Author: Gwyllm

No work or love will flourish out of guilt, fear, or hollowness of heart, just as no valid plans for the future can be made by those who have no capacity for living now. – Alan Watts

Hard Is The Journey
Gold vessels of fine wines,
thousands a gallon,
Jade dishes of rare meats,
costing more thousands,

I lay my chopsticks down,
no more can banquet,
I draw my sword and stare
wildly about me:

Ice bars my way to cross
the Yellow River,
Snows from dark skies to climb
the T’ai-hang mountains!

At peace I drop a hook
into a brooklet,
At once I’m in a boat
but sailing sunward…

(Hard is the journey,
Hard is the journey,
So many turnings,
And now where am I?)

So when a breeze breaks waves,
bringing fair weather,
I set a cloud for sails,
cross the blue oceans!
– Li Po

Dear Friends,

So… here we are, on the edge of another decade, another dollar (or not as far as that dollar goes)… I started this post on New Years Eve, and have been playing around trying to make Word Press do some tricks to my liking. Anyway, I thought it time to publish the first Turfing of the new year.

I would like this issue to be at least a partial re-dedication to the original ideas that generated Turfing back when. My hat is off to Ibn, wherever he is now days, and to his prompting all those years ago. Ibn presented me with the opportunity, and graciously hosted Earthrites,org, and hosted the radio as well for quite a while. There has been some great helping hands over the years with Earthrites.org, Jim Clark, Doug Fraser, Morgan Miller, Will Penna, Mike Crowley, Ms Cymon, Diane Darling among others. My hats off to all of you who come back here, and gain something from it all. There is great joy in putting these entries together, and to have the site providing a service to the community.

I realized recently that my activities on FB and other aspects of the web have been severely denting my output on Turfing. I have been on the computer more and squandering my efforts in many ways, much to my dismay. I think that FB is a great tool, as long as you can walk away from it and not get submerged in it too deep. I am trying to bring my sense of focus back, and it is no easy task. (Can I say Dyslexia?) Anyhow, here we go… we may try some new directions, maybe a bit more politics of a new sort, maybe a bit more art and music. We do indeed need that kind of nourishment in our lives

Here is to a brilliant new year, with all kinds of interesting times ahead. Hold on, if ya thought the last 10 were quirky, because the next 10 will make the last 100 look tame in comparison. Heard it here first, yep.

Notes on the above Illustration: “Divine Sarah” I started this a few days back. Actually a whole slew of new art coming soon. “Divine Sarah” is a departure of sorts in my style over the last few years. It pays homage to Sarah Bernhardt of course, and to some of the pop art influences I have kept tucked away.

Stay Tuned, Stay True…

All Blessings,
Gwyllm
______________________

On The Menu:
The Links
Alan Watts Quotes
Sigur Rós – Svefn g englar
Extracts From: The Joyous Cosmology
Shih-te Daoist Poetry
Sigur Ros – Viorar Vel Til Loftarasa
__ ______________

The Links:
<a href="A gift from Chaffyn, some amazing music from Peru…
<a href="A gift from Paul, detailing an interesting hominid divergence… were they more intelligent?
Fortean Tinged Links of 2009
Acacias Co-Evolved With Insects
_________________

Alan Watts Quotes:

“We identify in our experience a differentiation between what we do and what happens to us.”

“You don’t look out there for God, something in the sky, you look in you.”

“Technology is destructive only in the hands of people who do not realize that they are one and the same process as the universe.”

“So the bodhisattva saves all beings, not by preaching sermons to them, but by showing them that they are delivered, they are liberated, by the act of not being able to stop changing.”

“Saints need sinners.”
_________________

Sigur Rós – Svefn g englar

__________

Extracts From: The Joyous Cosmology
– Alan W. Watts

T0 BEGIN WITH, this world has a different kind of time. It is the time of biological rhythm, not of the clock and all that goes with the clock. There is no hurry. Our sense of time is notoriously subjective and thus dependent upon the quality of our attention, whether of interest or boredom, and upon the alignment of our behavior in terms of routines, goals, and deadlines. Here the present is self-sufficient, but it is not a static present. It is a dancing present—the unfolding of a pattern which has no specific destination in the future but is simply its own point. It leaves and arrives simultaneously, and the seed is as much the goal as the flower. There is therefore time to perceive every detail of the movement with infinitely greater richness of articulation. Normally we do not so much look at things as overlook them. The eye sees types and classes—flower, leaf, rock, bird, fire—mental pictures of things rather than things, rough outlines filled with flat color, always a little dusty and dim.

But here the depth of light and structure in a bursting bud go on forever. There is time to see them, time for the whole intricacy of veins and capillaries to develop in consciousness, time to see down and down into the shape of greenness, which is not green at all, but a whole spectrum generalizing itself as green—purple, gold, the sunlit turquoise of the ocean, the intense luminescence of the emerald. I cannot decide where shape ends and color begins. The bud has opened and the fresh leaves fan out and curve back with a gesture which is unmistakably communicative but does not say anything except, “Thus!” And somehow that is quite satisfactory, even startlingly clear. The meaning is transparent in the same way that the color and the texture are transparent, with light which does not seem to fall upon surfaces from above but to be right inside the structure and color. Which is of course where it is, for light is an inseparable trinity of sun, object, and eye, and the chemistry of the leaf is its color, its light….

I am listening to the music of an organ. As leaves seemed to gesture, the organ seems quite literally to speak. There is no use of the vox humana stop, but every sound seems to issue from a vast human throat, moist with saliva. As, with the base pedals, the player moves slowly down the scale, the sounds seem to blow forth in immense, gooey spludges. As I listen more carefully, the spludges acquire texture—expanding circles of vibration finely and evenly toothed like combs, no longer moist and liquidinous like the living throat, but mechanically discontinuous. The sound disintegrates into the innumerable individual drrrits of vibration. Listening on, the gaps close, or perhaps each individual drrrit becomes in its turn a spludge. The liquid and the hard, the continuous and the discontinuous, the gooey and the prickly, seem to be transformations of each other, or to be different levels of magnification upon the same thing.

This theme recurs in a hundred different ways—the inseparable polarity of opposites, or the mutuality and reciprocity of all the possible contents of consciousness. It is easy to see theoretically that all perception is of contrasts—figure and ground, light and shadow, clear and vague, firm and weak. But normal attention seems to have difficulty in taking in both at once. Both sensuously and conceptually we seem to move serially from one to the other; we do not seem to be able to attend to the figure without relative unconsciousness of the ground. But in this new world the mutuality of things is quite clear at every level. The human face, for example, becomes clear in all its aspects—the total form together with each single hair and wrinkle. Faces become all ages at once, for characteristics that suggest age also suggest youth by implication; the bony structure suggesting the skull evokes instantly the newborn infant. The associative couplings of the brain seem to fire simultaneously instead of one at a time, projecting a view of life which may be terrifying in its ambiguity or joyous in its integrity….

Decision can be completely paralyzed by the sudden realization that there is no way of having good without evil, or that it is impossible to act upon reliable authority without choosing, from your own inexperience, to do so. If sanity implies madness and faith doubt, am I basically a psychotic pretending to be sane, a blithering terrified idiot who manages, temporarily, to put on an act of being self-possessed? I begin to see my whole life as a masterpiece of duplicity—the confused, helpless, hungry, and hideously sensitive little embryo at the root of me having learned, step by step, to comply, placate, bully, wheedle, flatter, bluff, and cheat my way into being taken for a person of competence and reliability. For when it really comes down to it, what do any of us know?

I try to go deeper, sinking thought and feeling down and down to their ultimate beginnings. What do I mean by loving myself? In what form do I know myself? Always, it seems, in the form of something other, something strange. The landscape I am watching is also a state of myself, of the neurons in my head. I feel the rock in my hand in terms of my own fingers. And nothing is stranger than my own body—the sensation of the pulse, the eye seen through a magnifying glass in the mirror, the shock of realizing that oneself is something in the external world. At root, there is simply no way of separating self from other, self-love from other-love. All knowledge of self is knowledge of other, and all knowledge of other knowledge of self. I begin to see that self and other, the familiar and the strange, the internal and the external, the predictable and the unpredictable imply each other. One is seek and the other is hide, and the more I become aware of their implying each other, the more I feel them to be one with each other. I become curiously affectionate and intimate with all that seemed alien. In the features of everything foreign, threatening, terrifying, incomprehensible, and remote I begin to recognize myself. Yet this is a “myself” which I seem to be remembering from long, long ago—not at all my empirical ego of yesterday, not my specious personality.

The “myself” which I am beginning to recognize, which I had forgotten but actually know better than anything else, goes far back beyond my childhood, beyond the time when adults confused me and tried to tell me that I was someone else; when, because they were bigger and stronger, they could terrify me with their imaginary fears and bewilder and outface me in the complicated game that I had not yet learned. (The sadism of the teacher explaining the game and yet having to prove his superiority in it.) Long before all that, long before I was an embryo in my mother’s womb, there looms the ever-so-familiar stranger, the everything not me, which I recognize, with a joy immeasurably more intense than a meeting of lovers separated by centuries, to be my original self. The good old sonofabitch who got me involved in this whole game.

At the same time everyone and everything around me takes on the feeling of having been there always, and then forgotten, and then remembered again. We are sitting in a garden surrounded in every direction by uncultivated hills, a garden of fuchsias and hummingbirds in a valley that leads down to the westernmost ocean, and where the gulls take refuge in storms. At some time in the middle of the twentieth century, upon an afternoon in the summer, we are sitting around a table on the terrace, eating dark homemade bread and drinking white wine. And yet we seem to have been there forever, for the people with me are no longer the humdrum and harassed little personalities with names, addresses, and social security numbers, the specifically dated mortals we are all pretending to be. They appear rather as immortal archetypes of themselves without, however, losing their humanity. It is just that their differing characters seem, like the priest’s voice, to contain all history; they are at once unique and eternal, men and women but also gods and goddesses. For now that we have time to look at each other we become timeless. The human form becomes immeasurably precious and, as if to symbolize this, the eyes become intelligent jewels, the hair spun gold, and the flesh translucent ivory. Between those who enter this world together there is also a love which is distinctly eucharistic, an acceptance of each other’s natures from the heights to the depths.

Ella, who planted the garden, is a beneficent Circe—sorceress, daughter of the moon, familiar of cats and snakes, herbalist and healer—with the youngest old face one has ever seen, exquisitely wrinkled, silver-black hair rippled like flames. Robert is a manifestation of Pan, but a Pan of bulls instead of the Pan of goats, with frizzled short hair tufted into blunt horns—a man all sweating muscle and body, incarnation of exuberant glee. Beryl, his wife, is a nymph who has stepped out of the forest, a mermaid of the land with swinging hair and a dancing body that seems to be naked even when clothed. It is her bread that we are eating, and it tastes like the Original Bread of which mother’s own bread was a bungled imitation. And then there is Mary, beloved in the usual, dusty world, but in this world an embodiment of light and gold, daughter of the sun, with eyes formed from the evening sky—a creature of all ages, baby, moppet, maid, matron, crone, and corpse, evoking love of all ages.
I try to find words that will suggest the numinous, mythological quality of these people. Yet at the same time they are as familiar as if I had known them for centuries, or rather, as if I were recognizing them again as lost friends whom I knew at the beginning of time, from a country begotten before all worlds. This is of course bound up with the recognition of my own most ancient identity, older by far than the blind squiggling of the Eenie-Weenie, as if the highest form that consciousness could take had somehow been present at the very beginning of things. All of us look at each other knowingly, for the feeling that we knew each other in that most distant past conceals something else—tacit, awesome, almost unmentionable—the realization that at the deep center of a time perpendicular to ordinary time we are, and always have been, one. We acknowledge the marvelously hidden plot, the master illusion, whereby we appear to be different.

The shock of recognition. In the form of everything most other, alien, and remote—the ever-receding galaxies, the mystery of death, the terrors of disease and madness, the foreign-feeling, gooseflesh world of sea monsters and spiders, the queasy labyrinth of my own insides—in all these forms I have crept up on myself and yelled “Boo!” I scare myself out of my wits, and, while out of my wits, cannot remember just how it happened. Ordinarily I am lost in a maze. I don’t know how I got here, for I have lost the thread and forgotten the intricately convoluted system of passages through which the game of hide-and-seek was pursued. (Was it the path I followed in growing the circuits of my brain?) But now the principle of the maze is clear. It is the device of something turning back upon itself so as to seem to be other, and the turns have been so many and so dizzyingly complex that I am quite bewildered. The principle is that all dualities and opposites are not disjoined but polar; they do not encounter and confront one another from afar; they exfoliate from a common center. Ordinary thinking conceals polarity and relativity because it employs terms, the terminals or ends, the poles, neglecting what lies between them. The difference of front and back, to be and not to be, hides their unity and mutuality.

Now consciousness, sense perception, is always a sensation of contrasts. It is a specialization in differences, in noticing, and nothing is definable, classifiable, or noticeable except by contrast with something else. But man does not live by consciousness alone, for the linear, step-by-step, contrast-by-contrast procedure of attention is quite inadequate for organizing anything so complex as a living body. The body itself has an “omniscience” which is unconscious, or superconscious, just because it deals with relation instead of contrast, with harmonies rather than discords. It “thinks” or organizes as a plant grows, not as a botanist describes its growth. This is why Shiva has ten arms, for he represents the dance of life, the omnipotence of being able to do innumerably many things at once….

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Shih-te Daoist Poetry

Doesn’t anyone see
the turmoil in the Three Worlds
is due to endless delusion
once thoughts stop the mind becomes clear
nothing comes or goes neither birth nor death
—

Behold the glow of the moon
illumine the world’s four quarters
perfect light in perfect space
a radiance that purifies
people say it waxes and wanes
but I don’t see it fade
just like a magic pearl
it shines both night and day
—

I live in a place without limits
surrounded by effortless truth
sometimes I climb Nirvana Peak
or play in Sandalwood Temple
but most of the time I relax
and speak of neither profit nor fame
even if the sea became a mulberry grove
it wouldn’t mean much to me
—
We slip into Tientai caves,
We visit people unseen-
Eat magic mushrooms under the pines.
We talk about the past and present
And sigh at the world gone mad.
Everyone going to Hell
And going for a long time.
—

Up high the trail turns steep,
The towering pass stands sheer;
Stone Bridge is slick with moss.
Clouds keep flying past,
A cascade hangs like silk,
The Moon shines in the pool below.
I’m climbing Lotus Peak again,
To wait for that lone crane once more.
—
By and large the monks I meet
Love their wine and meat.
Instead of climbing straight to Heaven
They slip back down to Hell.
They chant a sutra or two
To fool the laymen in town,
Unaware the laymen in town
Are more perceptive than them.
People crowd in the dust,
Enjoying the pleasures of the dust.
I see them in the dust
And pity fills my heart.
Why do I pity their lot?
I think of their pain in the dust.
Take these mortal incarnations
These comical-looking forms
With faces like the silver moon
And hearts as black as pitch.
Cooking pigs and butchering sheep,
Bragging about the flavor,
Dying and going to Frozen-Tongue Hell
Before they stop telling lies.
—

Partial to pine cliffs and lonely trails,
An old man laughs at himself when he falters.
Even now after all these years,
Trusting the current ‘like an unmoored boat’.
A young man studied letters and arms
And rode off to the Capital,
Where he learned the Hsiung-nu had been vanquished;
And all he could do was wait.
So to kingfisher cliffs he retired,
And sits in the grass by a stream
While valiant men chase red cords
And monkeys ride clay oxen.
__________

Sigur Ros – Viorar Vel Til Loftarasa

“Love is of all passions the strongest, for it attacks simultaneously the head, the heart and the senses.” -Lao Tzu

Hi Friends,

It has been awhile since I have posted a Turfing for you all. We were getting things sorted (and still are) for the new version of Earthrites.org. We are changing over to WordPress, and frankly I like it, though so far there are difficulties with Firefox and Internet Explorer showing images/videos etc… Load a copy of Chrome, or Safari to see pics and videos.

We have had a nice Holiday season, and now it is actually snowing in Portland. (The weather people forgot to mention it, and people are stuck everywhere at this point.)
We had our annual Solstice Do, and it was a marvel. I love the season, and the best thing about it is friends and family. This is indeed the basic elements that we need in life to my mind.

I am happy to see the tail (tale) end of 2009, though it went by in a flash. The year started poorly, but it did get better. I have higher hopes for the coming year. The site will change out, and there are new art projects ahead. I am concerned about employment for myself and many, many friends yet I think things will shake out okay in the end.

Radio will be back soon as well in some form or another. I am getting excited by it all, really I am.

Enough for the moment, check the format out, and know that more is on the way.
Bright Blessings,
Gwyllm

On The Menu:
Quotes From Lao Tzu
A Video from Alex de’ Guzman
The War Prayer – Mark Twain
Anti War Poetry
Pink Floyd – Dogs Of War (Live)

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Lao Tzu Quotes:

“He who controls others may be powerful, but he who has mastered himself is mightier still”
“When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be”
“One can not reflect in streaming water. Only those who know internal peace can give it to others.”
“Great acts are made up of small deeds.”
“To the mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders.”
____________

A Video that my friend Alex de Guzman turned me onto…
U.S Soldiers Are Waking Up!

____________

The War Prayer
by Mark Twain
[1904]

It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and spluttering; on every hand and far down the receding and fading spread of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun; daily the young volunteers marched down the wide avenue gay and fine in their new uniforms, the proud fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices choked with happy emotion as they swung by; nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory which stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts, and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country, and invoked the God of Battles beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpourings of fervid eloquence which moved every listener. It was indeed a glad and gracious time, and the half dozen rash spirits that ventured to disapprove of the war and cast a doubt upon its righteousness straightway got such a stern and angry warning that for their personal safety’s sake they quickly shrank out of sight and offended no more in that way.

Sunday morning came–next day the battalions would leave for the front; the church was filled; the volunteers were there, their young faces alight with martial dreams–visions of the stern advance, the gathering momentum, the rushing charge, the flashing sabers, the flight of the foe, the tumult, the enveloping smoke, the fierce pursuit, the surrender! Then home from the war, bronzed heroes, welcomed, adored, submerged in golden seas of glory! With the volunteers sat their dear ones, proud, happy, and envied by the neighbors and friends who had no sons and brothers to send forth to the field of honor, there to win for the flag, or, failing, die the noblest of noble deaths. The service proceeded; a war chapter from the Old Testament was read; the first prayer was said; it was followed by an organ burst that shook the building, and with one impulse the house rose, with glowing eyes and beating hearts, and poured out that tremendous invocation

God the all-terrible! Thou who ordainest! Thunder thy clarion and lightning thy sword!
Then came the “long” prayer. None could remember the like of it for passionate pleading and moving and beautiful language. The burden of its supplication was, that an ever-merciful and benignant Father of us all would watch over our noble young soldiers, and aid, comfort, and encourage them in their patriotic work; bless them, shield them in the day of battle and the hour of peril, bear them in His mighty hand, make them strong and confident, invincible in the bloody onset; help them to crush the foe, grant to them and to their flag and country imperishable honor and glory–

An aged stranger entered and moved with slow and noiseless step up the main aisle, his eyes fixed upon the minister, his long body clothed in a robe that reached to his feet, his head bare, his white hair descending in a frothy cataract to his shoulders, his seamy face unnaturally pale, pale even to ghastliness. With all eyes following him and wondering, he made his silent way; without pausing, he ascended to the preacher’s side and stood there waiting. With shut lids the preacher, unconscious of his presence, continued with his moving prayer, and at last finished it with the words, uttered in fervent appeal, “Bless our arms, grant us the victory, O Lord our God, Father and Protector of our land and flag!”

The stranger touched his arm, motioned him to step aside–which the startled minister did–and took his place. During some moments he surveyed the spellbound audience with solemn eyes, in which burned an uncanny light; then in a deep voice he said:

“I come from the Throne–bearing a message from Almighty God!” The words smote the house with a shock; if the stranger perceived it he gave no attention. “He has heard the prayer of His servant your shepherd, and will grant it if such shall be your desire after I, His messenger, shall have explained to you its import–that is to say, its full import. For it is like unto many of the prayers of men, in that it asks for more than he who utters it is aware of–except he pause and think.

“God’s servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two–one uttered, the other not. Both have reached the ear of Him Who heareth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this–keep it in mind. If you would beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time. If you pray for the blessing of rain upon your crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse upon some neighbor’s crop which may not need rain and can be injured by it.

“You have heard your servant’s prayer–the uttered part of it. I am commissioned of God to put into words the other part of it–that part which the pastor–and also you in your hearts–fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You heard these words: ‘Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!’ That is sufficient. the whole of the uttered prayer is compact into those pregnant words. Elaborations were not necessary. When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory–must follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen!

“O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle–be Thou near them! With them–in spirit–we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it–for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.

(After a pause.) “Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits!”

