Meditation: Imagining Interdependence Day

Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons -- b. 1944

Krista Tippett -- b. 1960

Rev. Lucas Johnson --  b. Late 1970s or early 1980s

This conversation from 2014 (including transcript) with its talk of community and coalitions and change and not giving up, generation after generation, against all odds, has lifted my spirits today.   

Nothing has given me a better perspective on the current state of the world than listening to all the conversations from the On Being Project under the heading of Across Generations.  

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All the goodness and the heroisms will rise up again, then be cut down again and rise up. It isn’t that the evil thing wins — it never will — but that it doesn’t die. 

(John Steinbeck)

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First Streptocarpus bloom yesterday, coinciding with a day that I will always remember when I was at the ocean with R.  It was 1968, another turbulent year in the history of the world.  We were 18 years old and in love.  

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1968

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Revisited in 2022

"... So let us not talk falsely now / the hour is gettin' late ..."

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"Sometimes when you are devastated you want not a reprieve but a mirror of your condition or a reminder that you are not alone in it.  Other times it is not the propaganda or the political art that helps you face a crisis but whatever gives you respite from it."

Thanks to Beth from Alive On All Channels for these words from Rebecca Solnit.

Memorial Day 2022 Meditation

When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.

(Jimi Hendrix 1942-1970)

R had been drafted and was in Newport News, Virginia, training to be an Army helicopter mechanic in August 1969.  We were 19 years old.  He and a few of his army buddies considered going to Woodstock for the weekend.

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On Saturday of this Memorial Day weekend, I was talking with a friend on my cell phone while looking out my windows toward Scudder Pond. I noticed a small flock of birds in one of the rapidly increasing number of alder saplings that are growing up amidst the cattails in Scudder Pond. I'm glad the flock lingered for a while because gradually I realized that they weren't the usual birds I see from my window. While listening to my friend, I found my binoculars and was rewarded with an intimate view of Cedar waxwings. Soon after that, they all flew away. I haven't seen them since. I know that R would have loved seeing them. So many times in the years before and after he died, I have seen something that I know he would love to see. It's been years since I've seen a Cedar waxwing from my porch, much less a flock.

Is it a coincidence that the flock appeared on the first day of Memorial Day weekend? I don't think so.

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Sending love to Everyone today.  Fragment of a letter from R while he was in Vietnam in 1970:

For R who was devastated as he watched the beginning of the war in Afghanistan 30 years after he returned, broken, from Vietnam / For wives, husbands, girlfriends, boyfriends, children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins, and friends of soldiers throughout history

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"The fact that these 3 brave souls can disagree and not feel like killing each other - MAN O MAN. How I wish this spirit would be in us."

(Comment on YouTube video "Purple Heart Veterans React to the US Withdrawal from Afghanistan")

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One of the three Purple Heart Veterans says, "Why would I want my children to join the military?"

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More comments on the above YouTube video:

"I listened to Dire Straits throughout my time in Afghanistan.  Played out of a communication laptop attached to our armoured vehicle.  Kept me going.  👍👍"

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"This song has always been emotional to me, but it hits much harder after this past week. Thank you for this heart felt performance Mark. Thinking about everyone I served with in Afghanistan."

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"I'm a Vietnam Vet. When I heard this the first time I cried the tears of a baby. Only a combat vet can understand how much this song is true in every word. Don't think for one second that I believe any of you don't feel the words. I know you do. I'm talking of a visceral, deep in the bones, feeling. One that goes far beyond just feeling the song. Now it's so many years since this was released and still I cry when I hear it. Thank you Mark for writing this and for giving such a heartfelt performance each and every time. I love your work."

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"This is a song that kids should be taught in schools all over the world. Look after each other. Look after our world. Beautiful."

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BROTHERS IN ARMS

These mist covered mountains
Are a home now for me
But my home was the lowlands
And always will be
Someday you'll return to
Your valleys and your farms
And you'll no longer burn to be
Brothers in arms

Through these fields of destruction
Baptism of fire
I've watched all your suffering
As a battle raged high
And though they did hurt me so bad
In the fear and alarm
You did not desert me
My brothers in arms

So many different worlds
So many different suns
And we have just one world
But we live in different ones

Now the sun's gone to hell
And the moon's riding high
Let me bid you farewell
Every man has to die
But it's written in the starlight
And every line in your palm
We are fools to make war
On our brothers in arms

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The Dalai Lama:

I want to make it clear, however, that although I am deeply opposed to war, I am not advocating appeasement. It is often necessary to take a strong stand to counter unjust aggression. For instance, it is plain to all of us that the Second World War was entirely justified. It "saved civilization" from the tyranny of Nazi Germany, as Winston Churchill so aptly put it. In my view, the Korean War was also just, since it gave South Korea the chance of gradually developing democracy. But we can only judge whether or not a conflict was vindicated on moral grounds with hindsight. For example, we can now see that during the Cold War, the principle of nuclear deterrence had a certain value. Nevertheless, it is very difficult to assess al such matters with any degree of accuracy. War is violence and violence is unpredictable. Therefore, it is better to avoid it if possible, and never to presume that we know beforehand whether the outcome of a particular war will be beneficial or not.

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From Ursula K. Le Guin's translation of the Tao Te Ching:

AGAINST WAR

Even the best weapon
is an unhappy tool,
hateful to living things.
So the follower of the Way
stays away from it.

