK can no longer devote time, nor space for it, and that is the short story of it all… So… we are having to move servers, and it will be a bit of a hurdle. If we move back to the US we have to keep the RIAA people off our backs, and this will cost a pretty penny. I will keep you posted! I do think we will survive, but it will change in format. Hopefully I can start doing some live shows again, and we might do some podcast set ups, and mobile phone streaming…80) I have been very touched by all who have stepped forward with offers of help. I was on the verge of giving up hope.
I have felt that Radio Free EarthRites has a great potential. I believe it could be the basis for many aspects of community building, education, and just plain fun. If you would like to help out, let us know. We could create something quite marvelous together!
Thanks,
G
On The Menu:
From The Forthcoming Book…
Anarchist Quotes
Fotheringay – 2 Videos
Tales From The Beat Hotel
Taoist Tales…. 2 stories…
Poetry For Deep Summer – Tu Fu
Tu Fu Biography
Empire Of The Sun – 3 Videos
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From “The Forthcoming Book….”
Freiburg im Bresgau, Germany November 1977: Laying on my back in a cold water flat… A blazing sun slowly wheeling inside/overhead. Pinioned on the floor, writhing in fiery heaven, then a frozen hell…. Ancient caravans assemble before tumbled down walls, in deep shadow, a thousand murmuring voices. It seems an infinite moment in time is caught in amber. Golden light fills the great void, as tales of civilizations rising and falling play out in my consciousness. The rays of the sun shear away flesh, blood, bones. I am caught between infinite pleasure and infinite misery…. I am in this place forever. I never existed; I have always existed. I am possessed by angels, I am clay in the hands of demons. The sun is singing and a blazing white light illuminates every cell, every molecule every atom of this thing I call “my beingness’.
Having eaten a gram or so of Hashish, I was following a path set down by Fritz Ludlow a century before. I had become enamored with Ludlow’s work a year of so earlier. I had pursued his ideas from California, to Amsterdam where I had been smoking an ounce or so a week. In this cold water flat, in the ancient part of town, I was now wrestling with the inner core of my being. Everything hinged on these suspended moments, what path I was to follow from here on out… The light was singing, then shrieking, then nothingness. I stepped into the void.
Earlier In Amsterdam: Everything changed in this time. Time took on a new dimension, food and pleasures changed in novel ways. Cigarettes/tobacco were at the service of spliffs only, and my taste for alcohol slowly faded away. I walked through Amsterdam at all hours, haunting museums during the days and walking along the canals at night. Narrow houses, narrow streets, the Provo yellow bicycles everywhere. German tourist couples shopping for thrills in the red light district on the weekends… I would stare out our window and watch the crowds drifting by… Everything was a wonder, trees and shadows giving such delight…
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Anarchist Quotes:
The political arena leaves one no alternative, one must either be a dunce or a rogue.
– Emma Goldman, “What is Anarchy?”
The Anarchists are simply unterrified Jeffersonian Democrats. They believe that ‘the best government is that which governs least,’ and that which governs least is no government at all.
– Benjamin Tucker
“Government is an association of men who do violence to the rest of us.”
– Leo Tolstoy, Russian Novelist and Christian Anarchist
I build no system. I ask an end to privilege, the abolition of slavery, equality of rights, and the reign of law. Justice, nothing else. That is the alpha and omega of my argument.
– Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, the first self-labeled anarchist
From my point of view the killing of another, except in defense of human life, is archistic, authoritarian, and therefore, no Anarchist can commit such deeds. It is the very opposite of what Anarchism stands for…
– Joseph Labadie, Anarchism and Crime
In existing States a fresh law is looked upon as a remedy for evil. Instead of themselves altering what is bad, people begin by demanding a law to alter it.
– Peter Kropotkin, “Law and Authority”
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Fotheringay – Gypsy Davey {Live 1970}
Fotheringay [Sandy Denny] – Banks of the Nile (1970)
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Tales From The Beat Hotel
by graham seidman August 7, 2003 5:59 am
BEAT GENERATION, TRANSGRESSIVE
The room was a romantic’s dream … a garret … a real goddamn “la Boheme” garret.