It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.
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Anti War Poetry

Bird With Two Right Wings

And now our government
a bird with two right wings
flies on from zone to zone
while we go on having our little fun & games
at each election
as if it really mattered who the pilot is
of Air Force One
(They’re interchangeable, stupid!)
While this bird with two right wings
flies right on with its corporate flight crew
And this year its the Great Movie Cowboy in the cockpit
And next year its the great Bush pilot
And now its the Chameleon Kid
and he keeps changing the logo on his captains cap
and now its a donkey and now an elephant
and now some kind of donkephant
And now we recognize two of the crew
who took out a contract on America
and one is a certain gringo wretch
who’s busy monkeywrenching
crucial parts of the engine
and its life-support systems
and they got a big fat hose
to siphon off the fuel to privatized tanks
And all the while we just sit there
in the passenger seats
without parachutes
listening to all the news that’s fit to air
over the one-way PA system
about how the contract on America
is really good for us etcetera
As all the while the plane lumbers on
into its postmodern
manifest destiny

-Lawrence Ferlinghetti
—

Incitement To Disobedience

I wish that I were able to incite
Young men in every land to disobey
For wars will cease when men refuse to fight.

To kill our brothers for a nations right
Is not a method we can use today.
I wish that I were able to incite.

When leaders threaten to resort to might,
I know that idols all have feet of clay.
For wars will cease when men refuse to fight.

The cause of peace is shared by black and white
And freedom fighters show a better way.
I wish that I were able to incite.

Non-violent resistance has no bite
While undecided pacifists delay.
For wars will cease when men refuse to fight.

With power to reinforce in what I write
The things that protest-singers try to say,
I wish that I were able to incite
For wars will cease when men refuse to fight.

– Tom Earley
—

Priorities

Napalm, or bomb,
little hands and little feet,
(Or leave a land-mine behind
to do the job)

Spread a noxious cloud of gas to sear tender throats and lungs
or conscript the helpless ones
to use as fodder

Kill the urchins without pause
in pursuit of your cause
(in alliance or uni-lateral)

Send a stone-faced rambo to emolate a village
exfoliate and pillage
(the damage is only collatoral)

Or, teach young minds of hell,
which you know of so well
and wound without lifting a hand

Damn them before they are born
doom them to despair

As con-artist pols and ghouls without souls
rant from podiums everywhere,
loudly,
on how much they care

-Pandora
____________________

Pink Floyd – Dogs Of War (Live)

Some Poesy For Mid-December:

“I heard a bird sing

In the dark of December

A magical thing

And sweet to remember.

‘We are nearer to Spring

Than we were in September,’

I heard a bird sing

In the dark of December.”

– Oliver Herford, I Heard a Bird Sing

—

“I speak cold silent words a stone might speak

If it had words or consciousness,

Watching December moonlight on the mountain peak,

Relieved of mortal hungers, the whole mess

Of needs, desires, ambitions, wishes, hopes.

This stillness in me knows the sky’s abyss,

Reflected by blank snow along bare slopes,

If it had words or consciousness,

Would echo what a thinking stone might say

To praise oblivion words can’t possess

As inorganic muteness goes its way.

There’s no serenity without the thought serene,

Owl-flight without spread wings, honed eyes, hooked beak,

Absence without the meaning absence means.

To rescue bleakness from the bleak,

I speak cold silent words a stone might speak.”

– Robert Pack, Stone Thoughts

Ah… Winter has reaaaaaaly arrived in Oregon. Ice, snow in many places, dipping temperatures. Plants migrate to the basement, Sophie the wonder dog laying outside, happily in her element. You cannot remove her from her roots, wintertime, the Chow side wins out.

The homeless, huddling into doorways, not enough room in the shelters, and there is hunger in the land. Not only for humans, but for the Avian hordes, the raccoons and others. Putting water out for the birds, birdseed, donating coats and the like for those in need. Tightened belts; the old days seem to be returning. So much uncertainty; but still the community grows, and grows stronger.

Chuck and Linda came calling, on their way north back to Canada after visiting family, friends and companions on the path. We had a great time talking, and it was nice to see Chuck after so long it seems like years and years (well it has been!). Both looked well, rested and happy. Lots of tales in the chill of the evening.

Sometimes the sense of cabin fever kicks in, but once outside the world is beautiful. Stark yes, but beautiful. I awoke this morning to ice down the road, glittering in early light. Impressive bit of magick that.

This Edition features the poetry of Mirabai, who we haven’t featured I think since Fall 2006, lovely stuff. We have some Lady Gregory on Herbs, Charms and Wise Women. Even after a century her writings hold up nicely. Musically we are featuring Balkan Beat Box. Not a lot of visuals, but they have a great beat.

Hope this finds you warm &amp; secure!

Bright Blessings,

Gwyllm

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On The Menu:

Balkan Beat Box – Habibi Min Zaman

Herbs, Charms and Wise Women – Lady Gregory

Mirabai -Poetry Of The Beating Heart

Balkan Beat Box-Bulgarian Chicks

Coda: On Darkness

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Balkan Beat Box – Habibi Min Zaman

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Herbs, Charms and Wise Women

-Lady Gregory

There is a saying in Irish, “An old woman without learning, it is she will be doing charms”; and I have told in “Poets and Dreamers” of old Bridget Ruane who came and gave me my first knowledge of the healing power of certain plants, some it seemed having a natural and some a mysterious power. And I said that she had “died last winter, and we may be sure that among the green herbs that cover her grave there are some that are good for every bone in the body and that are very good for a sore heart.”

As to the book she told me of that had come from the unseen and was written in Irish, I think of Mrs. Sheridan’s answer when I asked in what language the strange unearthly people she had been among had talked: “Irish of course-what else would they talk?” And I remember also that when Blake told Crabb Robinson of the intercourse he had had with Voltaire and was asked in what tongue Voltaire spoke he said, “To my sensations it was English. It was like the touch of a musical key. He touched it probably in French, but to my ear it became English”.

I was told by her:

There is a Saint at the Oratory in London, but I don’t know his name, and a girl heard of him in London, and he sent her back to Gort, and he said, “There’s a woman there that will cure you,” and she came to me, and I cured her in two days. And if you could find out the name of that Saint through the Press, he’d tell me his remedies, and all the world would be cured. For I can’t do all cures though there are a great many I can do. I cured Pat Carty when the doctor couldn’t do it, and a woman in Gort that was paralysed and her two sons that were stretched. For I can bring back the dead with the same herbs our Lord was brought back with–the slanlus and the garblus. But there are some things I can’t do. I can’t help any one that has got a stroke from the Queen or the Fool of the Forth.

I know a woman that saw the Queen one time, and she said she looked like any Christian. I never heard of any that saw the Fool but one woman that was walking near Gort, and she called out, “There’s the Fool of the Forth coming after me.” So her friends that were with her called out though they could see nothing, and I suppose he went away at that for she got no harm. He was like a big strong man, and half-naked-that’s all she said about him.

It was my brother got the knowledge of cures from a book that was thrown down before him on the road. What language was it written in? What language would it be but Irish. Maybe it was God gave it to him, and maybe it was the other people. He was a fine strong man, and he weighed twenty-five stone-and he went to England, and then he cured all the world, so that the doctors had no way of living. So one time he got on a ship to go to America, and the doctors had bad men engaged to shipwreck him out of the ship; he wasn’t drowned but he was broken to pieces on the rocks, and the book was lost along with him. But he taught me a good deal out of it. So I know all herbs, and I do a good many cures, and I have brought a great many children home, home to the world-and never lost one, or one of the women that bore them. I was never away myself, but I am a cousin of Saggarton, and his uncle was away for twenty-one years.

This is dwareen (knapweed) and what you have to do with this is to put it down, with other herbs, and with a bit of three-penny sugar, and to boil it and to drink it for pains in the bones, and don’t be afraid but it will cure you. Sure the Lord put it in the world for curing.

And this is corn-corn (small aromatic tansy); it’s very good for the heart-boiled like the others.

This is atair-talam (wild camomile), the father of all herbs-the father of the ground. This is very hard to pull, and when you go for it, you must have a black-handled knife.

And this is camal-buide (loosestrife) that will keep all bad things away.

This is fearaban (water buttercup) and it’s good for every bone of your body.

This is dub-cosac (lichen), that’s good for the heart, very good for a sore heart. Here are the sianlus (plantain) and the garblus (dandelion) and these would cure the wide world, and it was these brought our Lord from the Cross, after the ruffians that was with the Jews did all the harm to Him. And not onc could be got to pierce His heart till a dark man came and said, “Give me the spear, and I’ll do it,” and the blood that sprang out touched his eyes and they got their sight.

And it was after that, His Mother and Mary and Joseph gathered their herbs and cured His wounds. These are the best of the herbs, but they are all good, and there isn’t one among them but would cure seven diseases. I’m all the days of my life gathering them, and I know them all, but it isn’t easy to make them out. Sunday evening is the best time to get them, and I was never interfered with. Seven “Hail Marys” I say when I’m gathering them, and I pray to our Lord and to St. Joseph and St. Colman. And there may be some watching me, but they never meddled with me at all.

Mrs. Quaid:

Monday is a good day for pulling herbs, or Tuesday, not Sunday. A Sunday cure is no cure. The cosac (lichen) is good for the heart, there was Mineog in Gort, one time his heart was wore to a silk thread, and it cured him. The slanugad (ribgrass) is very good, and it will take away lumps. You must go down when it’s growing on the scraws, and pull it with three pulls, and mind would the wind change when you are pu]ling it or your head will be gone. Warm it on the tongs when you bring it and put it on the lump. The lus-mor (mullein) is the only one that’s good to bring back children that are away. But what’s better than that is to save what’s in the craw of a cock you’ll kill on St. Martin’s Eve and put it by and dry it, and give it to the child that’s away.

There’s something in green flax I know, for my mother often told me about one night she was spinning flax, before she was married and she was up late. And a man of the faeries came in. She had no right to be sitting up so late, they don’t like that. And he told her to go to bed, for he wanted to kill her, and he couldn’t touch her while she was handling the flax. And every time he’d tell her to go to bed, she’d give him some answer, and she’d go on pulling a thread of the flax, or mending a broken one, for she was wise, and she knew that at the crowing of the cock he’d have to go. So at last the cock crowed, and he was gone, and she was safe then, for the cock is blessed.

Mrs. Ward:

As to the lus-mor, whatever way the wind is blowing when you begin to cut it, if it changes while you’re cutting it, you’ll lose your mind. And if you’re paid for cutting it, you can do it when you like, but if not they mightn’t like it. I knew a woman was cutting it one time, and a voice, an enchanted voice, called out, “Don’t cut that if you’re not paid, or you’ll be sorry,” But if you put a bit of this with every other herb you drink, you’ll live for ever. My grandmother used to put a bit with everything she took, and she lived to be over a hundred.

An Old Man on the Beach:

I wouldn’t give into those things, but I’ll tell you what happened to a son of my own. He was as fine and as stout a boy as ever you saw, and one day he was out with me, and a letter came and told of the death of some one’s child that was in America, and all the island gathered to hear it read. And all the people were pressing to each other there. And when we were coming home, he had a bit of a kippeen in his hand, and getting over a wall he fell, and some way the kippeen went in at his throat, where it had a sharp point and hurt the palate of his mouth, and he got paralysed from the waist up.

There was a woman over in Spiddal, and my wife gave me no ease till I went to her, and she gave me some herb for him. He got better after, and there’s no man in the island stronger and stouter than what he is but he never got back the use of his left hand, but the strength he has in the other hand is equal to what another man would have in two. Did the woman in Spiddal say what gave him the touch? Oh well, she said all sorts of things. But I wouldn’t like to meddle too much with such as her, for it’s by witchcraft I believe it’s done. There was a woman of the same sort over in Roundstone, and I knew a man went to her about his wife, and first she said the sickness had nothing to do with her business, but he said he came too far to bring back an answer like that. So she went into a little room, and he heard her call on the name of all the devils. So he cried out that that was enough, and she came out then and made the sign of the Cross, but he wouldn’t stop in it.

But a priest told me that there was a woman in France used to cure all the dumb that came to her, and that it was a great loss and a great pity when she died.

Mrs. Cloonan:

I knew some could cure with herbs; but it’s not right for any one that doesn’t understand them to be meddling with them. There was a woman I knew one time wanted a certain herb I knew for a cure for her daughter, and the only place that herb was to be had was down in the bottom of a spring well. She was always asking me would I go and get it for her, but I took advice, and I was advised not to do it. So then she went herself and she got it out, a very green herb it was, not watercress, but it had a bunch of green leaves. And so soon as she brought it into the house, she fell as if dead and there she lay for two hours. And not long after that she died, but she cured the daughter, and it’s well I didn’t go to gather the herb, or it’s on me all the harm would have come.

I used to be gathering an herb one time for the Bishop that lived at Loughmore, dandelion it was. There are two sorts, the white that has no harm in it, that’s what I used to be gathering, and the red that has a pishogue in it, but I left that alone.

Old Heffernan:

The best herb-doctor I ever knew was Conolly up at Ballyturn. He knew every herb that grew in the earth. It was said that he was away with the faeries one time, and when I knew him he had the two thumbs turned in, and it was said that was the sign they left on him. I had a lump on the thigh one time and my father went to him, and he gave him an herb for it but he told him not to come into the house by the door the wind would be blowing in at. They thought it was the evil I had, that is given by them by a touch, and that is why he said about the wind, for if it was the evil, there would be a worm in it, and if it smelled the herb that was brought in at the door, it might change to another place. I don’t know what the herb was, but I would have been dead if I had it on another hour, it burned so much, and I had to get the lump lanced after, for it wasn’t the evil I had.

Conolly cured many a one. Jack Hall that fell into a pot of water they were after boiling potatoes in, had the skin scalded off him and that Doctor Lynch could do nothing for, he cured.

He boiled down herbs with a bit of lard, and after that was rubbed on three times, he was well.

And Pat Cahel that was deaf, he cured with the rib-mas-seala, that herb in the potatoes that milk comes out of. His wife was against him doing the cures, she thought that it would fall on herself. And anyway, she died before him. But Connor at Oldtown gave up doing cures, and his stock began to die, and he couldn’t keep a pig, and all he had wasted away till he began to do them again; and his son does cures now, but I think it’s more with charms than with herbs.

John Phelan:

The bainne-bo-bliatain (wood anemone) is good for the headache, if you put the leaves of it on your head. But as for the us-mor it’s best not to have anything to do with that.

Mrs. West:

Dandelion is good for the heart, and when Father Prendergast was curate here, he had it rooted up in all the fields about, to drink it, and see what a fine man he is. Garblus; how did you hear of that? That is the herb for things that have to do with the faeries. And when you’d drink it for anything of that sort, if it doesn’t cure you, it will kill you then and there. There was a fine young man I used to know and he got his death on the head of a pig that came at himself and another man at the gate of Ramore, and that never left them, but was at them all the time till they came to a stream of water. And when he got home, he took to his bed with a headache, and at last he was brought a drink of the garblus and no sooner did he drink it than he was dead. I remember him well. Biddy Early didn’t use herbs, but let people say what they like, she was a sure woman. There is something in flax, for no priest would anoint you without a bit of tow. And if a woman that was carrying was to put a basket of green flax on her back, the child would go from her, and if a mare that was in foal had a load of flax put on her, the foal would go the same way.

Mrs. Allen:

I don’t believe in faeries myself, I really don’t. But all the people in Kildare believe in them, and I’ll tell you what I saw there one time myself. There was a man had a splendid big white horse, and he was leading him along the road, and a woman, a next-door neighbour, got up on the wall and looked at him. And the horse fell down on his knees and began to shiver, and you’d think buckets of water were poured over him.

And they led him home, but he was fit for nothing, and everyone was sorry for the poor man, and him being worth ninety pounds. And they sent to the Curragh and to every place for vets, but not one could do anything at all. And at last they sent up in to the mountains for a faery doctor, and he went into the stable and shut the door, and whatever he did there no one knows, but when he came out he said that the horse would get up on the ninth day, and be as well as ever. And so he did sure enough, but whether he kept well, I don’t know, for the man that owned him so]d him the first minute he could. And they say that while the faery doctor was in the stable, the woman came to ask what was he doing, and he called from inside, “Keep her away, keep her away.” And a priest had lodgings in the house at the same time, and when the faery doctor saw him coming, “Let me out of this,” says he, and away with him as fast as he could. And all this I saw happen, but whether the horse only got a chill or not I don’t know.

James Mangan:

My mother learned cures from an Ulster woman, for the Ulster women are the best for cures; but I don’t know the half of them, and what I know I wouldn’t like to be talking about or doing, unless it might be for my own family. There’s a cure she had for the yellow jaundice; and it’s a long way from Ennistymon to Creevagh, but I saw a man come all that way to her, and he fainted when he sat down in the chair, he was so far gone. But she gave him a drink of it, and he came in a second time and she gave it again, and he didn’t come a third time for he didn’t want it. But I don’t mind if I tell you the cure and it is this: take a bit of the dirt of a dog that has been eating bones and meat, and put it on top of an oven till it’s as fine as powder and as white as flour, and then pound it up, and put it in a glass of whiskey, in a bottle, and if a man is not too far gone with jaundice, that will cure him.

There was one Carthy at Imlough did great cures with charms and his son can do them yet. He uses no herbs, but he’ll go down on his knees and he’ll say some words into a bit of unsalted butter, and what words he says, no one knows. There was a big man I know had a sore on his leg and the doctor couldn’t cure him, and Doctor Moran said a bit of the bone would have to come out. So at last he went to Jim Carthy and he told him to bring him a bit of unsalted butter the next Monday, or Thursday, or Saturday, for there’s a difference in days. And he would have to come three time, or if it was a bad case, he’d have to come nine times.

But I think it was after the third time that he got well, and now he is one of the head men in Persse’s Distillery in Gaiway.

A Slieve Echtge Woman:

The wild parsnip is good for gravel, and for heartbeat there’s nothing so good as dandelion. There was a woman I knew used to boil it down, and she’d throw out what was left on the grass. And there was a fleet of turkeys about the house and they used to be picking it up. And at Christmas they killed one of them, and when it was cut open they found a new heart growing in it with the dint of the dandelion.

My father went one time to a woman at Ennis, not Biddy Early, but one of her sort, to ask her about three sheep he had lost.

And she told him the very place they were brought to, a long path through the stones near Kinvara. And there he found the skins, and he heard that the man that brought them away had them sold to a butcher in Loughrea. So he followed him there, and brought the police, and they found him–a poor looking little man, but he had £60 within in his box.

There was another man up near Ballylee could tell these things too. When Jack Fahy lost his wool, he went to him, and next morning there were the fleeces at his door.

Those that are away know these things. There was a brother of my own took to it for seven years–and we at school. And no one could beat him at the hurling and the games. But I wouldn’t like to be mixed with that myself.

There was one Moyra Colum was a great one for doing cures. She was called one time to see some sick person, and the man that came for her put her up behind him, on the horse. And some youngsters began to be humbugging him, and humbugging is always bad. And there was a young horse in the field where the youngsters were and it began to gallop, and it fell over a stump and lay on the ground kicking as if in a fit. And then Moyra Colum said, “Let me get down, for I have pity for the horse.” And she got down and went into the field, and she picked a blade of a herb and put it to the horse’s mouth and in one minute it got up well.

Another time a woman had a sick cow and she sent her little boy to Moyra Colum, and she gave him a bottle and bade him put a drop of what was in it in the cow’s ear. And so he did and in a few minutes he began to feel a great pain in his foot. So into the Street and broke it, and she said, “It’s better to lose the cow than to lose my son.” And in the morning the cow was dead.

The herbs they cure with, there’s some that’s natural, and you could pick them at all times of the day; there’s a very good cure for the yellow jaundice I have myself, and I offered it to a woman in Ballygrah the other day, but some people are so taken up with pride and with conceit they won’t believe that to cure that sickness you must take what comes from your own nature. She’s dead since of it, I hear. But I’ll tell you the cure, the way you’ll know it. If you are attending a funeral, pick out a few little worms from the earth that’s thrown up out of the grave, few or many, twenty or thirty if you like. And when you go home, boil them down in a sup of new milk and let it get cold; and believe me, that will cure the sickness.

There’s one woman I knew used to take a bit of tape when you’d go to her, and she’d measure it over her thumb like this; and when she had it measured she’d know what was the matter with you.

For some sicknesses they used herbs that have no natural cure, and those must be gathered in the morning early. Before twelve o’clock? No, but before sunrise. And there’s a different charm to be said over each one of them. It is for any sort of pain thcse are good, such as a pain in the side. There’s the meena madar, a nice little planteen with a nice little blue flowereen above on it, that’s used for a running sore or an evil. And the charm to be said when you’re picking it has in it the name of some old curer or magician, and you can say that into a bit of tow three times, and put it on the person to be cured. That is a good charm. You might use that yourself if it was any one close to you was sick, but for a stranger I’d recommend you not do it. They know all things and who are using it, and where’s the use of putting yourself in danger?

James Mangan:

My mother learned to do a great many cures from a woman from the North and some I could do myself, but I wouldn’t like to be doing them unless for those that are nearest me; I don’t want to be putting myself in danger.

For a swelling in the throat it’s an herb would be used, or for the evil a poultice you’d make of herbs. But for a pain in the ribs or in the head, it’s a charm you should use, and to whisper it into a bit of tow, and to put it on the mouth of whoever would have the pain, and that would take it away. There’s a herb called rif in your own garden is good for cures. And this is a good charm to say in Irish:

A quiet woman.

