Category: Uncategorized

A Sunday Treat….. A nice way to start the day. Take your time, explore a bit!

Enjoy,

Gwyllm

——

On The Menu:

The Links

The Story of the Three Genjias

Poetry: Eavan Boland

Musical Focus: Mercan Dede

______________

The Links:

23: How weird Is That?

Evangelicals eyed in Brazil

2012 and the Old Equator

________________

Mercan Dede

________________

The Story of the Three Genjias

Once upon a time in a certain place there lived three men who all had the same name — Genjia. One was the tribal chief, the second a carpenter, and the third the chief’s steward.

Genjia the carpenter was married to an exceptionally beautiful woman. Genjia the steward fancied her and dreamt day and night of having her for himself. But she was a very upright woman and would not let him get anywhere near her. Finally, he was driven to find some way of killing the carpenter in order to attain his end.

After a while, the father of Genjia the chief died. The steward saw in this a golden opportunity for eliminating the carpenter. Every day he secretly studied the calligraphy of the Buddhist scriptures and succeeded in reproducing the old-fashioned and esoteric style in which they were written. He then wrote a document in this style and handed it to the chief, saying, “Master, here is a document I came across the other day. I cannot understand a word of it and have brought it here specially for you to decipher.”

Genjia the chief was baffled by the writing and passed it on to his secretary in charge of documents. After reading it, the secretary said, “This document claims to be from the old chief. In it he says that he has ascended to heaven and is now serving as an official there, but he doesn’t have an official mansion. He asks you, Master, to send him a carpenter — the most skilled you have — to direct the construction of such a mansion.”

Genjia the chief thought constantly of his father and was most concerned to hear that he had nowhere to lay his head in heaven. He sent for Genjia the carpenter, showed him the document and ordered him to go to heaven at once.

Genjia the carpenter was greatly startled. He dared not refuse, however, and could only plead for time, “How could I disobey your order, Master! But I need some time to prepare. Please allow me seven days. After that time, please hold a Twig Burning Ceremony in the hemp field behind my house to send me off. Then I’ll be able to ascend to heaven to build the mansion for the old chief.”

Genjia the chief considered this request reasonable and willingly agreed.

When Genjia the carpenter left, he went round making a few investigations. He wanted to find out where the chief had got this idea. He eventually discovered that it had originated in a classical document found by Genjia the steward. He put two and two together and concluded that it must be a sinister plot against him hatched by the steward.

He went home and consulted with his wife. “The most absurd thing has happened. The chief wants me to go and build a mansion in heaven. He must have been tricked into it by Genjia the steward. I did not dare refuse, but asked him to hold a Twig Burning Ceremony behind our house before I go. It would be no use trying to disobey him now. There is only one way for me to get out of this alive. The two of us must dig a tunnel under cover of night leading from the field to our bedroom, and then you can hide me there later. In a year’s time I will find some way to get even.”

The wife was shocked by this tale. Hatred for the steward filled the very marrow of her bones. She was willing to do anything to save her husband. So every day when night fell, the two of them dug the tunnel in secret. On the seventh day it was completed. They sealed the entrance with a slab of stone and scattered soil on it, so that people wouldn’t notice it.

The eighth day came, the day for the carpenter to ascend to heaven. At the head of a retinue of elders and stewards and with a great din of bugles and drums, the chief came to send him off. They made a pile of faggots in the hemp field and asked Genjia the carpenter to sling his tool-kit over his shoulder and carry his bag in one hand. They made him stand in the middle, lit the faggots and watched the smoke rise, “carrying him up to heaven”.

Genjia the steward was afraid that as soon as the faggots were lit, the carpenter would spoil everything by crying out in terror. “Come on !” he shouted to the crowd. “Blow your bugles and beat your drums! Laugh and cheer! Genjia the carpenter is on his way to heaven to build a mansion for our old chief. Isn’t that a wonderful thing!”

The chief came over to have a look. Genjia the steward pointed gleefully to the rising smoke and said, “Master, you see, there goes his horse. Genjia the carpenter is on his way to heaven.”

The chief was delighted.

The moment the faggots were lit and the smoke began rising into the sky, Genjia the carpenter raised the slab and escaped through the tunnel back to his own bedroom.

He confined himself to his house for a whole year. His wife went to great lengths to find milk, butter and other nutritious food for him; and as he did no work, by the end of that year he was plumper and fairer-skinned than ever.

Meanwhile, Genjia the steward tried a thousand and one ways of seducing the carpenter’s wife, and she tried a thousand and one ways of avoiding him. He failed completely to attain his goal.

While Genjia the carpenter was hiding at home, he diligently practiced the calligraphy of the Buddhist scriptures. He prepared a document written in the authentic style and kept it on his person. On the first anniversary of his “ascent to heaven” he went and stood on the very spot where he was supposed to have been burned, the same tool-kit on his shoulder and the same bag in his hand. He called out, “How is everybody? I’ve just got back from heaven.”

His wife was the first to come out. She pretended to be extremely surprised and hurried over to report the news to the chief.

The chief was very happy when he heard that Genjia the carpenter was back. He gave him a hero’s welcome with bugles and drums, and invited him to stay in his mansion. He wanted to find out how his father was faring in heaven.

On meeting the chief, Genjia the carpenter said in a very serious tone of voice, “When I was constructing the official mansion in heaven, the old chief treated me with exceptional kindness, just as you always do, Master. That’s why I’m in such good shape! The mansion is finished, and what a magnificent building it is — ten times the size of an earthly mansion! Only one thing is lacking: a steward. The old chief misses his old steward dearly. He very much wants the steward to go up to heaven and manage things for him. After a period of time he can come back.” This said, he promptly produced the document and showed it to the chief, adding that it was the old chief who had asked him to bring it down.

Genjia the chief read the document and was totally convinced by the whole story. Presently he sent for Genjia the steward and asked him to go and work for the old chief in his newly-built mansion in heaven.

When Genjia the steward saw Genjia the carpenter standing there and looking so well after his “ascent to heaven,” and when he heard the vivid description of heaven given by the carpenter, he just didn’t know what to think. “Perhaps I really possess some sort of magic power”, he thought to himself. “It was my idea for him to go to heaven, and he actually seems to have done so! Perhaps it really is possible to fly to heaven, and the old chief really does have a new mansion there!”

He followed the carpenter’s example and asked for seven days to get ready, and a Twig Burning Ceremony to be held in the hemp field behind his house to send him off to heaven. He thought that since Genjia the carpenter could come back, he could too. On the eighth day, as on the previous occasion, Genjia the steward stood in the middle of the faggots with a box on his shoulder and a bag in his hand. As on the previous occasion, there was a great din of bugles and drums, and the chief gave the order to light the faggots and send him off to heaven.

But the outcome this time was somewhat different. One difference was that after everything was over, a pile of charred bones was found among the ashes. Another difference was that the steward never came back. He stayed on in heaven forever to help the old chief run his mansion.

______________

Göksel Baktagir – Mercan Dede

______________

Poetry: Eavan Boland

Daphne With Her Thighs In Bark

I have written this

so that,

in the next myth,

my sister will be wiser.

Let her learn from me:

the opposite of passion

is not virtue

but routine.

I can be cooking,

making coffee,

scrubbing wood, perhaps,

and back it comes:

the crystalline, the otherwhere,

the wood

where I was

when he began the chase.

And how I ran from him!

Pan-thighed,

satyr-faced he was.

The trees reached out to me.

I silvered and I quivered. I shook out

My foil of quick leaves.

He snouted past.

What a fool I was!

I shall be here forever,

setting out the tea,

among the coppers and the branching alloys and

the tin shine of this kitchen;

laying saucers on the pine table.

Save face, sister.

Fall. Stumble.

Rut with him.

His rough heat will keep you warm and

you will be better off than me,

with your memories

down the garden,

at the start of March,

unable to keep your eyes

off the chestnut tree –

just the way

it thrusts and hardens.

—

Child Of Our Time

for Aengus

Yesterday I knew no lullaby

But you have taught me overnight to order

This song, which takes from your final cry

Its tune, from your unreasoned end its reason;

Its rhythm from the discord of your murder

Its motive from the fact you cannot listen.

We who should have known how to instruct

With rhymes for your waking, rhythms for your sleep,

Names for the animals you took to bed,

Tales to distract, legends to protect,

Later an idion for you to keep

And living, learn, must learn from you, dead.

To make our broken images rebuild

Themselves around your limbs, your broken

Image, find for your sake whose life our idle

Talk has cost, a new language. Child

Of our time, our times have robbed your cradle.

Sleep in a world your final sleep has woken.

—

The Atlantic Ocean

This stone, this Spanish stone, flings light

Like acid in my eyes. Walls splice the day.

Our freighter chokes, then belches anthracite,

Fresh water up by noon. We are away.

A shrivelled Europe faces

Starboard. Our guzzling boat

Bloats on fish, swallows, chases

The anchor down its throat.

Waves are conjurors, splashes sleeves,

Up which aces of past and future hide.

One man finds love, another what he grieves

By watching. To me they are another side

Of life, not one to do

With retrospect or manners

But with the ballyhoo

Of war, the hoist of banners.

Out of this ocean now, its menacing storms,

Out of its cryptic structures, its tribal

Tides, out of its secret order, from the cabal

Of trade wind and water, look, a Soviet forms!

A squad of drops batters

The sky for a second, wears

Out its force, then turns and tears

Each imperial crest to tatters.

The waves are agitating now, the sea

Itself becomes the theatre of the battle.

Lesser waves congregate, they settle

On a policy for all. All agree

Not to abandon their will

To fight, their fierce airs

Their stormy posture until

Victory is theirs.

So what has started well can flourish still,

As for example, underneath the tide

The marvel of structured self-protecting coral –

Now a milestone, sure to be a guide

To the she-whale, the sperm-whale nosing

Clear of the shark, the porpoises

Braceleting the ships’ bows.

The octopus intricately dozing.

No wonder it beats like an alternate heart in me,

No wonder its drops fill and fall from my eyes

In familiar drops. It’s in the family.

At last I see, at last I recognize

In its wild station,

Its ice and riot, its other

Prowess, of my revolution

The elder brother.

—

Listen, This is the Noise of Myth

this is the story of a man and a woman

under a willow and beside a weir

near a river in a wooded clearing.

They are fugitives. Intimates of myth.

Fictions of my purpose. I suppose

I shouldn’t say that yet or at least

before I break their hearts or save their lives

I ought to tell their stories and I will.

When they went first it was winter; cold,

cold through the Midlands and as far West

as they could go. They knew they had to go –

through Meath, Westmeath, Longford,

their lives unraveling like the hours of light –

and then there were lambs under the snow

and it was January, aconite and jasmine

and the hazel yellowing and puce berries on the ivy.

They could not eat where they had cooked,

nor sleep where they had eaten

nor at dawn rest where they had slept.

They shunned the densities

of trees with one trunk and of caves

with one dark and dangerous embrace

of islands with a single landing place.

And all the time it was cold, cold:

the fields still gardened by their ice,

the trees stitched with snow overnight,

the ditches full; frost toughening lichen,

darning lace into rock crevices.

And then the woods flooded and buds

blunted from the chestnut and the foxglove

put its big leaves out and chaffinches

chinked and flirted in the branches of the ash.

And here we are where we started from –

under a willow and beside a weir

near a river in a wooded clearing.

The woman and the man have come to rest.

Look how light is coming through the ash.

The weir sluices kingfisher blues.

The woman and the willow tree lean forward, forward.

Something is near, something is about to happen;

Something more than spring

and less than history. Will we see

hungers eased after months of hiding?

Is there a touch of heat in that light?

If they stay here soon it will be summer; things

returning, sunlight fingering minnowy deeps

seedy greens, reeds, electing lights

and edges from the river. Consider

legend, self-deception, sin, the sum

of human purpose and its end; remember

how our poetry depends on distance,

aspect: gravity will bend starlight.

Forgive if I set the truth to rights.

Bear with me if I put an end to this:

she never turned to him; she never leaned

under the sallow-willow over to him.

They never made love; not there; not here;

not anywhere; there was no winter journey;

no aconite, no birdsong and no jasmine,

no river and no woodland and no weir.

Listen. This is the noise of myth. It makes

the same sound as shadow. Can you hear it?

Daylight grays in the preceptories.

Her head begins to shine

pivoting the planets of a harsh nativity.

They were never mine. This is mine.

This sequence of evicted possibilities.

Displaced facts. Tricks of light. Reflections.

Invention. Legend. Myth. What you will.

The shifts and fluencies are infinite.

The moving parts are marvelous. Consider

how the bereavements of the definite

Are easily lifted from our heroine.

She may or she may not. She was or wasn’t

by the water at his side as dark

waited above the Western countryside.

O consolations of the craft.

How we put

the old poultices on the old sores,

the same mirrors to the old magic. Look.

The scene returns. The willow sees itself

drowning in the weir and the woman

gives the kiss of myth her human heat.

Reflections. Reflections. He becomes her lover.

The old romances make no bones about it.

The long and the short of it. The end and the beginning.

The glories and the ornaments are muted.

And when the story ends the song is over.

Eavan Boland is an Irish poet.

Boland was born in Dublin on 24 September 1944. Her father, Frederick Boland was a career diplomat and her mother was the post-expressionist painter, Frances Kelly.

She was educated in London and New York as well as in her native Dublin; graduating from Trinity College with a first class honors degree in English Literature. In 2004 she received an honorary degree from Trinity.

Eavan Boland’s first book of poetry was “New Territory” published in 1967 with Dublin publisher Allen Figgis. This was followed by “The War Horse” (1975), In Her Own Image (1980) and Night Feed (1982), which established her reputation as a writer on the ordinary lives of women and on the difficulties faced by women poets in a male-dominated literary world.

Boland’s publications also include: An Origin Like Water: Collected Poems 1967-1987 (1996), Outside History: Selected Poems 1980-1990 (1990), and a prose memoir Object Lessons: The Life of the Woman and the Poet in Our Time (1995). Her collection In a Time of Violence (1994) received a Lannan Award and was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Poetry Prize. All of her volumes of poetry have been Poetry Book Society Choices in the UK.In the United States her publisher is W.W.Norton. Her volume of poems “Against Love Poetry” (W.W. Norton 2001) was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year.

She is co-editor of The Making of a Poem: A Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms (with Mark Strand; W. W. Norton & Co., 2000). She also published a volume of translations in 2004 called After Every War (Princeton University Press). The translations are of German-speaking women poets.

Boland has taught at a number of universities, including Trinity College, Dublin. She was also writer in residence at Trinity College, Dublin, and at the National Maternity Hospital.

She is currently Bella Mabury and Eloise Mabury Knapp Professor in the Humanities at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, and Melvin and Bill Lane Professor for Director of the Creative Writing program there.

She is married to author Kevin Casey; they have two daughters.

____________

Mercan Dede….

On the Music Box: Nick Drake/Time Of No Reply

First, a Blessing on You and Yours this Imbolc under the full moon!

Blessing For Hearth-Keepers

Brighid of the Mantle, encompass us,

Lady of the Lambs, protect us,

Keeper of the Hearth, kindle us.

Beneath your mantle, gather us,

And restore us to memory.

Mothers of our mother,

Foremothers strong.

Guide our hands in yours,

Remind us how

To kindle the hearth.

To keep it bright,

To preserve the flame.

Your hands upon ours,

Our hands within yours,

To kindle the light,

Both day and night.

The Mantle of Brighid about us,

The Memory of Brighid within us,

The Protection of Brighid keeping us

From harm, from ignorance, from heartlessness.

This day and night,

From dawn till dark,

From dark till dawn.

______

Have a good weekend, and if you can visit the radio this weekend, we will have a host of new music and on the spoken word, poetry.

Bright Blessings,

Gwyllm

On The Menu

From The Diamond Sutra

The Links

What’s Happening In Philadelphia Next Week

Three Zen Parables

Poems of Stéphane Mallarmé

______________

From The Diamond Sutra…

Subhuti said to Buddha: World-honored One, will there always be men who will truly believe after coming to hear these teachings?

Buddha answered: Subhuti, do not utter such words! At the end of the last five-hundred-year period following the passing of the Tathagata, there will be self-controlled men, rooted in merit, coming to hear these teachings, who will be inspired with belief. But you should realize that such men have not strengthened their root of merit under just one Buddha, or two Buddhas, or three, or four, or five Buddhas, but under countless Buddhas; and their merit is of every kind. Such men, coming to hear these teachings, will have an immediate uprising of pure faith, Subhuti; and the Tathagata will recognize them. Yes, He will clearly perceive all these of pure heart, and the magnitude of their moral excellences.

Wherefore? It is because such men will not fall back to cherishing the idea of an ego-entity, a personality, a being, or a separated individuality. They will neither fall back to cherishing the idea of things as having intrinsic qualities, nor even of things as devoid of intrinsic qualities.

Wherefore? Because if such men allowed their minds to grasp and hold on to anything they would be cherishing the idea of an ego-entity, a personality, a being, or a separated individuality; and if they grasped and held on to the notion of things as having intrinsic qualities they would be cherishing the idea of an ego-entity, a personality, a being, or a separated individuality. Likewise, if they grasped and held on to the notion of things as devoid of intrinsic qualities they would be cherishing the idea of an ego-entity, a personality, a being, or a separated individuality. So you should not be attached to things as being possessed of, or devoid of, intrinsic qualities. This is the reason why the Tathagata always teaches this saying: My teaching of the Good Law is to be likened unto a raft. [Does a man who has safely crossed a flood upon a raft continue his journey carrying that raft upon his head?] The Buddha-teaching must be relinquished; how much more so mis-teaching!

