NPR’s Morning Edition launches its show this way every July 4th. If you’ve ever come out of sleep to this on your clock radio, you know it’s a glorious wake-up moment. I picture those 56 brave and cunning men – average age 33 - in a miserably hot and muggy Pennsylvania summer. For their signing, seventeen lost everything they had and died paupers... five or six were captured and tortured... others lost all their children to the war... nine died.
The plant that exploded into a bush this past week was lemon verbena, no doubt sourced by some tiny particle of potential remaining from that verbena I tried and failed to grow two summers ago. Or maybe not. Maybe some seed rode the wind over our fence. As I observed it with amazement out of the corner of my eye the last few days, I remembered the British doctor who said that when he makes house calls he always walks around the outside of the home to see what is growing - "wild or with particular zeal" - there, since in his experience, what the earth offers up with insistence is often just what the people in the house most need.
So I’m sipping lemon verbena tea, thank you very much. And yes, the medicinal shoe fits.
You see that line in the banner above?: life is a conversation and Every Thing is talking. This is what I mean by it. Every Thing is communicating with every other thing all the time. Words are a small portion of this. It is energies and symbols and signs and feelings and rhythms and dreams and vibrations and wise offerings from mother earth and much more than I can name or know. Too bad most of us are lousy at harvesting the many gifts at hand. Or in recognizing just how “gifted” we all are.
And yet, for so many people this remains a whisper of possibility - and longing - deep in the psyche. I submit as Exhibit A the fact that yesterday's New York Times article "Mystery on Fifth Avenue" is among those most forwarded today. It's about a home with hidden messages and clues... things that "remain largely unnoticed"... that seem "random"... that might even cause one to question "sanity"... but which reveal, in fact, a loving treasure that wants to be found, is meant to be found.
A friend who read it wrote to me, "I want to live in a home like this." I probably should have written back, "You do."
“Some scholars have contended that the enigmatic stones, surrounded by a ditch and earthen banks in concentric circles, more than likely marked a sacred place of healing. The idea is at least as old as medieval literature, which also includes stories of Stonehenge as a memorial to the dead. So there could be an element of truth to both hypotheses, experts say.”
The other day, my eyes happened to fall on a Q&A with David Mamet in Vanity Fair.
What is the quality you most like in a man? Steadfastness.
What do you most value in your friends? Loyalty.
What is your motto? Be Prepared.
These struck me as the answers of an Unevolved Male*, and largely fear-based. I mean, can't you just feel the fortress being built in this collection of values?
Victoria, what do you value most in your friends?
Truth.
Refined perceptions.
Humor. - I love, love, love laughing hard with friends.
Wisdom.
Depth.
Insight.
Wide-angle smarts, including emotional intelligence.
Spiritual awareness.
I could go on and on and on before I got close to anything approximating loyalty. But then, I value what I enjoy in my friends - their fine qualities in service to themselves - and the dynamic back and forth of the meeting of our energies, not what I want them to owe me in the event of... some booga-booga.
Of course, the George Bush White House, with its premium on LOYALTY! - "Here's yer commutation, Scooter!" - over pretty much everything else - truth... wisdom... depth... - has been my royal education in certain red flag warnings of the immature male.
Tragically, George didn't embrace that Boy Scout oath as well.
* Author and radio host Caroline Casey would no doubt say The Unitiated Male, which is probably more on point.
The most striking thing about (what I caught of) the pundit analysis of Senator Obama’s brilliant speech on race and religion is this: They all seemed blown away by the power of his thoughts and the honest courage in the way he shared them...
“This speech is probably the most monumental speech since Martin Luther King as it relates to matters of race…" - Dr. Floyd Flake, Pastor of Allen AME Cathedral, a Clinton supporter, on Charlie Rose
"The rhetorical magic of the speech—what made it extraordinary—was that it was, at once, both unequivocal and healing. There were no weasel words, no Bushian platitudes or Clintonian verb-parsing… It was a grand demonstration of the largely unfulfilled promise of Obama's candidacy: the possibility that, given his eloquence and intelligence, he will be able to create a new sense of national unity—not by smoothing over problems but by confronting them candidly and with civility." - Joe Klein, Time Magazine
"Obama offered himself as the man who rises from flames and invites you to rise from your own. He took a grievous embarrassment and moved his lesson to the plane of prophecy. Talk about hope; talk about audacity. Tears came to my eyes. I don't think I'm especially hard-hearted, but I cannot think of another time when the speech of a presidential candidate watered me up." - Todd Gitlin, professor of journalism and sociology at Columbia University
“And so at 11 o’clock AM on a Tuesday a prominent politician spoke to Americans about race as though they were adults.” – Jon Stewart, Daily Show
... BUT it was this very fineness of Obama's talk that made them wonder how it would “play” to “regular Americans.” Regular Americans – you know them, they are what Clinton strategist Mark Penn refers to as “jugheads”. Or Pennsylvania “knuckleheads”, as someone in Philadelphia described them to Newsweek's Howard Fineman.