There was no window, only a small skylight. Five hundred years ago this room was probably home to a servant in some Noble’s service. Now it was mine. Five flights up. A Turkish toilet (you had to have the agility of a ten year old to squat on the hole in the floor) outside next to the stairs with sheets of France Soir, the local newspaper, in lieu of toilet paper. I’d been homeless since my Army discharge two years earlier, and this was the first place I’d felt at home since then. The word was that Madam Rachou, the hotel’s owner, let you decorate your room any way you wanted and that she loved Americans. Most important she didn’t mind it if our female guests stayed overnight or all week as long as you filled out the little cards required by the police, which she slipped under your door at the stroke of mid-night. It was Algerian wartime in Paris and everyone, every night had to be accounted for. The rent was the equivalent of $21 a month and I was getting $110 on the GI bill. Add two great meals a day for $15 a month with student restaurant tickets subsidized by the French government and there was plenty left over for wine and grass. It was perfect.
I painted one wall black and one wall ochre, the rest white except for the space around the skylight. There, Wally, my childhood friend, oil painted a blue sky with clouds and stars. Gregory Corso added an angel. I painted the “just big enough for two lovers wrapped around each other” iron bed bright red. The room was as small as a monk’s cell … perhaps six by nine feet. I never measured. There was a small white porcelain sink used for washing (cold water only) and pissing in when it was too cold to run out into the hall. The floor was made of ancient octagon shaped terra-cotta tiles. When it got real cold during the winter one could splash alcohol out of a bottle onto the floor, light it with a match and then get out of bed as the fire went out and the room was warm. I loved that room and it was mine for three years. I was rich. I had two pair of blue Levi’s and two sweatshirts, one pair of desert boots and two pair of socks. I wore one set of clothes in the public shower for a once a week washing. My red plaid-hunting jacket with a dead duck carrying pocket in the back came from Abercrombie & Fitch in NY. I had a one-burner alcohol stove and beside mr camera, only one real valued possession, a PX-bought Phillips portable phonograph with a speaker in the case. Harry Phipps and Peter Duchin laid some Jazz records on me when they left Paris. A girl I knew left me some classical records. I was set.
The duffel bag I hauled from New York was filled with the Hundred Great Books, in paperback. Heavy hauling and heavy reading. I planned to go through them in that room on that red iron bed. Now they lined the seaman’s shelves strung up with rope and driftwood planks plucked from the Seine a half a block away.
One morning I dabbed some cold water on my face, pissed in the sink and flew down the five flights to buy some breakfast makings, usually an egg, a half a baguette, a piece of butter and a yogurt washed down with instant coffee. As I bounded out the door I crashed into a well-dressed elderly gentleman who was passing by. I recognized his now-startled famous face. I went into shock when I realized that he was Charlie Chaplin. It was the shock of awe. I couldn’t speak. I was frozen in awe. He and his wife, who I also recognized, were very concerned, thinking I was struck dumb in the crash. Their famous faces switched from worried frowns to broad smiles as they heard me apologize in English. After we assured ourselves that no damage was done they asked me for directions to a restaurant around the corner on the Quai Des Grandes Augustines. I would like to say that they invited me to lunch but they didn’t. I bounded back up the stairs to get my camera, figuring to get some great photos of the Chaplins in Paris. My head was spinning with images of a LIFE cover or a PARIS MATCH spread, the PULITZER PRIZE maybe, but when I returned to the crash site, they had disappeared. I went back up the five flights and made my breakfast on the alcohol stove. After breakfast, I grabbed a book, put on a Duke Ellington record, got in bed and blew a joint. Life was beautiful.
A light knock on the door. As I opened it Janine slipped in and slipped out of her clothes to join me in the red bed.
A hard knock on the door, my neighbor, “little” Jerry, finding the staircase toilet occupied, danced up and down, begged to piss in my sink. He had his own sink but found the practice too unsanitary to use it.
Another tap on the door, Allen Ginsberg asking if he could borrow some alcohol for his stove for which he planned a great chicken soup.
A scratch at the door. Marteau, the gray hotel cat wanted in and a cup of milk.