__________

The Links:

silicone ‘nerve’ bra

Mars Anomalies

Vampire child found in China

Scientists offered cash to dispute climate study

__________

What’s Happening In Philadelphia Next Week…

Templeton Research Lectureship Program on the Constructive Engagement Between Science and Religion (2005-2008)

A Special Presentation in Association with the Spirituality, Religion, and Health Interest Group:

Entheogens, Enlightenment, and Experimental Humanities

Thomas B. Roberts, Ph.D.

Professor Emeritus at Northern Illinois University

Author: Psychoactive Sacramentals

Wednesday February 7th, 2007,

10:00 a.m. -12:00 noon

Medical Alumni Hall

(pizza will be provided after the lecture)

Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania

3400 Spruce Street

Philadelphia, PA 19104

1st Floor Maloney

For questions, please contact 215-614-0332 or go to www.mindreligion.com

_________________

Three Zen Parables

A Mother’s Advice

Jiun, a Shingon master, was a well-known Sanskrit scholar of the Tokugawa era. When he was young he used to deliver lectures to his brother students.

His mother heard about this and wrote him a letter:

“Son, I do not think you became a devotee of the Buddha because you desired to turn into a walking dictionary for others. There is no end to information and commentation, glory and honor. I wish you would stop this lecture business. Shut yourself up in a little temple in a remote part of the mountain. Devote your time to meditation and in this way attain true realization.”

—

The Voice of Happiness

After Bankei had passed away, a blind man who lived near the master’s temple told a friend:

“Since I am blind, I cannot watch a person’s face, so I must judge his character by the sound of his voice. Ordinarily when I hear someone congratulate another upon his happiness or success, I also hear a secret tone of envy. When condolence is expressed for the misfortune of another, I hear pleasure and satisfaction, as if the one condoling was really glad there was something left to gain in his own world.

“In all my experience, however, Bankei’s voice was always sincere. Whenever he expressed happiness, I heard nothing but happiness, and whenever he expressed sorrow, sorrow was all I heard.”

—

Great Waves

In the early days of the Meiji era there lived a well-known wrestler called O-nami, Great Waves.

O-nami was immensely strong and knew the art of wrestling. In his private bouts he defeated even his teacher, but in public he was so bashful that his own pupils threw him.

O-nami felt he should go to a Zen master for help. Hakuju, a wandering teacher, was stopping in a little temple nearby, so O-nami went to see him and told him of his trouble.

“Great Waves is your name,” the teacher advised, “so stay in this temple tonight. Imagine that you are those billows. You are no longer a wrestler who is afraid. You are those huge waves sweeping everything before them, swallowing all in their path. Do this and you will be the greatest wrestler in the land.”

The teacher retired. O-nami sat in meditation trying to imagine himself as waves. He thought of many different things. Then gradually he turned more and more to the feeling of the waves. As the night advanced the waves became larger and larger. They swept away the flowers in their vases. Even the Buddha in the shrine was inundated. Before dawn the temple was nothing but the ebb and flow of an immense sea.

In the morning the teacher found O-nami meditating, a faint smile on his face. He patted the wrestler’s shoulder. “Now nothing can disturb you,” he said. “You are those waves. You will sweep everything before you.”

The same day O-nami entered the wrestling contests and won. After that, no one in Japan was able to defeat him.

——-

Poems of Stéphane Mallarmé

At The Tomb of Verlaine

Anniversary – January 1897

The black rock, angered

that the blast should make it roll

shall not pause between

pious hands hoping to sense

resemblance to human ills,

as if to bless some

dire moulding. Almost always

if here the ring-dove

coos, this immaterial

mourning burdens with many

nubile folds the star

nourished by tomorrows, whose

scintillations shall

silver the crowd. Who, gazing

on the solitary flight

in external form

seeks our vagabond – Verlaine?

He is hidden in

the grass, Verlaine, so as not

to take by surprise without

a naive consent

the lip that is drinking there,

inhaling his breath

from a brook less than profound,

and calumniating death.

—

When The Shades Threatened

When the shades threatened

with their fatal law, as in

some past Dream, desire

and disease of vertebra,

grieving to perish under

funeral ceilings

they folded up within me

implacable wings.

Luxury, O ebon hall

where, to ensnare a king,

the garlands of

a celebration intertwined

their deaths, you are but

an arrogance belied by

the darknesses in eyes of

the lone one blinded

by his faith. – Yes, I know that

far off in this night

the Earth casts, in a great flash,

the strangest of mysteries

from centuries of

horror that darken it less.

Space all its own, and

whether increased or denied

revolves in that ennui

that takes the vilest

fires as witnesses to prove

it was a great star

in all its festive radiance

lit the flames of genius.

—

Spring

The fevered spring has sped regretfully

Clear-eyed winter, season of tranquil art,

My being, governed by a phantom heart

Gives one long yawn, and stretches lazily.

Within my skull, bound like an ancient tomb

With iron belt, a snowy half-light breathes.

Through fields that chant the vast refrain of leaves

Forlorn, I chase a faint and lovely dream.

Weary, and prostrate with the scent of trees,

I press my dream face-downwards into death,

Biting the warm soil where the lilac grows;

Half-buried, wait release from tedious earth …

– Meanwhile the blue beams on the hedgerow dawn,

And flower-birds that chirrup in the sun.

_________

Quite a nice day here in Portland. I worked with my friend Morgan yesterday delivering beer to pubs. Quite a bit of fun in its own way. More of that coming up. I guess I will be getting in physical shape with it all!

—

The Four Points Of Pondering Of This Day For Yours Truly:

How do we make the world more beautiful for our passing through this life?

Who is it that we touch?

How do we do less harm?

What is the nature of love?

Perhaps these are the eternal questions… but I like the running of them through my mind.

Working on a new website, hopefully soon it will be revealed!

If you haven’t downloaded the magazine, you don’t know what you are missing! 8o)

Pax,

Gwyllm

On The Menu

The Links

Deirdre of the Sorrows

Poetry: William Butler Yeats…

_____________

The Links:

Green Your IPOD: Tokyo micro garden

Microsoft Focuses on “Immortal Computing” Concept

Druids call for burial

Greeks give Zeus an extreme makeover

______________

Deirdre of the Sorrows

By Megan Powell

Fedlimid the bard hosted a festival for his lord King Conchobar of Ulster, while in the same house Fedlimid’s wife cried out in pain.

At the end of her labor, a servant entered the room where Fedlimid, Conchobar, and the rest of the guests celebrated. “The child is a girl,” she told Fedlimid.

While a boy would have been preferable, this news in itself was not disastrous. But then the druid Cathbad stood.

“She will grow to be beautiful,” Cathbad announced, speaking not only to Fedlimid but to the entire room. “Her name shall be Deirdre, and she will be the most beautiful woman in the world. But that beauty shall bring death to many heroes, and much sorrow to Ulster.”

Having uttered his prophesy, Cathbad sat. Conchobar’s warriors demanded that the child be killed.

“I will not allow it,” Conchobar said. “Such beauty will not be destroyed needlessly. I will arrange for Deirdre’s care, and when she is of a suitable age, she will be my wife.”

Fedlimid nodded eagerly. Such a match was a great honor, and it was only Conchobar’s intervention that guaranteed the girl’s survival.

Conchobar hid his prize deep in the mountains, away from the eyes of other men. As she matured, Deirdre only saw three people: a nurse, a fosterer and a teacher.

One day, Deirdre watched as her fosterer killed a calf to eat. The calf’s blood ran bright red in the snow, and a raven swooped down.

“If there were a man with hair as black as that raven, skin as white as that snow, and cheeks as red as that blood, I would wish to marry him,” Deirdre said, in what was perhaps the first manifestation of her second sight.

“There is such a man,” replied her teacher, Levarcham. While she was intelligent, Deirdre was also innocent; and since it was approaching the time when she was to marry the king, Levarcham supposed that she should know something of the world. “His name is Naoise, a son of Usnach. He is of the same race as the king your husband.”

“I should like to meet this man,” Deirdre said.

Her teacher hesitated. Deirdre was indeed as beautiful as Cathbad had predicted, and Conchobar wanted a virgin bride.

“I have never met Conchobar,” Deirdre continued. “Perhaps this Naoise can tell me something of him, and what I can expect as his wife in Ulster.”

Levarcham was convinced of Deirdre’s innocent intentions, and Naoise had an honorable reputation, so the meeting was arranged.

On the appointed day, Deirdre’s teacher escorted Naoise to meet her. “You are ideed beautiful, lady,” Naoise said in amazement, for he had not imagined that such beauty existed. “You are fit to be the wife of the king.”

“I had hoped that you might speak to me of my husband, and the other heroes of Ulster,” Deirdre said. So Naoise began to relate tales of great deeds, and eventually Deirdre’s teacher withdrew.

“Naoise,” Deirdre interupted. “I thank you for your stories, but they are not the true reason I wanted to see you.”

Naoise looked puzzled.

“I have never met Conchobar,” Deirdre said. “I have heard tales of his great deeds–your tales and others’. But all that I truly know of him is this: he took a babe from its parents, and kept his future wife as a prisoner with only the company of the animals and three people. I do not wish to be married to such a man, Naoise. I wish to be married to you.”

Naoise could not believe it. He would never have hoped to win such an unbearably beautiful woman’s love.

“You are the king’s,” he said, knowing as he spoke the words that he did not care. “If I took you away from him, we should have to live as exiles.”

“Exiles from what?” Deirdre asked. “Exiles from a land where we cannot possess what we most desire. I would embrace such an exile.”

“As would I,” Naoise said, and took her in his arms.

“Then come for me tonight,” Deirdre said. “I have never caused trouble; they will not expect me to try to escape.”

“I will be here,” Naoise promised. “And I will ask my brothers to join me as well.”

That night, Deirdre met the sons of Usnach outside the few buildings which had been the only home she had ever known. No one cried out in alarm; her disappearance was not noted until the morning, by which point Deirdre, Naoise, Ardan and Ainle were well on their way to Alba.

They formed an alliance with one of Alba’s kings. In return for aiding him in his battles–for the sons of Usnach were accomplished warriors–the exiles were allowed to wander freely.

They lived off the land, following the deer, and finally settled on the shore of Loch Etive. Deirdre had never been so happy. The first real decision of her life had been the right one. For their part, the sons of Usnach were satisfied. Their free lifestyle was welcome. Ardan and Ainle loved Deirdre as a sister; they felt no less priviledged than Naoise to have met her and won her affection.

Upon hearing of Deirdre’s abduction, Conchobar was outraged at the betrayal of the sons of Usnach. Later, when Deirdre’s complicity seemed undeniable, he raged inwardly at her as well. But he did not speak of his anger, and instead waited.

When he judged enough time had passed, he posed a question to his warriors as they feasted at Emain Macha. “Have any of you heard of a nobler company than those of us assembled here?”

Laughing, the heroes shook their heads.

“Yet we are not as great as we might be,” Conchobar continued. “The prowess of the sons of Usnach is well known. Why, they alone could defend Ulster against any other province. It is shameful that they remain exiles, especially for so pointless a reason as the fickleness of a woman. I would gladly welcome them back.”

The rest of the company nodded. “We would have counseled this, save for the heat of your anger,” they said.

“My anger has cooled,” Conchobar replied lightly. “I shall send a champion to fetch the sons of Usnach.”

After the feast, Conchobar privately summoned Conall the Victorious. “Tell me, Conall, what would you do if you were sent to bring back the sons of Usnach, but they were killed despite your promise of safe conduct?”

“I would kill the man that killed them,” Conall replied, “as well as any man who had a part in the plan.”

Conchobar nodded, and dismissed Conall. Then he secretly called Cuchulainn, son of Sualtam, and asked the same question.

“No man who performed such a deed would be safe,” Cuchulainn vowed. “Not even you could offer me a bribe sufficient to quell my wrath.”

After Cuchulainn left, Conchobar summoned Fergus, son of Roy, and posed the question a third time. “Such a foul deed would be avenged,” Fergus said. “I would slay any man–save you, of course, my lord–who had conspired to perform such murders.”

Conchobar smiled. “I am anxious to see the sons of Usnach again. Set out tomorrow, with all speed, and do not return without them. Return to Ireland at the Dún of Borrach, and do not linger. In fact, even if you yourself meet with some delay, send the sons of Usnach forward without you, for I weary of their exile.”

Fergus set out in his galley for Alba, accompanied by his two sons, Illannn the Fair and Buinne the Ruthless Red. When they reached Loch Etive, they debarked, and Fergus called out.

Naoise, Deirdre, Ardan and Ainle heard Fergus’s cry. “That was a man of Erin,” Naoise said, looking up from a game of chess.

Deirdre felt a sudden dread. “No,” she insisted. “That is a man of Alba. Pay no attention.”

But her warning was ignored, and Ardan went down to the shore and met Fergus and his sons. He brought them back, and the brothers were overjoyed at the message of friendship Fergus bore.

“The king wishes you to return from exile,” Fergus said. “I personally offer a promise of safe conduct, should you return to Ulster.”

“I wish to greet our fellows again,” Ardan said.

“Are they any more beloved than your brothers and I?” Deirdre asked.

“I long for the sight of the land I knew,” Ainle said.

“How can it compare to the beauty of Alba?” Deirdre asked.

“When it was a choice between Ulster without you, and exile with you, I gladly chose exile,” Naoise said to Deirdre. “But if I can again be welcome in Ulster, with you by my side, how could I do otherwise?”

“Listen to me,” Deirdre pleaded. “This will end badly, I am sure of it. We must not return.”

But the sons of Usnach were determined to return to their own land, so unhappily Deirdre boarded the galley with them the next morning. “We shall never see this land again,” she predicted quietly.

They landed at the Dún of Borrach, as Fergus had arranged with Conchobar. Unknown to Fergus, Conchobar had spoken to Borrach, ordering that he hold a feast. Unable to refuse Borrach’s hospitality, Fergus decided that he must send his charges on without his company.

“For the king was very clear, and said that nothing must delay you,” Fergus said. The sons of Usnach were annoyed at this change of plans; Deirdre was terrified. “My sons shall accompany you, and guarantee your safety.”

A vision came to Deirdre: Naoise, Ardan, Ainle, headless, and Illann dead as well, under a cloud of blood. “No, I beg you. We must not go. At least let us wait for the end of the feast.”

But once again, her advice was ignored, and they continued to Emain Macha. Conchobar received them splendidly, and placed the palace, the Red Branch House, at their disposal.

That evening, Conchobar summoned Deirdre’s old teacher, Levarcham. “Go and see Deirdre, and tell me if she is still the most beautiful woman in the world.”

Levarcham kissed Deirdre, who wept to see her teacher once more. “Beware the king,” Levarcham said. “He is kind and hospitable now, but he plots treachery.” She took her leave quickly, and returned to Conchobar. “It is sad,” she told the king. “She lived a hard life in the mountains of Alba; it has ruined her.”

Conchobar’s jealousy cooled, and he considered letting Naoise keep this woman who was no longer beautiful. But later, after he had drunk more wine, he sent a second messenger to bring him news of Deirdre’s appearance.

This messenger went in secret, and peered in a window. Deirdre glimpsed the spy, and cried out in outrage. Enraged, Naoise flung a chessman at the man, and put out one of his eyes.

“Truly, her beauty is great,” the wounded man told Conchobar. “Though it cost me one eye, I would gladly have stayed and gazed upon her with the other.”

These words rekindled Conchobar’s rage. He ordered his warriors to set fire to the Red Branch House. “Slay all within,” he shouted. “All save Deirdre!”

Fergus’s son Buinne ran outside as the first firebrands were thrown. He put out the fire, and slaughtered those men who came within reach. Seeing the prowess of only one of the five men inside the House, Conchobar called Buinne to him.

“I offer you land, and my friendship,” Conchobar said. “I am king; they are exiles. Abandon their cause.”

Buinne hesitated, and accepted Conchobar’s offer. He survived the night, and expected to become rich. But the land that Conchobar gave him, which had been green and fertile, turned barren that night, indignant that it was owned by a traitor.

After Buinne’s defection, Illann ran outside and continued the slaughter. “He will accept no bribe,” Conchobar predicted. So he turned to his son Fiacha, and gave him magic weapons, including his own shield. This shield was called “Moaner”, and roared whenever the man who carried it was in danger.

Fiacha fought Illann, who proved the stronger warrior. As Fiacha crouched beneath the shield, it roared for help. From a distance, Conall the Victorious heard the roar, and feared for his king’s life. He ran toward the duelists and, without pause, drove his spear through the body of Illann.

“I did not seek the king’s death,” Illann managed to say, having guessed the reason behind Conall’s action. “The sons of Usnach are inside, who came here under my father’s safe conduct. I only seek to protect them.”

Conall believed Illann’s dying words, and suspected the king’s involvement in the treacherous attack. He turned and slew Fiacha, who should have died at Illann’s hand.

All that night, the sons of Usnach beat back Conchobar’s warriors. But they began to tire, and with the dawn light realized that they must escape the Red Branch House or soon die.

“Stand in our center, behind our shields,” Naoise told Deirdre. “We shall protect you.”

They emerged, and cut their way past many warriors. In despair, Conchobar called the druid Cathbad.

“They must not escape,” the king said. “Do something to stop them, place a spell on them.” And, when Cathbad hesitated: “I promise to spare their lives.”

Cathbad agreed, and cast the illusion of a stormy sea about the exiles. Naoise tried to bear Deirdre on his shoulders, and keep her above water, but the water continued to rise. The sons of Usnach dropped their weapons, and they swam.

Conchobar’s men seized the sons of Usnach. Despite his promise to Cathbad, Conchobar condemned them to death.

The men of Ulster had witnessed the bravery of the sons of Usnach, and knew something of the king’s treachery; they all refused carry out the executions. Conchobar had to enlist the aid of a Norwegian, whose father had been killed by Usnach and who wished revenge upon the family.