Weapons are unhappy tools,
not chosen by thoughtful people,
to be used only when there is no choice,
and with a calm, still mind,
without enjoyment.
To enjoy using weapons
is to enjoy killing people,
and to enjoy killing people
is to lose your share in the common good.

It is right that the murder of many people
be mourned and lamented.
It is right that a victor in war
be received with funeral ceremonies.

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Let every voice be heard.  

"... Let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late ..."

Happy 101st Birthday, Lawrence Ferlinghetti! / "Let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late"

Little Boy, a novel by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

On the book jacket is a quote by Tom Waits:

"When I first came out to San Francisco and heard the name Ferlinghetti, I thought it must be a large geographic area.  Turns out, it is."

There is a quote by Bob Dylan, too:

"A brave man and a brave poet."

Ferlinghetti does not talk falsely at age 100.  The book begins:

"Little Boy was quite lost."

I read Little Boy twice before it was due and then because our public library is closed and does not want us to return our books until the COVID-19 situation changes for the better, I will keep it safe until then.

On my first reading, I was carried along through perilous ups and downs by the vitality of Ferlinghetti's voice playing with words in all seriousness, talking about the past, the present and the future and then I was stunned by the way the book ended.  The stream of consciousness reminded me very much of  To The Lighthouse, by Virginia Woolf, and I naively expected to be taken to a similar conclusion.

On my second reading, I paid attention to the details that foreshadowed the ending.  There were warnings that I had missed or discounted. By the time I reached the last page, I saw the ending in a different light, a different context.  I saw a balance.  I saw everything about the novel in a different light, as the COVID-19 virus situation has changed everything.  I saw his book as the poetic novel it is rather than an autobiography.  Running through the book is a recurring dream:

     BUT I keep having the same dream over and over 
always the same with a disembodied me wandering
around some huge city which after a few dreams 
I recognize as Manhattan, yes, it's always Lower 
Manhattan and I'm always trying to get back 
somewhere uptown or just north of the city like Van
Cortlandt Park over toward the Hudson and it's getting
later all the time and there seem to be fewer and fewer
buses or taxis or people on the street as I keep walking
uptown through the gathering dusk hoping to come
across some subway station or bus stop or taxi stand
but I don't seem to be advancing anywhere as if I'm on
a moving treadmill always carrying me away as the
night keeps closing in on me far from some home place

In the last few weeks, my dreams have been vivid and perhaps it was my two readings of Little Boy that resulted in a breakthrough variation for me on a similar dream theme.  In my recurring dream, I am always alone walking home as the sun is setting.  Suddenly it occurs to me that home is so far away that I will never reach it before dark because it is a thousand miles away.  I become philosophical about this situation and then I wake up.  In the recent dream, the world is getting dark but I am no longer traveling alone.   Night comes.  I am traveling with a man my age.  He builds a small fire to keep us warm on the beach.  We are companions traveling together in peace.  I trust him.  He falls asleep first.  I am closer to the ocean.  We do not sleep side by side, but I don't feel rejected.  I need room of my own and he does, too.  I take my red comforter and place it over my pillow for extra cushioning.  I'm surprised by how warm and comfortable I feel sleeping outside on the sand.  I am home.  I sleep easily.

I'm grateful for Lawrence Ferlinghetti's brave book.

Although I'm not on Facebook, it is fortunate that one doesn't need to be on Facebook to see Ferlinghetti on his 101st birthday:

https://www.facebook.com/lawrenceferlinghettiofficial/videos/425537144660508/

Lawrence Ferlinghetti said, "Bravo for Dylan, Nobel Laureate!"

Veterans Day 2017

Although I've posted Jimi Hendrix' version of the Star-spangled Banner four times before over the years on my blog, I'm moved to post it again today.  My beloved veteran was a high school dropout who was drafted into the U.S. Army at age 19 in the spring of 1969.  He did his basic training at Fort Lewis, Washington, and was sent to Newport News, Virginia, for helicopter mechanic training school.  He and his buddies had a plan to attend Woodstock and see Jimi Hendrix, but it didn't materialize.  I am sure that there were veterans in the crowd at Woodstock.  Jimi Hendrix had been drafted into the Army and served in the 101st Airborne Division, which was the same division my veteran was in, although Jimi Hendrix did not serve in Vietnam.  My veteran loved the music of Jimi Hendrix.

In late January 1970, I drove R to Oakland Army Base on the day before he was to fly to Vietnam.  He asked me not to cry when I said goodbye to him.  I honored his wish but cried hard on my way home across the San Francisco Bay Bridge.  That night he called me and asked me to come back and pick him up and take him to a draft resistance office.  I sat in the hallway while he talked with a draft resistance counselor.  When he returned to the hallway, his heart was heavy.  He said, "I will meet the defeat of her challenge."  He didn't believe he could be granted conscientious objector status.  He didn't want to go to Canada and doubted that Canada would accept him anyway because of his lack of education or skills valued by the Canadian government.  He did not want to go to prison (although he ended up in prison later in his life). He made the fateful decision to go to Vietnam. He was against the war when he left and against the war when he returned home on December 8, 1970, but when he returned he was broken by his experience of war.  He struggled for the rest of his life. We separated for the last time in early October 1971.  In one of the last letters to me in around 2006, he wrote. "All we are saying is give peace a chance."

May all veterans and their families, all over the world, find peace.