See, this is the commonly shared view of the ruling and mainstream media class – that elections are about who can herd the biggest bunch of idiots into the voting booths. You get those doggies moving with game-playing and manipulation and absurd spinning and fear…oh, never go short on the fear…and be sure to keep all ugliness going as long as humanly possible, without leaving fingerprints, of course.
Is this who we are?
Is this how we live up to our serious responsibilities as citizens in a democratic superpower nation?
Because the assumption is that we are a bunch of knee-jerk, over-emotional non-thinkers.
Senator Obama bet another way yesterday. He spoke to America as if we could process sophisticated, nuanced, and plainly true words. As if we want to see, to understand, to grow. And heal. As if we want to take the good we've been given by America and show our gratitude by making it even better.
It is surely a test of us to see how We The Knuckleheads respond to that.
It is also a test of the Democratic Party – to see how its leaders line up to support Obama's deeply respectful approach to us... as if we are not just a bunch of jugheads.
Of course, I realize that all these most positive scenarios will require some hope.
Since it's being belittled this week, let's have a look at it:
October 2, 2002
Good afternoon. Let me begin by saying that although this has been billed as an anti-war rally, I stand before you as someone who is not opposed to war in all circumstances. The Civil War was one of the bloodiest in history, and yet it was only through the crucible of the sword, the sacrifice of multitudes, that we could begin to perfect this union, and drive the scourge of slavery from our soil. I don't oppose all wars.
My grandfather signed up for a war the day after Pearl Harbor was bombed, fought in Patton's army. He saw the dead and dying across the fields of Europe; he heard the stories of fellow troops who first entered Auschwitz and Treblinka. He fought in the name of a larger freedom, part of that arsenal of democracy that triumphed over evil, and he did not fight in vain. I don't oppose all wars.
After September 11th, after witnessing the carnage and destruction, the dust and the tears, I supported this administration's pledge to hunt down and root out those who would slaughter innocents in the name of intolerance, and I would willingly take up arms myself to prevent such tragedy from happening again. I don't oppose all wars. And I know that in this crowd today, there is no shortage of patriots, or of patriotism.
What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other armchair, weekend warriors in this administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne.
What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Rove to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income - to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone through the worst month since the Great Depression. That's what I'm opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics. Now let me be clear - I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power. He has repeatedly defied UN resolutions, thwarted UN inspection teams, developed chemical and biological weapons, and coveted nuclear capacity. He's a bad guy. The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him.
But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history. I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of Al Qaeda. I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars.
So for those of us who seek a more just and secure world for our children, let us send a clear message to the President today. You want a fight, President Bush? Let's finish the fight with Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, through effective, coordinated intelligence, and a shutting down of the financial networks that support terrorism, and a homeland security program that involves more than color-coded warnings.
You want a fight, President Bush? Let's fight to make sure that the UN inspectors can do their work, and that we vigorously enforce a non-proliferation treaty, and that former enemies and current allies like Russia safeguard and ultimately eliminate their stores of nuclear material, and that nations like Pakistan and India never use the terrible weapons already in their possession, and that the arms merchants in our own country stop feeding the countless wars that rage across the globe.
You want a fight, President Bush? Let's fight to make sure our so-called allies in the Middle East, the Saudis and the Egyptians, stop oppressing their own people, and suppressing dissent, and tolerating corruption and inequality, and mismanaging their economies so that their youth grow up without education, without prospects, without hope, the ready recruits of terrorist cells. You want a fight, President Bush? Let's fight to wean ourselves off Middle East oil, through an energy policy that doesn't simply serve the interests of Exxon and Mobil. Those are the battles that we need to fight. Those are the battles that we willingly join. The battles against ignorance and intolerance. Corruption and greed. Poverty and despair.
The consequences of war are dire, the sacrifices immeasurable. We may have occasion in our lifetime to once again rise up in defense of our freedom, and pay the wages of war. But we ought not -- we will not -- travel down that hellish path blindly. Nor should we allow those who would march off and pay the ultimate sacrifice, who would prove the full measure of devotion with their blood, to make such an awful sacrifice in vain.
I didn't expect to say more than what is just below this. But James Wolcott's two references - 1, 2 - brought up some memories.