Though they did not protest their sentence, the sons of Usnach each begged to be the first to die, and so avoid witnessing the deaths of the others. “Wait,” Naoise said. “This bickering must end. I shall lend our executioner the great sword “Retaliator”, given to me by Manannán son of Lêr. We shall die together.”

The sons of Usnach knelt beside one another, and with a single blow of the divine sword, all three were beheaded together.

Deirdre wept over her husband and his brothers, and cursed Conchobar. “I hate you more than any man alive,” she declared. “Perhaps even more than the man that struck the blow that killed them.”

“You must also be punished,” Conchobar said. “And if you hate me so much, then that shall be part of your punishment. And after a year, I will give you to the Norwegian for a year, so that you may enjoy the company of us both.”

This pronouncement did not affect Deirdre in the least; all that she feared had already come to pass. As Conchobar bore his prize to his palace, she broke away and hurled herself from a great height, breaking her body on the rocks and following the sons of Usnach into death.

Conchobar saw the prophesy of the druid Cathbad fulfilled. The men of Ulster never again trusted him. Fergus, when he heard what had happened, slaughtered many of Conchobar’s warriors, including his son. He and his own men then fled to Ailill and Medb of Connaught, Ulster’s greatest enemies. Cathbad cursed the king and the kingdom.

Ulster continued for a time, diminished and tarnished, and then fell. The buildings went to pieces, and grass grew up over them, and wild animals lived where once great men had walked.

______________

Poetry: William Butler Yeats

The Cap and Bells

The jester walked in the garden:

The garden had fallen still;

He bade his soul rise upward

And stand on her window-sill.

It rose in a straight blue garment,

When owls began to call:

It had grown wise-tongued by thinking

Of a quiet and light footfall;

But the young queen would not listen;

She rose in her pale night-gown;

She drew in the heavy casement

And pushed the latches down.

He bade his heart go to her,

When the owls called out no more;

In a red and quivering garment

It sang to her through the door.

It had grown sweet-tongued by dreaming

Of a flutter of flower-like hair;

But she took up her fan from the table

And waved it off on the air.

`I have cap and bells,’ he pondered,

`I will send them to her and die’;

And when the morning whitened

He left them where she went by.

She laid them upon her bosom,

Under a cloud of her hair,

And her red lips sang them a love-song

Till stars grew out of the air.

She opened her door and her window,

And the heart and the soul came through,

To her right hand came the red one,

To her left hand came the blue.

They set up a noise like crickets,

A chattering wise and sweet,

And her hair was a folded flower

And the quiet of love in her feet.

—

He hears the Cry of the Sedge

I wander by the edge

Of this desolate lake

Where wind cries in the sedge:

Until the axle break

That keeps the stars in their round,

And hands hurl in the deep

The banners of East and West,

And the girdle of light is unbound,

Your breast will not lie by the breast

Of your beloved in sleep.

—

The Wheel

Through winter-time we call on spring,

And through the spring on summer call,

And when abounding hedges ring

Declare that winter’s best of all;

And after that there’s nothing good

Because the spring-time has not come —

Nor know that what disturbs our blood

Is but our longing for the tomb.

—

Her Praise

SHE is foremost of those that I would hear praised.

I have gone about the house, gone up and down

As a man does who has published a new book

Or a young girl dressed out in her new gown,

And though I have turned the talk by hook or crook

Until her praise should be the uppermost theme,

A woman spoke of some new tale she had read,

A man confusedly in a half dream

As though some other name ran in his head.

She is foremost of those that I would hear praised.

I will talk no more of books or the long war

But walk by the dry thorn until I have found

Some beggar sheltering from the wind, and there

Manage the talk until her name come round.

If there be rags enough he will know her name

And be well pleased remembering it, for in the old days,

Though she had young men’s praise and old men’s blame,

Among the poor both old and young gave her praise.

_______________

Out to work, so this is a quick one… if you had trouble downloading the magazine yesterday, please try again.

On the Menu

The Higher Links

The Quotes

The Vision of MacConglinney

The Poetry of Medbh McGuckian

Have a good one!

G

The Invisible College

You can down load it by going to the home page of EarthRites.org or you can go to this page:The Invisible College

_________

The Higher Links:

State triples medical pot fees

High School to Expand Alcohol Testing

Medical Marijuana Shop Defies Order to Shut Down

Mushrooms and mysticism

_____________

The Quotes:

“When a thing ceases to be a subject of controversy, it ceases to be a subject of interest.”

“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage — to move in the opposite direction.”

“Adventure is just bad planning.”

“The greatest of faults, I should say, is to be conscious of none.”

“Cats are intended to teach us that not everything in nature has a function.”

“When you are eight years old, nothing is any of your business.”

_________________

The Vision of MacConglinney

Cathal, King of Munster, was a good king and a great warrior. But there came to dwell within him a lawless evil beast, that afflicted him with hunger that ceased not, and might not be satisfied, so that he would devour a pig, a cow, and a bull calf and three-score cakes of pure wheat, and a vat of new ale, for his breakfast, whilst as for his great feast, what he ate there passes account or reckoning. He was like this for three half-years, and during that time it was the ruin of Munster he was, and it is likely he would have ruined all Ireland in another half-year.

Now there lived in Armagh a famous young scholar and his name was Anier MacConglinney. He heard of the strange disease of King Cathal, and of the abundance of food and drink, of whitemeats, ale and mead, there were always to be found at the king’s court. Thither then was he minded to go to try his own fortune, and to see of what help he could be to the king.

He arose early in the morning and tucked up his shirt and wrapped him in the folds of his white cloak. In his right hand he grasped his even-poised knotty staff, and going right-hand-wise round his home, he bade farewell to his tutors and started off.

He journeyed across all Ireland till he came to the house of Pichan. And there he stayed and told tales, and made all merry. But Pichan said:

“Though great thy mirth, son of learning, it does not make me glad.”

“And why ?” asked MacConglinney.

“Knowest thou not, scholar, that Cathal is coming here to-night with all his host. And if the great host is trouble-some, the king’s first meal is more troublesome still ; and troublesome though the first be, most troublesome of all is the great feast. Three things are wanted for this last: a bushel of oats, and a bushel of wild apples, and a bushel of flour cakes.”

“What reward would you give me if I shield you from the king from this hour to the same hour to-tnorrow ?”

“A white sheep from every fold between Cam and Cork.”

“I will take that,” said MacConglinney.

Cathal, the king, came with the companies, and a host of horse of the Munster men. But Cathal did not let the thong of his shoe be half loosed before he began supplying his mouth with both hands from the apples round about him. Pichan and all the men of Munster looked on sadly and sorrowfully. Then rose Macconglinney, hastily and impatiently, and seized a stone, against which swords were used to be sharpened ; this he thrust into his mouth and began grinding his teeth against the stone.

“What makes thee mad, son of learning?” asked Cathal.

“I grieve to see you eating alone,” said the scholar.

Then the king was ashamed and flung him the apples, and it is said that for three half-years he had not performed such an act of humanity.

“Grant me a further boon,” said MacConglinney.

“It is granted, on my troth,” said the king.

“Fast with me the whole night,” said the scholar.

And grievous though it was to the king, he did so, for he had passed his princely troth, and no King of Munster might transgress that.

In the morning MacConglinney called for juicy old bacon, and tender corned beef, honey in the comb, and English salt on a beautiful polished dish of white silver. A fire he lighted of oak wood without smoke, without fumes, without sparks.

And sticking spits into the portion of meat, he set to work to roast them. Then he shouted, “Ropes and cords here.”

Ropes and cords were given to him, and the strongest of the warriors.

And they seized the king and bound him securely, and made him fast with knots and hooks and staples. When the king was thus fastened, MacConglinney sat himself down before him, and taking his knife out of his girdle, he carved the portion of meat that was on the spits, and every morsel he dipped in the honey, and, passing it in front of the king’s mouth, put it in his own.

When the king saw that he was getting nothing, and he had been fasting for twenty-four hours, he roared and bellowed, and commanded the killing of the scholar. But that was not done for him.

Listen, King of Munster,” said MacConglinney, “a vision appeared to me last night, and I will relate it to you.”

He then began his vision, and as he related it he put morsel after morsel past Cathal’s mouth into his own.

“A lake of new milk I beheld

In the midst of a fair plain,

Therein a well-appointed house,

Thatched with butter.

Puddings fresh boiled,

Such were its thatch-rods,

Its two soft door posts of custard,

Its beds of glorious bacon.

Cheeses were the palisades,

Sausages the rafters.

Truly ’twas a rich filled house,

In which was great store of good feed.

Such was the vision I beheld, and a voice sounded into my ears. ‘Go now, thither, MacConglinney, for you have no power of eating in you.’ ‘ What must I do,’ said I, for the sight of that had made me greedy. Then the voice bade me go to the hermitage of the Wizard Doctor, and there I should find appetite for all kinds of savoury tender sweet food, acceptable to the body.

“There in the harbour of the lake before me I saw a juicy little coracle of beef; its thwarts were of curds, its prow of lard ; its stern of butter ; its oars were flitches of venison. Then I rowed across the wide expanse of the New Milk Lake, through seas of broth, past river mouths of meat, over swelling boisterous waves of butter milk, by perpetual pools of savoury lard, by islands of cheese, by headlands of old curds, until I reached the firm level land between Butter Mount and Milk Lake, in the land of O’Early-eating, in front of the hermitage of the Wizard Doctor.

“Marvellous, indeed, was the hermitage. Around it were seven-score hundred smooth stakes of old bacon, and instead of thorns above the top of every stake was fixed juicy lard. There was a gate of cream, whereon was a bolt of sausage. And there I saw the doorkeeper, Bacon Lad, son of Butterkins, son of Lardipole, with his smooth sandals of old bacon, his legging of pot-meat round his shins, his tunic of corned beef, his girdle of salmon skin round him, his hood of flummery about him, his steed of bacon under him, with its four legs of custard, its four hoofs of oaten bread, its ears of curds, its two eyes of honey in its head ; in his hand a whip, the cords whereof were four-and-twenty fair white puddings, and every juicy drop that fell from each of these puddings would have made a meal for an ordinary man.

“On going in I beheld the Wizard Doctor with his two gloves of rump steak on his hands, setting in order the house, which was hung all round with tripe, from roof to floor.

“I went into the kitchen, and there I saw the Wizard Doctor’s son, with his fishing hook of lard in his hand, and the line was made of marrow, and he was angling in a lake of whey. Now he would bring up a flitch of ham, and now a fillet of corned beef. And as he was angling, he fell in, and was drowned.

“As I set my foot across the threshold into the house, I saw a pure white bed of butter, on which I sat down, but I sank down into it up to the tips of my hair. Hard work had the eight strongest men in the house to pull me out by the top of the crown of my head.

“Then I was taken in to the Wizard Doctor. ‘What aileth thee ?’ said he.

“My wish would be, that all the many wonderful viands of the world were before me, that I might eat my fill and satisfy my greed. But alas ! great is the misfortune to me, who cannot obtain any of these.

“‘On my word,’ said the Doctor, ‘the disease is grievous. But thou shall take home with thee a medicine to cure thy disease, and shalt be for ever healed therefrom.’

” ‘What is that ?’ asked I.

When thou goest home to-night, warm thyself before a glowing red fire of oak, made up on a dry hearth, so that its embers may warm thee, its blaze may not burn thee, its smoke may not touch thee. And make for thyself thrice nine morsels, and every morsel as big as an heath fowl’s egg, and in each morsel eight kinds of grain, wheat and barley, oats and rye, and therewith eight condiments, and to every condiment eight sauces. And when thou hast prepared thy food, take a drop of drink, a tiny drop, only as much as twenty men will drink, and let it be of thick milk, of yellow bubbling milk, of milk that will gurgle as it rushes down thy throat.’

” ‘And when thou hast done this, whatever disease thou hast, shall be removed. Go now,’ said he, ‘in the name of cheese, and may the smooth juicy bacon protect thee, may yellow curdy cream protect, may the cauldron full of pottage protect thee.’ “

Now, as MacConglinney recited his vision, what with the pleasure of the recital and the recounting of these many pleasant viands, and the sweet savour of the honeyed morsels roasting on the spits, the lawless beast that dwelt within the king, came forth until it was licking its lips outside its head.

Then MacConglinney bent his hand with the two spits of food, and put them to the lips of the king, who longed to swallow them, wood, food, and all. So he took them an arm’s length away from the king, and the lawless beast jumped from the throat of Cathal on to the spit. MacConglinney put the spit into the embers, and upset the cauldron of the royal house over the spit. The house was emptied, so that not the value of a cockchafer’s leg was left in it, and four huge fires were kindled here and there in it. When the house was a tower of red flame and a huge blaze, the lawless beast sprang to the rooftree of the palace, and from thence he vanished, and was seen no more.

As for the king, a bed was prepared for him on a downy quilt, and musicians and singers entertained him going from noon till twilight. And when he awoke, this is what he bestowed upon the scholar – a cow from every farm, and a sheep from every house in Munster. Moreover, that so long as he lived, he should carve the king’s food, and sit at his right hand.

Thus was Cathal, King of Munster, cured of his craving, and MacConglinney honoured.

________________

The Poetry of Medbh McGuckian

Open Rose

The moon is my second face, her long cycle

Still locked away. I feel rain

Like a tried-on dress, I clutch it

Like a book to my body.

His head is there when I work,

It signs my letters with a question-mark;

His hands reach for me like rationed air.

Day by day I let him go

Till I become a woman, or even less,

An incompletely furnished house

That came from a different century

Where I am guest at my own childhood.

I have grown inside words

Into a state of unbornness,

An open rose on all sides

Has spoken as far as it can.

—–

Ylang-Ylang

On Ballycastle Beach

Her skin, though there were areas of death,

Was bright compared with the darkness

Working through it. When she wore black,

That rescued it, those regions were rested

Like a town at lighting up time. In a heart-

Casket flickered her heartless ‘jeune fille’

Perfume; I was compelled by her sunburnt,

Unripe story and her still schoolgirl hand.

My life, sighed the grass-coloured,

Brandy-inspired carafe, is like a rug

That used to be a leopard, beckoning

To something pink. Yes, I replied, I have

A golf-coat almost as characterless,

Where all is leaf. We began moving over one

Each other in the gentlest act of colour,

Not as far as the one-sided shape of red,

But out of that seriousness, out of the stout

Ruled notebook. She would stream in, her

Sculptor’s blouse disturbed so by the violence

Of yellow, I would have to thank the light

For warning me of her approach. Not I,

But the weakened blue of my skirt

Wanted the thrown-together change, from vetiver

To last night’s ylang-ylang, and back again.

—

The Flower Master

Like foxgloves in the school of the grass moon

We come to terms with shade, with the principle

Of enfolding space. Our scissors in brocade,

We learn the coolness of straight edges, how

To stroke gently the necks of daffodils

And make them throw their heads back to the sun.

We slip the thready stems of violets, delay

The loveliness of the hibiscus dawn with quiet ovals,

Spirals of feverfew like water splashing,

The papery legacies of bluebells. We do

Sea-fans with sea-lavendar, moon-arrangements

Roughly for the festival of moon-viewing.

This black container calls for sloes, sweet

Sultan, dainty nipplewort, in honour

Of a special guest, who summoned to the

Tea ceremony, must stoop to our low doorway,

Our fontanelle, the trout’s dimpled feet.

The Invisible College

You can down load it by going to the home page of EarthRites.org or you can go to this page:The Invisible College

___________

Nice response so far to the Magazine. Thanks for all the kind notes… 8o) Please let other people know about it. Share it with friends, and whoever might enjoy it.

Off for a walk, so let me just say it is a chilly one here in Portland today. Sunny though, and that counts for a lot. Spring is coming… Spring is coming… Spring is coming…

More info, poems, stories on the way…

Have a Beautiful Day!

Cheers,

Gwyllm

________

On The Menu:

The Links

Creation Tales: How the Hopi Indians Reached Their World

The Poetry of William Blake

_______________

The Links:

US answer to global warming: smoke and giant space mirrors

Personal TV censor

Don’t be fooled by Bush’s defection: his cures are another form of denia

Legal Psychedlics Blog

_________________

Creation Tales: How the Hopi Indians Reached Their World

When the world was new, the ancient people and the ancient creatures did not live on the top of the earth. They lived under it. All was darkness, all was blackness, above the earth as well as below it.

There were four worlds: this one on top of the earth, and below it three cave worlds, one below the other. None of the cave worlds was large enough for all the people and the creatures.

They increased so fast in the lowest cave world that they crowded it. They were poor and did not know where to turn in the blackness. When they moved, they jostled one another. The cave was filled with the filth of the people who lived in it. No one could turn to spit without spitting on another. No one could cast slime from his nose without its falling on someone else. The people filled the place with their complaints and with their expressions of disgust.

Some people said, “It is not good for us to live in this way.”

“How can it be made better?” one man asked.

“Let it be tried and seen!” answered another.

Two Brothers, one older and one younger, spoke to the priest- chiefs of the people in the cave world, “Yes, let it be tried and seen. Then it shall be well. By our wills it shall be well.”

The Two Brothers pierced the roofs of the caves and descended to the lowest world, where people lived. The Two Brothers sowed one plant after another, hoping that one of them would grow up to the opening through which they themselves had descended and yet would have the strength to bear the weight of men and creatures. These, the Two Brothers hoped, might climb up the plant into the second cave world. One of these plants was a cane.

At last, after many trials, the cane became so tall that it grew through the opening in the roof, and it was so strong that men could climb to its top. It was jointed so that it was like a ladder, easily ascended. Ever since then, the cane has grown in joints as we see it today along the Colorado River.

Up this cane many people and beings climbed to the second cave world. When a part of them had climbed out, they feared that that cave also would be too small. It was so dark that they could not see how large it was. So they shook the ladder and caused those who were coming up it to fall back. Then they pulled the ladder out. It is said that those who were left came out of the lowest cave later. They are our brothers west of us.