A rough man.

The Son of God.

The husk of the flax.

The Old Man on the Beach:

In the old times all could do druith–like freemasonry–and the ground was all covered with the likeness of the devil; and with druith they could do anything, and could put the sea between you and the road. There’s only a few can do it now, but all that live in the County Down can do it.

Mrs. Quaid:

There was a girl in a house near this was pining away, and a travelling woman came to the house and she told the mother to bring the girl across to the graveyard that’s near the house before sunrise and to pick some of the grass that’s growing over the remains. And so she did, and the girl got well. But the mother told me that when the woman had told her that, she vanished away, all in a minute, and was seen no more.

I have a charm myself for the headache, I cured many with it. I used to put on a ribbon from the back of the head over the mouth, and another from the top of the head under the chin and then to press my hand on it, and I’d give them great relief and I’d say the charm. But one time I read in the Scriptures that the use of charms is forbidden, so I had it on my conscience, and the next time I went to confession I asked the priest ‘vas it any harm for me to use it, and I said it to him in Irish. And in English it means “Charm of St. Peter, Charm of St Paul, an angel brought it from Rome. The similitude of Christ, suffering death, and all suffering goes with Him and into the flax.” And the priest didn’t say if I might use it or not, so I went on with it, for I didn’t like to turn away so many suffering people coming to me.

I know a charm a woman from the North gave to Tom Mangan’s mother, she used to cure ulcers with it and cancers. It was with unsalted butter it was used, but I don’t know what the words were.

John Phelan:

If you cut a hazel rod and bring it with you, and turn it round about now and again, no bad thing can hurt you. And a cure can be made for bad eyes from the ivy that grows on a white-thorn bush. I know a boy had an ulcer on his eye and it was cured by that.

Mrs. Creevy:

There was Leary’s son in Gort had bad eyes and no doctor could cure him. And one night his mother had a dream that she got up and took a half-blanket with her, and went away to a blessed well a little outside Gort, and there she saw a woman dressed all in white, and she gave her some of the water, and when she brought it to her son he got well. So the next day she went there and got the water, and after putting it three times on his eyes, he was as well as ever he was.

There was a woman here used to do cures with herbs-a midwife she was. And if a man went for her in a hurry, and on a horse, and he’d want her to get up behind him, she’d say, “No,” that she was never on horseback. But no matter how fast he’d go home, there she’d be close after him.

There was a child was sick and it was known itself wasn’t in it. And a woman told the mother to go to a woman she told her of, and not to say anything about the child but to say, “The calf is sick” and to ask for a cure for it. So she did and the woman gave her some herb, and she gave it to the child and it got well.

There was a man from Cuillean was telling me how two women came from the County Down in his father’s time, mother and daughter, and they brought two spinning wheels with them, and they used to be in the house spinning. But the milk went from the cow and they watched and saw it was through charms. And then all the people brought turf and made a big fire outside, and stripped the witch and the daughter to burn them. And when they were brought out to be burned the woman said, “Bring me out a bit of flax and I’ll show you a pishogue.” So they brought out a bit of flax and she made two skeins of it, and twisted it some way like that (interlacing his fingers) and she put the two skeins round herself and the daughter, and began to twist it, and it went up in the air round and round and the two women with it, and the people all saw them going up, but they couldn’t stop them. The man’s own father saw that himself.

There was a woman from the County Down was living up on that mountain beyond one time, and there was a boy in the house next to mine that had a pain in his heart, and was crying out with the pain of it. And she came down, and I was in the house myself and I saw her fill the bowl with oatenmeal, and she tied a cloth over it, and put it on the hearth. And when she took it off, all the meal was gone out of one side of the bowl, and she made a cake out of what was left on the other side, and ate it. And the boy got well.

There was a woman in Clifden did many cures and knew everything. And I knew two boys were sent to her one time, and they had a bottle of poteen to bring her, but on the road they drank the poteen. But they got her another bottle before they got to the house, but for all that she knew well, and told them what they had done.

There’s some families have a charm in them, and a man of those families can do cures, just like King’s blood used to cure the evil, but they couldn’t teach it to you or to me or another.

There’s a very good charm to stop bleeding; it will stop it in a minute when nothing else can, and there’s one to take bones from the neck, and one against ulcers.

Kevin Ralph:

I went to Macklin near Loughrea myself one time, when I had an ulcer here in my neck. But when I got to him and asked for the charm, he answered me in Irish, “The Soggarth said to me, any man that will use charms to do cures with will be damned.” I persuaded him to do it after, but I never felt that it did me much good. Because he took no care to do it well after the priest saying that of him. But there’s some will only let it be said in an outhouse if there’s a cure to be done in the house.

A Woman in County Limerick:

It is twenty year ago I got a pain in my side, that I could not stoop; and I tried Siegel’s Syrup and a plaster and a black blister from the doctor, and every sort of thing and they did me no good. And there came in a man one day, a farmer I knew, and he said, “It’s a fool you are not to go to a woman living within two miles of you that would cure you-a woman that does charms.” So I went to her nine times, three days I should go and three stop away, and she would pass her hand over me, and would make me hold on to the branch of an apple tree up high, that I would hang from it, and she would be swinging me as you would swing a child. And she laid me on the grass and passed her hands over me, and what she said over me I don’t know. And at the end of the nine visits I was cured, and the pain left me. At the time she died I wanted to go lay her out but my husband would not let me go. He said if I was seen going in, the neighbours would say she had left me her cures and would be calling me a witch. She said it was from an old man she got the charm that used to be called a wizard. My father knew him, and said he could bring away the wheat and bring it back again, and that he could turn the four winds of heaven to blow upon your house till they would knock it.

A Munster Midwife:

Is it true a part of the pain can be put on the man? It is to be sure, but it would be the most pity in the world to do it; it is a thing I never did, for the man would never be the better of it, and it would not take any of the pain off the woman. And shouldn’t we have pity upon men, that have enough troubles of their own to go through?

Mrs. Hollaran:

Did I know the pain could be put on a man? Sure I seen my own mother that was a midwife do it. He was such a Molly of an old man, and he had no compassion at all on his wife. He was as if making out she had no pain at all. So my mother gave her a drink, and with that he was on the floor and around the floor crying and roaring. “The devil take you,” says he, and the pain upon him; but while he had it, it went away from his wife. It did him no harm after, and my mother would not have done it but for him being so covetous. He wanted to make out that she wasn’t sick.

Mrs. Stephens:

At childbirth there are some of the old women are able to put a part of the pain upon the man, or any man. There was a woman in labour near Oran, and there were two policemen out walking that night, and one of them went into the house to light his pipe. There were two or three women in it, and the sick woman stretched beyond them, and one of them offered him a drink of the tea she had been using, and he didn’t want it but he took a drink of it, and then he took a coal off the hearth and put it on his pipe to light it and went out to his comrade. And no sooner was he there than he began to roar and to catch hold of his belly and he fell down by the roadside roaring. But the other kncw something of what happened, and he took the pipe, and it having a coal on it, and he put it on top of the wall and fired a shot of the gun at it and broke it; and with that the man got weU of the pain and stood up again.

No woman that is carrying should go to the house where another woman is in labour; if she does, that woman’s pain will come on her along with her own pain when her time comes.

A child to come with the spring tide, it will have luck.

________________

Mirabai -Poetry Of The Beating Heart

The Saffron

The saffron of virtue and contentment

Is dissolved in the water-gun of love and affection.

Pink and red clouds of emotion are flying about,

Limitless colours raining down.

All the covers of the earthen vessel of my body are wide open;

I have thrown away all shame before the world.

Mira’s Lord is the Mountain-Holder, the suave lover.

I sacrifice myself in devotion to His lotus feet.

—

In A Sudden

In a sudden,

the sight,

Your look of light,

stills all,

The curd-pot

falls to the ground.

Parents and

brothers

all call a halt.

Prise out, they say,

this thing from your heart.

You’ve lost your path.

Says Meera:

Who but you

can see in the dark

of a heart?

—

Listen

Listen, my friend, this road is the heart opening,

kissing his feet, resistance broken, tears all night.

If we could reach the Lord through immersion in water,

I would have asked to be born a fish in this life.

If we could reach Him through nothing but berries and wild nuts

then surely the saints would have been monkeys when they came from the womb!

If we could reach him by munching lettuce and dry leaves

then the goats would surely get to the Holy One before us!

If the worship of stone statues could bring us all the way,

I would have adored a granite mountain years ago.

—

Your slander is sweet

Rana, to me your slander is sweet.

Some praise me, some blame me. I

go the other way.

On the narrow path, I found God’s

people. What should I turn back for?

I am learning wisdom among the

wise, and the wicked look at me

with malice.

Mira’s Lord is Giridhar Nagar.

Let the wicked burn in the kitchen fire.

—

Life In The World

Life in the world is short,

Why shoulder an unnecessary load

Of worldly relationships?

Thy parents gave thee birth in the world,

But the Lord ordained thy fate.

Life passes in getting and spending,

No merit is earned by virtuous deeds.

I will sing the praises of Hari

In the company of the holy men,

Nothing else concerns me.

Mira’s Lord is the courtly Giridhara,

She says: Only by Thy power

Have I crossed to the further shore.

_______________

Balkan Beat Box-Bulgarian Chicks

_______________

Coda:

On Darkness

“You darkness, that I come from,

I love you more than all the fires

that fence in the world,

for the fire makes

a circle of light for everyone,

and then no one outside learns of you.

But the darkness pulls in everything;

shapes and fires, animals and myself,

how easily it gathers them!—

powers and people—

and it is possible a great energy

is moving near me.

I have faith in nights.”

– Rainer Maria Rilke

“We come spinning out of nothingness, scattering stars like dust” – Rumi

Love Is The Master…

Love is the One who masters all things;

I am mastered totally by Love.

By my passion of love for Love

I have ground sweet as sugar.

O furious Wind, I am only a straw before you;

How could I know where I will be blown next?

Whoever claims to have made a pact with Destiny

Reveals himself a liar and a fool;

What is any of us but a straw in a storm?

How could anyone make a pact with a hurricane?

God is working everywhere his massive Resurrection;

How can we pretend to act on our own?

In the hand of Love I am like a cat in a sack;

Sometimes Love hoists me into the air,

Sometimes Love flings me into the air,

Love swings me round and round His head;

I have no peace, in this world or any other.

The lovers of God have fallen in a furious river;

They have surrendered themselves to Love’s commands.

Like mill wheels they turn, day and night, day and night,

Constantly turning and turning, and crying out.

-Rumi

Winter in the North West… oh it is so cooooold.

Have been up to Olympia to do some interior mural work, mural repair and other bits at Peter’s house. Lots of cloud work, and a solar mandala (still in process). We had a nice weekend visiting, although Margo was not feeling up for a visit (cold and all), we did get to see Sarah, Paul &amp; young Miss Melissa, (Peter’s sisters family) for the first time in 10 or so years. The time, she flies. It was truly a nice time. The temperature in Olympia got down to 11f, thankfully we were not to out and about in it.

The poetry of Jack Gilbert is the main course of this entry. Laura Pendell turned me on to his work (Thanks Laura!) I am really taken with his work. I am in the process of trying to catch up with contemporary American Poets. Truth be told, every time I settled into the stream of it, I would end up reading academic poets much to my dismay. Yes, I am sure there are good ones, but not enough passion for yours truly. So, I am up to some exploring.

The music on this entry is Porcupine Tree, a psychedelic/progressive/metal band out of Britain. I am very impressed with their work, and especially… “Time Flies” They are a very cool unit.

Hope this finds you in health and happiness.

Blessings,

Gwyllm

________________________

On The Menu:

The Links

Porcupine Tree: Time Flies

Rumi Quotes On Passion

Irish Folk Tales: The Ghost of Sneem

The Poetry Of The Heart: Jack Gilbert

Porcupine Tree – Dark Matter

Artist: Nikolaj Rerih

_______________

The Links:

In The Era Of Mass Extinctions… 10,000 years ago

Note To Self: Must Buy Property In Mexico

The Natural Urge…

Not Such A Great Idea

Death Certificate Imprinted On Shroud Of Turin?

Ritual Feast…

________________

Wonderful Band. A most poignant of songs…

Porcupine Tree: Time Flies…

________________

Rumi Quotes On Passion:

“The way you make love is the way God will be with you.”

“The agony of lovers burns with the fire of passion.”

“Lovers leave traces of where they’ve been.”

“The wailing of broken hearts is the doorway to God.”

“Let the lover be disgraceful, crazy,

absentminded. Someone sober

will worry about things going badly.

Let the lover be.”

________________

Irish Folk Tales: The Ghost of Sneem

Some time after Pat Doyle was killed by the ghost, my husband, Martin Doyle, was at work on an estate at some distance from Sneem, and one evening the gentleman who employed Martin told him to go that night on an errand to Sneem.

“Well,” said he, “it’s too late and the road is very lonesome. There is no one to care for my mother but me, and if anything should happen to me she’d be without support. I’ll go in the morning.”

“That will not do,” said the gentleman: “I want to send a letter, and it must be delivered to-night.”

“I’ll not risk it; I’ll not go,” said Martin.

Martin had a cousin James, who heard the conversation and, stepping up, he said, “I’ll go. I am not afraid of ghost or spirit, and many a night have I spent on that road.”

The gentleman thanked him and said:

“Here is a sword for you, if you need it.” He gave James the letter with directions for delivering it.

James started off, and took every short cut and by-path, and when he thought he was half-way to Sneem a ghost stood before him in the road, and began to make at him. Whenever the ghost came near, James made a drive at him with the steel sword, for there is great virtue in steel, and above all in steel made by an Irish blacksmith. The ghost was darting at James, and he driving at the ghost with his sword till he came to a cross-road near Sneem. There the ghost disappeared, and James hurried on with great speed to Sneem. There he found that the gentleman who was to receive the letter had moved to a place six miles away, near Blackwater bridge, half-way between Sneem and Kenmare. The place has a very bad name to this day, and old people declare that there is no night without spirits and headless people being around Blackwater bridge. James knew what the place was, but he made up his mind to deliver the letter. When he came to the bridge and was going to cross it a ghost attacked him. This ghost had a venomous look and was stronger than the first one. He ran twice at James, who struck at him with the sword. Just then he saw a big man without a head running across the road at the other side of the bridge and up the cliff, though there was no path there. The ghost stopped attacking and ran after the headless man. James crossed the bridge and walked a little farther, when he met a stranger, and the two saluted each other and the man asked James where he lived, and he said: “I came from Drumfada.” “Do you know what time it is?” asked James. “I do not; but when I was passing that house just below there the cocks were beginning to crow. Did you see anything?” “I did,” said James, and he told him how the ghost attacked him and then ran away up the cliff after the headless man.

“Oh,” said the stranger, “that headless body is always roaming around the bridge at night; hundreds of people have seen it. It ran up the cliff and disappeared at cock-crow, and the ghost that attacked you followed when the cocks crowed.”

The stranger went on and James delivered the letter. The man who received it was very thankful and paid him well. James came home safe and sound, but he said: “I’d be a dead man this day but for the steel.”

“Could you tell me a real fairy tale?” asked I of the old woman. “I could,” said she, “but to-day I’ll tell you only what I saw one night beyond Cahirciveen:

Once I spent the night at a house near Waterville, about six miles from Derrynane. The woman of the house was lying in bed at the time and a young child with her. The husband heard an infant crying outside under the window, and running to the bed he said:

“Yerra, Mary, have you the child with you?”

“Indeed, then, I have, John.”

“Well, I heard a child crying under the window. I’ll go this minute and see whose it is.”

“In the name of God,” screamed the wife, “stop inside! Get the holy water and sprinkle it over the children and over me and yourself.”

He did this, and then sprinkled some in the kitchen. He heard the crying go off farther and farther till it seemed half a mile away: it was very pitiful and sad. If he had gone to the door the man of the house would have got a fairy stroke and the mother would have been taken as a nurse to the fort.

This is all the old woman told. When going she promised to come on the following day, but I have not seen her since. The blind man informed me some evenings later that she was sick and in the “ashpitl” (hospital). Her sickness was caused, as she said, by telling me tales in the daytime. Many of the old people will tell tales only in the evening; it is not right, not lucky, to do so during daylight.

________________

The Poetry Of The Heart: Jack Gilbert

Tear It Down

We find out the heart only by dismantling what

the heart knows. By redefining the morning,

we find a morning that comes just after darkness.

We can break through marriage into marriage.

By insisting on love we spoil it, get beyond

affection and wade mouth-deep into love.

We must unlearn the constellations to see the stars.

But going back toward childhood will not help.

The village is not better than Pittsburgh.

Only Pittsburgh is more than Pittsburgh.

Rome is better than Rome in the same way the sound

of racoon tongues licking the inside walls

of the garbage tub is more than the stir

of them in the muck of the garbage. Love is not

enough. We die and are put into the earth forever.

We should insist while there is still time. We must

eat through the wildness of her sweet body already

in our bed to reach the body within the body.

—

Going There

Of course it was a disaster.

The unbearable, dearest secret

has always been a disaster.

The danger when we try to leave.

Going over and over afterward

what we should have done

instead of what we did.

But for those short times

we seemed to be alive. Misled,

misused, lied to and cheated,

certainly. Still, for that

little while, we visited

our possible life.

—

The Great Fires

Love is apart from all things.

Desire and excitement are nothing beside it.

It is not the body that finds love.

What leads us there is the body.

What is not love provokes it.

What is not love quenches it.

Love lays hold of everything we know.

The passions which are called love

also change everything to a newness

at first. Passion is clearly the path

but does not bring us to love.

It opens the castle of our spirit

so that we might find the love which is

a mystery hidden there.

Love is one of many great fires.

Passion is a fire made of many woods,

each of which gives off its special odor

so we can know the many kinds

that are not love. Passion is the paper

and twigs that kindle the flames

but cannot sustain them. Desire perishes

because it tries to be love.

Love is eaten away by appetite.

Love does not last, but it is different

from the passions that do not last.

Love lasts by not lasting.

Isaiah said each man walks in his own fire

for his sins. Love allows us to walk

in the sweet music of our particular heart.

—

Failing and Flying

Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.

It’s the same when love comes to an end,

or the marriage fails and people say

they knew it was a mistake, that everybody

said it would never work. That she was

old enough to know better. But anything

worth doing is worth doing badly.

Like being there by that summer ocean

on the other side of the island while

love was fading out of her, the stars

burning so extravagantly those nights that

anyone could tell you they would never last.

Every morning she was asleep in my bed

like a visitation, the gentleness in her

like antelope standing in the dawn mist.

Each afternoon I watched her coming back

through the hot stony field after swimming,

the sea light behind her and the huge sky

on the other side of that. Listened to her

while we ate lunch. How can they say

the marriage failed? Like the people who

came back from Provence (when it was Provence)

and said it was pretty but the food was greasy.

I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell,

but just coming to the end of his triumph.

_____________________

No visuals… good music though

Porcupine Tree – Dark Matter

________

Every object, every being,

is a jar full of delight. – Rumi

“Et in Arcadia ego“

At the twilight, a moon appeared in the sky;

Then it landed on earth to look at me.

Like a hawk stealing a bird at the time of prey;

That moon stole me and rushed back into the sky.

I looked at myself, I did not see me anymore;

For in that moon, my body turned as fine as soul.

The nine spheres disappeared in that moon;

The ship of my existence drowned in that sea.

Divan, 649:1-3,5 – Rumi

________

This is a special edition of Turfing:

In Loving Memory Of Our Friend Phil Davies

Rumi Quotes

Rumi Poems On Life &amp; Dying

Kate Bush – Heavy People

________

In Loving Memory Of Our Friend Phil Davies

Who Died At Home In London, November 20, 2009

For Phil’s Partner Gennaro, for Ley, Cheri &amp; all of Phil’s friends…

Moments in time, telescoping away. The seconds, minutes, the hours, days and years recede.

I first met Phil Davies about 4-5 days after I met Mary in London. We met at the restaurant where Mary was working at, “Buggin’s”, directly across the street from “The Young Vic” on The Cut, near Waterloo Station. I went there to continue my wooing of Mary, and ended up helping out with the holidaze crowds that they were seating. (This was around the 13th of December or so, in 1977) I met Phil in the kitchen where he was doing prep, and generally having a great time. We hit it off right away, he had a wicked sense of humour, and he applied it as liberally as he did the sauces he was working with. I ended up doing dishes a couple of nights, so, we were pretty much side by side through out the evenings. During this time, I was bringing flowers every night to Mary. I was head over heels as the saying goes, and I pressed my case most ardently. Phil was bemused. He would tease Mary, and then later come out to the table where we were sitting sipping Cointreau, smoking cigarettes… staring into each others eyes, and up would come Phil, and he’d say “Okay you two, knock it off”! Sit down, and get us talking.

