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:

Tears of joy revisited / Boundless Love

In the first month after my R returned from Vietnam in December 1970, he bought tickets for us to see the exhibit of Vincent van Gogh's art work at the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco.  It is occurring to me this morning that I sensed Vincent van Gogh's presence as I stood with R in front of the paintings that Vincent van Gogh had stood by or sat in front of or carried with him through his life.  I saw then and see even more now that R had much in common with Vincent van Gogh.  R was an artist.  R's life held both profound joy and immense grief and sorrow and pain.  Watching this video again this morning after a friend sent me the link, I see R healed and whole, walking in peace somewhere beyond reason, somewhere eternally beautiful, with Vincent van Gogh and so many others like them, like all of us, worthy of unconditional love.

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This brought tears of joy, too.  Thank you, beth coyote.

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 ..."

More of one thing leading to another / "Something nameless which is beyond language because it's instinctive and then you can't do it."

 

Listening further. (from 4:00 to 22:12)

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Transcribed by am from the interview:

"I am someone who doesn't have faith in terms of religious faith but before I woke up out of my coma, I had the most extraordinary experience.  I mean, to make it easier to sort of explain because I can't really explain but I know, absolutely, that at that point I was given a choice, "This way it's going to be very hard.  Are you sure you want to go this way?  Or go this one, it's going to be very easy and it's all going to be fine" and I don't want it to sound like some people might, like, choose not to live and, like, I don't know [am's note:  The interviewer interrupts Clemmie's train of thought here] and it's going to be hard but it's your choice and the amazing thing was that I was given that choice."

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Reminded of this:

Love Itself
The light came through the window Straight from the sun above And so inside my little room There plunged the rays of love In streams of light I clearly saw The dust you seldom see Out of which the nameless makes A name for one like me I'll try to say a little more Love went on and on Until it reached an open door Then love itself, love itself was gone All busy in the sunlight The flecks did float and dance And I was tumbled up with them In formless circumstance I'll try to say a little more Love went on and on Until it reached an open door Then love itself, love itself was gone Then I came back from where I'd been My room, it looked the same But there was nothing left between The nameless and the name All busy in the sunlight The flecks did float and dance And I was tumbled up with them In formless circumstance I'll try to say a little more Oh love went on and on Until it reached an open door Then love itself, love itself was gone Love itself, love itself was gone

-- Leonard Cohen (from "Ten New Songs," released October 9, 2001)

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Then I listened to what the only nephew of one of my oldest friends and the only child of one of my newest friends had to say about what inspired him to become a musician and listened to him play the piece by Bach that made all the difference in his life:

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Then I remembered:

Unbeknownst to me because we had been out of touch since August 2002, my R had a brainstem stroke in September 2007 and was in a coma for two weeks in a VA hospital in Northern California.  When he came out of the coma, he was unable to speak or feed himself or walk.  He was blind in his right eye which looked like a beautiful clear blue sky with a few white clouds.  

Something, inexplicably, prompted me to send a Christmas card to one of his two younger sisters that December.  She replied with a note letting me know about his stroke, saying that she had had no way to get in touch with me, and suggested that I call the VA Hospital because, she wrote, "He would love to hear your voice." My attempts to do that weren't successful.  I decided to write to him.  That was the key.  Although he couldn't speak, he was able to read and to write but with great difficulty.  He wrote down what he wanted to say, and a compassionate nurse wrote down what she thought he was trying to say and had him sign it.  Next to what he wrote he drew a rose.  He could draw better than he could write.  How grateful I am to that nurse who took the time to write that letter for him and mail it to me!

After listening to Clemency Burton-Hill, I am absolutely certain that my R was given a choice to live long enough so that I could be with him in the last days of his life, let him know I love him and say goodbye.  He went back into a coma after I said goodbye and died a week later.

Now I am in tears.  Grateful to my R.  Grateful to Clemmie.  Grateful to be alive.  Taking nothing for granted.  

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Mother and sons in displaced persons camp in Kabul.

"The Owls of North America and Their Calls"

This morning I took what is my usual springtime walk up and down the hill on which I live at about the half way up point.  I walked out my door and headed up a street lined with modest houses, some of which are more than 100 years old.  At first the incline is gentle but within a few minutes, it becomes quite steep until I get to the open gates of Big Rock Garden.  Even steeper than the street is the narrow driveway leading to the small parking area next to the beautiful wooden gate in the wooden fencing that keeps most of the deer out of Big Rock Garden. Almost every spring, a pregnant deer finds her way into the garden to give birth.  Once inside, I walk on all the paths -- a complex and delightful maze.  This time of year, the rhododendrons are just starting to bloom, and the many varieties of Japanese maples are showing their delicate leaves.  

Leaving Big Rock Garden, I walk down its driveway in the shade of evergreen trees and begin the uphill climb again, still on a city street.  The houses beyond Big Rock Garden are larger and newer, built in the last 40 years.  When I arrived here in 1974, this part of Bellingham was at the edge of a dense forest that extended for more than a mile before coming to Highway 542 which goes for 50 miles, from Bellingham to Mt. Baker in the North Cascades, and ends at a parking lot with an extraordinary view of the North Cascades.  Sections of this forest, a mix of evergreens and deciduous trees, have been left untouched and are accessible by paths from the surrounding housing developments.  

The city street dead ends at a relatively flat area on the hill, and there are footpaths to the right and to the left.  I go to the left which leads shortly to a tunnel that goes under the two-lane road that divides the older neighborhoods from the much newer neighborhoods with even larger houses that have what is left of the forest as their border.  

There is a small pond with cattails and ducks before the trail begins to steepen again.  Within a few minutes, I pass a tiny playground area behind a large house with a fenced yard and enter the forested area that has been named Northridge Park.  A wide graveled path loops through the forest.  Houses are visible from the trail but do not detract from the feeling of being in the woods.  The air is filled with birdsong.

At the top of the hill, I see into Canada over houses at the edge of the forest and as I begin the downhill walk home, I can see the city of Bellingham, the Salish Sea and San Juan Islands through the trees.

Just before I had looped around to the playground again, I heard an owl, loud and clear, and looked up toward the innermost part of the evergreen forest.  An owl was landing on a branch so high and obscured by other branches that I could only see its silhouette.  The owl continued to vocalize.  

Something prompted me to try to echo the sound of the owl.  My first attempt was laughable, but my second attempt sounded just like the owl.  As my voice trailed off, the owl abruptly flew across my field of vision, downward from left to right, through the trees, its wings illuminated in an astounding way by the morning sun still low in the sky!  In the next moment, I noticed a Brown Creeper on a nearby evergreen tree.  A little further down the trail was a young woman with a dog.  I asked her if she had seen the owl fly by.  She hadn't, but she was greatly excited at having heard the owl.  She said she thought at first that she was hearing a coyote.  Maybe that was my laughable first vocalization!  

After listening to all of the wonderful owls on the YouTube video, my guess is that the owl I heard and saw today was a Great Horned Owl.

It was today in 2008 that my R died just after 1 o'clock in the afternoon at the VA Hospital in Palo Alto, California.  Coincidence?  I don't think so. 

Memory

Time heals, after all -- although the clock that marks that kind of time has no hands.

(Suze Rotolo)