After a long time the second cave became filled with men and beings, as the first had been. Complaining and wrangling were heard as in the beginning. Again the cane was placed under the roof vent, and once more men and beings entered the upper cave world. Again, those who were slow to climb out were shaken back or left behind. Though larger, the third cave was as dark as the first and second. The Two Brothers found fire. Torches were set ablaze, and by their light men built their huts and kivas, or travelled from place to place.

While people and the beings lived in this third cave world, times of evil came to them. Women became so crazed that they neglected all things for the dance. They even forgot their babies. Wives became mixed with wives, so that husbands did not know their own from others. At that time there was no day, only night, black night. Throughout this night, women danced in the kivas (men’s “clubhouses”), ceasing only to sleep. So the fathers had to be the mothers of the little ones. When these little ones cried from hunger, the fathers carried them to the kivas, where the women were dancing. Hearing their cries, the mothers came and nursed them, and then went back to their dancing. Again the fathers took care of the children.

These troubles caused people to long for the light and to seek again an escape from darkness. They climbed to the fourth world, which was this world. But it too was in darkness, for the earth was closed in by the sky, just as the cave worlds had been closed in by their roofs. Men went from their lodges and worked by the light of torches and fires. They found the tracks of only one being, the single ruler of the unpeopled world, the tracks of Corpse Demon or Death. The people tried to follow these tracks, which led eastward. But the world was damp and dark, and people did not know what to do in the darkness. The waters seemed to surround them, and the tracks seemed to lead out into the waters.

With the people were five beings that had come forth with them from the cave worlds: Spider, Vulture, Swallow, Coyote, and Locust. The people and these beings consulted together, trying to think of some way of making light. Many, many attempts were made, but without success. Spider was asked to try first. She spun a mantle of pure white cotton. It gave some light but not enough. Spider therefore became our grandmother.

Then the people obtained and prepared a very white deerskin that had not been pierced in any spot. From this they made a shield case, which they painted with turquoise paint. It shed forth such brilliant light that it lighted the whole world. It made the light from the cotton mantle look faded. So the people sent the shield-light to the east, where it became the moon.

Down in the cave world Coyote had stolen a jar that was very heavy, so very heavy that he grew weary of carrying it. He decided to leave it behind, but he was curious to see what it contained. Now that light had taken the place of darkness, he opened the jar. From it many shining fragments and sparks flew out and upward, singeing his face as they passed him. That is why the coyote has a black face to this day. The shining fragments and sparks flew up to the sky and became stars.

By these lights the people found that the world was indeed very small and surrounded by waters, which made it damp. The people appealed to Vulture for help. He spread his wings and fanned the waters, which flowed away to the east and to the west until mountains began to appear.

Across the mountains the Two Brothers cut channels. Water rushed through the channels, and wore their courses deeper and deeper. Thus the great canyons and valleys of the world were formed. The waters have kept on flowing and flowing for ages. The world has grown drier, and continues to grow drier and drier.

Now that there was light, the people easily followed the tracks of Death eastward over the new land that was appearing. Hence Death is our greatest father and master. We followed his tracks when we left the cave worlds, and he was the only being that awaited us on the great world of waters where this world is now.

Although all the water had flowed away, the people found the earth soft and damp. That is why we can see today the tracks of men and of many strange creatures between the place toward the west and the place where we came from the cave world.

Since the days of the first people, the earth has been changed to stone, and all the tracks have been preserved as they were when they were first made.

When people had followed in the tracks of Corpse Demon but a short distance, they overtook him. Among them were two little girls. One was the beautiful daughter of a great priest. The other was the child of somebody-or-other She was not beautiful, and she was jealous of the little beauty. With the aid of Corpse Demon the jealous girl caused the death of the other child. This was the first death.

When people saw that the girl slept and could not be awakened, that she grew cold and that her heart had stopped beating, her father, the great priest, grew angry.

“Who has caused my daughter to die?” he cried loudly.

But the people only looked at each other.

“I will make a ball of sacred meal,” said the priest. “I will throw it into the air, and when it falls it will strike someone on the head. The one it will strike I shall know as the one whose magic and evil art have brought my tragedy upon me.”

The priest made a ball of sacred flour and pollen and threw it into the air. When it fell, it struck the head of the jealous little girl, the daughter of somebody-or-other. Then the priest exclaimed, “So you have caused this thing! You have caused the death of my daughter.”

He called a council of the people, and they tried the girl. They would have killed her if she had not cried for mercy and a little time. Then she begged the priest and his people to return to the hole they had all come out of and look down it.

“If you still wish to destroy me, after you have looked into the hole,” she said, “I will die willingly.”

So the people were persuaded to return to the hole leading from the cave world. When they looked down, they saw plains of beautiful flowers in a land of everlasting summer and fruitfulness. And they saw the beautiful little girl, the priest’s daughter, wandering among the flowers. She was so happy that she paid no attention to the people. She seemed to have no desire to return to this world.

“Look!” said the girl who had caused her death. “Thus it shall be with all the children of men.”

“When we die,” the people said to each other, “we will return to the world we have come from. There we shall be happy. Why should we fear to die? Why should we resent death?”

So they did not kill the little girl. Her children became the powerful wizards and witches of the world, who increased in numbers as people increased. Her children still live and still have wonderful and dreadful powers.

Then the people journeyed still farther eastward. As they went, they discovered Locust in their midst.

“Where did you come from?” they asked.

“I came out with you and the other beings,” he replied.

“Why did you come with us on our journey?” they asked.

“So that I might be useful,” replied Locust.

But the people, thinking that he could not be useful, said to him, “You must return to the place you came from.”

But Locust would not obey them. Then the people became so angry at him that they ran arrows through him, even through his heart. All the blood oozed out of his body and he died. After a long time he came to life again and ran about, looking as he had looked before, except that he was black.

The people said to one another, “Locust lives again, although we have pierced him through and through. Now he shall indeed be useful and shall journey with us. Who besides Locust has this wonderful power of renewing his life? He must possess the medicine for the renewal of the lives of others. He shall become the medicine of mortal wounds and of war.”

So today the locust is at first white, as was the first locust that came forth with the ancients. Like him, the locust dies, and after he has been dead a long time, he comes to life again– black. He is our father, too. Having his medicine, we are the greatest of men. The locust medicine still heals mortal wounds.

After the ancient people had journeyed a long distance, they became very hungry. In their hurry to get away from the lower cave world, they had forgotten to bring seed. After they had done much lamenting, the Spirit of Dew sent the Swallow back to bring the seed of corn and of other foods. When Swallow returned, the Spirit of Dew planted the seed in the ground and chanted prayers to it. Through the power of these prayers, the corn grew and ripened in a single day.

So for a long time, as the people continued their journey, they carried only enough seed for a day’s planting. They depended upon the Spirit of Dew to raise for them in a single day an abundance of corn and other foods. To the Corn Clan, he gave this seed, and for a long time they were able to raise enough corn for their needs in a very short time.

But the powers of the witches and wizards made the time for raising foods grow longer and longer. Now, sometimes, our corn does not have time to grow old and ripen in the ear, and our other foods do not ripen. If it had not been for the children of the little girl whom the ancient people let live, even now we would not need to watch our cornfields whole summers through, and we would not have to carry heavy packs of food on our journeys.

As the ancient people travelled on, the children of the little girl tried their powers and caused other troubles. These mischief-makers stirred up people who had come out of the cave worlds before our ancients had come. They made war upon our ancients. The wars made it necessary for the people to build houses whenever they stopped travelling. They built their houses on high mountains reached by only one trail, or in caves with but one path leading to them, or in the sides of deep canyons. Only in such places could they sleep in peace.

Only a small number of people were able to climb up from their secret hiding places and emerge into the Fourth World. Legends reveal the Grand Canyon is where these people emerged. From there they began their search for the homes the Two Brothers intended for them.

These few were the Hopi Indians that now live on the Three Mesas of northeastern Arizona.

_________________

The Poetry of William Blake

The Voice Of The Ancient Bard

Youth of delight! come hither

And see the opening morn,

Image of Truth new-born.

Doubt is fled, and clouds of reason,

Dark disputes and artful teazing.

Folly is an endless maze;

Tangled roots perplex her ways;

How many have fallen there!

They stumble all night over bones of the dead;

And feel–they know not what but care;

And wish to lead others, when they should be led.

—-

The Price of Experience

What is the price of experience? Do men buy it for a song?

Or wisdom for a dance in the street? No, it is bought with the price

Of all a man hath, his house, his wife, his children.

Wisdom is sold in the desolate market where none come to buy,

And in the wither’d field where the farmer plows for bread in vain.

It is an easy thing to triumph in the summer’s sun

And in the vintage and to sing on the waggon loaded with corn.

It is an easy thing to talk of prudence to the afflicted,

To speak the laws of prudence to the houseless wanderer,

To listen to the hungry raven’s cry in wintry season

When the red blood is fill’d with wine and with the marrow of lambs.

It is an easy thing to laugh at wrathful elements,

To hear the dog howl at the wintry door, the ox in the slaughterhouse moan;

To see a god on every wind and a blessing on every blast;

To hear sounds of love in the thunder-storm and destroys our enemies’ house;

To rejoice in the blight that covers his field, and the sickness that cuts off his children,

While our olive and vine sing and laugh round our door, and our children bring fruits and flowers.

Then the groan and the dolour are quite forgotten, and the slave grinding at the mill,

And the captive in chains, and the poor in the prison, and the soldier in the field

When the shatter’d bone hath laid him groaning among the happier dead.

It is an easy thing to rejoice in the tents of prosperity:

Thus could I sing and thus rejoice: but it is not so with me.

—

London, from Songs of Experience

I wander thro’ each charter’d street,

Near where the charter’d Thames does flow,

And mark in every face I meet

Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

In every cry of every man,

In every Infant’s cry of fear,

In every voice, in every ban,

The mind-forg’d manacles I hear.

How the Chimney-sweeper’s cry

Every black’ning Church appals;

And the hapless Soldier’s sigh

Runs in blood down Palace walls.

But most thro’ midnight streets I hear

How the youthful Harlot’s curse

Blasts the new-born infant’s tear,

And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse.

—

Auguries of Innocence

To see a world in a grain of sand

And a heaven in a wild flower,

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand

And eternity in an hour.

A robin redbreast in a cage

Puts all heaven in a rage.

A dove-house filled with doves and pigeons

Shudders hell through all its regions.

A dog starved at his master’s gate

Predicts the ruin of the state.

A horse misused upon the road

Calls to heaven for human blood.

Each outcry of the hunted hare

A fibre from the brain does tear.

A skylark wounded in the wing,

A cherubim does cease to sing.

The game-cock clipped and armed for fight

Does the rising sun affright.

Every wolf’s and lion’s howl

Raises from hell a human soul.

The wild deer wandering here and there

Keeps the human soul from care.

The lamb misused breeds public strife,

And yet forgives the butcher’s knife.

The bat that flits at close of eve

Has left the brain that won’t believe.

The owl that calls upon the night

Speaks the unbeliever’s fright.

He who shall hurt the little wren

Shall never be beloved by men.

He who the ox to wrath has moved

Shall never be by woman loved.

The wanton boy that kills the fly

Shall feel the spider’s enmity.

He who torments the chafer’s sprite

Weaves a bower in endless night.

The caterpillar on the leaf

Repeats to thee thy mother’s grief.

Kill not the moth nor butterfly,

For the Last Judgment draweth nigh.

He who shall train the horse to war

Shall never pass the polar bar.

The beggar’s dog and widow’s cat,

Feed them, and thou wilt grow fat.

The gnat that sings his summer’s song

Poison gets from Slander’s tongue.

The poison of the snake and newt

Is the sweat of Envy’s foot.

The poison of the honey-bee

Is the artist’s jealousy.

The prince’s robes and beggar’s rags

Are toadstools on the miser’s bags.

A truth that’s told with bad intent

Beats all the lies you can invent.

It is right it should be so:

Man was made for joy and woe;

And when this we rightly know

Through the world we safely go.

Joy and woe are woven fine,

A clothing for the soul divine.

Under every grief and pine

Runs a joy with silken twine.

The babe is more than swaddling bands,

Throughout all these human lands;

Tools were made and born were hands,

Every farmer understands.

Every tear from every eye

Becomes a babe in eternity;

This is caught by females bright

And returned to its own delight.

The bleat, the bark, bellow, and roar

Are waves that beat on heaven’s shore.

The babe that weeps the rod beneath

Writes Revenge! in realms of death.

The beggar’s rags fluttering in air

Does to rags the heavens tear.

The soldier armed with sword and gun

Palsied strikes the summer’s sun.

The poor man’s farthing is worth more

Than all the gold on Afric’s shore.

One mite wrung from the labourer’s hands

Shall buy and sell the miser’s lands,

Or if protected from on high

Does that whole nation sell and buy.

He who mocks the infant’s faith

Shall be mocked in age and death.

He who shall teach the child to doubt

The rotting grave shall ne’er get out.

He who respects the infant’s faith

Triumphs over hell and death.

The child’s toys and the old man’s reasons

Are the fruits of the two seasons.

The questioner who sits so sly

Shall never know how to reply.

He who replies to words of doubt

Doth put the light of knowledge out.

The strongest poison ever known

Came from Caesar’s laurel crown.

Nought can deform the human race

Like to the armour’s iron brace.

When gold and gems adorn the plough

To peaceful arts shall Envy bow.

A riddle or the cricket’s cry

Is to doubt a fit reply.

The emmet’s inch and eagle’s mile

Make lame philosophy to smile.

He who doubts from what he sees

Will ne’er believe, do what you please.

If the sun and moon should doubt,

They’d immediately go out.

To be in a passion you good may do,

But no good if a passion is in you.

The whore and gambler, by the state

Licensed, build that nation’s fate.

The harlot’s cry from street to street

Shall weave old England’s winding sheet.

The winner’s shout, the loser’s curse,

Dance before dead England’s hearse.

Every night and every morn

Some to misery are born.

Every morn and every night

Some are born to sweet delight.

Some are born to sweet delight,

Some are born to endless night.

We are led to believe a lie

When we see not through the eye

Which was born in a night to perish in a night,

When the soul slept in beams of light.

God appears, and God is light

To those poor souls who dwell in night,

But does a human form display

To those who dwell in realms of day.

The Invisible College

Yep! It’s published! You can down load it by going to the home page of EarthRites.org or you can go to this page:The Invisible College

Feedback is always appreciated… you can reach us at IC@earthrites.org.

A big thank you to all involved, from Martina Hoffmann to Cliff Anderson and all the contributors and people who encouraged us to keep going!

Please Check It Out!

Bright Blessings,

Gwyllm

____________

On The Menu

Quotes of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

The Links

Coyote as a Mythic Symbol

Coyote Tales: Why Mount Shasta Erupted

The Poetry of Alí Chumacero

______________

Quotes of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin:

Growing old is like being increasingly penalized for a crime you haven’t committed.

He that will believe only what he can fully comprehend must have a long head or a very short creed.

In the final analysis, the questions of why bad things happen to good people transmutes itself into some very different questions, no longer asking why something happened, but asking how we will respond, what we intend to do now that it happened.

It is our duty as men and women to proceed as though the limits of our abilities do not exist.

Love alone can unite living beings so as to complete and fulfill them… for it alone joins them by what is deepest in themselves. All we need is to imagine our ability to love developing until it embraces the totality of men and the earth.

Love alone is capable of uniting living beings in such a way as to complete and fulfill them, for it alone takes them and joins them by what is deepest in themselves.

Love is the affinity which links and draws together the elements of the world… Love, in fact, is the agent of universal synthesis.

Our duty, as men and women, is to proceed as if limits to our ability did not exist. We are collaborators in creation.

Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.

____________

The Links:

Mystery of Dead Goats in Unggahan Village

Survival of the biggest – hobbits wiped out by man

From Dr. Con: 2012 Time Of The Sixth Sun

Nixon and Dixon

Archaeologist digs for proof of Sasquatch

______________

Coyote as a Mythic Symbol

-David W. Fanning

Coyote–wanderer, glutton, lecher, thief, cheat, outlaw, clown, pragmatist, survivor. In the desert Southwest US, where I grew up, coyote the trickster still plays an important pragmatic and ceremonial role in the lives of Native American people. I like him because he never gives up, is always willing to say “yes” to anything, and never takes himself too seriously.

In the traditional oral literature of Native Americans, mythological creatures like coyote do not represent animals. Instead, they represent the First People, members of a mythic race who first populated our world and lived before humans existed. The First People had tremendous powers and created all we know in the world, but they were–like us–capable of being brave or cowardly, conservative or innovative, wise or stupid.

Native American coyote stories are told to audiences of young and old alike. They are sometimes told to explain cosmology, as instructional tales for the young, to illustrate history, to illuminate tragedy, and sometimes just for the sheer hilarity of telling and hearing a funny story. In all these guises, coyote stories are a mirror for our own lives, pointing out the petty foibles and the most magnificent strengths.

In a more practical vein, coyotes are survivors, able to co-exist around the edges of most human habitats. I see them frequently around Fort Collins, where I live, “goin’ along, looking for food, the way they always do.”

—

I lived in Mt. Shasta for many years. This is a great tale! I hope you enjoy…

Coyote Tales: Why Mount Shasta Erupted

Coyote, a universal and mischievous spirit, lived near Mount Shasta in what is now California. Coyote’s village had little fish and no salmon. His neighbouring village of Shasta Indians always had more than they could use.

Shasta Indians had built a dam that served as a trap for fish, especially the wonderful salmon. They ate it raw, baked it over hot coals, and dried large quantities for their winter food supply. Other tribes came to Shasta Village to trade for salmon, which created wealth and respect for the Shasta tribe.