Later on when Mary had left Buggins, and I had left the Wine Bar (The Green Room) he and Mary opened up a small in-house catering set up in the Antiques area of Knightsbridge, and then he brought Mary to open up a concession for Greg Edwards of Capital Radio via his and Greg’s mutual friend Cheri Class. (I became club manager &amp; head bar-tender) to open up a dance club where Greg and friends would DJ at near Hampstead Heath (the location is a bit fuzzy now…) We all past the summer of 78 in these pursuits together. Lots of good times spent with Phil then.

One of my fondest memories of Phil was when we visited him one time at his flat during summer. Phil was sitting at his table, rolling a spliff of “Black Congolese” wearing a suit with a tie as he was often to be found. We smoked a bit, and then ended up in the garden on our hands and knees, sniffing his roses and giggling like mad people. Afterwards of course, he served tea and scones. This is Phil as I remember him.

Really it was a golden period. I learned a lot from his take on life. He was a most gentle and forgiving soul.

When October came, Mary and I were married. Phil was our best man. (The photos of him are from the wedding and party after) Shortly after, we moved to L.A., but came back frequently for several years to visit, and to live again in London. I remember going to clubs with Phil, and the myriad of good times we had through that period.

Phil was a master of Tarot. His readings were legendary in London. He was a long time member of the Golden Dawn, and he more than once remonstrated me on my inability at that time to control my anger and my then misuse of metaphysical principles that I was unaware of. He always did this with affection, and often in frustration. (I got it Phil, I got it!)

Over the years, and our resettling back in the U.S., we lost touch. We finally reconnected through our mutual friend Ley via FB… I was under the impression after learning Phil had cancer, that he was in remission. He and Gennaro visited Ley in France this summer, and it sounded like he was doing well. I was looking forward to visiting him this next year, and reconnecting after all these years. Sadly, this was not to be, he went back into hospital, and came home Thursday last for hospice care… Ley informed me on the Monday that if we were to be in touch, now was a time to send a card, which we did. Ley hurried south from Scotland (where he lives most of the year) to help out and all. Phil was in and out of sleeping, and on Friday morning, surrounded by Gennaro, Ley, and other friends he died surrounded by love. If ever a man who personified love, it was Phil. Our card arrived, after he had past.

Phil was a pivotal friend in my life, and in my relationship to the world. He will be sorely missed by all of those whose lives he touched.

Today, I understand that his funeral and wake was celebrated. Phil requested a cardboard coffin, and our card was one of the decorations on it from what Ley said. On our family altar is a book Phil loaned me which I was going to bring back to him this next year: “Magic Black &amp; White” by Franz Hartmann. Now, I will keep it, and remember the lessons that Phil so freely shared, as well as his deep and abiding humanity.

Much Love,

Gwyllm

___________________________

Rumi Quotes:

Load the ship and set out. No one knows for certain whether the vessel will sink or reach the harbor. Cautious people say, “I’ll do nothing until I can be sure”. Merchants know better. If you do nothing, you lose. Don’t be one of those merchants who wont risk the ocean.

When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.

Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.

Everyone is so afraid of death, but the real sufis just laugh: nothing tyrannizes their hearts. What strikes the oyster shell does not damage the pearl.

Conventional opinion is the ruin of our souls.

Whatever posessions and objects of its desires the lower self may obtain, it hangs on to them, refusing to let them go out of greed for more, or out of fear of poverty and need.

If in thirst you drink water from a cup, you see God in it. Those who are not in love with God will see only their own faces in it.

_________________

Rumi Poems On Life &amp; Dying

WHY CLING

Why cling to one life

till it is soiled and ragged?

The sun dies and dies

squandering a hundred lived

every instant

God has decreed life for you

and He will give

another and another and another

—

Our death is our wedding with eternity.

What is the secret? “God is One.”

The sunlight splits when entering the windows of the house.

This multiplicity exists in the cluster of grapes;

It is not in the juice made from the grapes.

For he who is living in the Light of God,

The death of the carnal soul is a blessing.

Regarding him, say neither bad nor good,

For he is gone beyond the good and the bad.

Fix your eyes on God and do not talk about what is invisible,

So that he may place another look in your eyes.

It is in the vision of the physical eyes

That no invisible or secret thing exists.

But when the eye is turned toward the Light of God

What thing could remain hidden under such a Light?

Although all lights emanate from the Divine Light

Don’t call all these lights “the Light of God”;

It is the eternal light which is the Light of God,

The ephemeral light is an attribute of the body and the flesh.

…Oh God who gives the grace of vision!

The bird of vision is flying towards You with the wings of desire.

—

look at love

how it tangles

with the one fallen in love

look at spirit

how it fuses with earth

giving it new life

why are you so busy

with this or that or good or bad

pay attention to how things blend

why talk about all

the known and the unknown

see how the unknown merges into the known

why think seperately

of this life and the next

when one is born from the last

look at your heart and tongue

one feels but deaf and dumb

the other speaks in words and signs

look at water and fire

earth and wind

enemies and friends all at once

the wolf and the lamb

the lion and the deer

far away yet together

look at the unity of this

spring and winter

manifested in the equinox

you too must mingle my friends

since the earth and the sky

are mingled just for you and me

be like sugarcane

sweet yet silent

don’t get mixed up with bitter words

my beloved grows

right out of my own heart

how much more union can there be?

—

you mustn’t be afraid of death

you’re a deathless soul

you can’t be kept in a dark grave

you’re filled with God’s glow

be happy with your beloved

you can’t find any better

the world will shimmer

because of the diamond you hold

when your heart is immersed

in this blissful love

you can easily endure

any bitter face around

in the absence of malice

there is nothing but

happiness and good times

don’t dwell in sorrow my friend

_________

Phil shared our love of Kate’s music back when. This always reminded me of him… 80)

Kate Bush – “Heavy People”

__________

In sweet memory……

“Probably the central concept of shamanism, wherever in the world it is found, is the notion that underlying all the visible forms in the world, animate and inanimate, there lies a vital essence from which they emerge and by which they are nurtured. Ultimately everything returns to this ineffable, mysterious impersonal unknown…” -Douglas Sharon, Wizard of the Four Winds: A Shaman’s Story

Today’s entry was originally started on November 2nd. It has taken that long to finalize it. I get these bumps in the creative process, and the main bump is the Internet for some reason. Even though I use the web for gathering information, I have noticed of late that it is also a very large distraction. (this is not news for everyone I am sure) So, I am trying to cut back a bit, and try things differently.

This entry is built around The Ridge During Bapaboka (Maidu/Fall), which was the time that we finally got away from Oregon for just under a week. Originally we planned a longer journey, some 2.5 weeks, which would of taken us to Arizona to visit family, up the California coast etc into Oregon… well it didn’t happen. We did take an abbreviated time, and this article came out of this. We were not able to visit all that we wanted as it was anyway, due to the fact of health, time, and business issues; and I am profoundly sorry that those visits will have to be delayed a while longer.

We cover a large area in this edition; from quotes of George Eliot, to the music of Robbie Robertson. We visit again with the Maidu in a time of myth and magic. As we are concentrating on the San Juan Ridge, I feel it is only appropriate that we visit with Gary Snyder, who lives upon it.

Bright Blessings,

Gwyllm

_________________

On The Menu:

The Links

Robbie Robertson – Ghost Dance

The Quotes From George Eliot

The Ridge During Bapaboka (Maidu/Fall)

Maidu Tales: The Girls Who Married The Stars…

Native Son: Gary Snyder

Robbie Robertson – A Good Day To Die

______________________

The Links:

The Atlantic – 1491 Excerpt

Interview with Mary Midgley (Thanks Dale!)

Dark Galaxy Crashing Milky Way Party?

Evidence Of Stone Age Multi-Tasking

______________________

Robbie Robertson – Ghost Dance

______________________

The Quotes From George Eliot:

“Animals are such agreeable friends – they ask no questions; they pass no criticisms.”

“Conscientious people are apt to see their duty in that which is the most painful course.”

“Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.”

“Failure after long perseverance is much grander than never to have a striving good enough to be called a failure.”

______________________

Click on the wee pics for bigger ones…this was initially started 3 weeks ago. Thanks to all whose patience this has tested. There is an underlying theme to this article, which in my mind is In-habitation… It has been bouncing around my brain quite a bit lately.

The Ridge During Bapaboka (Maidu/Fall):

That Classic On The Road Photo….

Getting There: We went off to visit Dale and Laura, (with a dollop of time over at Leslie &amp; Roberto’s, and then over to Will Penna’s.) This was our first time for a vacation together (on our own) since before Rowan was born. We drove to Medford on Monday, and stayed with our friends the Nixon’s at Ashford Oaks, their home on the north rim above central Medford. We drove down the next day, stopping off at Mt. Shasta, where I seemingly became afflicted by memories/ghost of earlier times. (maybe more on the later) We flew down the road past Dunsmuir, Redding, Anderson and further south. As I was driving along, memories flooded in of the countless times I hitchhiked/drove through the valley .

It seemed like the longest drive, but then I haven’t ventured far as of late. Last time south was to Mt. Shasta for my Mother’s memorial service 7 years previously. I enjoy being on the road with Mary. It was beautiful, sunny and just about right, except for the heavy traffic. How did 5 get so busy? Redding was a bit hellacious and all, crazed people zipping in and out like mad… eventually we made it to our exit and headed through the marshes and rice paddies to the east. Strangely enough, I had forgotten that I had travelled this road some 40 years before.

Up On The Ridge: The San Juan Ridge is a striking anomaly in the topographical maps of Norte California. The foot hills rise out of rice paddies, bird sanctuaries (from the remnants of the ancient west coast flyway) up to ridge. Driving along, past the hyper-ancient remains of an ancient continent (Lemuria!) dead ending in Smartville California (no really) you go perhaps another 10 miles to a visible bump, and then go downhill and you have missed it on the way to Grass Valley.

Off Highway 20 you find gated communities of transplanted nouveau riche unable to sever their ties to suburban living and bunker mentalities with artificial lakes, medical facilities, minimalls ad-nauseaum. These areas are contained within their fences; more than likely the fences keep the inmates in, and the surrounding areas safer for it.

To the south you find small towns, and small holdings cobbled out of old cattle ranches now transmuted into horse paddocks… anomalies in this area of oak, and the dragon bones of ancient volcanic eruptions bouldering through fields as if thrown there by giants in a harsher age.

To the north, the land runs wilder. Defined by the Yuba River snaking through, sending her tributaries up deep gulches and sheer drop offs. this was once gold mining country, (as it all was) up through French Corral (once the largest “city” of Norte California if my memory serves me) going towards where Lew Welche walked away from it all in 1971. Settlements are sparser here, It is a land that time has passed by on both sides of Highway 20.

Mary sitting amongst the boulders on the Ridge…

It’s ancient economy that lasted thousands of years was based on acorns (if an economy can be based on mutual cooperation and the long dance) climaxing with the Maidu people who were eclipsed by the coming of the 49′ers, gold and then cattle came in vogue for some 140 years. Since then, artist, writers, and cannabis farmers have taken hold. I would venture that without cannabis, this area might be far sparser populated than it is now. It is not unusual to be driving at night and smell what seems to be a dead skunk, don’t be alarmed, it is the local cannabis farmer burning stems and shake to remove the evidence. So The Ridge has never actually suffered from the gentile civilizing influences of the coastal and valley communities. Yes, there may be pockets of gated suburban compounds springing up, but the land doesn’t take to them to well. It looks as if aliens had landed, and imposed something truly foreign. In time, with possible hiccups in the steady diet of cheap energy, these enclaves may go the way of older ghost settlements in these hills.

The Meadow with wild turkeys…

Sitting outside in the morning sun, looking up towards the ridge, you can see the buzzards riding thermals as they have for countless millennia. They spiral in ancient gyres, tracing out mysteries, illuminating secrets that they only can decipher. There is a slight chill to wind, but from what I understand, this won’t last so long. I sit, surrounded by birdsong, musing over a notebook as I reconstruct parts of an earlier life. I find myself now able to hold up “periods” of my life as if they were frozen moments in time. This passes. The land speaks. It always does. I can hear a pulsing beat that could be taken for drums, or the beating of wings. It is early; there is a mist rising off the meadow.

Skull Rock down into the canyon

There is a dusty softness to this land. I lived with it for many years, in other parts of California. The oaks and the manzanita, scrabbling up and down the hills… Big Sur has a version, Mt. Shasta and Lassen as well. I discovered this version, when I was quite young. We lived in Sacramento, and would drive on the weekends up into the Sierra. Memories, waft up, and then vanish of course. I am not so old yet they will come with great clarity. Give me a few years, and it will all be crystal clear.

Late at night, the Coyotes come out. Mid week, two packs were in a deep howling competition. One pack would go off to the west, then the other to the east. Scat in the morning on the drive, Coyote has been after voles, and eating berries. Sophie (the wonder dog’s) hackles go up when she sniffs the scat. She knows bad company when she smells it. She looks around, trying to figure out where the tricksters are hanging out. She is sleeping in the truck, so at night who knows who dances around the Land Cruiser?

Wednesday/Thursday night, the pack to the east catch something. Perhaps a fawn. There is a screaming going on under the moon. Not quick, not elegant, but do they ever play… A long time, I dream about it, hearing snuffling around the door in early morning fugues. I hear a BOOM! against the wall. What the hell was that? Not Coyote, as he tends to be a bit more elegant. Ghost I guess.

At Dale &amp; Laura’s: The time we spent at Dale and Laura’s has those moments of stillness… We slept down in their converted barn, where their offices, workshops, library, Zendo etc. are located. It sits next to a field, that I figure was a paddock at one time, though the fences are gone. It is a magical place, silent, full of light during the day, and pitch black at night.

I had been curious about their land since they first moved there. Every time Dale &amp; Laura visited here, we would end up somewhere along the line talking about it. I understand why now , having been there. It is a special place, and It lends itself to stillness, and finding a bit of the inner silence. You’ll find yourself staring up into the pines and manzanita as I did many times…

Discussions do break out here, in fact it was one of the real joys of the visit. Poetry seemed to be one of the main themes, and transformation of the self, and society. We had some great talks, ranging late, late into the evening. There is a heck of a lot of writing going on, and the sense of discipline behind is very cool. I wish I had that sense of discipline, but the old stuttering dyslexic mind of mine almost precludes it with some serious mental alterations… 8O}

Beating the bounds…

On our last day, we walked the bounds with Laura and Dale. Their love of their land is palpable; hesitating here, there and taking in what needs to be done this season and next. A sense of stewardship that I recognize. I have seen this love time and again when people find that place where they have “gone to ground”.

Robert &amp; Leslie out near Big Sur…

At Robert &amp; Leslies’: We met Robert &amp; Leslie through Dale &amp; Laura. Laura (I think) turned them onto Turfing, and we bumped into each other on Face Book. (yes, I confess!) They visited us this last August on the way down from an art-show in Seattle. They have lived up on the Ridge for several years, being kinda local and all, having grown up over the hill in Nevada.

The House of Art….

I have featured their art before, from HiddenSpringsDesign.com . On the second night down, we went with Dale &amp; Laura over to visit and for dinner. They kinda live out there, but what an amazing drive. Their property was almost taken by the fires this past August. Luckily, it didn’t happen. We spent a great evening, talking, drinking moderately, and enjoying the very fine company.

We got to come back and visit on Thursday, and was able to visit their studio(s). The studio is an amazing building, originally a dairy barn, it was built in the 1850′s. The original structure is clad now in metal, but it has an amazing feel inside. The lower level is where the cement and stained glass work is done, (Roberto) and the upper level is where the woodworking is done. (Leslie) Sophie was able to really play about at Leslie &amp; Roberts, they have two amazing dogs, Bodie &amp; Kiara pups really tho 9 years old. The 3 dogs romped whilst we hung out.

Garden Art…

One of the things I notice with Rob &amp; Leslie is their attention to the moment, and the sheer joy that jumps off of their collective skins. Their combined artistic talents are pretty overwhelming. We puttered around their home, looked at the spring (yes actual spring) in their basement. Then we went off to Nevada City, to run errands. Rob had to drop off a piece at Mowen-Solinsky Gallery on Broad St. (great place!) and then we dithered off to the pub with John Mowen, a most amazing guy. We sat back, and had some delightful IPA, talked art and just hung for a couple of hours.

Driving North: We went north the next day. Sadly we couldn’t hit Will’s, my health was playing silly games with the lymph system and allergies and I had to head north. We hit the road, and stopped again in Mt. Shasta to pick up a cup for Rowan. We got out, and walked about on the main street. In a way, it felt good. I feel alien to it, as though the form is there, nothing remains really of the place I knew, and the times we inhabited there. It was sweet, but getting on the road was sweeter. Riding up through Siskiyou County was lovely. I always liked the ride through there. The volcanic hills, the slow transitions in the terrain. The greatest treat though… was as we approached the border, low flying clouds. Up over the Siskiyou past, into fog &amp; cloud, and then breaking through, to sunshine above, and a swirling sea of fog on the valley floor. We drove past Ashland, and on to Medford.

At Randy &amp; Deirdre’s:We arrived up at Randy &amp; Deidre’s late afternoon, to find dinner on, and drinks at hand. Randy and Dee live up on the high crest to the north of Medford. Their house is situated just below the ridge line, and has a view over the valley, and across the Siskiyous. Truly one of the most breath-taking of locations, and it is such a quiet place. Wildlife abounds, and the deer are everywhere, to Sophie’s delight. During the fall this is a place of mist and clouds…

Randy &amp; Deirdre cooking…

Sometimes it is like an island above a sea of fog… As it happened, we got to hang for Halloween night, watching Nosferatu and Dawn of the Dead. Life, she is sweet. Randy and Dee cooked up a storm while we were there, Randy is the master of the barbecue, and has lately taken to curing his own bacon! (ummmmm bacon!) They are perhaps the most relaxed couple that we know, we always have a nice time with them. Both are from the south, and they have such a great take on life, and live at a wonderful pace. I was very happy to have visited them, not enough time together since they moved to Medford from Portland.

Randy, Deirdre &amp; their daughter Bailey…

Coming back north, I realize how at home I am here in Oregon. It’s the moisture and the green woods folks, and Portland. I love her as I once loved London, Amsterdam, San Francisco. But, I have gone to ground, at least for now. I do promise to get back out on the road more often, it was a breaking of habit, and we had a sweet time with dear friends.

It has taken me awhile to write it all down, but finally it is here.

Big Love,

Gwyllm

______________________

Maidu Tales: The Girls Who Married The Stars…

Two girls who were of an age to dance the puberty dance, were dancing it. And having stopped dancing just at dawn, they both slept. Toward morning the two girls, who were sleeping, arising, went off to dig roots. When they returned at night, the people all danced the round-dance.

Having finished the round-dance, they danced forward and back. And just as the light came over the hills, while it grew brighter, after having run off after the one who carried the rattle, they (the two girls) went to sleep. They dreamed. “If you have a bad dream, you must dive into the stream after having pierced your ear-lobe. Then you must blow away all evil from yourselves. Thus ye will arise feeling entirely well,” she said. So their mothers told the two girls.

They dreamed of Star-Men, but did not blow the evil away from themselves; they did not pierce their ears, did not bathe. When the dance was over, they went again to make camp with their mothers at the spring to dig roots. And having arrived there, they camped. And going to sleep at that place, lying on their backs and looking upward, they talked.

“Do you want to go there?” said one. “If I got there, I should like to see that red, very bright star.” Then the other said, “I also, I should like to go to that one that looks blue. I wish I might see what he looks like!” Then they went to sleep. As they slept, in the morning they woke up there, where the Star-Men were.

The old woman hunted for them back here. She hunted to find where they had gone. She kept looking for tracks, but could not see them, could not trace them; so she went back, weeping, to the house. When she returned, the people got back from a hunting-expedition. They kept coming back; and when they had returned, they searched. They kept looking for tracks, and, not finding them, they went back. And so, having returned, they remained there.

Meanwhile the two girls staid up there in the sky, and were married. They talked together. “Our mothers, our fathers, our brothers, have felt very badly at not being able to trace us,” said the younger girl. “You wanted very much to come to this country; and I, believing you, came thus far. It is making my father feet badly, my mother feel badly, my brothers feel badly. It was your idea,” she said.

“Our mothers gave us very good advice. But you, not believing her, when you had bad dreams, did not pierce your ear. It is for that reason that we are living far away here. I am going back. If you want to remain, you may stay. All my relatives are thinking about me. I feel very badly. I ought not to speak that way, but I have said it. I feel very badly, thinking about it,” said she, the younger girl.

(The other) said to her sister, “Let us both go back in some way! Let us go and gather some kind of food! We shall learn something in time.” So they remained. To each a child was born; and they, making a hut at a little distance, staid there. After they had remained there for some time, they said, “These children ask for sinew.” So the husbands gave them sinew. Again, “They ask for sinew,” they said, and the men gave it to them.

Meanwhile the two girls made rope. Every day, “They call for sinew,” they said. And they gave them sinew. So the two girls kept making rope, until night they made rope. Letting it down towards the earth, they measured it. “How far down does the rope extend?” they said. But it did not quite reach the ground. So they still said, “They ask for sinew. These children are eating a great deal, but only sinew,” they said. And the two men believed.