First, about the good fortune: I learned TM when it cost $35.00 for students. I got to spend time with Charlie Lutes (great pictures here), one of MMY's first US allies, and one of the most delightful teachers I have ever known. I attended the first conference on Creative Intelligence where I had the extraordinary experience of witnessing Bucky Fuller and Maharishi (whose degree was in physics) engage in lengthy, vibrant conversations about the nature of the universe, and where, as a volunteer, I sat in after-hour staff meetings with Maharishi - saw his unassuming humanity, kindness, simplicity up close and for real. I became a teacher of TM when Maharishi was doing the training, which meant I learned from him daily for more than six months.
Toward the end of that course, my sister and I received word that our seventeen-year-old brother, Clayton, had died in a car accident. Because we were in a period of deep meditation at the time, Maharishi wanted to see us before we hurled ourselves into the emergency activity of flying home. We sat on either side of him as he talked a bit about heading back into activity and made arrangements for us to complete our training (the part where he personally gives you the mantras) later that summer at a different location. My sister had the presence of mind to ask, "What can we say to our mother to comfort her?" Maharishi answered, "When a mother loses a child, rather than think about the future she won't have with the child, the true feeling - the one to concentrate on - is gratitude for the years she had with that child... because if the mother has done everything she can to love the child and feed and clothe the child... (and here he paused for emphasis) and educate the child, then she has done all she was meant to do for the length of time she was given, and wasn't that a wonderful thing to have?"
And then he handed each of us a flower to take to her.
We were both struck, my sister and I, how the point about education was so perfectly apt for our mother. And the way he had emphasized it, as if he knew her. He had turned to his left and looked directly into my eyes as he said that. No, my sister said, "He turned to the right and looked directly into my eyes as he said that."
I still have days when I wish I could know Clayton as a grown man. But those days of grief right after our return to the U.S. were positively loaded with support and meaning and mystical power and, yes, gratitude.
Just a couple of weeks ago, I was listening to To The Best of Our Knowledge on NPR. The author of a new book on the Beatles was talking about their time with Maharishi, including the part about the groupie-charlatan from London who blew into Rishikesh and convinced John and George that Maharishi was having an affair with one of the women at the ashram. The interviewer asked if the allegation was true. The author replied, "Someone told me...and I know for a fact...it was."
I laughed out loud at this absurdity. (Being the peaceful meditator I am, I also shouted, "Do some decent research, asshole!)
"I remember taking George Harrison to meet (Maharishi) in 1993. George had gone to apologize for the bad behaviour of the Beatles back in 1969. Back then, the Beatles, especially John Lennon, had insinuated that the Maharishi was having an affair with Mia Farrow."
According to those who were at the retreat with them, George and John were asked to leave the ashram due to drug use.
"When George apologised, the Maharishi said there was nothing to be sorry about. He said the Beatles were angels on Earth with their music and he could never be angry with them. George wept." - Deepak Chopra, in the Times of India
(Chopra also has this fine essay in the Times on Maharishi the man.)
There were other ridiculous things in the radio interview as well. I felt so fortunate for those experiences I'd had that allowed me to recognize so clearly the true from the untrue.
Then, a few weeks later, another episode of the same radio show..and more Maharishi. This time it was long time meditator Geoff Gilpin, whose book The Maharishi Effect explores the changes - some wonderful, some downright odd and disappointing - he observed in the TM movement over the years.
Which reminded me of something Maharishi once said about the nature of Truth - that it is something that must be lovingly tended like a garden or it slips away. Sages appear. They share Truth. Then, over time - via structures and/or due to the consciousness of individuals and the times - it becomes distorted, corrupted, even lost. Until it comes again.
And so it goes.
And sometimes ... sometimes ...you get really, really lucky.
The essential truth that Maharishi taught was not one you get from someone else, but the One you tap and nurture within.
January 12, 1917 - February 5, 2008
"All speech, action, and behavior are fluctuations of consciousness. All life emerges from, and is sustained in, consciousness. The whole universe is the expression of consciousness. The reality of the universe is one unbounded ocean of consciousness in motion."
- Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
He taught me this.
He gave me the experience of it.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
This is my wish for you: an uncanny encounter with a speck of paint...or perhaps a tiny blob of toothpaste in the sink... a fur ball deposited overnight on the kitchen floor...something you would normally wash away without a second thought, something that by all usual thought needs to be made gone... a pure bit of nothingness... as in -
Mr. Finster... a 60-year-old minister (and bicycle repairman)...was painting a bicycle when a bit of white paint on his finger, he said, transformed itself into a face and directed him to paint sacred art. He understood that voice to be the voice of God. He argued with the voice, he told interviewers, saying that painting art was for professionals.