One day Coyote was dreaming of a delicious meal of salmon. His mouth watered at the thought of a nice freshly cooked, juicy salmon.

“I am so terribly hungry,” he said to himself upon waking. “If I visit the Shasteans, maybe I can have a salmon dinner.”

Coyote washed and brushed himself to look neat and clean, then started for Shasta Village with visions of fresh salmon swimming behind his eyes. He found the Shasteans at the dam hauling in big catches of salmon. They welcomed him and said that he could have all the fish he could catch and carry.

Hunger and greed caused Coyote to take more fish than was good for him. Finally, he lifted his big load onto his back and began his homeward journey, after thanking the Shasta Indians for their generosity.

Because his load was extra heavy and he still had a long way to go Coyote soon tired.

“I think I had better rest for a while,” he thought. “A short nap will do me good.”

He stretched himself full length upon the ground, lying on his stomach, with his pack still on his back. While Coyote slept, swarms and swarms of Yellow Jackets dived down and scooped up his salmon. What was left were bare salmon bones.

Coyote waked very hungry. His first thought was how good a bite of salmon would taste at that moment. Still half-asleep, he turned his head and took a large bite. To his great surprise and anger, his mouth was full of fish bones! His salmon meat was gone. Coyote jumped up and down in a rage shouting, “Who has stolen my salmon? Who has stolen my salmon?”

Coyote searched the ground around him but could not locate any visible tracks. He decided to return to Shasta Village and ask his good friends there if he could have more salmon.

“Whatever happened to you?” they asked when they saw his pack of bare salmon bones.

“I was tired and decided to take a nap,” replied Coyote. “While I slept, someone slightly stole all of the good salmon meat that you gave me. I feel very foolish to ask, but may I catch more fish at your dam?”

All of the friendly Shasteans invited him to spend the night and to fish with them in the morning. Again, Coyote caught salmon and made a second pack for his back and started homeward.

Strangely, Coyote tired at about the same place as he had on the day before. Again he stopped to rest, but he decided that he would not sleep today. With his eyes wide open, he saw swarms of hornets approaching. Because he never imagined they were the culprits who stole his salmon, he did nothing.

Quicker than he could blink his eyes, the Yellow Jackets again stripped the salmon meat from the bones and in a flash they disappeared!

Furious with himself, Coyote raged at the Yellow Jackets. Helpless, he ran back to Shasta Village, relating to his friends what he had seen with his own eyes. They listened to his story and they felt sorry for Coyote, losing his second batch of salmon.

“Please take a third pack of fish and go to the same place and rest. We will follow and hide in the bushes beside you and keep the Yellow Jackets from stealing your fish,” responded the Shasta Indians.

Coyote departed carrying this third pack of salmon. The Shasteans followed and hid according to plan. While all were waiting, who should come along but Grandfather Turtle.

“Whoever asked you to come here?” said Coyote, annoyed at Grandfather Turtle’s intrusion.

Turtle said nothing but just sat there by himself.

“Why did you come here to bother us,” taunted Coyote. “We are waiting for the robber Yellow Jackets who stole two packs of salmon. We’ll scare them away this time with all my Shasta friends surrounding this place. Why don’t you go on your way?”

But Turtle was not bothered by Coyote; he continued to sit there and rest himself. Coyote again mocked Grandfather Turtle and became so involved with him that he was completely unaware when the Yellow Jackets returned. In a flash, they stripped the salmon bones of the delicious meat and flew away!

Coyote and the Shasta Indians were stunned for a moment. But in the next instant, they took off in hot pursuit of the Yellow Jackets. They ran and ran as fast as they could, soon exhausting themselves and dropping out of the race. Not Grandfather Turtle, who plodded steadily along, seeming to know exactly how and where to trail them.

Yellow Jackets, too, knew where they were going, as they flew in a straight line for the top of Mount Shasta. There they took the salmon into the centre of the mountain through a hole in the top. Turtle saw where they went, and waited patiently for Coyote and the other stragglers to catch up to him. Finally, they all reached the top, where turtle showed them the hole through which the Yellow Jackets had disappeared.

Coyote directed all the good people to start a big fire on the top of Mount Shasta. They fanned the smoke into the top hole, thinking to smoke out the yellow jackets. But the culprits did not come out, because the smoke found other holes in the side of the mountain.

Frantically, Coyote and the Shasta Indians ran here, there, and everywhere, closing up the smaller smoke holes. They hoped to suffocate the Yellow Jackets within the mountain.

Furiously, they worked at their task while Grandfather Turtle crawled up to the very top of Mount Shasta. Gradually, he lifted himself onto the top hole and sat down, covering it completely with his massive shell, like a Mother Turtle sits on her nest. He succeeded in completely closing the top hole, so that no more smoke escaped.

Coyote and his friends closed all of the smaller holes.

“Surely the Yellow Jackets will soon be dead,” said Coyote as he sat down to rest.

What is that rumbling noise, everyone questioned? Louder and louder the noise rumbled from deep within Mount Shasta. Closer and closer to the top came the rumble. Grandfather Turtle decided it was time for him to move from his hot seat.

Suddenly, a terrific explosion occurred within the mountain, spewing smoke, fire, and gravel everywhere!

Then to Coyote’s delight, he saw his salmon miraculously pop out from the top hole of Mount Shasta–cooked and smoked, ready to eat!

Coyote, the Shasta Indians, and Grandfather Turtle sat down to a well-deserved meal of delicious salmon.

To this day, the Shasta Indian tribe likes to conclude this tale saying, “This is how volcanic eruptions began long, long ago on Mount Shasta.”

__________

The Poetry of Alí Chumacero

The Sphere of the Dance

She moves the air, her own gentleness

returns to fire: the cold

to amazement and the splendor

arises to music. No one

breathes, nobody thinks and only

the undulation of the glances

shimmers like hair a comet trails.

In the drawing room the marble sobs

its propriety recovered, the river

of ashes groans and hides

faces and clothes and humidity.

Body of happening or peak

in motion, its epitaph

prevails in the half-light and forsakes

collapsing, untumultuous waves.

Lifeless in ignominy, in space

the families doze, sad

as the imprisoned gambles,

and the adultress longs for

the charity of another’s sheer.

Under the light, the dancer

dreams of disappearing.

Widower’s Monologue

I open the door, return to the familiar mercy

of my own house where a vague

sense protects me the son who never was

smacking of shipwreck, waves or a passionate cloak

whose acid summers

cloud the fading face. Archaic refuge

of dead gods fills the region,

and below, the wind breathes, a conscious

gust which fanned my forehead yesterday

still sought in the perturbed present.

I could not speak of sheets, candles, smoke

nor humility and compassion, calm

at the afternoon’s edges, I could not

say “her hands,” “her sadness,” “our country”

because everything in her name

is lighted by her wounds. Like a signal sprung

of foam, an epitaph, curtains, a bed, rugs

and destruction moving toward disdain

while the lime triumphs denying her nakedness

the color of emptiness.

Now time, begins, the bitter smile

of the guest who in sleeplessness sings,

waking his anger, within the vile city

the calcined music with curled lip

from indecision

that flows without cease. Star or dolphin, yonder

beneath the wave his foot vanishes,

tunics turned to emblems

sink their burning shows and with ashes

score my own forehead.

The Wanderings of the Tribe

Autumn surrounds the valley, iniquity

overflows, and the hill sacred to splendor

responds in the form of a revenge. The dust measures

and misfortune knows who gallops

where all gallop with the same fury:

constrained attendance on the broken circle

by the son who startles his father gazing

from a window buried in the sand.

Blood of man’s victim

besieges doors, cries our: “Here no one lives,”

but the mansion is inhabited by the barbarian who seeks

dignity, yoke of the fatherland

broken, abhorred by memory,

as the husband looks at his wife face to face

and close to the threshold, the intruder

hastens the trembling that precedes misfortune.

Iron and greed, a decisive leprosy

of hatreds that were fed by rapine and deceits

wets the seeds. Brother against brother

comes to the challenge without pity

brings to a pause its stigma against the kingdom of pity:

arrogance goads the leap into the void

that as the wind dies the eagles abandon

their quest like tumbled statues.

Emptied upon the mockery of the crowd

the afternoon defends itself, redoubles its hide

against stones that have lost their foundations.

Her offense is compassion when we pass

from the gilded alcove to the somber one

with the fixety of glowing coals: hardly

a moment, peaceful light as upon

a drunken soldier awaiting his degradation.

We can smile later at our childish furies

giving way to rancor and sometimes envy

before the ruffian who without a word taking leave

descends from the beast

in search of surcease. The play is his:

mask quitting the scene, catastrophy

overtaking love with its delirium and with delight

looses the last remnant of its fury.

Came doubt and the lust for wine,

bodies like daggers, that transform

youth to tyranny: pleasures

and the crew of sin.

A bursting rain of dishonor

a heavy tumult and the nearnesses

were disregarded drums and cries and sobs

to those whom no one calls by the name of “brother.”

At last I thought the day calmed

its own profanities. The clouds, contempt,

the site made thunderbolts by love’s phrases,

tableware, oil, sweet odors, was all

a cunning propitiation of the enemy,

and I discovered later floating over

the drowned tribes, links of foam tumbling

blindly against the sides of a ship.

__________

Ali Chumacero (July 9, 1918 in Acaponeta,Nayarit, Mexico) is a notable Mexican poet.

He was codirector of the New Earth Magazine from 1940 to 1942. Also, he at one point was the Director of Letters of Mexico as well as editor of the Prodigal Son and “Mexico in the Culture” (a supplement to the newspaper news features).

Between 1952 and 1953 he received scholarships for the School of Mexico and for the Mexican Center of Writers. A strict and conscious poet who writes with much discipline, he has written several works: “Desert Of Dreams”(1944), “Exiled Images” (1948), and “Words In Rest”(1956). He received a national tribute for his third book, “Words In Rest”, for its cultural work and poetic creation in 1996. Currently he is the advisor at heart for “Of Economic Culture”, editor of “The Culture in Mexico” (a supplement of the magazine), and the editor for the cultural supplement for the Ovaciones newspaper.

As a result of confusing the real world of nature with mere signs such as money, stocks and bonds, title deeds and so forth we are destroying nature. This is a disaster. Time to wake up!—Alan Watts

Heading Down The Garden Path…

I swear, I swear. This is a bit of the hodge-podge today. Somewhat distracted and mired down in life at hand.

After the whole Gonzales thing, I realized that the task at hand is a bit Sisyphean in its nature; up the hill and back again with that damn rock. So, I found an article put together by Albert Camus which throws the myth into another light. Thanks Albert for that…

I am introducing Turfing to Austin Clarke, perhaps one of the last of Irelands’ Bardic Poets. This really is a treat IMHO. Wonderful Stuff!

Links are a bit wacky today, and the quotes, are well the quotes.

I hope this finds you well, and heading down the garden path of delight and joy.

Bright Blessings…

______

On The Menu:

The Links

The Quotes

The Myth of Sisyphus

The Poetry of Austin Clarke

_____________

The Links:

Orion’s Cradle

Through a Glass, Darkly: How the Christian right is re-imagining U.S. history

Spell May Comprise Oldest Semitic Text

Just a wee bit creepy…

Macabre secret of ancient cave revealed in TV series

______________

The Quotes

“It is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatsoever for supposing it is true.”

“Never give a party if you will be the most interesting person there.”

“People that are really very weird can get into sensitive positions and have a tremendous impact on history.”

“It is always easier to believe than to deny. Our minds are naturally affirmative.”

“With Epcot Center the Disney corporation has accomplished something I didn’t think possible in today’s world. They have created a land of make-believe that’s worse than regular life.”

“Estimated amount of glucose used by an adult human brain each day, expressed in M&Ms: 250″

“If God had really intended men to fly, he’d make it easier to get to the airport.”

___________________

The Myth of Sisyphus

Albert Camus

The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor.

If one believes Homer, Sisyphus was the wisest and most prudent of mortals. According to another tradition, however, he was disposed to practice the profession of highwayman. I see no contradiction in this. Opinions differ as to the reasons why he became the futile laborer of the underworld. To begin with, he is accused of a certain levity in regard to the gods. He stole their secrets. Egina, the daughter of Esopus, was carried off by Jupiter. The father was shocked by that disappearance and complained to Sisyphus. He, who knew of the abduction, offered to tell about it on condition that Esopus would give water to the citadel of Corinth. To the celestial thunderbolts he preferred the benediction of water. He was punished for this in the underworld. Homer tells us also that Sisyphus had put Death in chains. Pluto could not endure the sight of h is deserted, silent empire. He dispatched the god of war, who liberated Death from the hands of her conqueror.

It is said that Sisyphus, being near to death, rashly wanted to test his wife’s love. He ordered her to cast his unburied body into the middle of the public square. Sisyphus woke up in the underworld. And there, annoyed by an obedience so contrary to human love, he obtained from Pluto permission to return to earth in order to chastise his wife. But when he had seen again the face of this world, enjoyed water and sun, warm stones and the sea, he no longer wanted to go back to the infernal darkness. Recalls, signs of anger, warnings were of no avail. Many years more he lived facing the curve of the gulf, the sparkling sea, and the smiles of earth. A decree of the gods w as necessary. Mercury came and seized the impudent man by the collar and, snatching him from his joys, lead him forcibly back to the underworld, where his rock was ready for him.

You have already grasped that Sisyphus is the absurd hero. He is, as much through his passions as through his torture. His scorn of the gods, his hatred of death, and his passion for life won him that unspeakable penalty in which the whole being is exerted toward accomplishing nothing. This is the price that must be paid for the passions of this earth. Nothing is told us about Sisyphus in the underworld. Myths are made for the imagination to breathe life into them. As for this myth, one sees merely the whole effort of a body straining to raise the huge stone, to roll it, and push it up a slope a hundred times over; one sees the face screw ed up, the cheek tight against the stone, the shoulder bracing the clay-covered mass, the foot wedging it, the fresh start with arms outstretched, the wholly human security of two earth-clotted hands. At the very end of his long effort measured by skyless space and time without depth, the purpose is achieved. Then Sisyphus watches the stone rush down in a few moments toward that lower world whence he will have to push it up again toward the summit. He goes back down to the plain.

It is during that return, that pause, that Sisyphus interests me. A face that toils so close to stones is already stone itself! I see that man going back down with a heavy yet measured step toward the torment of which he will never know the end. That hour like a breathing-space which returns as surely as his suffering, that is the hour of consciousness. At each of those moments when he leaves the heights and gradually sinks toward the lairs of the gods, he is superior to his fate. He is stronger than his rock.

If this myth is tragic, that is because its hero is conscious. Where would his torture be, indeed, if at every step the hope of succeeding upheld him? The workman of today works everyday in his life at the same tasks, and his fate is no less absurd. But it is tragic only at the rare moments when it becomes conscious. Sisyphus, proletarian of the gods, powerless and rebellious, knows the whole extent of his wretched condition: it is what he thinks of during his descent. The lucidity that was to constitute his torture at the same time crowns his victory. There is no fate that can not be surmou nted by scorn.

If the descent is thus sometimes performed in sorrow, it can also take place in joy. This word is not too much. Again I fancy Sisyphus returning toward his rock, and the sorrow was in the beginning. When the images of earth cling too tightly to memory, when the call of happiness becomes too insistent, it happens that melancholy arises in man’s heart: this is the rock’s victory, this is the rock itself. The boundless grief is too heavy to bear. These are our nights of Gethsemane. But crushing truths perish from being acknowledged. Thus, Edipus at the outset obeys fate without knowing it. But from the moment he knows, his tragedy begins. Yet at the same moment, blind and desperate, he realizes that the on ly bond linking him to the world is the cool hand of a girl. Then a tremendous remark rings out: “Despite so many ordeals, my advanced age and the nobility of my soul make me conclude that all is well.” Sophocles’ Edipus, like Dostoevsky’s Kirilov, thus gives the recipe for the absurd victory. Ancient wisdom confirms modern heroism.

One does not discover the absurd without being tempted to write a manual of happiness. “What!—by such narrow ways–?” There is but one world, however. Happiness and the absurd are two sons of the same earth. They are inseparable. It would be a mistake to say that happiness necessarily springs from the absurd discovery. It happens as well that the feeling of the absurd springs from happiness. “I conclude that all is well,” says Oedipus, and that remark is sacred. It echoes in the wild and limited universe of man. It teaches that all is not, has not been, exhausted. It drives out of this world a god who had come into it with dissatisfaction and a preference for futile suffering. It makes of fate a human matter, which must be settled among men.

All Sisyphus’ silent joy is contained therein. His fate belongs to him. His rock is a thing Likewise, the absurd man, when he contemplates his torment, silences all the idols. In the universe suddenly restored to its silence, the myriad wondering little voices of the earth rise up. Unconscious, secret calls, invitations from all the faces, they are the necessary reverse and price of victory. There is no sun without shadow, and it is essential to know the night. The absurd man says yes and his efforts will henceforth be unceasing. If there is a personal fate, there is no higher destiny, or at least there is, but one which he concludes is inevitable and despicable. For the rest, he knows himself to be the master of his days. At that subtle moment when man glances backward over his life, Sisyphus returning toward his rock, in that slight pivoting he contemplates that series of unrelated actions which become his fate, created by him, combined under his memory’s eye and soon sealed by his death. Thus, convinced of the wholly human origin of all that is human, a blind man eage r to see who knows that the night has no end, he is still on the go. The rock is still rolling.

I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one’s burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night filled mountain, in itself forms a world. The strugg le itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.

Translation by Justin O’Brien, 1955

____________

The Poetry of Austin Clarke

The Lost Heifer

When the black herds of the rain were grazing

In the gap of the pure cold wind

And the watery haze of the hazel

Brought her into my mind,

I thought of the last honey by the water

That no hive can find.