And so the two women kept making rope until it was sufficient, till it reached all the way down, till it reached down to the earth. Then having made the children remain, they came back down. Having fastened the rope, and just as they were halfway down to the end, the children began to cry, kept crying and crying. “What can be the matter with those two children! Suppose you go and see,” said one of the men. Then one went over to the house; and going across, when he reached it, there was no one there but the two children only, crying.

When he had looked about, he saw the rope hanging down hither. So he cut it; and the women, who had almost reached the ground, fell and were killed. And one of their brothers, who was still hunting for them, saw them. And the rope was there also. Taking that, he went off to the house; and, arriving there, he told all the brothers, “Our two sisters are dead,” he said.

Then they went, and, having arrived there, lifting up the bodies, they brought them back. And having carried them there, they laid them in the water. In the morning the two girls awoke, and, waking, they came out of the water, came back to the house, and after a while they spoke.

“She spoke that way. When she loved him much, I talked with her, talking like her, I followed her,” said the younger girl. “She said it would be good to go to the place where the man was whom she had dreamed of while dancing. . . . She said that truly; and I, thinking it was said in fun, said the same. When we had said this, the men we loved did, indeed, do so to us. When we returned, they, learning about it up there, cut the rope, and in that way we died,” said the youngest one, speaking to her mother and relatives.

“One was a very red man, who ate only hearts. One was a bluish man, who only ate fat. There are many people of that sort, each always eating but one kind of food. Some eat only liver, some only meat. There are men of that kind,” said the younger girl. But the other girl said nothing. And thereafter they remained there in the olden time. That is all, they say.

____________

Native Son: Gary Snyder

this poem is for deer

I dance on all the mountains

On five mountains, I have a dancing place

When they shoot at me I run

To my five mountains”

Missed a last shot

At the Buck, in twilight

So we came back sliding

On dry needles through cold pines.

Scared out a cottontail

Whipped up the winchester

Shot off its head.

The white body rolls and twitches

In the dark ravine

As we run down the hill to the car.

deer foot down scree

Picasso’s fawn, Issa’s fawn,

Deer on the autumn mountain

Howling like a wise man

Stiff springy jumps down the snowfields

Head held back, forefeet out,

Balls tight in a tough hair sack

Keeping the human soul from care

on the autumn mountain

Standing in late sun, ear-flick

Tail-flick, gold mist of flies

Whirling from nostril to eyes.

Home by night

drunken eye

Still picks out Taurus

Low, and growing high:

four-point buck

Dancing in the headlights

on the lonely road

A mile past the mill-pond,

With the car stopped, shot

That wild silly blinded creature down.

Pull out the hot guts

with hard bare hands

While night-frost chills the tongue

and eye

The cold horn-bones.

The hunter’s belt

just below the sky

Warm blood in the car trunk.

Deer-smell,

the limp tongue.

Deer don’t want to die for me.

I’ll drink sea-water

Sleep on beach pebbles in the rain

Until the deer come down to die

in pity for my pain.

—

No Matter, Never Mind

The Father is the Void

The Wife Waves

Their child is Matter.

Matter makes it with his mother

And their child is Life,

a daughter.

The Daughter is the Great Mother

Who, with her father/brother Matter

as her lover,

Gives birth to the Mind.

______________

Pine tree tops

In the blue night

frost haze, the sky glows

with the moon

pine tree tops

bend snow-blue, fade

into sky, frost, starlight.

The creak of boots.

Rabbit tracks, deer tracks,

what do we know.

__________________

There Are Those Who Love To Get Dirty

There are those who love to get dirty

and fix things.

They drink coffee at dawn,

beer after work,

And those who stay clean,

just appreciate things,

At breakfast they have milk

and juice at night.

There are those who do both,

they drink tea.

—

this poem is for bear

“As for me I am a child of the god of the mountains.”

A bear down under the cliff.

She is eating huckleberries.

They are ripe now

Soon it will snow, and she

Or maybe he, will crawl into a hole

And sleep. You can see

Huckleberries in bearshit if you

Look, this time of year

If I sneak up on the bear

It will grunt and run

The others had all gone down

From the blackberry brambles, but one girl

Spilled her basket, and was picking up her

Berries in the dark.

A tall man stood in the shadow, took her arm,

Led her to his home. He was a bear.

In a house under the mountain

She gave birth to slick dark children

With sharp teeth, and lived in the hollow

Mountain many years.

snare a bear: call him out:

honey-eater

forest apple

light-foot

Old man in the fur coat, Bear! come out!

Die of your own choice!

Grandfather black-food!

this girl married a bear

Who rules in the mountains, Bear!

you have eaten many berries

you have caught many fish

you have frightened many people

Twelve species north of Mexico

Sucking their paws in the long winter

Tearing the high-strung caches down

Whining, crying, jacking off

(Odysseus was a bear)

Bear-cubs gnawing the soft tits

Teeth gritted, eyes screwed tight

but she let them.

Til her brothers found the place

Chased her husband up the gorge

Cornered him in the rocks.

Song of the snared bear:

“Give me my belt.

“I am near death.

“I came from the mountain caves

“At the headwaters,

“The small streams there

“Are all dried up.

– I think I’ll go hunt bears.

“hunt bears?

Why shit Snyder.

You couldn’t hit a bear in the ass

with a handful of rice!”

____________

Robbie Robertson – A Good Day To Die

Prelude:

For your sake, I hurry over land and water:
For your sake, I cross the desert and split the mountain in two,
And turn my face from all things,
Until the time I reach the place
Where I am alone with You.”
_______________

Kill Me, My Faithful Friends

Kill me, my faithful friends,
For in my being killed is my life.
Love is that you remain standing
In front of your Beloved
When you are stripped of all your attributes;
Then His attributes become your qualities.
Between me and You, there is only me.
Take away the me, so only You remain

– Al Hallaj –

—

Hello There….

I have been working on a very large entry about Mary &amp; my recent trip south. I am kinda stuck, so there is a delay. I seem to have selective writers/creative block, so I am moving around the ‘scape so to speak. Working on The Invisible College, some new art (yay!), clearing out the house and garage, printing T-Shirts for Daniel Seibert at SageWisdom (check em out!) and putting time in on that this weekend made me realize how much I have missed printing. I should have some new shirts and other items soon(ish). I will keep ya alerted. We are having our post cards printed up, so as soon as I clean up both websites, you’ll see those soon as well I hope.

I have been writing again as well, and still, still spending tooooo much time on the computer and Face Book. Just slap me, please.

Love n Sprockets,

Gwyllm

_________

On The Menu:

Phil Davies
The Links:
Cheikha Rimitti – El Dzair
Folk Tales From Morocco: The Jackal &amp; The Hedgehog
Rumi Poems
Nakhla by Cheikha Rimitti
Prelude/Coda: Al Hallaj
___________

Phil Davies:

Stockwell Road, London….

I have been in touch with a dear old friend from London days, Ley. He lives in Scotland now (originally from Durham) and it has been really, really sweet being in touch. Our conversation picked up 25 years after we last spoke (found him on FaceBook) and it is as if no time has passed, if you can ignore all of his children that came along, change in residence, us moving to the US, then up from L.A. to the NW, Rowan etc…

I asked him about mutual friends, and I found sadly many (well most) have died over the years. The one exception was Philip Davies, who was our best man at our wedding. Ley informed me that Phil, who is about 9 years older than I had cancer over this last summer. In my mind, I understand he is getting treatment, and there will be time to connect. Phil was/is a most amazing man. A gentleman, in all ways. Perhaps the most British person I have ever known in a London way. Phil’s mother was a nice girl from Golder’s Green, and his father was a GI… which meant Phil grew up in an orphanage. He connected with his mother eventually, and found out that he had a younger brother, and sister. They bonded to a degree, and he was ever affectionate of them when we talked. His father was dead when he finally found his family in the US…. Phil’s real family was his friends; Ley, Sherry, Mary, and many, many others over the years. If Phil was your friend, well you knew it.

I always felt a blessing and a giggle in his presence. An ardent Occultist, he was a member of the Golden Dawn when I met him, and well known in many circles in London. He has in turn been a fashion designer, cook, small business owner, you name it. He has a most creative mind. I can see him sitting at his table, looking out on the garden, rolling a spliff, and serving up tea and biscuits in one of his immaculate suits. He was, and is a good dear friend. I ask myself why I hesitated in getting in touch at times. Life, catches up, and you attend to what is in your face. That is the way of it.

I was planning on seeing him this next year, and then a message from Ley came today: Phil is in the hospital, he has taken a turn for the worse and he is coming home to hospice at his flat off of Stockwell Road. The day has been a swirl of wind, leaves, and memories and thoughts. I am hoping our card gets to him, or that he’ll be able to take a phone call.

Don’t hesitate in getting in touch with the ones you care about. Don’t put off doing what makes someone happy, and make sure they know that you care about and love them.

Time goes so swiftly, and then things change. Ley is in London taking care of Phil. Friendship and Love. We will see what happens. He could pull a miracle, he has before. The stories I could tell about the man!

Blessings,

Gwyllm

________

The Links:

Karen Armstron: The Case For God
The Jaw-Jaw After The War On Drugs..
Love In The Age Of Neuro-Science
The Evolution Of The God Gene
____________

Cheikha Rimitti – El Dzair

_______________

Folk Tales From Morocco: The Jackal &amp; The Hedgehog

Once upon a time a jackal and a hedgehog were good friends. One day they agreed to steal beans from a peasant’s underground stock. They discussed their plan of action. The hedgehog volunteered to go down into the thasraft to fill the sacks with beans. When the jackal pulled up the last sack, he said, ” Goodbye, my friend.”

The hedgehog felt betrayed. “How can you leave me in this trap?” he asked.

“Right now it’s not so bad,” the jackal replied. “But just wait until tomorrow morning when the peasant arrives and finds you!”

The hedgehog had to think fast to find a way out. “All right, my friend,” he told the jackal in a pitiful tone. “Please take one sack along to my children.”

The hedgehog filled up the sack, then dived into it himself, hiding under the beans. The jackal pulled the heavy sack out and then left.

On the road, the hedgehog put out his head and started whistling. The jackal thought it was the peasant approaching and ran away fast. When he reached the hedgehog’s children, he told them the peasant had caught their father. But before he had even finished his sentence, the hedgehog jumped out laughing. “Thank God,” said the hedgehog, “now I know you for what you are!”

Sometime later, they agreed to go hunting together. They came across a herd of sheep. The hedgehog was assigned to keep the shepherd busy while the jackal snatched a sheep and ran away with it. When the hedgehog was sure the jackal had escaped, he followed him.

When they reached a valley, they slaughtered the sheep and took off the skin. Suddenly, the hedgehog shouted, “The shepherd is coming!”

Frightened, the jackal ran away and disappeared from sight. The hedgehog took the entire sheep and went home with it.

Later, the hedgehog was making a meal for his children. The jackal smelled it cooking and asked him for a bowl. When he had tasted it, he said, “Oh, how delicious it is! It tastes rich. Where did you get the fat?”

“I pulled it from my armpits,” replied the hedgehog. To convince the jackal, he had hidden a piece of sheep’s fat under his armpits and used it to give him a demonstration.

The jackal went away and tried the trick again and again. Every day he tried taking fat from his armpits until it became very painful. Then he started to bleed and died.

_______________

Rumi Poems…

Oh, if a tree could wander
and move with foot and wings!
It would not suffer the axe blows
and not the pain of saws!
For would the sun not wander
away in every night ?
How could at every morning
the world be lighted up?
And if the ocean’s water
would not rise to the sky,
How would the plants be quickened
by streams and gentle rain?
The drop that left its homeland,
the sea, and then returned ?
It found an oyster waiting
and grew into a pearl.
Did Yusaf not leave his father,
in grief and tears and despair?
Did he not, by such a journey,
gain kingdom and fortune wide?
Did not the Prophet travel
to far Medina, friend?
And there he found a new kingdom
and ruled a hundred lands.
You lack a foot to travel?
Then journey into yourself!
And like a mine of rubies
receive the sunbeams? print!
Out of yourself ? such a journey
will lead you to your self,
It leads to transformation
of dust into pure gold!
—

Whoever Brought Me Here, Will Have To Take Me Home.

All day I think about it, then at night I say it.
Where did I come from, and what am I supposed to be doing?
I have no idea.
My soul is from elsewhere, I’m sure of that,
and I intend to end up there.
This drunkenness began in some other tavern.
When I get back around to that place,
I’ll be completely sober. Meanwhile,
I’m like a bird from another continent, sitting in this aviary.
The day is coming when I fly off,
but who is it now in my ear who hears my voice?
Who says words with my mouth?
Who looks out with my eyes? What is the soul?
I cannot stop asking.
If I could taste one sip of an answer,
I could break out of this prison for drunks.
I didn’t come here of my own accord, and I can’t leave that way.
Whoever brought me here, will have to take me home.
This poetry. I never know what I’m going to say.
I don’t plan it.
When I’m outside the saying of it,
I get very quiet and rarely speak at all.
—

It is your turn now

It is your turn now,
you waited, you were patient.
The time has come,
for us to polish you.
We will transform your inner pearl
into a house of fire.
You’re a gold mine.
Did you know that,
hidden in the dirt of the earth?
It is your turn now,
to be placed in fire.
Let us cremate your impurities.
—
This World Which Is Made of Our Love for Emptiness

Praise to the emptiness that blanks out existence. Existence:
This place made from our love for that emptiness!
Yet somehow comes emptiness,
this existence goes.
Praise to that happening, over and over!
For years I pulled my own existence out of emptiness.
Then one swoop, one swing of the arm,
that work is over.
Free of who I was, free of presence, free of dangerous fear, hope,
free of mountainous wanting.
The here-and-now mountain is a tiny piece of a piece of straw
blown off into emptiness.
These words I’m saying so much begin to lose meaning:
Existence, emptiness, mountain, straw:
Words and what they try to say swept
out the window, down the slant of the roof.
______________________

Nakhla by Cheikha Rimitti

______________________
Coda:

I am the One Whom I Love
I am the One whom I love, and the One whom I love is myself.
We are two souls incarnated in one body;
if you see me, you see Him,
if you see Him, you see us.
—
Your spirit is mingled with mine
as wine is mixed with water;
whatever touches you touches me.
In all the stations of the soul you are I.

– Al Hallaj –

“Anarchism is not a romantic fable but the hardheaded realization, based on five thousand years of experience, that we cannot entrust the management of our lives to kings, priests, politicians, generals, and county commissioners.” – Edward Abbey

On The Poetry Post…

Intoxicated by the Wine of Love.

From each a mystic silence Love demands.

What do all seek so earnestly? ‘Tis Love.

What do they whisper to each other? Love.

Love is the subject of their inmost thoughts.

In Love no longer ‘thou’ and ‘I’ exist,

For Self has passed away in the Beloved.

Now will I draw aside the veil from Love,

And in the temple of mine inmost soul,

Behold the Friend; Incomparable Love.

He who would know the secret of both worlds,

Will find the secret of them both, is Love.

– Farid al-Din Attar –

—–

Friday Evening: It has been a week of watching changes, and reentry for Mary &amp; myself. We will have some pics soon of our time away.

I have been wrestling with illustrations, finding a bit of work, and the rest of the daily parade.

There is a theme that runs through this entry, and the next one (I think). We were out of the city for a few days, and we spent time by what has been identified as a possible ancient site of the Maidu people. I spent time thinking on in-habitation, caretaking of the earth, and how the ancients used what they had to encourage the earth to be fertile. I thought what it means to be indigenous, which is something I have contemplated most of my adult life. Why do the Sami people venerate the earth more than their Nordic neighbors? How is it that poets find that the earth they live on influence their works? How do people forget their ancient ties and commitments to the land that nurtures them? All mysteries. I sat in the sun, pondering all of these questions and more.

You can read my writings, and eventually you’ll see my mentioning of being a child of the arboreal north. This is true. It is also true I am at home best near the ocean. Funny enough, Portland, city and all is a good fit. In my fantasy, it would be where Astoria on the coast is, but I can deal with it not being so. My point is, I am at home here. The only equivalent would be back in Scotland, but I don’t think that is in the cards. The Willamette Valley is about as far south as I can now comfortably live. It is raining tonight, and we are snug. The trees are shedding leaves, and the early days of the winter are slipping in.

Saturday Noon: Storming like crazy. It is raining sideways, down-ways, up-ways. It really, really is coming down.

So, in this entry you will find some English Country music by “Show Of Hands”. I like their feel, and their message. It goes right along with my thoughts on inhabitation of where you are… We start off with quotes from Edward Abbey, the environmental writer/philosopher in commemoration of his death 20 years ago. We next dive into the Maidu thread, with a Coyote tale. It has a certain flavor that I really like. Our poetry entry is from Rainer Marie Rilke, on Autumn and related subjects. The art works today is by John Everett Millais, one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite art movement. His landscapes have often been ignored, but their subject matter has always impressed my sensibilities.

I hope this finds you well!

Bright Blessings,

Gwyllm

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On The Menu:

The Links

Show Of Hands – Roots

Edward Abbey Quotes

Maidu Tales… Coyote’s Adventures

Autumn Poetry… Rainer Marie Rilke

Show Of Hands – Country Life

Coda…. Farid al-Din Attar

Artist: John Everett Millais

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The Links:

The Real Challenge…

Taliban=9/11?

Sioux To Reclaim The Black Hills

Bird shuts down Large Hadron Collider

The Coal Did It…

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Show Of Hands – Roots

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It has been 20 years since Edward Abbey died. I was introduced to his works by friends in the Wiccan &amp; EarthFirst! communities. His works moved me, between his writing and Gary Snyder’s I reconnected with being in the US after Britain. I was stunned to realize how fast the time had gone since his passing… -Gwyllm

Edward Abbey Quotes

“The mind is everything,” wrote Proust. No doubt true, when you’re dead from the neck down.

Anywhere, anytime, I’d sacrifice the finest nuance for a laugh, the most elegant trope for a smile.

Appearance VERSUS reality? Appearance is reality, God damn it!

The gurus come from the sickliest nation on earth to tell us how to live. And we pay them for it.

To the intelligent man or woman, life appears infinitely mysterious. But the stupid have an answer for every question.

If my decomposing carcass helps nourish the roots of a juniper tree or the wings of a vulture – that is immortality enough for me. And as much as anyone deserves.

The tragedy of modern war is not so much that the young men die but that they die fighting each other – instead of their real enemies back home in the capitals.

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Maidu Tales… Coyote’s Adventures

Coyote-Man was married. He had two wives, they say, and his mother-in-law lived with him also. Coyote went off hunting, and, returning from his hunt, he remained at home. After a while he spoke. “The pis-ant orphans are going to hunt deer, they say.” “Yes,” said his mother-in-law. “They asked me to go too,” said he. “If you want to go there also, we will go in the morning.” Then they slept.

In the morning (Coyote) said, “Well! They may have gone. Let us go!” Then that old woman fixed up her things, and they went. They went off, kept going until they came to a river. “You will have to wade across,” said he. “They call this the slippery river.” She stepped in. “Lift your skirt up high,” said he. He went across behind her. He touched her anus with his penis, pushing it in a little between her legs. “Hn, hn! The fish are touching us,” she said. “It is that way in the slippery river.” And doing thus as they crossed, when they had almost reached the other side, he stopped poking her.

They came out of the water; and when they had gotten out, they went on, kept travelling until they camped. “You stay here,” he said. “I am going to see where the pis-ant orphans are camped.” Then he went off. Having gone a little ways, he said, “Let rain come in this place, let rain come to-night!” Then he went off hunting, and, as he went along, he saw something that the mountain-lion had killed. So, cutting off a piece, he carried it with him, and returned before dark. Meanwhile it grew cloudy. “I think it is going to rain,” he said; so they fixed up a bark shelter. On one side he fixed it nicely, but his own sleeping-place he made poorly. Then they roasted some venison, and ate supper. The meat stunk a little, indeed. “What the pis-ant orphans kill always stinks,” said (Coyote). “They eat anything that way.”

Just as they went to sleep, it began to rain. Then they went to sleep. After sleeping a little while, he got very wet. So he woke up, and, having waked up, he said, “I am very wet. I’ll sleep over here,” he said, crawling across towards his mother-in-law’s feet. “If I sleep here, I might touch you,” he said; so he set up a piece of bark, on edge between them.

Then he went to sleep, and the woman went to sleep. He got up, and lay upon the woman, and had connection with her all night, until, when it was nearly daylight, he went off. Then the woman awoke. She bore a child. By and by, after she had washed it, she went away, carrying it. She kept travelling; and when she had reached the river, she waded across. She went on, kept going until she arrived at home.

Standing at the smoke-hole, she spoke. “Is Coyote here?” she said. Then Coyote said (to his wives), “Tell her no.” Then one of them replied, “Yes, he is here.” Then (the mother-in-law) said, “Coyote! Here is your child. Take it!” Then (Coyote) jumped out and ran away. She threw his child at him as he went. He ran away. She, having crawled in, stayed there. “‘Bad Coyote! He made his mother-in-law bear a child.’ That is what mortal men will say of me,” said (Coyote).

Then he went away. He kept travelling, came toward this country here. He sat down, sitting on a log, below a place where there was a house. Some one spoke. “You sitting on that log, look like a doctor. Come I you must doctor some one for me,” said (a woman). Then (Coyote) said, “I guess she is calling me. Why don’t I get up and hop along this log?” So he stood up and hopped along the log.