The voice asked him how he knew he couldn’t be an artist if he had never tried.
And that in this encounter, you'll have the presence of mind to Be In The Now, as in -
That’s when Mr. Finster took a dollar bill out of his pocket and started to copy Washington’s head. He never looked back.
And, by god, run with it -
He set a goal of creating 5,000 pieces of art but completed nearly 48,000 before he died, famously signing each with the time — to the minute — he finished the piece, along with the date, the work’s number and his name.
It's a swell story, worth reading the whole way through.
And pause to reflect on the perfection of this, too: It's the genuine art pilgrim (1278.8 round trip miles per weekend), not today's preacher, who is most effective at reclaiming and restoring what is nearly lost.
In a light “Summerscapes” essay in today’s New York Times, Bridie Clark colors in sweet details from the summer of her twelfth year, the summer she set out to transform herself. It reminded me of so many childhood girlfriends - for instance, the one who used the summer of her father’s military transfer to transform herself into “someone different” between seventh and eighth grade; in short, better hairstyle, cuter clothes and a determination to make cheerleader, with the five-year goal of eventually becoming her high school's homecoming queen (which she did, by the way, and still called it the “happiest day of my life” more than a year after she graduated from Berkeley - not just because she got the crown, I told myself, but because she made it happen. Hey, we all have our dreams..).
When I visited her for a week the very next summer, her anxiety was palpable. Had I arrived as a carrier of the bad juju from that other, past (please, God) place? Would I inadvertently reveal something to her new friends that might break the spell? As we got ready for a summer dance, she rattled off a long list of rules that really, really mattered here. “Girls don’t dance fast dances with girls here!” she kept repeating, as if I hadn’t grasped it the first time. “And no eye contact with boys unless they come right up to you and speak first!” And so much more. Fortunately, some guy with Cool Creds asked me to dance four times – something that rarely (okay, never) happened at home – and her panic abated. She loved her old friend, but not at the expense of her new self. And that was as it should be.
But that second summer was my own summer of change. For me, it was about walking into a social gathering without the cover of a gang of girls. I never enjoyed – or understood - traveling in packs, and I wanted to be able to walk into any social space all by myself and, no matter what I found there, feel comfortable initiating a conversation. My plan in that summer between eighth and ninth grade went like this: at least three nights a week, all summer long, I would walk by myself – south on Broad one block, west on North a bunch of blocks, left at Church Street for one more - to the PennSupreme ice cream shop next to the big parking lot, where everyone hung out on summer nights, and I would make myself walk into the crowd and start a conversation. I had a job babysitting two little kids for eight hours a day that summer and I made a deal to do the family ironing as well in order to make enough money to buy some new clothes for this effort. I still remember standing in front of my bedroom mirror (I bought a full-length mirror, too, that summer) practicing my smile, my "hi"; even more, I remember my heart pounding as I made my way down North Street. But I never once turned back. I threw up twice, but I didn’t turn back. And I got good at it, something which came in handy years later when I dated a series of shy artists who dreaded their own openings. “Stick with me,” I could say with sunny assurance. “I’ll get you through it. I know how to do this.” To this day, I look back and love that eighth grade girl. I love her discipline, I love her method, I love her accomplishment. I love that she learned that the “trick” was to open her heart, to have gentle good will toward rooms full of strangers. She inspires me.
In the years since, how many times have I winced each time someone pronounces, "People don't change!” as if it's some fresh thought? I know they are wrong, but grieve for whatever experience has brought them to this no place. When a 70-year-old acquaintance at a party in June waved her hand and announced, “I’m too old to change,” I shouted “NO!" with a ferocity that shocked the both of us.
I mean, if we can’t change, why are we here? What is more satisfying than growing into a new and better way of being, acting, perceiving? Why is it that adolescent girls can seize the moment, while so many supposed adults have given up?
Robert Bly captured it in a Kabir poem on Bill Moyers’ show last week
Friend, hope for the Guest while you are alive.
Jump into experience while you are alive!What you call "salvation" belongs to the time before death.
If you do not break your ropes while you're alive
do you think that ghosts will do it after?
The idea that the soul will join with the ecstatic
just because the body is rotten ---
that is all fantasy.
What is found now is found then.
If you find nothing now,
you will simply end up with an apartment in the City of Death.
Perhaps one of the richest things about the traditional school summer break is the clear, open space it provides between what was and what will be, which fuels hot afternoon daydreams of new possibilities and imaginings of how to make them so ... and sometimes, sometimes... the will to act.
This is the essential labor of life.