Another knock, BJ and Burroughs returning from ZiZi’s Moroccan cafe next to the police station near the Hotel De Ville where they went on a hash-buying mission. Divvy-up-time.
Lured by the noise of loud jazz blaring from the speaker, loud laughter from high loud-mouthers as well as the sweet smell of cannibis mixed with strong black Gauloise cigarette tobacco, Corso, dressed in his green velvet, Hamlet costume descended from his attic room to join us.
Banging on the door, Claude, BJ’s live-in girlfriend came by looking for him. Every time she got angry with BJ, usually about his infidelities, she went and slept with someone famous. Her first husband was an English Jazz guitarist so she stuck mostly to musicians. She told us about Gerry Mulligan and Chet Baker and others. A few days ago she found BJ in bed with GiGi and after chasing her out with BJ’s belt, vowed to retaliate heavily.
“GUESS WHAT?” she shouted over the noise. “I JUST FUCKED MARLON BRANDO”
“How was he, any good?” asked Janine as the noise came to an abrupt halt.
“A nice guy” reported Claude “but, oh,so inhibited … he gave me the kimono he wore in ‘Sayonara.’ He wants me to go to Spain with him since I speak Spanish.”
“BRANDO?” a defeated BJ exclaimed, ” Where is he? I’ve got to meet him”
BJ looked as though he stepped out of ‘THE WILD ONE’, Brando’s biker film that launched the HELL’S ANGELS look around the world. He was 6 feet 2 inches tall with a full black beard and dressed only in jeans, black leather jacket, biker’s boots and a black wool hat. Of course he had a motorcycle. BJ wanted to be a “method” actor and Brando was his idol.
“Yeah … YEAH” Corso said, “Brando is shooting ‘THE YOUNG LIONS’ outside Paris, Let’s go out there and dig him.”
“I’m for that,” said Little Jerry who also was an actor. “Me too” came from the rest of us.
“OK, I’ll set it up” … As she said it I could see Claude’s brain excited with the thought of BJ confronting Brando. BJ had once bit the finger of Errol Flynn who was jabbing it into the air in front of his face. But that’s another story.
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Taoist Tales….
“The Innkeeper”
Then the innkeeper said “Tell us the tale of an innkeeper.”
And Ming began the tale of an innkeeper.
Old Innkeeper Huan climbed up, scaled down, sidestepped, parried, and leaped over boxes upon boxes of books to reach the counter.
Ive been here for fifteen minutes, watching you leap around the room like a frog in a patch of lily pads. What are in these boxes? the weary traveler asked. Old Innkeeper Huan lifted his hands off his knees and took three deep breaths. He put one elbow onto the faded wooden counter and wrung the sweat from both eyebrows with his finger before answering.
The
Inn
records, was all he could manage to say before passing out. The traveler caught him just before his head hit the wooden, splintered counter. He sat Old Innkeeper Huan in a nearby chair and woke him up with a swift slap to the face.
What are in these records, Innkeeper?
A broad smile spread across his wrinkled face.
For the past 235 years, Ive jotted down every face thats passed through these doors. Every article of clothing theyve worn, every bag theyve carried, every remark said in this inn is in those books.
The traveler shook a laugh out of his belly and walked to a box, lifting the cover and pulling out a handful of papers. They slowly crumbled in his hands and blew around the room like desert sand. A piece landed on Old Innkeeper Huans shoe. All he could make out was the date.
That page was 170 years old. I remember the day well. A short, stocky man in a blue shirt stayed in room three. He asked for three pots of tea, and not even a thank you! He ended up staying four nights, paying for only three.
The travelers eyes widened.
How good is your memory, innkeeper? he asked.
A broad smile again spread across his wrinkled face.
I can describe every man, woman, and child that has ever crossed through these doors. Every article of clothing, every bag theyve carried, every remark theyve said.
The traveler smiled at the old man, carefully picked up another page and pointed to the first paragraph.
These words exist because of meaning. If you have the meaning, you can forget the words on the page. These words are useless to a man with a memory like yours.
The traveler got rid of the boxes and was allowed to stay in the inn for as long as he wished, free of charge.
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“Three Sages”
Then the village leader said tell us the tale of a leader.