Brightness was drenching through the branches

When she wandered again,

Turning the silver out of dark grasses

Where the skylark had lain,

And her voice coming softly over the meadow

Was the mist becoming rain.

—

Penal Law

Burn Ovid with the rest. Lovers will find

A hedge-school for themselves and learn by heart

All that the clergy banish from the mind,

When hands are joined and heads bow in the dark.

—

The Awakening Of Dermuid

From ‘The Vengeance of Finn’

In the sleepy forest where the bluebells

Smouldered dimly through the night,

Dermuid saw the leaves

Like green waters

At daybreak flowing into light,

And exaltant from his love upspringing

Strode with the sun upon the height.

Glittering on the hilltops

He saw the sunlit rain

Drift as around the spindle

A silver threaded skien,

And the brown mist whitely breaking

Where arrowy torrents reached the plain.

A maddened moon

Leapt in his heart and…

Whirled the crimson tide

Of his blood until it sang aloud of battle

Where the querns of dark death grind,

Till it sang and scorned in pride

Love – the froth-pale

Blossom of the boglands

That flutters on the waves of

The wandering wind.

Flower quiet in the rush strewn sheiling

At the dawntime Grainne lay,

While beneath the birch-topped roof

The sunlight groped upon its way

And stopped above her sleeping white body

With a wasp yellow ray.

The hot breath of the day awoke her,

And wearied of its heat

She wandered out by the noisy elms

On the cool mossy peat,

Where the shadowed leaves

Like pecking linnets

Nodded round her feet.

She leaned and saw

In the pale-grey waters,

By twisted hazel boughs,

Her lips like heavy drooping poppies

In a rich redness drowse,

Then swallow…

Lightly touched the ripples

Until her wet lips were

Burning as ripened rowan berries

Through the white winter air.

Lazily she lingered

Gazing so,

As the slender osiers

Where the waters flow,

As greentwigs of sally

Swaying to and fro.

Sleepy moths fluttered

In her dark eyes,

And her lips grew quieter

Than lullabies.

Swaying with the reedgrass

Over the stream

Lazily she lingered

Cradling a dream.

—

The Subjection of Women

Over the hills the loose clouds rambled

From rock to gully where goat or ram

Might shelter. Below, the battering-ram

Broke in more cottages. Hope was gone

Until the legendary Maud Gonne,

for whom a poet lingered, sighed,

Drove out of mist upon a side-car,

Led back the homeless to broken fence,

Potato plot, their one defence,

And there, despite the threat of Peelers,

With risky shovel, barrow, peeling

Their coats off, eager young men

Jumped over bog-drain, stone to mend or

Restore the walls of clay; the police

Taking down names without a lease.

O she confronted the evictors

In Donegal, our victory.

When she was old and I was quickened

By syllables, I met her. Quickens

Stirred leafily in Glenmalure

Where story of Tudor battle had lured me.

I looked with wonder at the sheen

Of her golden eyes as though the Sidhe

Had sent a flame-woman up from ground

Where danger went, carbines were grounded.

Old now, by luck, I try to count

Those years. I never saw the Countess

Markievicz in her green uniform,

Cock-feathered slouched hat, her Fianna form

Fours. Form the railings of Dublin slums,

On the ricketty stairs the ragged slumped

At night. She knew what their poverty meant

In dirty laneway, tenement,

And fought for new conditions, welfare

When all was cruel, all unfair.

With speeches, raging as strong liquor,

Our big employers, bad Catholics,

Incited by Martin Murphy, waged

War on the poor and unwaged them.

Hundreds of earners were batoned, benighted,

When power and capital united.

Soon Connolly founded the Citizen Army

And taught the workers to drill, to arm.

Half-starving children were brought by ship

To Liverpool from lock-out, hardship.

“innocent souls are seized by kidnappers,

And proselytisers. Send back our kids!”

Religion guffed.

The Countess colled

With death at sandbags in the College

Of Surgeons. How many did she shoot

When she kicked off her satin shoes?

Women rose out after the Rebellion

When smoke of buildings hid the churchbells,

Helena Maloney, Louie Bennett

Unioned the women workers bent

At sewing machines in the by-rooms

Of Dublin, with little money to buy

A meal, dress-makers, milliners,

Tired hands in factories.

Mill-girls

In Lancashire were organized,

Employers forced to recognize them:

This was the cause of Eva Gore-Booth,

Who spoke on platform, at polling-booth

In the campaign for Women’s Suffrage,

That put our double-beds in a rage,

Disturbed the candle-lighted tonsure.

Here Mrs. Sheehy-Skeffington

And other marched. On a May day

In the Phoenix Park, I watched, amazed,

A lovely woman speak in public

While crowding fellows from office, public

House, jeered. I heard that sweet voice ring

And saw the gleam of wedding ring

As she denounced political craft,

Tall, proud as Mary Wollenstonecraft.

Still discontented, our country prays

To private enterprise. Few praise

Now Dr. Kathleen Lynn, who founded

A hospital for sick babies, foundlings,

Saved them with lay hands. How could we

Look down on infants, prattling, cooing,

When wealth had emptied so many cradles?

Better than ours, her simple Credo.

Women, who cast off all we want,

Are now despised, their names unwanted,

For patriots in party statement

And act make worse our Ill-fare State.

The soul is profit. Money claims us.

Heroes are valuable clay.

—

Austin Clarke (May 9, 1896–March 19, 1974) was one of the leading Irish poets of the generation after W. B. Yeats. He also wrote plays, novels and memoirs. Clarke’s main contribution to Irish poetry was the rigour with which he used technical means borrowed from classical Irish language poetry when writing in English.

Effectively, this meant writing English verse based not so much on metre as on complex patterns of assonance, consonance, and half rhyme. Describing his technique to Robert Frost, Clarke said “I load myself down with chains and try to wriggle free.”

“Whenever you are confronted with an opponent. Conquer him with love.”

-Ghandi

This entry is based on the links… I sat up a good part of the evening pondering what I am seeing unfold in the USA. Actually, this is an old story as my friend Tomas told me this morning on the phone from his place on the East Coast. I have to agree. Thanks Tomas for putting it in perspective. Wakey Wakey!

So I am asking you to consider a novel approach for the here and now. Resist by building your community, and owning/sharing your lives. Reach out and give aid to those in need, and look to living is such away as to be a blessing on the green earth and not a curse.

I pray that we realize that we are always enfolded in community, and not just human community. Being here is being a part of the whole, not separate from it.

We can let go of the past and build a future for those that come after. Witness the truth, and resist by the power of Love.

What we are witnessing is another face of the madness, and its need to be control. Be like water in the palm of the hand, be like mercury. The future will be made with Love, I promise.

Bright Blessings,

Gwyllm

On The Menu

The Only Links You Will Need

Coyote and the Monsters of the Bitterroot Valley

Poetry Of Resistance

_____________

The Only Links You Will Need:

Gonzales Questions Habeas Corpus: More Fun With the Constitution

How to Interpret the Ten Commandments: An attempt at legal analysis of Biblical law following Gonzalesian logic.

____________

“Nonviolence is a weapon of the strong”

-Ghandi

____________

Coyote and the Monsters of the Bitterroot Valley

This story was recorded from a great-great-grandmother whose name means “Painted-Hem-of-the-Skirt.” In the summer of 1955, she was the only person on the Flathead Reservation in western Montana that even an interested interpreter could find who knew the old stories of their people.

The Bitterroot Valley is in western Montana.

After Coyote had killed the monster near the mouth of the Jocko River, he turned south and went up the Bitterroot Valley. Soon he saw two huge monsters, one at each end of a ridge. Coyote killed them, changed them into tall rocks, and said, “You will always be there.”

There the tall rocks still stand.

Then he went on. Someone had told him about another monster, an Elk monster, up on a mountain to the east. Coyote said to his wife, Mole, “Dig a tunnel clear to the place where that monster is. Dig several holes in the tunnel. Then move our camp to the other side.”

Coyote went through the tunnel Mole had made, got out of it, and saw the Elk monster. The monster was surprised to see him.

“How did you get here?” he asked. “Where did you come from?” The monster was scared.

“I came across the prairie,” lied Coyote. “Don’t you see my trail? You must be blind if you didn’t see me.”

The monster became more scared. He thought that Coyote must have greater powers than he himself had.

Coyote’s dog was Pine Squirrel, and the Elk monster’s dog was Grizzly Bear. Grizzly Bear growled at Pine Squirrel, and Pine Squirrel barked back.

“You’d better stop your dog,” said the monster. “If you don’t, he’ll lose his head.”

The dogs wanted to fight. Grizzly Bear jumped at Coyote’s dog. Pine Squirrel went under him and killed him with the flint he wore on his head. The flint ripped Grizzly Bear. Bones and flesh flew everywhere.

“Look down there,” said Coyote to the Elk monster. “See those people coming along that trail? Let’s go after them.”

He knew that what he saw was Mole moving their camp, but the monster could not see clearly in the tunnel. Elk monster picked up his shield, his spear, and his knife. “I’m ready,” he said.

After they had gone a short distance along the trail, the monster fell into the first hole. Coyote called loudly, as if he were calling to an enemy ahead of them. The monster climbed out of the hole, tried to run, but fell into one hole after another. At last Coyote said to him, “Let me carry your shield. Then you can run faster.”

Coyote put the shield on his back, but the monster still had trouble. “Let me carry your spear,” Coyote said. Soon he got the monster’s knife, also–and all of his equipment. Then Coyote ran round and round, shouting, “This is how we charge the enemy.”

And he jabbed the monster with the monster’s spear. “I have the enemy’s warbonnet!” he yelled. He jabbed the monster four times, each time yelling that he had taken something from the enemy. The fifth time he jabbed the monster, he yelled, “I have stripped the enemy.” Then he said to the Elk monster, “You can never kill anyone again.”

Coyote went on up the Bitterroot Valley. He heard a baby crying, up on a hill. Coyote went up to the baby, not knowing it was a monster. He put his finger in the baby’s mouth, to let it suck. The baby ate the flesh off Coyote’s finger, then his hand, and then his arm. The monster baby killed Coyote. Only his skeleton was left.

After a while, Coyote’s good friend Fox came along. Fox stepped over the dead body, and Coyote came to life. He began to stretch as if he had been asleep. “I’ve slept a long time,” he said to Fox.

You’ve been dead,” Fox told him. “That baby is a monster, and he killed you.”

Coyote looked around, but the baby was gone. He put some flint on his finger and waited for the baby to come back. When he heard it crying, he called out, “Hello, baby! You must be hungry.”

Coyote let it have his flinted finger to suck. The baby cut himself and died.

“That’s the last of you,” said Coyote. “This hill will forever be called Sleeping Child.”

And that is what the Indians call it today.

After Coyote had left Sleeping Child, Fox joined him again and they travelled together. Soon Coyote grew tired of carrying his blanket, and so he laid it on a rock. After they had travelled farther, they saw a storm coming. They went back to the rock, Coyote picked up his blanket, and the two friends moved on. When the rain began to fall, he put the blanket over himself and Fox. While lying there, covered by the blanket, they looked out and saw the rock running toward them.

Fox went uphill, but Coyote ran downhill. The rock followed close on Coyote’s trail. Coyote crossed the river, sure that he was safe. Spreading his clothes out on a rock, he thought he would rest while they dried. But the rock followed him across the river. When he saw it coming out of the water, Coyote began to run. He saw three women sitting nearby, with stone hammers in their hands.

“If that rock comes here,” Coyote said to the women, “you break it with your hammers.”

But the rock got away from the women. Coyote ran on to where a creek comes down from the mountains near Darby. There he took some vines–Indians call them “monkey ropes”–and placed them so that the rock would get tangled up in them. He set fire to the monkey ropes. The rock got tangled in the burning ropes and was killed by the heat.

Then Coyote said to the rock, “The Indians will come through here on their way to the buffalo country. They will play with you. They will find you slick and heavy, and they will lift you up.”

In my childhood, the rock was still there, but it is gone now, no one knows where.

Coyote left the dead rock and went on farther. Soon he saw a mountain sheep. The sheep insulted Coyote and made him angry. Coyote grabbed him and threw him against a pine tree. The body went clear through the tree, but the head stayed on it. The horns stuck out from the trunk of the tree.

Coyote said to the tree, “When people go by, they will talk to you. They will say, ‘I want to have good luck. So I will leave a gift here for you.’ They will leave gifts and you will make them lucky–in hunting or in war or in anything they wish to do.”

The tree became well known as the Medicine Tree. People from several tribes left gifts in it when they passed on their way to the buffalo country that is on the rising-sun side of the mountains.

In my childhood, the skull and face were still there. When I was a young girl, people told me to put some of my hair inside the sheep’s horn, so that I would live a long time. I did. That’s why I’m nearly ninety years old.

As the interpreter and I were leaving Painted-Hem- of-the-Skirt, she bent low and made a sweeping movement around her ankles and the hem of her long skirt. Then she said a few words and laughed heartily. The interpreter explained: “She says she hopes that she will not find a rattlesnake wrapped around her legs because she told some of the old stories in the summertime.”

She had laughed often as she told the tales, but I feel sure that her mother would not have related them in the summertime. “It is good to tell stories in the wintertime,” the Indians of the Northwest used to say. “There are long nights in the wintertime.”

_____________

“What do I think of Western civilisation? I think it would be a very good idea.”

Ghandi

_____________

Poetry Of Resistance…

self evident

by ani di franco

yes,

us people are just poems

we’re 90% metaphor

with a leanness of meaning

approaching hyper-distillation

and once upon a time

we were moonshine

rushing down the throat of a giraffe

yes, rushing down the long hallway

despite what the p.a. announcement says>

yes, rushing down the long stairs

with the whiskey of eternity

fermented and distilled

to eighteen minutes

burning down our throats

down the hall

down the stairs

in a building so tall

that it will always be there

yes, it’s part of a pair

there on the bow of noah’s ark

the most prestigious couple

just kickin back parked

against a perfectly blue sky

on a morning beatific

in its indian summer breeze

on the day that america

fell to its knees

after strutting around for a century

without saying thank you

or please

and the shock was subsonic

and the smoke was deafening

between the setup and the punch line

cuz we were all on time for work that day

we all boarded that plane for to fly

and then while the fires were raging

we all climbed up on the windowsill

and then we all held hands

and jumped into the sky

and every borough looked up when it heard the first blast

and then every dumb action movie was summarily surpassed

and the exodus uptown by foot and motorcar

looked more like war than anything i’ve seen so far

so far

so far

so fierce and ingenious

a poetic specter so far gone

that every jackass newscaster was struck dumb and stumbling

over ‘oh my god’ and ‘this is unbelievable’ and on and on

and i’ll tell you what, while we’re at it

you can keep the pentagon

keep the propaganda

keep each and every tv

that’s been trying to convince me

to participate

in some prep school punk’s plan to perpetuate retribution

perpetuate retribution

even as the blue toxic smoke of our lesson in retribution

is still hanging in the air

and there’s ash on our shoes

and there’s ash in our hair

and there’s a fine silt on every mantle

from hell’s kitchen to brooklyn

and the streets are full of stories

sudden twists and near misses

and soon every open bar is crammed to the rafters

with tales of narrowly averted disasters

and the whiskey is flowin

like never before

as all over the country

folks just shake their heads

and pour

so here’s a toast to all the folks who live in palestine

afghanistan

iraq

el salvador

here’s a toast to the folks living on the pine ridge reservation

under the stone cold gaze of mt. rushmore

here’s a toast to all those nurses and doctors

who daily provide women with a choice

who stand down a threat the size of oklahoma city

just to listen to a young woman’s voice

here’s a toast to all the folks on death row right now

awaiting the executioner’s guillotine

who are shackled there with dread and can only escape into their heads

to find peace in the form of a dream

cuz take away our playstations

and we are a third world nation

under the thumb of some blue blood royal son

who stole the oval office and that phony election

i mean

it don’t take a weatherman

to look around and see the weather

jeb said he’d deliver florida, folks

and boy did he ever

and we hold these truths to be self evident:

#1 george w. bush is not president

#2 america is not a true democracy

#3 the media is not fooling me

cuz i am a poem heeding hyper-distillation

i’ve got no room for a lie so verbose

i’m looking out over my whole human family

and i’m raising my glass in a toast

here’s to our last drink of fossil fuels

let us vow to get off of this sauce

shoo away the swarms of commuter planes

and find that train ticket we lost

cuz once upon a time the line followed the river

and peeked into all the backyards

and the laundry was waving

the graffiti was teasing us

from brick walls and bridges

we were rolling over ridges

through valleys

under stars

i dream of touring like duke ellington

in my own railroad car

i dream of waiting on the tall blonde wooden benches

in a grand station aglow with grace

and then standing out on the platform

and feeling the air on my face

give back the night its distant whistle

give the darkness back its soul

give the big oil companies the finger finally

and relearn how to rock-n-roll

yes, the lessons are all around us and a change is waiting there

so it’s time to pick through the rubble, clean the streets

and clear the air

get our government to pull its big dick out of the sand

of someone else’s desert

put it back in its pants

and quit the hypocritical chants of

freedom forever

cuz when one lone phone rang

in two thousand and one

at ten after nine

on nine one one

which is the number we all called

when that lone phone rang right off the wall

right off our desk and down the long hall

down the long stairs

in a building so tall

that the whole world turned

just to watch it fall

and while we’re at it

remember the first time around?

the bomb?

the ryder truck?

the parking garage?

the princess that didn’t even feel the pea?

remember joking around in our apartment on avenue D?

can you imagine how many paper coffee cups would have to change their

design

following a fantastical reversal of the new york skyline?!

it was a joke, of course

it was a joke

at the time

and that was just a few years ago

so let the record show

that the FBI was all over that case

that the plot was obvious and in everybody’s face

and scoping that scene

religiously

the CIA

or is it KGB?

committing countless crimes against humanity

with this kind of eventuality

as its excuse

for abuse after expensive abuse

and it didn’t have a clue

look, another window to see through

way up here

on the 104th floor

look

another key

another door

10% literal

90% metaphor

3000 some poems disguised as people

on an almost too perfect day

should be more than pawns

in some asshole’s passion play

so now it’s your job

and it’s my job

to make it that way

to make sure they didn’t die in vain

sshhhhhh….

baby listen

hear the train?