“That’s the one! You who are hopping along that log, you look like a doctor. I am calling you,” she said. “Yes, I guess she is speaking to me,” (he said), and jumped off. “You that are jumping, I am calling you,” she said. “Yes, she has been calling me,” (Coyote) said. So he walked up there.

Going up there, he arrived and sat down. Then (the woman) spoke: “There is some one ill. I called you to doctor them.”–”Whatever it may be like, (I can do it),” he said. “I have come thus far, going about doctoring people nicely. I am coming back from going about among the Mussel-eaters (Modocs); and I have got this far, halfway to my house,” he said. “There is nothing that I have been doctoring that I cannot cure” (?) he said. Then, crawling over, and having sat down beside (the woman who was ill), he sang. He kept singing. “‘I said that when told that way, I did not wish to conquer he said to me,’ 1 said Coyote. “That spirit told me, ‘I will not speak in this kind of a place. I am a spirit. Shut up the house; and when it is shut tight, I will speak.’ So if you crawl out, and stay outside by the door, to me alone the spirit will speak, he told me,” said he.

So the old woman crawled out, and shut the door, and remained by the door outside. Then (Coyote) sang. He made a great deal of noise. “Now he is doctoring,” (the old woman) said. (Those outside) heard the patient groaning. “May he be dead! Why did I bring him here to doctor?” said (the old woman). Then she peeked through a hole. (Coyote) was cohabiting with the girl, making her groan. The old woman, having picked up a large stick, jumped in. just as she was going to strike, (Coyote), breaking off his penis, jumped out through the smoke-hole and ran away. He kept going until he reached the place where Badger lived, and there he staid.

The woman was very ill, and (the old woman) came to Badger to get him to doctor. On arriving, she said, “I hired Coyote as a doctor; and when he was about to begin, he sent me out, and I remained outside by the door while he was singing; and while he sang, the girl groaned, and, peeping in, I found he was cohabiting with her. Then, intending to strike him, I jumped in; and he, jumping out, broke off his penis. With that in addition to her illness, she will die. So I ask you to come and doctor her.”

Then Coyote spoke. “Coyote-Man did that way a long time ago to me myself,” (?) he said. “When some one hires you to doctor, go,” said he. “You yourself shall doctor, working over the sick person (?). 1 So do the best you can; and when the spirit-man talks with you, he will be strong. I will go with you,” he said. Then she went. And he (Badger 2) went, after having painted his forehead in stripes. He kept travelling until he arrived. Then he sang, kept singing, and after a while he said, “What will you do with it, with what I suck out as the cause of pain? What will you do with it?”

The (old woman) said, “I will cover it up with ashes in the fire.” Then Coyote said, “Formerly when they burned up sickness in the fire, in burning, it burned along everywhere, as it were,” said he; “but when it was put into water, it was all right.” Then the old woman said, “I’ll cover it up in the fire.” Then the Badger-Man, after he had sung, cured the girl, and passed the Coyote’s penis to the (old woman). She opened the fire, to cover it up in the ashes. Meanwhile, not letting the woman see him, Coyote blew gently. “Let a layer of ice come up from under the ground!” he said. The old woman, when she had finished opening a place in the fire, put (the thing that he had sucked out) in. As she was putting it in, as she was putting it down toward the fire, (Coyote) seized it, and, snatching it away, ran off with it, ran away.

“I was right thinking that you were not a different person, after all; I did not recognize you,” said (the woman). Then that doctor, after he had staid quiet for a while, went off; and they say that he is still striped with paint, as he was striped for doctoring.

So Coyote went away. He kept going until he saw a place where many women were living. Then, having returned on his tracks a short distance, he said, “Let any kind of a worn-out pack-basket come, a platter-basket also, and a worn-out cradle frame also!” Then he saw there all that he had wished for. Then he picked a large root, and pounded it, mashed it fine, prepared it carefully, and, when it was very finely ground, he made it into a representation of a woman’s genitals. Then attaching it to himself, he fixed it carefully, and finished making it. He made a woman’s apron, worn out, fall of tears, so that when it was put on, it should not wholly cover him up.

And thus he went on. Picking up his penis, he washed and fixed it up as a baby, and placed it in the cradle-frame. Then, making a cane from a piece of wood, he went on, walking bent far over, like a very old woman.

Meanwhile the women remained there, and just about dark he arrived. Then they said, “Well, this is indeed an old woman to be going about thus!” and they played with the child. It does not look just like a child,” (said they.) “I am very weak,” (said Coyote.) “In picking it up, it slipped out of my hands, and fell, striking on its head. That is why it looks all swollen. Its father is dead. It makes me feel very sad to speak of its father,” said she. Then the child said, “Lbl-lbl-lbl!”–”It says that always, and makes me feel sad,” said (Coyote).

He spoke just like a woman. “Because it cries a great deal, it makes me feel sad, for I was weak and let it fall,” said he. Then they saw his genitals through the holes, although they were covered. All the women saw them. Two of the youngest women said, “It does not look just like a child;” but the others said, “No, it is indeed a child. This swelling is due to its fall.”–”That is the head of a penis” said (the two women,) “that swelled when it fell.”

But the other women all believed, and only the two were careful. “Look at her! She is an old woman; can’t you see her genitals are of that kind?” the others said. Then these two said, “Very well!” So they gave her some supper; and when it grew dark, they were afraid (?). So they said, “You had better sleep right here. You might be cold.” So she went to sleep, lying in the middle between two of them.

Meanwhile all the rest slept close by, in one place. But the two who had doubted went off to sleep elsewhere; they were careful. Then in the night (Coyote) untied his sleeping-powder, and, scattering it about, made all sleep soundly. Then, having thrown away his disguise, he cohabited with the women. He kept working until it was nearly dawn, and then went off. Then those women all bore children in the morning; and the children were crying, and made a great noise. Meanwhile he went off.

He kept going, travelling along beside a river, until he saw some women. They were there bathing. He watched these water-bug women. He watched them as they crawled out of the water to the bank, and kept jumping in. “Whee! Her anus!” said he. “That’s the one. Whee! There’s another one!” He kept talking, and then jumped to seize the very biggest one. Just as she was jumping, just starting to jump, jumping right behind her, he seized her. By and by, after working for some time, he crawled out, and went away.

He kept going; and when he was some ways from the middle of the world, his penis pained him. He walked along scratching. Then he cut off the end of it, and, having thrown it away, went on. A little ways farther on, it pained very badly. Again, having cut it off and thrown it away, he went on. And having gone a little farther, it pained him again: so he cut another piece off. And still again he cut it off, even at the very base. Then as he went along, just as he started to go, he died.

He lay there dead. As he lay there, the Crow brothers flew up, and pecked out an eye. They kept pecking it out, then began on the other eye. When they had pulled just a little, (Coyote) came to consciousness again. He stood up. “I have been having a council with the Alturas people, and was sleepy. Do not say anything about it, or you will die.” (?) Then, picking up a stick, he threw it at them. Then, having risen, he went off.

As he went along, Humming-Bird Man, after hovering about close to the top of a tree, came darting down, and, when almost to the ground, swooped upwards again, singing “Piuno!” all the time. (Coyote) stood there and watched him. “Yes, you have learned how to do that very well, my cousin. I think that if I learned that, the women everywhere would love me. Why don’t you teach me how you learned to do it so well?” said he. Then (the Humming-Bird) said, “All right! If you wish to learn, I will show you. I was not afraid, and so I learned. When I began to learn, I climbed up a tree, kept climbing until I reached the top, and having reached the top of the tree, standing on a large limb, I used to jump off head-first,” said he.

“All right!” said Coyote, “I will do that. Thus I shall be loved in very many countries; for, knowing many pretty things to do, women will talk about me,” said he. Then he climbed up, kept climbing, and when he had climbed to the top, he stood up. Then he jumped down. Darting down toward the earth crying “Pi!” just as he neared the ground he raised his head. just then he struck on his head. So he died.

As he lay there, (the Humming-Bird) went away. By and by the Crow brothers flew up, and pecked out his eye. They kept pecking; and as they were about to pull it out, when they pulled gently, he awoke. He stood up. “I have been talking with chiefs, and fell asleep. Do not say anything about it, or you will die.” (?)

Then, having departed, he went off, and kept going until he reached the place where a man lived with his wives. Then he stopped there. By and by Coyote said, “Where can one marry such fine-looking women?” said he. “Where do such fine-looking women live?”–”It was a very old woman that I married. After staying with me for a little while, she turned into a fine-looking one,” said (the other). “Is that so!” said (Coyote). “Do you know where such sort of old women live? Tell me,” said Coyote.

Then the other said, “The camps are over there, there are many camps. By going, thither you will reach them,” said he. “There is a house opposite the last one; when you get there, there will be an ugly old woman living there. Marry her; and then, if she is too weak to walk, carry her, and bring her back. I did that way with my wife here. After getting back, and staying a few days, one morning, she woke up very fine-looking. That is the way it will be. Thus you will marry a good woman,” said he.

“Very well!” said Coyote, and the next morning he went off. He kept going until he arrived there. Reaching the last house, he crossed over and got to the house opposite. He went in, and there was an ugly old woman sitting there. Having gone in, he sat down, and remained there. Meanwhile night came on, and, crawling across, he slept with that old woman.

In the morning, when they had risen, they came back; and after they had come a little ways, she became tired. So carrying her, he returned, and kept coming back until he reached the place he had set out from. It came night; and after sleeping, he staid there in the morning. Meanwhile the other man went hunting, and at evening he came back bringing a bear.

Then Coyote said, “I wonder how you killed him. You had better tell me, I also went hunting. Where did you kill him?” Then the other said, “All right! I went around behind this mountain, a large trail runs there, and I sat down close by it.”–”Good!” said Coyote, “I will do that way.” The other man said, “I carried a big, heavy stick. Hitting the bear with that, I killed him. From where I stood, close to the trail, I struck him.”–”All right!” said Coyote, “I will do the same.”

Then the next morning he went hunting. He kept travelling, and finally reached the place that had been pointed out to him. A large bear-trail led along there,–a trail up which they went to feed. When he reached it, he stood there, kept standing close beside the trail. Then the bears came, kept coming, walking fast. Meanwhile Coyote said, “I am not looking for you, I am looking for another, a big one.” They kept going along, until, in the middle of the lot, there came a large one. As he was walking by, (Coyote) struck him. When he struck, the stick bounced back, for he did not strike him just on the head. Then from all sides they seized Coyote, and threw him down and killed him.

Coyote did not return in the morning. Then the other man crossed over (to Coyote’s house), and killed the old woman; and she was that man’s grandmother, they say. And having killed her, and carried her to the spring, he threw her in. And (Coyote) still had not returned when it grew dark. In the morning, the woman, having come to life in the spring, went back to the camp, and staid there.

Meanwhile Coyote was dead; and to the place where he lay the Crow brothers came, and pecked his eyes. They kept pecking, and were just about to pull out one eye, when Coyote sat up. “Really, I have been talking with chiefs. Do not say anything about it, or you will die.” Then, when he was thoroughly awake, he went on.

After he had gone a little ways, he heard two girls singing. It sounded very pretty. So, standing up, he listened. It seemed to come from close by, behind a point like this. “Well, I guess they see me,” thought he; for it sounded as if they sang in time to his step. “They must have seen me,” he said. Then he walked and capered about, dancing to the song of the girls, stepping just as they sang. It sounded as if they were watching; it seemed as if it came from close by.

He went across in the direction of the sound, climbed a ridge, and, when he looked across, it sounded as if it came from across on the other side, from the point of the ridge. So, starting off, he ran across, and, getting to the top of the ridge, looked across, when it seemed to come from the opposite side. “Well, I guess you love me, are fond of me, for you are singing in time to my steps; but I will get over there to where you are. Then you will see me,” he said.

Meanwhile his wife remained here, at their house. So he went off, never thinking of his wife. So starting off, he ran on, kept running until he was tired; and when it was night, he stopped and camped. Here the two women’s singing sounded as if it came from far away. And in the morning he could not hear it. And as he went about everywhere, he met Cottontail-Rabbit, and came to the place where he made his camp. Cottontail told him, “There are many women who dance, but I never go to see them.”–”Well,” said (Coyote) “are we going together to the dance?”–”Yes! We will dance when it grows dark,” said Cottontail. Then it was night, and they heard singing and dancing all about. So they went off, kept going until (Coyote) said, “Stop a minute! I’ll tell you something. You had better stay behind here.”–”All right!” said Cottontail. “You had better stay here. Women are very careful and suspicious of me,” said (Coyote). “If I have this (his penis) on, they are afraid of me. When the women think I am all right, I will whistle. When you hear that., bring it along,” So Cottontail staid there.

Meanwhile (Coyote) went off, and arrived there. Then he heard the women dancing and shouting. He got there. Very pretty women were dancing. He took a partner there, and two very pretty women fell in love with him. They followed him off. They followed him as he walked about; and when they got near the place where Cottontail was staying, they sat down.

Then Coyote whistled, but there was no reply. He whistled again. “What are you doing?” said the girls. “Oh, that is nothing! I am only playing,” he said. “I feel very happy to be going about with two women, I feel very good,” said he. Then they laughed, putting their legs over him, playing with him. “Why don’t you wait? Keep quiet, ye two!” said he.

Then, having run off up the hill, he came to that place (where Cottontail was). He whistled. He did not hear anything. He got very angry. Going about hunting for him, he did not see him. Then, returning, he reached the place where the girls were.

“What are you doing, going about calling (for some one)?” they said. “No, I was not doing anything,” said he. Then they lay down beside each other, he being in the middle, between the two; and they played with him, and straddled over him. Again he went off to hunt (for Cottontail), went about hunting in the same place he had gone before. Again he couldn’t see him, and was very angry.

Now, while (Coyote) walked down, having made (Cottontail) stay (where he was), two Star-Women came along, and he (Cottontail) followed them. After a while Cottontail had connection with them, with the oldest woman, making her groan, almost making her cry. Then the younger said, “How can such a man almost make you cry? Such a little man, I guess, cannot make me do that. Such a tiny little fellow can’t make me cry!” said the youngest woman. He cohabited with that very one, he almost made her cry. He made all (both) groan loudly.

Meanwhile Coyote-Man kept sleeping with the two women until it was light. Then in the morning he went on; and when he had reached that house, Cottontail was staying there. Having rushed in, he (Coyote) looked angry. “I have a good mind to kill you,” he said. “Why didn’t you stay where I told you?” he said. He was very angry. “Two women having come along, I followed them,” said Cottontail. “Then what did you do?” said (Coyote). “I cohabited some, with yours (i. e., your penis),” he said. “Oh!” said (Coyote). “I almost made the two girls cry,” said (Cottontail). Then “Oh!” said (Coyote), “it will make little women cry.” He felt as if he had cohabited much. Very quickly he got over his anger.

When (Cottontail) had handed it over, (Coyote) washed and cleaned it with water and put it away. “That is very good,” said he. “It is just right for big women.” Next day they did not dance, the dance was over. So, staying until it was night, he went off in the morning.

He kept travelling until he reached the place where the Ground-Squirrel women lived. They were sitting in a row on a log, and he passed along close by the log. He looked around as he went along. Now, the last one that sat there was very large, and fat. So he seized her; but as he seized her, she jumped aside, and he missed her. Meanwhile they rushed in the tiny door (of their house). Then (Coyote), reaching down through, seized one. Meanwhile the women all seized him. One went off to call Badger. And when they had told him, he came, and arriving there, seizing (Coyote) by the arm, he pulled off one arm.

Then (Badger) went off. He gave the arm to the women. Now, after a while Coyote went off. After he had gone about looking for a limb of a tree, he saw one which was, just right, and, having rubbed it with pitch, he stuck it on. Then when it grew evening, again, just as it became dark, he arrived (at the Ground-Squirrel’s house). But they did not recognize him; and when they had given him some supper, (the women) sang, while he ate his supper.

Now. he stopped eating. “How did you learn what you are singing?” said Coyote. “In what country, how, who has been wicked?” he said. “They say they are singing (about) some other people’s hand. In what country have the people been bad?” Coyote said. Then Badger-Man spoke. “It is not like that,” he said. “They say they are singing about Coyote’s hand,” he said. (Coyote) said, “No, that is not it! They say they are singing about a stranger’s hand!”–”Very well!” said Badger, “I am going to dance.”–”Let us dance!” said (Coyote). “Go ahead!” said (Coyote), so they both went.

Travelling along, they arrived there. And they (the women) were dancing, they danced throwing the arm across from one to the other. And when Coyote and Badger arrived there, the women did not recognize him. They did not know Coyote-Man, since he had two arms. They all danced together. And while they were dancing, after a while he (Coyote) caught the arm. He started to run off with it. He ran away with it, and, continuing to run away with it, he camped for the night at a distance. Meanwhile those women stopped dancing when he got back what they had.

That morning he went on, kept going until he came to a house. He married the one (woman who lived there); then he staid there. He lived there, hunting mice. He had a daughter, and lived there married; lived there, hunting only mice. Now his daughter had grown large. He kept living there, doing the same thing, and now had a son. He never went hunting for deer, they say; lived there, hunting only mice. Meanwhile his children now had grown large, his daughter had grown of age. She grew to be a very fine-looking girl, Coyote’s daughter did. Then Coyote thought. “I wonder how I may marry this girl!” he said. “But what (about) this! I am sick, so I’ll lie down all the time, saying I am going to die. When I have done that, they will believe me,” he said.

Then he went off hunting; and by and by, hunting along, he came back at night. Then, after he had lain down, by and by he spoke. “I am very sick, I almost was unable to come back,” said he. Then sleeping, he could hardly sleep (before) morning. He lay there sick. “Very sick I am,” said he. Meanwhile his wife went out to pick food with the daughter. “You and your two children will be able to keep alive picking all sorts of food,” said he. “I am sick, and shall recover. If I should not recover, ye must live here (?),” said he.

“Over there there lives a man who looks like me. When your daughter has married him, ye must live there. Ye must live without thinking about me, without crying much. When your daughter is married, if he (her husband) gives you anything, you must live there and eat with him … if I die,” said he. Then he lay there sick and groaning.

Meanwhile the women went off to pick food. “Some time the house may burn down; and then ye, having seen me, must go away,” said he, So he went off; and by and by, having brought in and piled together some deer-bones, he set fire to his house. And when he had set fire to it, the house burned. When it was burned down, they, returning, saw that there were bones, all burnt up, lying where he had lain. Then they, after crying, went off in the morning to the place where he had instructed them to go. When they went off, they came to a house, and they arrived there. Now, he (Coyote) was living there. He had rubbed his hair all over with pitch, so that they could not see it (?). And when they got there, that man (Coyote) married the girl. So he lived with his mother-in-law and brother-in-law. And the two, Coyote and his brother-in-law, went hunting mice.

Now, that which he had rubbed on, came off in his armpit when he was digging. And his brother-in-law saw it. They came back from the hunt just before dark. And when they had arrived, they slept; and in the morning Coyote went hunting, (but) the brother-in-law remained at home. And when Coyote had gone away, he spoke. “Look here, my mother! He looks very much like my father. I have recognized him. He moves just like him. When he was digging, he looked around just like him; and that which he had rubbed on, came off under the armpit. I saw that,” said he. “Surely he is my father!”

Then the two women, having fixed things up, went off, went away angry. And after a while (Coyote) got back, (and there was) no one there. So, after he had looked and peered everywhere about, by and by he went off. “I was wicked,” then said Coyote. “Mortal men, in telling of the olden time, (will say) that Coyote married his daughter long ago.” So, along the edge of the valley he went on.

So he arrived in the north (?). And there he married the Frog-Old-Woman. And as they were living there, a dance was announced. They sent (messengers) to tell him. “They say there is a dance,” said they. “They say there is to be a singing-contest. So they sent to all countries for men who were good singers,” they said. “They say it is to be a great dance.” Then (Coyote) said “All right! I am going to sing.” Six days had passed, when his wife fell ill, two days before (the time set). She lay there groaning. Then he said, “What are you going to do, shall you watch the dance, or are you too weak?”–”Yes,” said she, “you go alone. I will lie here, and not go about; I am weak.” So he threw in some wood, and, after piling it up, went away. Going along, when he got there, the singers were singing. Crane was singing, Bluejay was singing, Wekwek was singing, Antelope was singing, Papam (a root) was singing. And as he got there, Tadpole was singing, Shitepoke was singing, all people were singing.

And Coyote, when he got there, sang,–a winning song, they say. Many women were dancing, Wolf-Man sang, very pretty-looking women danced. There was one woman there who was, of all, the most beautiful. Coyote danced with her. And when they had danced around a few times, he lifted her up and carried her off. And having carried her off down to a dark place, and laid her down, he lay upon her. “Do you think I am the only pretty one among all the women?” (?) said she. (Now) that was his wife; and being angry, he whipped her; and, having beaten her to death, he went up (back again).