And Ming began the tale of a leader.
Emperor Ming threw a large celebration for his 150th birthday, inviting every man, woman, and child from every province his messengers could reach. Anxious to understand the meaning of life before his death, he saved three seats at the head of the table for the three sages of Asia: Confucius, Buddha, and Lao Tzu. As they walked through the large iron doors to greet the Emperor, he observed every detail of their behavior.
The first to come was Confucius. Following closely behind him was a young boy holding a large candle. Confucius took five steps, bowed his head, and stopped. The young boy circled around Confucius seventeen times while chanting of filial piety. Confucius took another five steps, bowed his head, and stopped. Again, the young boy circled around Confucius seventeen times while chanting of filial piety. The Emperor, tired of waiting for Confucius to reach him, asked what he was doing.
It is the ritual for greeting emperors such as yourself. Without these rituals, there would be no order. Without order, life would consist entirely of chaos.
Emperor Ming frowned as Confucius took another five steps, bowed his head, and stopped. As the young boy circled around Confucius chanting of filial piety, he fell asleep. An hour later, he awoke to find Confucius grabbing the backs of his knees while hitting his head against the back of a chair. Seeing the Emperors confused face, he explained:
It is the ritual for sitting at an elegant feast.
Confucius continued to grab the backs of his knees while hitting his head against the back of a chair as Emperor Ming called in Buddha and Lao Tzu. Both walked through the large iron doors, bowed to the emperor, and took their seats. The emperor called for the first course, and soon hundreds of servants came bearing bowls of rice topped with a rich, creamy ginger sauce.
Emperor Ming looked up from eating to see Buddha scraping off the ginger sauce and flinging it into Confucius hair. Confused, the emperor asked Buddha if there was something wrong with the sauce.
It is too delicious. Another bite and I would have become attached to it.
Emperor Ming, disappointed in two of his guests, looked to Lao Tzu, who quietly ate his bowl of rice, a subtle smile visible on his lips. When he finished, Lao Tzu took a spoon and scraped the creamy ginger sauce out of Confucius hair, adding it to the bowl of soup placed before him, and began to eat. Confused, Emperor Ming made eye contact with Lao Tzu, to which he only smiled.
Do you have no rituals to perform between meals? the emperor asked.
Lao Tzu shook his head.
And are you not worried about becoming attached to this wonderful meal?
Lao Tzu again shook his head.
Then tell me, Lao Tzu, what is the meaning of life?
Lao Tzu shrugged his shoulders and continued eating.
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Poetry For Deep Summer – Tu Fu
A View of Taishan
What shall I say of the Great Peak? —
The ancient dukedoms are everywhere green,
Inspired and stirred by the breath of creation,
With the Twin Forces balancing day and night.
…I bare my breast toward opening clouds,
I strain my sight after birds flying home.
When shall I reach the top and hold
All mountains in a single glance?
–
Gazing at the Great Mount
To what shall I compare
The Sacred Mount that stands,
A balk of green that hath no end,
Betwixt two lands!
Nature did fuse and blend
All mystic beauty there,
Where Dark and Light
Do dusk and dawn unite.
Gazing, soul-cleansed, at Thee
From clouds upsprung, one may
Mark with wide eyes the homing flight
Of birds. Some day
Must I thy topmost height
Mount, at one glance to see
Hills numberless
Dwindle to nothingness.
–
To my retired friend Wei
It is almost as hard for friends to meet
As for the morning and evening stars.
Tonight then is a rare event,
Joining, in the candlelight,
Two men who were young not long ago
But now are turning grey at the temples.
…To find that half our friends are dead
Shocks us, burns our hearts with grief.
We little guessed it would be twenty years
Before I could visit you again.
When I went away, you were still unmarried;
But now these boys and girls in a row
Are very kind to their father’s old friend.
They ask me where I have been on my journey;
And then, when we have talked awhile,
They bring and show me wines and dishes,
Spring chives cut in the night-rain
And brown rice cooked freshly a special way.
…My host proclaims it a festival,
He urges me to drink ten cups —
But what ten cups could make me as drunk
As I always am with your love in my heart?