—-

What She Said

by Lisa Suhair Majaj

“They don’t have snow days in Palestine, they

have military invasion days.” (International

Solidarity Movement activists, describing

Palestinian children’s lives under Israeli

military occupation.)

She said, go play outside,

but don’t throw balls near the soldiers.

When a jeep goes past

keep your eyes on the ground.

And don’t pick up stones,

not even for hopscotch. She said,

don’t bother the neighbors;

their son was arrested last night.

Hang the laundry, make the beds,

scrub that graffiti off the walls

before the soldiers see it. She said,

there’s no money; if your shoes

are too tight, cut the toes off.

This is what we have to eat;

we won’t eat again until tomorrow.

No, we don’t have any oranges,

they chopped down the orange trees.

I don’t know why. Maybe the trees

were threatening the tanks. She said,

there’s no water, we’ll take baths next week,

insha’allah. Meanwhile, don’t flush the toilet.

And don’t go near the olive grove,

there are settlers there with guns.

No, I don’t know how we’ll harvest

the olives, and I don’t know what we’ll do

if they bulldoze the trees. God will provide

if He wishes, or UNRWA, but certainly not

the Americans. She said, you can’t

go out today, there’s a curfew.

Keep away from those windows;

can’t you hear the shooting?

No, I don’t know why they bulldozed

the neighbor’s house. And if God knows,

He’s not telling. She said,

there’s no school today,

it’s a military invasion.

No, I don’t know when it will be over,

or if it will be over. She said,

don’t think about the tanks

or the planes or the guns

or what happened to the neighbors,

Come into the hallway,

it’s safer there. And turn off that news,

you’re too young for this. Listen,

I’ll tell you a story so you won’t be scared.

Kan ya ma kan – there was or there was not –

a land called Falastine

where children played in the streets

and in the fields and in the orchards

and picked apricots and almonds

and wove jasmine garlands for their mothers.

And when planes flew overhead

they shouted happily and waved.

Kan ya ma kan. Keep your head down.

This poem was a finalist in the 2004 War Poetry Contest sponsored by Winning Writers. Copyright is reserved to the author.

About the author: Lisa Suhair Majaj, a Palestinian American, has published poetry and creative nonfiction in World Literature Today, Visions International, South Atlantic Quarterly, The Women’s Review of Books, The Atlanta Review, The Poetry of Arab Women, The Space Between Our Footsteps: Poems and Paintings from the Middle East, Unrooted Childhoods and elsewhere. She has also co-edited three collections of critical essays.

—–

Sons and Daughters of Baghdad

by M. JUNAID ALAM

The intent here is to impose a regime of Shock and Awe through delivery of instant, nearly incomprehensible levels of massive destruction directed at influencing society writ large

–Excerpt from Shock and Awe: Achieving Rapid Dominance

Sons and Daughters of Baghdad

Sons and Daughters of Baghdad:

The hour of your liberation draws near

Stand in shock and awe

At the strength of our much-burdened shoulders.

Sons and Daughters of Baghdad:

The hour of your liberation draws near

Watch as your homes and buildings burn

Cower as the earth around you shakes

Cry as your windows smash and shatter

Run and flee as our armored forces gather

Sons and Daughters of Baghdad:

The hour of your liberation draws near

Watch the skies for the first signs of your freedom:

Cruise missiles

Electricity fizzles

Microwave bombs

21,000 pound

Laser-guided

Radar-guided

And God-guided munitions

To bring your democracy to fruition.

Sons and Daughters of Baghdad:

The hour of your liberation draws near

We extend towards you our white hand

Once embraced by many in vain:

Indian, African, Vietnamese,

And washed clean of their colored red stain.

Sons and Daughters of Baghdad:

The hour of your liberation draws near

Spread the good news to the hospitals

To the cancer wards

To the 500,000

Lying quietly in their tiny coffins

And to those among you

Who will soon join them.

Sons and Daughters of Baghdad:

The hour of your liberation draws near

Rest assured–your fate is secured

Prepared by the Messianic and the Chosen

Inspired by the liberators of Palestine:

By tanks, settlers, bulldozers,

By starvation, torture, curfews

By occupation, apartheid, ethnic cleansing

By 1948

And 1492.

Sons and Daughters of Baghdad:

Shock and Awe is here

Prepare your eulogies, your epitaphs

For the hour of your liberation draws near.

M. Junaid Alam

—-

A Moment of Silence for 9/11

By Emmanuel Ortiz, 9/11/02

Before I start this poem, I’d like to ask you to

join me in a moment of silence in honor of those who

died in the World Trade Center and the Pentagon last

September 11th.

I would also like to ask you to offer up a moment of

silence for all of those who have been harassed,

imprisoned, disappeared, tortured, raped, or killed in

retaliation for those strikes, for the victims in both

Afghanistan and the U.S.

And if I could just add one more thing…

A full day of silence for the tens of thousands of

Palestinians who have died at the hands of

U.S.-backed Israeli forces over decades of occupation.

Six months of silence for the million-and-a-half Iraqi

people, mostly

children, who have died of malnourishment or

starvation as a result of

an 11-year U.S. embargo against the country.

Before I begin this poem, two months of silence

for the Blacks under Apartheid in South Africa,

where homeland security made them aliens in their own

country.

Nine months of silence for the dead in Hiroshima and

Nagasaki, where death rained down and peeled back

every layer of concrete, steel, earth, and skin and

the survivors went on as if alive.

A year of silence for the millions of dead in Viet Nam

– a people, not a war – for those who know a thing or

two about the scent of burning fuel, their relatives’

bones buried in it, their babies born of it.

A year of silence for the dead in Cambodia and Laos,

victims of a secret war … ssssshhhhh … Say nothing

… we don’t want them to learn that they are dead.

Two months of silence for the decades of dead in

Colombia, whose names, like the corpses they once

represented, have piled up and slipped off our

tongues.

Before I begin this poem, an hour of silence for El

Salvador …

An afternoon of silence for Nicaragua …

Two days of silence for the Guetmaltecos … None of

whom ever knew a moment of peace in their living

years.

45 seconds of silence for the 45 dead at Acteal,

Chiapas.

25 years of silence for the hundred million Africans

who found their graves far deeper in the ocean than

any building could poke into the sky.

There will be no DNA testing or dental records to

identify their remains.

And for those who were strung and swung from the

heights of sycamore trees in the south, the north, the

east, the west … 100 years of silence …

For the hundreds of millions of indigenous peoples

from this half of right here,whose land and lives were

stolen, in postcard-perfect plots like Pine Ridge,

Wounded Knee, Sand Creek, Fallen Timbers, or the Trail

of Tears.

Names now reduced to innocuous magnetic poetry on the

refrigerator of our unconsciousness …

So you want a moment of silence?

And we are all left speechless

Our tongues snatched from our mouths

Our eyes stapled shut

A moment of silence

And the poets have all been laid to rest

The drums disintegrating into dust

Before I begin this poem,

You want a moment of silence

You mourn now as if the world will never be the same

And the rest of us hope to hell it won’t be.

Not like it always has been.

Because this is not a 9/11 poem

This is a 9/10 poem,

It is a 99 poem,

A 9/8 poem,

A 9/7 poem

This is a 1492 poem.

This is a poem about what causes poems like this to be

written.

And if this is a 9/11 poem,

Then this is a September 11th poem for Chile, 1971

This is a September 12th poem for Steven Biko in South

Africa, 1977

This is a September 13th poem for the brothers at

Attica Prison, New

York, 1971.

This is a September 14th poem for Somalia, 1992.

This is a poem for every date

that falls to the ground in ashes.

This is a poem for every date

that falls to the ground in ashes.

This is a poem for the 110 stories

that were never told.

The 110 stories that history

chose not to write in textbooks.

The 110 stories that

CNN, BBC, The New York Times, and Newsweek ignored.

This is a poem for interrupting this program.

And still you want a moment of silence for your dead?

We could give you lifetimes of empty:

The unmarked graves

The lost languages

The uprooted trees and histories

The dead stares on the faces of nameless children.

Before I start this poem

we could be silent forever

Or just long enough to hunger,

For the dust to bury us.

And you would still ask us

For more of our silence.

If you want a moment of silence

Then stop the oil pumps

Turn off the engines and the televisions

Sink the cruise ships

Crash the stock markets

Unplug the marquee lights,

Delete the instant messages,

Derail the trains, the light rail transit.

If you want a moment of silence,

Put a brick through the window of Taco Bell,

And pay the workers for wages lost.

Tear down the liquor stores,

The townhouses, the White Houses, the jailhouses,

The Penthouses, and the Playboys.

If you want a moment of silence,

Then take it on Super Bowl Sunday,

The Fourth of July

During Dayton’s 13 hour sale

Or the next time your white guilt fills the room

where MY beautiful people have gathered.

You want a moment of silence

Then take it now,

Before this poem begins.

Here, in the echo of my voice,

In the pause between goosesteps of the second hand,

In the space between bodies in embrace,

Here is your silence

Take it.

But take it all.

Don’t cut in line.

Let your silence begin at the beginning of crime.

But we, Tonight

We will keep right on singing

For our dead.

by Emmanuel Ortiz 9.11.02

“Where There’z Fear, Freedom Diez.

Where There’z Peace, Freedom Flyz.”

___________

“Whenever you have truth it must be given with love, or the message and the messenger will be rejected”

Marvelous Day here in Portland! Beautiful weather, wonderful events and marvelous news from my friend Ed.

Life is sweet, even in the heart of winter. I hope this finds you well!

Bright Blessings,

Gwyllm

____

On The Menu

The Links

Poetry at the Red & Black (Rowan’s first reading!)

Good News from Ed Bennett!

The Three Wishes

Poetry: Further On With Rumi

Art: Mark Henson – The Spiritual Side…

__________________

The Links:

Read and Weep: Distortions in the Media…

Abductions and Blue Trolls

Boy`s screaming kills chickens, for crying out loud

Flying dinos had bi-plane design

___________________

Poetry Reading: Rowan reads at The Red & Black

Poetry at the Red & Black

Rowan took part in a student/teacher reading at the Red and Black Cafe (Our local Wobbly Hang-Out) last night. Part of an arts project, some 35 students and teachers got up and did there thing in Bohemian S.E. Portland.

A very excited audience, and a great opportunity for the students to polish their licks so to speak.

Rowan Reading – “Ode To Tea’

Ode To Tea

Oh tea

Oh tea

Oh tea

You smell of fabulous moon kissed flowers

Your steam is like dragons breath over the morning downs

You look like a still sound of honey

Your kettle sings like a spectacular whistling bear

Your taste varies like thousands of sun dripped paints.

You’re as wise as a mad Alchemists third eye

You dance in me like royal crickets at a ball

You warm me like the wing of a new born phoenix

Not to mention you go well with Honey and cookies too

Oh tea

Oh tea

Oh tea

—–

This is a great program for students; allowing them to find their poetic voices, and to work with older poets. I like the fact that they have a performance at the end of the session. This is all done through Literary Arts: Writers in the Schools. They teach in 16 high schools, in 80 various classrooms and serve 3000 students. Truly a great work. I talked to Jessica Lamb, who was one of the Writers-in-Residence at Cleveland High. A bright, enthusiastic Poetess who along with Karen Margolis worked with teachers and students to bring this whole affair to fruition. Good on them! Check out their website: Literary Arts.org It was a marvelous evening!

_________________________

Good News from my friend Ed Bennett:

This morning, daughter Megan had a 6 lb 5 oz girl, as

of yet un-named, at NYU Medical Center. . .

Grandparents Ed & Janice are so excited it will be

hard to wait for our visit next week.

Most Excellent!(G)

_________________________

The Three Wishes

Once upon a time, and be sure ’twas a long time ago, there lived a poor woodman in a great forest, and every day of his life he went out to fell timber. So one day he started out, and the goodwife filled his wallet and slung his bottle on his back, that he might have meat and drink in the forest. He had marked out a huge old oak, which, thought he, would furnish many and many a good plank. And when he was come to it, he took his axe in his hand and swung it round his head as though he were minded to fell the tree at one stroke. But he hadn’t given one blow, when what should he hear but the pitifullest entreating, and there stood before him a fairy who prayed and beseeched him to spare the tree. He was dazed, as you may fancy, with wonderment and affright, and he couldn’t open his mouth to utter a word. But he found his tongue at last, and, ‘Well,’ said he, ‘I’ll e’en do as thou wishest.’

‘You’ve done better for yourself than you know,’ answered the fairy, ‘and to show I’m not ungrateful, I’ll grant you your next three wishes, be they what they may.’ And therewith the fairy was no more to be seen, and the woodman slung his wallet over his shoulder and his bottle at his side, and off he started home.

But the way was long, and the poor man was regularly dazed with the wonderful thing that had befallen him, and when he got home there was nothing in his noddle but the wish to sit down and rest. Maybe, too, ’twas a trick of the fairy’s. Who can tell? Anyhow, down he sat by the blazing fire, and as he sat he waxed hungry, though it was a long way off supper-time yet.

‘Hasn’t thou naught for supper, dame?’ said he to his wife.

‘Nay, not for a couple of hours yet,’ said she.

‘Ah!’ groaned the woodman, ‘I wish I’d a good link of black pudding here before me.’

No sooner had he said the word, when clatter, clatter, rustle, rustle, what should come down the chimney but a link of the finest black pudding the heart of man could wish for.

If the woodman stared, the goodwife stared three times as much. ‘What’s all this?’ says she.

Then all the morning’s work came back to the woodman, and he told his tale right out, from beginning to end, and as he told it the goodwife glowered and glowered, and when he had made an end of it she burst out, ‘Thou bee’st but a fool, Jan, thou bee’st but a fool; and I wish the pudding were at thy nose, I do indeed.’

And before you could say Jack Robinson, there the Goodman sat and his nose was the longer for a noble link of black pudding.

He gave a pull, but it stuck, and she gave a pull, but it stuck, and they both pulled till they had nigh pulled the nose off, but it stuck and stuck.

‘What’s to be done now?’ said he.

“Tisn’t so very unsightly,’ said she, looking hard at him.

Then the woodman saw that if he wished, he must need wish in a hurry; and wish he did, that the black pudding might come off his nose. Well! there it lay in a dish on the table, and if the goodman and goodwife didn’t ride in a golden coach, or dress in silk and satin, why, they had at least as fine a black pudding for their supper as the heart of man could desire.

___________________

Poetry: Further On With Rumi

Buoyancy

Love has taken away my practices

and filled me with poetry.

I tried to keep quietly repeating,

No strength but yours,

but I couldn’t.

I had to clap and sing.

I used to be respectable and chaste and stable,

but who can stand in this strong wind

and remember those things?

A mountain keeps an echo deep inside itself.

That’s how I hold your voice.

I am scrap wood thrown in your fire,

and quickly reduced to smoke.

I saw you and became empty.

This emptiness, more beautiful than existence,

it obliterates existence, and yet when it comes,

existence thrives and creates more existence!

The sky is blue. The world is a blind man

squatting on the road.

But whoever sees your emptiness

sees beyond blue and beyond the blind man.

A great soul hides like Muhammad, or Jesus,

moving through a crowd in a city

where no one knows him.

To praise is to praise

how one surrenders

to the emptiness.

To praise the sun is to praise your own eyes.

Praise, the ocean. What we say, a little ship.

So the sea-journey goes on, and who knows where!

Just to be held by the ocean is the best luck

we could have. It’s a total waking up!

Why should we grieve that we’ve been sleeping?

It doesn’t matter how long we’ve been unconscious.

We’re groggy, but let the guilt go.

Feel the motions of tenderness

around you, the buoyancy.

—

Zikr

A naked man jumps in the river, hornets swarming

above him. The water is the zikr, remembering,

There is no reality but God. There is only God.

The hornets are his sexual remembering, this woman,

that woman. Or if a woman, this man, that.

The head comes up. They sting.

Breathe water. Become river head to foot.

Hornets leave you alone then. Even if you’re far

from the river, they pay no attention.

No one looks for stars when the sun’s out.

A person blended into God does not disappear. He, or she,

is just completely soaked in God’s qualities.

Do you need a quote from the Qur’an?

All shall be brought into our Presence.

Join those travelers. The lamps we burn go out,

some quickly. Some last till daybreak.

Some are dim, some intense, all fed with fuel.

If a light goes out in one house, that doesn’t affect

the next house. This is the story of the animal soul,

not the divine soul. The sun shines on every house.

When it goes down, all houses get dark.

Light is the image of your teacher. Your enemies

love the dark. A spider weaves a web over a light,

out of himself, or herself, makes a veil.

Don’t try to control a wild horse by grabbing its leg.

Take hold the neck. Use a bridle. Be sensible.

Then ride! There is a need for self-denial.

Don’t be contemptuous of old obediences. They help.

—

Love Dogs

One night a man was crying,

Allah! Allah!

His lips grew sweet with the praising,

until a cynic said,

“So! I have heard you

calling out, but have you ever

gotten any response?”

The man had no answer to that.

He quit praying and fell into a confused sleep.

He dreamed he saw Khidr, the guide of souls,

in a thick, green foliage.

“Why did you stop praising?”

“Because I’ve never heard anything back.”

“This longing

you express is the return message.”

The grief you cry out from

draws you toward union.