And coming up, as he got there, a most beautiful woman, who looked different, was dancing. Then he went off to look at his wife. “I’ll go and see,” (he said). And running away, when he had run thither, he approached slowly, and then peeped in softly. She still lay there, groaning faintly; so, having walked back slowly, he went. And so returning, after he had stood up, he danced with that woman.

And dancing around, after they had danced around a few times, he picked her up, and carried her off on his shoulder, carried her on his back to a dark place. Then he lay between her legs. Meanwhile she said, “. . . .” 1 It was the old woman, his wife. Then kicking her, and striking her, having knocked her over, he killed her, and, coming up, he got back (to the dance). She, having made, (herself) pretty, danced again,–the same one, they say, the Frog-Old-Woman. She knew Coyote very well, they say, not wishing to see (him) bothering many pretty women. So she conquered Coyote.

The people (?) kept on doing this (singing) all the time until nearly dawn, (when) they said that Tadpole-Man was a bad singer (?). Then Tadpole-Man, getting angry, stole all the songs. Then they, not being able to sing, being unable to remember the songs, ceased.

And there Coyote did himself evil (?). And mortal men, telling of the olden time, (shall say) “Those people, that kind of people, were conquering in song in the olden time,” that way they said (?). And so, “There shall be singing at dances,” they said,–”these olden-time songs,” they say. “And (if) one man knows it (a song), they (will) ask him to sing, (if) they wish to hear it”(?), they said. “And then, learning it, mortal men, women and men also, shall sing it,” they said. “These songs mortal men shall sing in all countries,” they said.

And there Coyote, overcoming himself, went away. Having returned, he said, “After I had staid at my chief’s, smoking tobacco, I did not see the dance, and it came morning.” Meanwhile the Bluejay-Man, returning from the dance, said he wished to put on feather ornaments. Then his grandmother put on him her pubic hair as feathers. And so he went, and at evening he sang. And when he sang, the women shouted at him, “The man who wears his grandmother’s pubic hair for feathers, Bluejay-Man!” they said. And then, being ashamed, he departed, after remaining a while. And in the morning they all went home, all were gone. And then the world was quiet.

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Autumn Poetry… Rainer Marie Rilke

Autumn

The leaves are falling, falling as if from far up,

as if orchards were dying high in space.

Each leaf falls as if it were motioning “no.”

And tonight the heavy earth is falling

away from all other stars in the loneliness.

We’re all falling. This hand here is falling.

And look at the other one. It’s in them all.

And yet there is Someone, whose hands

infinitely calm, holding up all this falling.

–

Autumn Day

Lord: it is time. The summer was immense.

Lay your shadow on the sundials

and let loose the wind in the fields.

Bid the last fruits to be full;

give them another two more southerly days,

press them to ripeness, and chase

the last sweetness into the heavy wine.

Whoever has no house now will not build one

anymore.

Whoever is alone now will remain so for a long

time,

will stay up, read, write long letters,

and wander the avenues, up and down,

restlessly, while the leaves are blowing.

—

Buddha In Glory

Center of all centers, core of cores,

almond self-enclosed, and growing sweet–

all this universe, to the furthest stars

all beyond them, is your flesh, your fruit.

Now you feel how nothing clings to you;

your vast shell reaches into endless space,

and there the rich, thick fluids rise and flow.

Illuminated in your infinite peace,

a billion stars go spinning through the night,

blazing high above your head.

But in you is the presence that

will be, when all the stars are dead.

Rainer Marie Rilke

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Show Of Hands – Country Life

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Coda…

All Pervading Consciousness

And as His Essence all the world pervades

Naught in Creation is, save this alone.

Upon the waters has He fixed His Throne,

This earth suspended in the starry space,

Yet what are seas and what is air? For all

Is God, and but a talisman are heaven and earth

To veil Divinity. For heaven and earth,

Did He not permeate them, were but names;

Know then, that both this visible world and that

Which unseen is, alike are God Himself,

Naught is, save God: and all that is, is God.

And yet, alas! by how few is He seen,

Blind are men’s eyes, though all resplendent shines

The world by Deity’s own light illumined,

0 Thou whom man perceiveth not, although

To him Thou deignest to make known Thyself;

Thou all Creation art, all we behold, but Thou,

The soul within the body lies concealed,

And Thou dost hide Thyself within the soul,

0 soul in soul! Myst’ry in myst’ry hid!

Before all wert Thou, and are more than all!

– Farid al-Din Attar –

How shall the nameless be defined

A thousand times my Guru I asked:

How shall the Nameless be defined?

I asked and asked but all in vain.

The Nameless Unknown, it seems to me,

Is the source of the something that we see.

—

Think On

Think within thee, till the light of day

Be as the darkness of very night—

Till the self-illuminated Way

Show thee the Darkness to be but Light.

Then shall the bounds of the solid Earth

Mingle with the liquid of the Sky:

Then shalt thou gain freedom from Re-birth,

Merging into Shiv the Self on high.

When the nectar of the waning Moon

Riseth to feed the awaiting Sun,

What is it aught but an empty boon?

Booty that the maw of Rah hath won.

Yet shall Self-illuminated Thought

Show another picture, late or soon:—

Ignorance blind—as a demon caught;

Rah himself as booty of the Moon.

There be that to know and to be known.

There be knowledge, too, to know them by.

By the Light in thee shall both be shown,

Thinking and thinking, if thou but try.

Rah it was came booty for the Moon;

Now shall the Moon be booty of thine.

Think on, and both shall a void soon:

Only shall remain the Thought Divine.

– Lalla Ded

—

The last week we have been on a bit of a walk-about, so I have not had a real chance to work on Turfing… Here we have it for this Saturday.

Sitting in bank of clouds, on the north rim at Ashford-Oaks.

Hope You Enjoy!

Gwyllm

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On The Menu:

D.T. Suzuki Quotes

Rena Jones – Vital

Three Tales From Lord Dunsany

The Poetry of Anna Akhmatova

Rena Jones: The Passing Storm

Coda… Lalla Ded

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D. T. Suzuki Quotes:

“When traveling is made too easy and comfortable, its spiritual meaning is lost. This may be called sentimentalism, but a certain sense of loneliness engendered by traveling leads one to reflect upon the meaning of life, for life is after all a traveling from one unknown to another unknown.”

“The right art is purposeless, aimless! The more obstinately you try to learn how to shoot the arrow for the sake of hitting the goal, the less you will succeed in the one and the further the other will recede.”

“The truth of Zen, just a little bit of it, is what turns one’s hum drum life, a life of monotonous, uninspiring commonplaceness, into one of art, full of genuine inner creativity.”

“Zen opens a man’s eyes to the greatest mystery as it is daily and hourly performed; it enlarges the heart to embrace eternity of time and infinity of space in its every palpitation; it makes us live in the world as if walking in the garden of Eden.”

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Rena Jones – Vital

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Three Tales From Lord Dunsany:

The Worm &amp; The Angel

As he crawled from the tombs of the fallen a worm met with an angel.

And together they looked upon the kings and kingdoms, and youths and maidens and the cities of men. They saw the old men heavy in their chairs and heard the children singing in the fields. They saw far wars and warriors and walled towns, wisdom and wickedness, and the pomp of kings, and the people of all the lands that the sunlight knew.

And the worm spake to the angel saying: “Behold my food.”

“Be dakeon para Thina poluphloisboio Thalassaes,” murmured the angel, for they walked by the sea, “and can you destroy that too?”

And the worm paled in his anger to a greyness ill to behold, for for three thousand years he had tried to destroy that line and still its melody was ringing in his head.

______

A Moral Little Tale

There was once an earnest Puritan who held it wrong to dance. And for his principles he labored hard, his was a zealous life. And there loved him all of those who hated the dance; and those that loved the dance respected him too; they said “He is a pure, good man and acts according to his lights.”

He did much to discourage dancing and helped to close several Sunday entertainments. Some kinds of poetry, he said, he liked, but not the fanciful kind as that might corrupt the thoughts of the very young. He always dressed in black.

He was quite interested in morality and was quite sincere and there grew to be much respect on Earth for his honest face and his flowing pure-white beard.

One night the Devil appeared unto him in a dream and said “Well done.”

“Avaunt,” said that earnest man.

“No, no, friend,” said the Devil.

“Dare not to call me ‘friend,’” he answered bravely.

“Come, come, friend,” said the Devil. “Have you not put apart the couples that would dance? Have you not checked their laughter and their accursed mirth? Have you not worn my livery of black? O friend, friend, you do not know what a detestable thing it is to sit in hell and hear people being happy, and singing in theatres and singing in the fields, and whispering after dances under the moon,” and he fell to cursing fearfully.

“It is you,” said the Puritan, “that put into their hearts the evil desire to dance; and black is God’s own livery, not yours.”

And the Devil laughed contemptuously and spoke.

“He only made the silly colors,” he said, “and useless dawns on hill-slopes facing South, and butterflies flapping along them as soon as the sun rose high, and foolish maidens coming out to dance, and the warm mad West wind, and worst of all that pernicious influence Love.”

And when the Devil said that God made Love that earnest man sat up in bed and shouted “Blasphemy! Blasphemy!”

“It’s true,” said the Devil. “It isn’t I that send the village fools muttering and whispering two by two in the woods when the harvest moon is high, it’s as much as I can bear even to see them dancing.”

“Then,” said the man, “I have mistaken right for wrong; but as soon as I wake I will fight you yet.”

“O, no you don’t,” said the Devil. “You don’t wake up out of this sleep.”

And somewhere far away Hell’s black steel doors were opened, and arm in arm those two were drawn within, and the doors shut behind them and still they went arm in arm, trudging further and further into the deeps of Hell, and it was that Puritan’s punishment to know that those that he cared for on Earth would do evil as he had done.

____

The Giant Poppy

I dreamt that I went back to the hills I knew, whence on a clear day you can see the walls of Ilion and the plains of Roncesvalles. There used to be woods along the tops of those hills with clearings in them where the moonlight fell, and there when no one watched the fairies danced.

But there were no woods when I went back, no fairies nor distant glimpse of Ilion or plains of Roncesvalles, only one giant poppy waved in the wind, and as it waved it hummed “Remember not.” And by its oak-like stem a poet sat, dressed like a shepherd and playing an ancient tune softly upon a pipe. I asked him if the fairies had passed that way or anything olden.

He said: “The poppy has grown apace and is killing gods and fairies. Its fumes are suffocating the world, and its roots drain it of its beautiful strength.” And I asked him why he sat on the hills I knew, playing an olden tune.

And he answered: “Because the tune is bad for the poppy, which would otherwise grow more swiftly; and because if the brotherhood of which I am one were to cease to pipe on the hills men would stray over the world and be lost or come to terrible ends. We think we have saved Agamemnon.”

Then he fell to piping again that olden tune, while the wind among the poppy’s sleepy petals murmured “Remember not. Remember not.”

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The Poetry of Anna Akhmatova

Here Is My Gift

Here is my gift, not roses on your grave,

not sticks of burning incense.

You lived aloof, maintaining to the end

your magnificent disdain.

You drank wine, and told the wittiest jokes,

and suffocated inside stifling walls.

Alone you let the terrible stranger in,

and stayed with her alone.

Now you’re gone, and nobody says a word

about your troubled and exalted life.

Only my voice, like a flute, will mourn

at your dumb funeral feast.

Oh, who would have dared believe that half-crazed I,

I, sick with grief for the buried past,

I, smoldering on a slow fire,

having lost everything and forgotten all,

would be fated to commemorate a man

so full of strength and will and bright inventions,

who only yesterday it seems, chatted with me,

hiding the tremor of his mortal pain.

Muse

When, in the night, I wait for her, impatient,

Life seems to me, as hanging by a thread.

What just means liberty, or youth, or approbation,

When compared with the gentle piper’s tread?

And she came in, threw out the mantle’s edges,

Declined to me with a sincere heed.

I say to her, “Did you dictate the Pages

Of Hell to Dante?” She answers, “Yes, I did.”

__________

‘Here we’re all drunkards and whores,’

Here we’re all drunkards and whores,

joylessly stuck together!

On the walls, birds and flowers

pine for the clouds and air.

The smoke from your black pipe

makes strange vapours rise.

The skirt I wear is tight,

revealing my slim thighs

Windows tightly closed:

who’s there, frost or thunder?

Your eyes, are they those

of some cautious cat, I wonder?

O, my heart how you yearn!

Is it for death you wait?

Or that girl, dancing there,

for hell to be her sure fate?

_____

‘Always so many pleas from a lover!’

Always so many pleas from a lover!

None when they fall out of love.

I’m so glad it plunges, the river,

beneath colourless ice above.

And I’m to stand – God help me! –

on the surface, fissured, gleaming,

with my letters, for posterity

to judge, in your safe keeping,

so that clearly, and distinctly,

they can see you, brave and wise,

in your glorious biography,

no gaps revealed to the eye?

To drink of Earth’s too sweet,

and Love’s nets are too fine.

But may my name be seen

in the students’ books in time,

and, let them smile, secretly,

on reading my sad story…

if I can’t have love, if I can’t have peace,

grant me a bitter glory.

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Rena Jones: The Passing Storm

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Coda….

Why do you dote

Why do you dote upon someone, my Soul,

who is not your true love ?

Why have you taken the false for the true?

Why can’t you understand, why can’t you know?

It is ignorance that binds you to the false,

To the ever-recurring wheel of birth and death,

this coming and going.

For ever we came

For ever we come, for ever we go;

For ever, day and night, we are on the move.

Whence we come, thither we go,

For ever in the round of birth and death,

From nothingness to nothingness.

But sure, a mystery here abides,

A Something is there for us to know.

(It cannot all be meaningless).

– Lalla Ded

Chrysanthemums of Autumn beautiful color

Autumn chrysanthemums of beautiful color,

With dew in my clothes I pluck these flowers.

I float within wine to forget my sorrow,

To leave far behind thoughts of the world.

Alone, I pour myself a goblet of wine;

When the cup is empty, the pot pours for itself.

As the sun sets, all activities cease;

Homing birds, they hurry to the woods singing.

Haughtily, I whistle below the eastern balcony

I’ve found again the meaning of life.

——-

Unsettled, a bird lost from the flock

Unsettled, a bird lost from the flock

Keeps flying by itself in the dusk.

Back and forth, it has no resting place,

Night after night, more anguished its cries.

Its shrill sound yearns for the pure and distant

Coming from afar, how anxiously it flutters!

It chances to find a pine tree growing all apart;

Folding its wings, it has come home at last.

In the gusty wind there is no dense growth;

This canopy alone does not decay.

Having found a perch to roost on,

In a thousand years it will not depart. – Tao Qian –

These two poems are being displayed on the Poetry Post…

Late Sunday: Finally finished our big project, working now on art and Turfing, hopefully Mary and I (and Sophie) might be doing a bit of the Walk-About soon with the Land Cruiser. Leaves are now dropping like crazy here, really it is so very beautiful. I used to love living in the Southlands with the two seasons that the California coast provides, but living in the North, Fall especially has become something very dear.

As the season intensifies the leaves drop, the colours explode, the rain comes in on the wind, and the air glistens. Life quickens and I feel my mortality quite keenly in the Autumn. Is the season made a bit sweeter because of this knowledge? At one time I never even thought of it. Sometimes now, it crowds the mind. Life, seems so swift as you are carried along and then, what occurs? I watch the quickening of the generations; driving yesterday through the falling leaves, I saw children playing who 10 years ago did not exist. There were people walking around 10 years ago on the same streets, who now have ceased to be.

It is as if we were droplets within waves of the vast ocean of consciousness and life. We winkle into existence and winkle out; rising and falling in chaos and pattern. Does our shared consciousness partake in the vastness of the now? Surely it is is part of the great tides of the eternal? Do we rise and fall together in this vast sea of life, until we merge into the infinite horizons that embrace time and space?

Within the great wheel of the year, mysteries are revealed, and as it changes once more maybe even concealed… 80)

Bright Blessings,

Gwyllm

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On The Menu:

Tao Qian Poems

God Is An Astronaut – Infinite Horizons

The World As Emptiness (part 1 of 3) – Alan Watts

Power Spot: The Beauty of Bibi Hayati’s Poetic Verse

God is an Astronaut – Coda

Coda:Tao Qian Poems

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God Is An Astronaut – Infinite Horizons

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The World As Emptiness (part 1 of 3)

by Alan Watts (or, How the Dharma Bum Spent His Easter Vacation transcribing)

This particular weekend seminar is devoted to Buddhism, and it should be said first that there is a sense in which Buddhism is Hinduism, stripped for export. Last week, when I discussed Hinduism, I discussed many things to do with the organization of Hindu society, because Hinduism is not merely what we call a religion, it’s a whole culture. It’s a legal system, it’s a social system, it’s a system of etiquette, and it includes everything. It includes housing, it includes food, it includes art. Because the Hindus and many other ancient peoples do not make, as we do, a division between religion and everything else. Religion is not a department of life; it is something that enters into the whole of it. But you see, when a religion and a culture are inseperable, it’s very difficult to export a culture, because it comes into conflict with the established traditions, manners, and customs of other people.

So the question arises, what are the essentials of Hinduism that could be exported? And when you answer that, approximately you’ll get Buddhism. As I explained, the essential of Hinduism, the real, deep root, isn’t any kind of doctrine, it isn’t really any special kind of discipline, although of course disciplines are involved. The center of Hinduism is an experience called maksha[?], liberation, in which, through the dissipation of the illusion that each man and each woman is a separate thing in a world consisting of nothing but a collection of separate things, you discover that you are, in a way, on one level an illusion, but on another level, you are what they call ‘the self,’ the one self, which is all that there is. The universe is the game of the self, which plays hide and seek forever and ever. When it plays ‘hide,’ it plays it so well, hides so cleverly, that it pretends to be all of us, and all things whatsoever, and we don’t know it because it’s playing ‘hide.’ But when it plays ‘seek,’ it enters onto a path of yoga, and through following this path it wakes up, and the scales fall from one’s eyes.

Now, in just the same way, the center of Buddhism, the only really important thing about Buddhism is the experience which they call ‘awakening.’ Buddha is a title, and not a proper name. It comes from a Sanskrit root, ‘bheudh,’ and that sometimes means ‘to know,’ but better, ‘waking.’ And so you get from this root ‘bodhih.’ That is the state of being awakened. And so ‘buddha,’ ‘the awakened one,’ ‘the awakened person.’ And so there can of course in Buddhist ideas, be very many buddhas. The person called THE buddha is only one of myriads. Because they, like the Hindus, are quite sure that our world is only one among billions, and that buddhas come and go in all the worlds. But sometimes, you see, there comes into the world what you might call a ‘big buddha.’ A very important one. And such a one is said to have been Guatama, the son of a prince living in northern India, in a part of the world we now call Nepal, living shortly after 600 BC. All dates in Indian history are vague, and so I never try to get you to remember any precise date, like 564, which some people think it was, but I give you a vague date–just after 600 BC is probably right.

Most of you, I’m sure, know the story of his life. Is there anyone who doesn’t, I mean roughly? Ok. So I won’t bother too much with that. But the point is, that when, in India, a man was called a buddha, or THE buddha, this is a title of a very exalted nature. It is first of all necessary for a buddha to be human. He can’t be any other kind of being, whether in the Hindu scale of beings he’s above the human state or below it. He is superior to all gods, because according to Indian ideas, gods or angels–angels are probably a better name for them than gods–all those exalted beings are still in the wheel of becoming, still in the chains of karma–that is action that requires more action to complete it, and goes on requiring the need for more action. They’re still, according to popular ideas, going ’round the wheel from life after life after life after life, because they still have the thirst for existence, or to put it in a Hindu way: in them, the self is still playing the game of not being itself.

But the buddha’s doctrine, based on his own experience of awakening, which occured after seven years of attempts to study with the various yogis of the time, all of whom used the method of extreme asceticism, fasting, doing all sort of exercises, lying on beds of nails, sleeping on broken rocks, any kind of thing to break down egocentricity, to become unselfish, to become detached, to exterminate desire for life. But buddha found that all that was futile; that was not The Way. And one day he broke is ascetic discipline and accepted a bowl of some kind of milk soup from a girl who was looking after cattle. And suddenly in this tremendous relaxation, he went and sat down under a tree, and the burden lifted. He saw, completely, that what he had been doing was on the wrong track. You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. And no amount of effort will make a person who believes himself to be an ego be really unselfish. So long as you think, and feel, that you are a someone contained in your bag of skin, and that’s all, there is no way whatsoever of your behaving unselfishly. Oh yes, you can imitate unselfishness. You can go through all sorts of highly refined forms of selfishness, but you’re still tied to the wheel of becoming by the golden chains of your good deeds, as the obviously bad people are tied to it by the iron chains of their misbehaviors.

So, you know how people are when they get spiritually proud. They belong to some kind of a church group, or an occult group, and say ‘Of course we’re the ones who have the right teaching. We’re the in-group, we’re the elect, and everyone else outside.’ It is really off the track. But then comes along someone who one-ups THEM, by saying ‘Well, in our circles, we’re very tolerant. We accept all religions and all ways as leading to The One.’ But what they’re doing is they’re playing the game called ‘We’re More Tolerant Than You Are.’ And in this way the egocentric being is always in his own trap.