…Tomorrow the mountains will separate us;
After tomorrow-who can say?
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A Spring View
Though a country be sundered, hills and rivers endure;
And spring comes green again to trees and grasses
Where petals have been shed like tears
And lonely birds have sung their grief.
… After the war-fires of three months,
One message from home is worth a ton of gold.
… I stroke my white hair. It has grown too thin
To hold the hairpins any more.
–
Restless Night
As bamboo chill drifts into the bedroom,
Moonlight fills every corner of our
Garden. Heavy dew beads and trickles.
Stars suddenly there, sparse, next aren’t.
Fireflies in dark flight flash. Waking
Waterbirds begin calling, one to another.
All things caught between shield and sword,
All grief empty, the clear night passes.
–
Alone in her Beauty
Who is lovelier than she?
Yet she lives alone in an empty valley.
She tells me she came from a good family
Which is humbled now into the dust.
…When trouble arose in the Kuan district,
Her brothers and close kin were killed.
What use were their high offices,
Not even shielding their own lives? —
The world has but scorn for adversity;
Hope goes out, like the light of a candle.
Her husband, with a vagrant heart,
Seeks a new face like a new piece of jade;
And when morning-glories furl at night
And mandarin-ducks lie side by side,
All he can see is the smile of the new love,
While the old love weeps unheard.
The brook was pure in its mountain source,
But away from the mountain its waters darken.
…Waiting for her maid to come from selling pearls
For straw to cover the roof again,
She picks a few flowers, no longer for her hair,
And lets pine-needles fall through her fingers,
And, forgetting her thin silk sleeve and the cold,
She leans in the sunset by a tall bamboo.
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Tu Fu or Du Fu Biography
Born into a scholarly family, Du Fu received a traditional Confucian education but failed in the imperial examinations of 735. As a result, he spent much of his youth traveling. During his travels he won renown as a poet and met other poets of the period, including the great Li Bai. After a brief flirtation with Daoism while traveling with Li Bai, Du Fu returned to the capital and to the conventional Confucianism of his youth. He never again met Li Bai, despite his strong admiration for his older, freewheeling contemporary.During the 740s Du Fu was a well-regarded member of a group of high officials, even though he was without money and official position himself and failed a second time in an imperial examination. He married, probably in 741. Between 751 and 755 he tried to attract imperial attention by submitting a succession of literary products that were couched in a language of ornamental flattery, a device that eventually resulted in a nominal position at court. In 755 during An Lushan’s rebellion, Du Fu experienced extreme personal hardships. He escaped, however, and in 757 joined the exiled court, being given the position of censor. His memoranda to the emperor do not appear to have been particularly welcome; he was eventually relieved of his post and endured another period of poverty and hunger. Wandering about until the mid-760s, he briefly served a local warlord, a position that enabled him to acquire some land and to become a gentleman farmer, but in 768 he again started traveling aimlessly toward the south. Popular legend attributes his death (on a riverboat on the Xiang River) to overindulgence in food and wine after a 10-day fast.Du Fu’s early poetry celebrated the beauty of the natural world and bemoaned the passage of time. He soon began to write bitingly of waras in Bingqu xing (The Ballad of the Army Carts), a poem about conscriptionand with hidden satireas in Liren xing (The Beautiful Woman), which speaks of the conspicuous luxury of the court. As he matured, and especially during the tumultuous period of 755 to 759, his verse began to sound a note of profound compassion for humanity caught in the grip of senseless war.Du Fu’s paramount position in the history of Chinese literature rests on his superb classicism. He was highly erudite, and his intimate acquaintance with the literary tradition of the past was equaled only by his complete ease in handling the rules of prosody. His dense, compressed language makes use of all the connotative overtones of a phrase and of all the intonational potentials of the individual word, qualities that no translation can ever reveal. He was an expert in all poetic genres current in his day, but his mastery was at its height in the lüshi, or regulated verse, which he refined to a point of glowing intensity.
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These Guys out do Prince doing Prince… very clever, and a real sense of vision. I expect some miracles down the road!
Empire Of The Sun!
Eclipse
Standing on the Shore
Walking On A Dream
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