Your pure sadness

that wants help

is the secret cup.

Listen to the moan of a dog for its master.

That whining is the connection.

There are love dogs

no one knows the names of.

Give your life

to be one of them.

—

Checkmate

Borrow the beloved’s eyes.

Look through them and you’ll see the beloved’s face

everywhere. No tiredness, no jaded boredom.

“I shall be your eye and your hand and your loving.”

Let that happen, and things

you have hated will become helpers.

A certain preacher always prays long and with enthusiasm

for thieves and muggers that attack people

on the street. “Let your mercy, O Lord,

cover their insolence.”

He doesn’t pray for the good,

but only for the blatantly cruel.

Why is this? his congregation asks.

“Because they have done me such generous favors.

Every time I turn back toward the things they want,

I run into them, they beat me, and leave me nearly dead

in the road, and I understand, again, that what they want

is not what I want. They keep me on the spiritual path.

That’s why I honor them and pray for them.”

Those that make you return, for whatever reason,

to God’s solitude, be grateful to them.

Worry about the others, who give you

delicious comforts that keep you from prayer.

Friends are enemies sometimes,

and enemies friends.

There is an animal called an ushghur, a porcupine.

If you hit it with a stick, it extends its quills

and gets bigger. The soul is a porcupine,

made strong by stick-beating.

So a prophet’s soul is especially afflicted,

because it has to become so powerful.

A hide is soaked in tanning liquor and becomes leather.

If the tanner did not rub in the acid,

the hide would get foul-smelling and rotten.

The soul is a newly skinned hide, bloody and gross.

Work on it with manual discipline,

and the bitter tanning acid of grief,

and you’ll become lovely, and very strong.

If you can’t do this work yourself, don’t worry.

You don’t even have to make a decision,

one way or another. The Friend, who knows

a lot more than you do, will bring difficulties,

and grief, and sickness,

as medicine, as happiness,

as the essence of the moment when you’re beaten,

when you hear Checkmate, and can finally say,

with Hallaj’s voice,

I trust you to kill me.

_______

I met Mark Henson a few times over the years at various gatherings. I have long admired his works, and I stumbled across some of his political stuff recently, which brought him back in focus in my life. Really, he is a genuine and sweet person. His art ranges wildly, and on many subjects. He truly is a treasure, and we should celebrate him.

We have some nice stuff today, be sure to hit the links, and check out that film! Exciting stuff.

All the best to you on Tuesday.

Something interesting will soon show up here….

Blessings,

Gwyllm

On The Menu

The Links

The Quotes

Simorgh – An Ancient Persian Fairy Tale

The Poetry of Rumi

The Erotic Art of Mark Henson

___________

The Links:

Day Glo Is Back!

Down Load This!

Montreal woman seeks compensation in ’50s brainwashing case

Bill would make pot legal in New Hampshire

____________

The Quotes:

“We do not write because we want to; we write because we have to.”

“The United States is a nation of laws: badly written and randomly enforced.”

“Laws are like sausages. It’s better not to see them being made.”

“A conference is a gathering of important people who singly can do nothing, but together can decide that nothing can be done.”

“We are here and it is now. Further than that all human knowledge is moonshine.”

“Humans are not proud of their ancestors, and rarely invite them round to dinner.”

“It’s a small world, but I wouldn’t want to paint it.”

____________

Simorgh – An Ancient Persian Fairy Tale

By Homa A. Ghahremani

“Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced-even a proverb is no proverb to you till your life has illustrated it.”

-Keats

There was being and nonbeing, there was none but God [1], who had three sons: Prince Jamshid (King of the golden age of Iranian epics), Prince Q-mars, and the youngest, Prince Khorshid (Sun, light, divine wisdom., who was self-born — an initiate), who had no mother. He was the king’s favorite because he was the bravest of all.

In the garden of the palace there grew a pomegranate tree [2] with only three pomegranates; their seeds were fabulous gems that shone like lamps by night. When ripe, the pomegranates would turn into three beautiful girls who were to become the wives of the three princes. Every night, by the king’s order, one of his sons guarded the tree lest anyone should steal the pomegranates.

One night when Prince Jamshid was guarding the tree he fell asleep and, in the morning, one pomegranate was missing. The next night Prince Q-mars was on guard, but he also fell asleep and the next morning another pomegranate was missing. When it came Prince Khorshid’s turn, he cut one of his fingers and rubbed salt on it so the burning would keep him awake. Shortly after midnight a cloud appeared above the tree and a hand, coming out of it, picked the last pomegranate. Prince Khorshid drew his sword and cut off one of the fingers. The hand and the cloud hurriedly disappeared.

In the morning when the king saw drops of blood on the ground he ordered his sons to track them, find the thief, and bring back the stolen pomegranates. The three princes followed the blood drops over mountains and deserts until they reached a deep well where the trail ended. Prince Jamshid offered to be lowered down the well with a rope to investigate. Less than halfway down he screamed: “Pull me up, pull me up, I am burning.” His brothers pulled him up. Next, Prince Q-mars went down and soon he also cried out that he was burning. When Prince Khorshid decided to go down he told his brothers that no matter how loudly he shouted, they should not pull him up but let the rope down farther; and they were then to wait for him only until dark. If there was no sign of him, they could go home.

Prince Khorshid entered the well and, in spite of unbearable heat, went all the way down to the bottom where he found a young girl, beautiful as a full moon. On her lap lay the head of a sleeping deav/div [3], whose thunderous snores filled the air with heat and smoke. “Prince Khorshid,” she whispered, “what are you doing here? If this deav wakes up, he will surely kill you as he has killed many others. Go back while there is still time.”

Prince Khorshid, who loved her at first glance, refused. He asked her who she was and what she was doing there.

“My two sisters and I are captives of this deav and his two brothers. My sisters are imprisoned in two separate wells where the deavs have hidden the stolen wealth of almost all the world.”

Prince Khorshid said: “I am going to kill the deav and free you and your sisters. But I will wake him first; I do not wish to kill him in his sleep.” The prince scratched the soles of the deav’s feet until he opened his eyes and stood up. Roaring, the deav picked up a millstone and threw it at the prince, who quickly stepped aside, drew his sword, and in the name of God cut the deav in half. Thereafter he went to the other two wells, finished off the deavs and rescued the sisters of his beloved. He also collected the treasure.

As it was not yet dark, his brothers were still waiting for him and when he called them they started to pull up the rope. The girl whom Prince Khorshid loved wanted him to go up before her, because she knew that when his brothers saw the jewels they would be jealous and would not pull him up. But the prince insisted she go up first. When she saw that she could not change his mind she said: “If your brothers do not pull you up and leave you here, there are two things you should know: first, there are in this land a golden cock [4] and a golden lantern [5] that can lead you to me. The cock is in a chest and when you open it, he will sing for you. And when he sings, all kinds of gems will pour from his beak. The golden lantern is self-illuminated, and it burns forever. The second thing you should know is this: later in the night there will come two oxen that will fight with each other. One is black, [6] the other white. [7] If you jump on the white ox it will take you out of the well, but if, by mistake, you jump on the black one, it will take you seven floors farther down.”

As she had predicted, when the princes Jamshid and Q-mars saw the girls and the boxes of gold and silver, they became jealous of their brother’s achievements. Knowing that their father would surely give him the kingdom, they cut the rope and let him fall to the bottom of the well. Then they went home and told their father that they were the ones who had rescued the girls, killed the deavs, and brought all the treasure, and that Prince Khorshid had not come back.

Prince Khorshid was heartbroken. He saw two oxen approaching and stood up as they started to fight. In his excitement he jumped on the back of the black ox and dropped with it seven floors down. When he opened his eyes, he found himself in a green pasture with a view of a city in the distance. He started walking toward it when he saw a peasant plowing. Being hungry and thirsty he asked him for bread and water. The man told him to be very careful and not to talk out loud because there were two lions nearby; if they heard him they would come out and eat the oxen. Then he said: “You take over the plowing and I will get you something to eat.”

Prince Khorshid started to plow, commanding the oxen in a loud voice. Two roaring lions came charging toward him, but the prince captured the lions, turned the oxen loose and hitched the lions to the plow. When the peasant returned, he was very much taken aback. Prince Khorshid said: “Don’t be afraid. The lions are harmless now and will not hurt you or your oxen. But if you are not comfortable with them, I will let them go.” When he saw that the farmer was still reluctant to approach the lions, he unfastened them and they went back where they had come from.

The man had brought food but no water. He explained: “There is no water in the city because a dragon is sleeping in front of the spring. Every Saturday a girl is taken to the spring so that, when the dragon moves to devour her, some water runs through the city’s streams and people can collect enough for the following week. This Saturday the king’s daughter is to be offered to the dragon.”

Prince Khorshid had the peasant take him to the king: “What will be my reward if I kill the dragon and save your daughters life?” The king replied: “Whatever you wish within my power.”

Saturday came and the prince went with the girl to the spring. The moment the dragon moved aside to devour her, Prince Khorshid called the name of God and slew the monster. There was joy and celebration in the city. When Prince Khorshid, asked to name his reward, announced that his one wish was to return to his homeland, the king said: “The only one who could take you up seven floors is Simorgh (In New Persian literature Simorgh and in Pahlavi or Middle-Persian: Sen-Murv), who has many manifestations; besides divine wisdom, it may symbolize the perfected human being. According to some Pahlavi texts, Simorgh is a bird whose abode is in the middle of a sea in a tree which contains all the seeds of the vegetable world. Whenever Simorgh flies up from the tree one thousand branches grow, and whenever she sits on it, one thousand branches break and the seeds fall into the water.

In Ferdowsi’s Shah Nameh (Book of Kings) — originally called Khoday Nameh (Book of God) — Simorghs abode is on top of the mountain Ghaph, by which is meant Alborz mountain.). She lives nearby in a jungle. Every year she lays three eggs and each year her chicks are eaten by a serpent. If you could kill the serpent, she surely would take you home.”

Prince Khorshid went to the jungle and found the tree in which Simorgh had her nest. While he was watching, he saw a serpent climbing up the tree to eat the frightened chicks. In the name of God he cut the serpent into small pieces and fed some to the hungry chicks who were waiting for their mother to bring them food. He saved the rest for later and went to sleep under the tree. When Simorgh flew over the nest and saw Prince Khorshid, she thought he was the one who each year ate up all her chicks. She was ready to kill him, when her chicks shouted that he was the one who had saved them from the enemy. Realizing that he had killed the serpent, she stretched her wings over Prince Khorshid’s head to make shade for him while he slept.

When he awoke, the prince told Simorgh his story and asked whether she could help him. Simorgh urged him to go back to the king and ask him for the meat of seven bulls. “Make seven leather bags out of their hides and fill them with water. These will be my provisions for the journey; I need them to be able to take you home. Whenever I say I am hungry you must give me a bag of water, and when I say I am thirsty you must give me the carcass of a bull.” On their way up to the ground Prince Khorshid did exactly as Simorgh had instructed him until only one bag of water was left. When, instead of saying she was hungry Simorgh said she was thirsty, Prince Khorshid cut off some flesh from his thigh and put it in Simorgh’s beak. Simorgh immediately realized it was human flesh. She held it gently until they reached their destination. As soon as he dismounted, the prince urged Simorgh to fly back at once but, knowing he could not walk without limping, she refused and with her saliva restored the piece of his flesh to his thigh. Having learned how brave and unselfish the prince was, she gave him three of her feathers, saying that if he were ever in need of her he should burn one of them, and she would instantly come to his aid. With that she flew away.

Entering the town, Prince Khorshid learned that three royal weddings were about to take place: for Prince Jamshid, and Prince Q-mars, and the third for the Vizier’s son, because the youngest son of the king, Prince Khorshid, had never returned. One day some men came to the shop where Prince Khorshid was apprenticed, saying they had been to all the jewelry stores in town but no one would undertake to make what the king had ordered. Prince Khorshid asked them what it was and was told: “The girl who is to marry the Viziers son has put forward one condition to the marriage! She will only marry one who can bring her a golden cock from whose bill gems will pour when it sings; she also wants a golden lantern which is self-illuminated and burns for ever. But so far no jeweler can build such things.”

Prince Khorshid, recognizing the signs, spoke up: “With my master’s permission I can build you a chest with such a golden cock and also the golden lantern by tomorrow. The men gave him the jewels needed to build those items and left. Prince Khorshid gave them all to his master for, he said, he did not need them.

That night Prince Khorshid left the town and burned one of the feathers. When Simorgh came, he asked her to bring him what the girl had demanded, and she did so. In the morning, the astounded men took the precious items to the king, who at once summoned the young man to the court and was overjoyed to discover it was none other than his favorite son. Prince Khorshid told his story but he begged the king not to punish his brothers for the wrong they had done him.

The whole town celebrated his return and there were three weddings indeed. The king made Prince Khorshid his successor to the throne and all lived happily every after.

__________

Notes:

[1] The duality of light and darkness has always existed in the fundamental belief of Iranians; light representing the essence of life which is consciousness, and darkness representing non life which is form. All Persian fairy tales begin with the sentence “There was being and nonbeing, there was none but God.”). In the old, old times there was a king (The guardian of the throne of wisdom

[2] The treasure of secret knowledge

[3] Giant: tyranny of human ignorance and weakness

[4] This represents Saroush (Sarousha in Pahlavi). Sarousha is a godlike bird who is the most powerful of the gods, since he is the manifestation of righteousness, honesty, and striving. He fights the diev of frailty and weakness. In some versions of this story, the golden cock in a chest is a golden nightingale in a golden cage.

[5] The light of wisdom. In some versions, Prince Khorshid must bring back a golden lantern, in others a golden hand-mill which represents the wheel of destiny (or civilization and culture).

[6] Terrestrial life leading to darkness.

[7] Terrestrial life leading to light.

___________________

The Poetry of Rumi

I Have Five Things To Say

The wakened lover speaks directly to the beloved,

“You are the sky my spirit circles in,

the love inside love, the resurrection-place.

Let this window be your ear.

I have lost consciousness many times

with longing for your listening silence,

and your life-quickening smile.

You give attention to the smallest matters,

my suspicious doubts, and to the greatest.

You know my coins are counterfeit,

but you accept them anyway,

my impudence and my pretending!

I have five things to say,

five fingers to give

into your grace.

First, when I was apart from you,

this world did not exist,

nor any other.

Second, whatever I was looking for

was always you.

Third, why did I ever learn to count to three?

Fourth, my cornfield is burning!

Fifth, this finger stands for Rabia,

and this is for someone else.

Is there a difference?

Arc these words or tears?

Is weeping speech?

What shall I do, my love?”

So he speaks, and everyone around

begins to cry with him, laughing crazily,

moaning in the spreading union

of lover and beloved.

This is the true religion. All others

are thrown-away bandages beside it.

This is the sema of slavery and mastery

dancing together. This is not-being.

Neither words, nor any natural fact

can express this.

I know these dancers.

Day and night I sing their songs

in this phenomenal cage.

My soul, don’t try to answer now!

Find a friend, and hide.

But what can stay hidden?

Love’s secret is always lifting its head

out from under the covers,

“Here I am!”

—

A Community Of The Spirit

There is a community of the spirit.

Join it, and feel the delight

of walking in the noisy street,

and being the noise.

Drink all your passion,

and be a disgrace.

Close both eyes

to see with the other eye.

Open your hands,

if you want to be held.

Sit down in this circle.

Quit acting like a wolf, and feel

the shepherd’s love filling you.

At night, your beloved wanders.

Don’t accept consolations.

Close your mouth against food.

Taste the lover’s mouth in yours.

You moan, “She left me.” “He left me.”

Twenty more will come.

Be empty of worrying.

Think of who created thought!

Why do you stay in prison

when the door is so wide open?

Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking.

Live in silence.

Flow down and down in always

widening rings of being.

—

Where Everything is Music

Don’t worry about saving these songs!

And if one of our instruments breaks,

it doesn’t matter.

We have fallen into the place

where everything is music.

The strumming and the flute notes

rise into the atmosphere,

and even if the whole world’s harp

should burn up, there will still be

hidden instruments playing.

So the candle flickers and goes out.

We have a piece of flint, and a spark.

This singing art is sea foam.

The graceful movements come from a pearl

somewhere on the ocean floor.

Poems reach up like spindrift and the edge

of driftwood along the beach, wanting!

They derive

from a slow and powerful root

that we can’t see.

Stop the words now.

Open the window in the center of your chest,

and let the spirits fly in and out.

—

The Phrasing Must Change

Learn about your inner self from those who know such things,

but don’t repeat verbatim what they say.

Zuleikha let everything be the name of Joseph, from celery seed

to aloes wood. She loved him so much she concealed his name

in many different phrases, the inner meanings

known only to her. When she said, The wax is softening

near the fire, she meant, My love is wanting me.

Or if she said, Look, the moon is up or The willow has new leaves

or The branches are trembling or The coriander seeds

have caught fire or The roses are opening

or The king is in a good mood today or Isn’t that lucky?

or The furniture needs dusting or

The water carrier is here or It’s almost daylight or

These vegetables are perfect or The bread needs more salt

or The clouds seem to be moving against the wind

or My head hurts or My headache’s better,

anything she praises, it’s Joseph’s touch she means,

any complaint, it’s his being away.

When she’s hungry, it’s for him. Thirsty, his name is a sherbet.

Cold, he’s a fur. This is what the Friend can do

when one is in such love. Sensual people use the holy names

often, but they don’t work for them.

The miracle Jesus did by being the name of God,

Zuleikha felt in the name of Joseph.

When one is united to the core of another, to speak of that

is to breathe the name Hu, empty of self and filled

with love. As the saying goes, The pot drips what is in it.

The saffron spice of connecting, laughter.

The onion smell of separation, crying.

Others have many things and people they love.

This is not the way of Friend and friend.