So buddha saw that all his yoga exercises and ascetic disciplines had just been ways of trying to get himself out of the trap in order to save his own skin, in order to find peace for himself. And he realized that that is an impossible thing to do, because the motivation ruins the project. He found out, then, see, that there was no trap to get out of except himself. Trap and trapped are one, and when you understand that, there isn’t any trap left. [Dharma Bum’s note: this made me think of a bit from an Anglican hymn: ‘We, by enemies distrest,/They in paradise at rest;/We the captives, they the freed,/We and they are one indeed.’] I’m going to explain that of course more carefully.

So, as a result of this experience, he formulated what is called the dharma, that is the Sanskrit word for ‘method.’ You will get a certain confusion when you read books on Buddhism, because they switch between Sanskrit and Pali words. The earliest Buddhist scriptures that we know of are written the Pali language, and Pali is a softened form of Sanskrit. So that, for example, the doctrine of the buddha is called in Sanskrit the ‘dharma,’ we must in pronouncing Sanskrit be aware that an ‘A’ is almost pronounced as we pronounce ‘U’ in the word ‘but.’ So they don’t say ‘darmuh,’ they say ‘durmuh.’ And so also this double ‘D’ you say ‘budduh’ and so on. But in Pali, and in many books of Buddhism, you’ll find the Buddhist doctrine described as the ‘dhama.’ And so the same way ‘karma’ in Sanskrit, in Pali becomes ‘kama.’ ‘Buddha’ remains the same. The dharma, then, is the method.

Now, the method of Buddhism, and this is absolutely important to remember, is dialectic. That is to say, it doesn’t teach a doctrine. You cannot anywhere what Buddhism teaches, as you can find out what Christianity or Judaism or Islam teaches. Because all Buddhism is a discourse, and what most people suppose to be its teachings are only the opening stages of the dialog.

So the concern of the buddha as a young man–the problem he wanted to solve–was the problem of human suffering. And so he formulated his teaching in a very easy way to remember. All those Buddhist scriptures are full of what you might call mnemonic tricks, sort of numbering things in such a way that they’re easy to remember. And so he summed up his teaching in what are called the Four Noble Truths. And the first one, because it was his main concern, was the truth about duhkha. Duhkha, ‘suffering, pain, frustration, chronic dis-ease.’ It is the opposite of sukha, which means ‘sweet, pleasure, etc.’

So, insofar as the problem posed in Buddhism is duhkha, ‘I don’t want to suffer, and I want to find someone or something that can cure me of suffering.’ That’s the problem. Now if there’s a person who solves the problem, a buddha, people come to him and say ‘Master, how do we get out of this problem?’ So what he does is to propose certain things to them. First of all, he points out that with duhkha go two other things. These are respectively called anitya and anatman. Anitya means–’nitya’ means ‘permanant,’ so ‘impermanance.’ Flux, change, is characteristic of everything whatsoever. There isn’t anything at all in the whole world, in the material world, in the psychic world, in the spiritual world, there is nothing you can catch hold of and hang on to for safely. Nuttin’. Not only is there nothing you can hang on to, but by the teaching of anatman, there is no you to hang on to it. In other words, all clinging to life is an illusory hand grasping at smoke. If you can get that into your head and see that that is so, nobody needs to tell you that you ought not to grasp. Because you see, you can’t.

See, Buddhism is not essentially moralistic. The moralist is the person who tells people that they ought to be unselfish, when they still feel like egos, and his efforts are always and invariably futile. Because what happens is he simply sweeps the dust under the carpet, and it all comes back again somehow. But in this case, it involves a complete realization that this is the case. So that’s what the teacher puts across to begin with.

The next thing that comes up, the second of the noble truths, is about the cause of suffering, and this in Sanskrit is called trishna. Trishna is related to our word ‘thirst.’ It’s very often translated ‘desire.’ That will do. Better, perhaps, is ‘craving, clinging, grasping,’ or even, to use our modern psychological word, ‘blocking.’ When, for example, somebody is blocked, and dithers and hesitates, and doesn’t know what to do, he is in the strictest Buddhist sense attached, he’s stuck. But a buddha can’t be stuck, he cannot be phased. He always flows, just as water always flows, even if you dam it, the water just keeps on getting higher and higher and higher until it flows over the dam. It’s unstoppable.

Now, buddha said, then, duhkha comes from trishna. You all suffer because you cling to the world, and you don’t recognize that the world is anitya and anatman. So then, try, if you can, not to grasp. Well, do you see that that immediately poses a problem? Because the student who has started off this dialog with the buddha then makes various efforts to give up desire. Upon which he very rapidly discovers that he is desiring not to desire, and he takes that back to the teacher, who says ‘Well, well, well.’ He said, ‘Of course. You are desiring not to desire, and that’s of course excessive. All I want you to do is to give up desiring as much as you can. Don’t want to go beyond the point of which you’re capable.’ And for this reason Buddhism is called the Middle Way. Not only is it the middle way between the extremes of ascetic discipline and pleasure seeking, but it’s also the middle way in a very subtle sense. Don’t desire to give up more desire than you can. And if you find that a problem, don’t desire to be successful in giving up more desire than you can. You see what’s happening? Every time he’s returned to the middle way, he’s moved out of an extreme situation.

Now then, we’ll go on; we’ll cut out what happens in the pursuit of that method until a little later. The next truth in the list is concerned with the nature of release from duhkha. And so number three is nirvana. Nirvana is the goal of Buddhism; it’s the state of liberation corresponding to what the Hindus call moksha. The word means ‘blow out,’ and it comes from the root ‘nir vritti.’ Now some people think that what it means is blowing out the flame of desire. I don’t believe this. I believe that it means ‘breathe out,’ rather than ‘blow out,’ because if you try to hold your breath, and in Indian thought, breath–prana–is the life principle. If you try to hold on to life, you lose it. You can’t hold your breath and stay alive; it becomes extremely uncomfortable to hold onto your breath.

And so in exactly the same way, it becomes extremely uncomfortable to spend all your time holding on to your life. What the devil is the point of surviving, going on living, when it’s a drag? But you see, that’s what people do. They spend enormous efforts on maintaining a certain standard of living, which is a great deal of trouble. You know, you get a nice house in the suburbs, and the first thing you do is you plant a lawn. You’ve gotta get out and mow the damn thing all the time, and you buy expensive this-that and soon you’re all involved in mortgages, and instead of being able to walk out into the garden and enjoy, you sit at your desk and look at your books, filling out this and that and the other and paying bills and answering letters. What a lot of rot! But you see, that is holding onto life. So, translated into colloquial American, nirvana is ‘whew!’ ‘Cause if you let your breath go, it’ll come back. So nirvana is not annihilation, it’s not disappearance into a sort of undifferentiated void. Nirvana is the state of being let go. It is a state of consciousness, and a state of–you might call it– being, here and now in this life.

We now come to the most complicated of all, number four: margha[?]. ‘Margh’ in Sanskrit means ‘past,’ and the buddha taught an eightfold path for the realization of nirvana. This always reminds me of a story about Dr Suzuki, who is a very, very great Buddhist scholar. Many years ago, he was giving a fundamental lecture on Buddhism at the University of Hawaii, and he’d been going through these four truths, and he said ‘Ah, fourth Noble Truth is Noble Eightfold Path. First step of Noble Eightfold Path called sho-ken. Sho-ken in Japanese mean `right view.’ For Buddhism, fundamentally, is right view. Right way of viewing this world. Second step of Noble Eightfold Path is–oh, I forget second step, you look it up in the book.’

Well, I’m going to do rather the same thing. What is important is this: the eightfold path has really got three divisions in it. The first are concerned with understanding, the second division is concerned with conduct, and the third division is concerned with meditation. And every step in the path is preceded with the Sanskrit word samyak. In which you remember we ran into samadhi last week, ‘sam’ is the key word. And so, the first step, samyak- drishti, which mean–’drishti’ means a view, a way of looking at things, a vision, an attitude, something like that. But this word samyak is in ordinary texts on Buddhism almost invariably translated ‘right.’ This is a very bad translation. The word IS used in certain contexts in Sanskrit to mean ‘right, correct,’ but it has other and wider meanings. ‘Sam’ means, like our word ‘sum,’ which is derived from it, ‘complete, total, all-embracing.’ It also has the meaning of ‘middle wade,’ representing as it were the fulcrum, the center, the point of balance in a totality. Middle wade way of looking at things. Middle wade way of understanding the dharma. Middle wade way of speech, of conduct, of livelihood, and so on.

Now this is particularly cogent when it comes to Buddhist ideas of behavior. Every Buddhist in all the world, practically, as a layman–he’s not a monk–undertakes what are called pantasila[?], the Five Good Conducts. ‘Sila’ is sometimes translated ‘precept.’ But it’s not a precept because it’s not a commandment. When Buddhists priests chant the precepts, you know: pranatipada[?]: ‘prana (life) tipada (taking away) I promise to abstain from.’ So the first is that one undertakes not to destroy life. Second, not to take what is not given. Third–this is usually translated ‘not to commit adultry’. It doesn’t say anything of the kind. In Sanskrit, it means ‘I undertake the precept to abstain from exploiting my passions.’ Buddhism has no doctrine about adultry; you may have as many wives as you like.

But the point is this: when you’re feeling blue and bored, it’s not a good idea to have a drink, because you may become dependant on alcohol whenever you feel unhappy. So in the same way, when you’re feeling blue and bored, it’s not a good idea to say ‘Let’s go out and get some chicks.’ That’s exploiting the passions. But it’s not exploiting the passions, you see, when drinking, say expresses the viviality and friendship of the group sitting around the dinner table, or when sex expresses the spontaneous delight of two people in each other.

Then, the fourth precept, musavada[?], ‘to abstain from false speech.’ It doesn’t simply mean lying. It means abusing people. It means using speech in a phony way, like saying ‘all niggers are thus and so.’ Or ‘the attitude of America to this situation is thus and thus.’ See, that’s phony kind of talking. Anybody who studies general semantics will be helped in avoiding musavada, false speech.

The final precept is a very complicated one, and nobody’s quite sure exactly what it means. It mentions three kinds of drugs and drinks: sura, mariya[?], maja[?]. We don’t know what they are. But at any rate, it’s generally classed as narcotics and liquors. Now, there are two ways of translating this precept. One says to abstain from narcotics and liquors; the other liberal translation favored by the great scholar Dr [?] is ‘I abstain from being intoxicated by these things.’ So if you drink and don’t get intoxicated, it’s ok. You don’t have to be a teatotaler to be a Buddhist. This is especially true in Japan and China; my goodness, how they throw it down! A scholarly Chinese once said to me, ‘You know, before you start meditating, just have a couple martinis, because it increases your progress by about six months.’

Now you see these are, as I say, they are not commandments, they are vows. Buddhism has in it no idea of there being a moral law laid down by somekind of cosmic lawgiver. The reason why these precepts are undertaken is not for a sentimental reason. It is not that you’re going to make you into a good person. It is that for anybody interested in the experiments necessary for liberation, these ways of life are expedient. First of all, if you go around killing, you’re going to make enemies, and you’re going to have to spend a lot of time defending yourself, which will distract you from your yoga. If you go around stealing, likewise, you’re going to aquire a heap of stuff, and again, you’re going to make enemies. If you exploit your passions, you’re going to get a big thrill, but it doesn’t last. When you begin to get older, you realize ‘Well that was fun while we had it, but I haven’t really learned very much from it, and now what?’ Same with speech. Nothing is more confusing to the mind than taking words too seriously. We’ve seen so many examples of that. And finally, to get intoxicated or narcotized–a narcotic is anything like alcohol or opium which makes you sleepy. The word ‘narcosis’ in Greek, ‘narc’ means ‘sleep.’ So, if you want to pass your life seeing things through a dim haze, this is not exactly awakening.

So, so much for the conduct side of Buddhism. We come then to the final parts of the eightfold path. There are two concluding steps, which are called samyak-smriti and samyak-samadhi. Smriti means ‘recollection, memory, present-mindedness.’ Seems rather funny that the same word can mean ‘recollection or memory’ and ‘present-mindedness.’ But smriti is exactly what that wonderful old rascal Gurdjieff meant by ‘self-awareness,’ or ‘self- remembering.’ Smriti is to have complete presence of mind.

There is a wonderful meditation called ‘The House that Jack Built Meditation,’ at least that’s what I call it, that the Southern Buddhists practice. He walks, and he says to himself, ‘There is the lifting of the foot.’ The next thing he says is ‘There is a perception of the lifting of the foot.’ And the next, he says ‘There is a tendency towards the perception of the feeling of the lifting of the foot.’ Then finally he says, ‘There is a consciousness of the tendency of the perception of the feeling of the lifting of the foot.’ And so, with everything that he does, he knows that he does it. He is self-aware. This is tricky. Of course, it’s not easy to do. But as you practice this–I’m going to let the cat out of the bag, which I suppose I shouldn’t do–but you will find that there are so many things to be aware of at any given moment in what you’re doing, that at best you only ever pick out one or two of them. That’s the first thing you’ll find out. Ordinary conscious awareness is seeing the world with blinkers on. As we say, you can think of only one thing at a time. That’s because ordinary consciousness is narrowed consciousness. It’s being narrow-minded in the true sense of the word, looking at things that way. Then you find out in the course of going around being aware all of the time–what are you doing when you remember? Or when you think about the future? ‘I am aware that I am remembering’? ‘I am aware that I am thinking about the future’?

But you see, what eventually happens is that you discover that there isn’t any way of being absent-minded. All thoughts are in the present and of the present. And when you discover that, you approach samadhi. Samadhi is the complete state, the fulfilled state of mind. And you will find many, many different ideas among the sects of Buddhists and Hindus as to what samadhi is. Some people call it a trance, some people call it a state of consciousness without anything in it, knowing with no object of knowledge. All these are varying opinions. I had a friend who was a Zen master, and he used to talk about samadhi, and he said a very fine example of samadhi is a fine horserider. When you watch a good cowboy, he is one being with the horse. So an excellent driver in a car makes the car his own body, and he absolutely is with it. So also a fine pair of dancers. They don’t have to shove each other to get one to do what the other wants him to do. They have a way of understanding each other, of moving together as if they were siamese twins. That’s samadhi, on the physical, ordinary, everyday level. The samadhi of which buddha speaks is the state which, as it is, the gateway to nirvana, the state in which the illusion of the ego as a separate thing disintegrates.

Now, when we get to that point in Buddhism, Buddhists do a funny thing, which is going to occupy our attention for a good deal of this seminar. They don’t fall down and worship. They don’t really have any name for what it is that is, really and basically. The idea of anatman, of non-self, is applied in Buddhism not only to the individual ego, but also to the notion that there is a self of the universe, a kind of impersonal or personal god, and so it is generally supposed that Buddhism is generally atheistic. It’s true, depending on what you mean by atheism. Common or garden atheism is a form of belief, namely that I believe there is no god–and Hans Enkel[?] is its prophet. (I’m speaking of a famous atheist). The atheist positively denies the existence of any god. All right. Now, there is such an atheist, if you put dash between the ‘a’ and ‘theist,’ or speak about something called ‘atheos’–’theos’ in Greek means ‘god’–but what is a non-god? A non-god is an inconceivable something or other.

I love the story about a debate in the Houses of Parliment in England, where, as you know, the Church of England is established and under control of the government, and the high eclesiastics had petitioned Parliment to let them have a new prayerbook. Somebody got up and said ‘It’s perfectly ridiculous that Parliment should decide on this, because as we well know, there are quite a number of atheists in these benches.’ And somebody got up and said ‘Oh, I don’t think there are really any atheists. We all believe in some sort of something somewhere.’

Now again, of course, it isn’t that Buddhism believes in some sort of something somewhere, and that is to say in vagueness. Here is the point: if you believe, if you have certain propositions that you want to assert about the ultimate reality, or what Portilli[?] calls ‘the ultimate ground of being,’ you are talking nonsense. Because you can’t say something specific about everything. You see, supposing you wanted to say ‘God has a shape.’ But if god is all that there is, then God doesn’t have any outside, so he can’t have a shape. You have to have an outside and space outside it to have a shape. So that’s why the Hebrews, too, are against people making images of God. But nonetheless, Jews and Christians persistently make images of God, not necessarily in pictures and statues, but they make images in their minds. And those are much more insidious images.

Buddhism is not saying that the Self, the great atman, or whatnot, it isn’t denying that the experience which corresponds to these words is realizable. What it is saying is that if you make conceptions and doctrines about these things, your liable to become attached to them. You’re liable to start believing instead of knowing. So they say in Zen Buddhism, ‘The doctrine of Buddhism is a finger pointing at the moon. Do not mistake the finger for the moon.’ Or so we might say in the West, the idea of God is a finger pointing at God, but what most people do is instead of following the finger, they suck it for comfort. And so buddha chopped off the finger, and undermined all metaphysical beliefs. There are many, many dialogues in the Pali scriptures where people try to corner the buddha into a metaphysical position. ‘Is the world eternal?’ The buddha says nothing. ‘Is the world not eternal?’ And he answers nuttin’. ‘Is the world both eternal and not eternal?’ And he don’t say nuttin’. ‘Is the world neither eternal nor not eternal?’ And STILL he don’t say nuttin’. He maintains what is called the noble silence. Sometimes called the thunder of silence, because this silence, this metaphysical silence, is not a void. It is very powerful. This silence is the open window through which you can see not concepts, not ideas, not beliefs, but the very goods. But if you say what it is that you see, you erect an image and an idol, and you misdirect people. It’s better to destroy people’s beliefs than to give them beliefs. I know it hurts, but it is The Way.

_____________________

Power Spot: The Beauty of Bibi Hayati’s Poetic Verse

Is it the night of power

Is it the night of power

Or only your hair?

Is it dawn

Or your face?

In the songbook of beauty

Is it a deathless first line

Or only a fragment

copied from your inky eyebrow?

Is it boxwood of the orchard

Or cypress of the rose garden?

The tuba tree of paradise, abundant with dates,

Or your standing beautifully straight?

Is it musk of a Chinese deer

Or scent of delicate rosewater?

The rose breathing in the wind

Or your perfume?

Is it scorching lightning

Or light from fire on Sana’i Mountain?

My hot sigh

Or your inner radiance?

Is it Mongolian musk

Or pure ambergris?

Is it your hyacinth curls

Or your braids?

Is it a glass of red wine at dawn

Or white magic?

Your drunken narcissus eye

Or your spell?

Is it the Garden of Eden

Or heaven on earth?

A mosque of the masters of the heart

Or a back alley?

Everyone faces a mosque of adobe and mud

When they pray.

The mosque of Hayati’s soul

Turns to your face.

—

How can I see the splendor of the moon

If his face shines over my heart,

Flaming like the sun?

The Turks in his eyes charge through my soul,

While untrue curling hair

Defeats faith.

Yet if he lifted the veil from his face,

The world would be undone,

The universe astounded.

He walks through the garden

With grace, erect,

His exquisite posture mocking even the straight cypresses.

He charges, riding his gnostic horse

Into the holy space of divinity,

The sacred sphere.

Tonight the Saki with its red-stained ruby lips

Pours wine for the luxury of every drunk,

And sates every reveler’s taste.

As Hayati has drunk his ecstasy,

Her soul now satisfied by the wine of his pure heart,

How can she drink any other nectar?

—

Before there was a hint of civilization

I carried a memory of your loose strand of hair,

Oblivious, I carried inside me your pointed tip of hair.

In its invisible realm,

Your face of sun yearned for epiphany,

Until each distinct thing was thrown into sight.

From the first instant time took a breath,

Your love lay in the soul,

A treasure in the secret chest in the heart.

Before the first seed shot up out of the rose bed of the possible,

The soul’s lark took wing high above your meadow,

Flying home to you.

I thank you one hundred times! In the altar

Of Hayati’s eyes, your face shines

Forever present and beautiful.

_____________________

God is an Astronaut – Coda

_____________________

Success And failure? No Known Address

Success and failure? No known address.

This or that goes on, depending on the other.

And who can say

if Milord Shao was happier

ruling a city, or sacked, his excellent melon patch?

Hot, cold, summer, winter: don’t they alternate?

May not a man’s way wander on just so?

Yes, those who “get there” know their opportunities…

have learned to untie the knots of knowledge.

But was it the notable or the notorious that our Sage spoke of?

The latter he called opportunists.

Those who get there, doubtless, know doubt nor care no more. Yet, doubt you not,

nor do dead generals,

who plotted carefully at what seemed opportune,

knowing naught, right or wrong.

If, of a sudden,

you’re offered fine wine,

let the sun sink.

Enjoying it.

—

Reading the Classic of Hills and Seas

In the summer: grass and trees have grown.

Over my roof the branches meet.

Birds settle in the leaves.

I enjoy this humble place.

Ploughing’s done, the ground is sown,

Time to sit and read a book.

The narrow deeply-rutted lane

Means my friends forget to call.

Content, I pour the new Spring wine,

Go out and gather food I’ve grown.

A light rain from the East,

Blows in on a pleasant breeze.

I read the story of King Mu,

See pictures of the Hills and Seas.

One glance finds all of heaven and earth.

What pleasures can compare with these? – Tao Qian –