Summertime, Picknicktime

Annabelle instigated it and I got running once it started. She suggested we have a group picknick on Saturday. The weather would be good and it was Summertime, no? I had to skim off my perpetual layer of grumpiness, that like mold or duckweed clouds my better judgment. So I stayed quiet as she talked me into it. I could feel the change coming over me, the moment, the promise. I started calling people I knew.
It is tiring to be so --- out. That is what I call the social mode I get into. I am still amazed by it; its' novelty is yet fresh, even after many, many witnessings. Who is that person, I wonder? I expected the overwhelming tiredness from all the expenditure of charismatic energy. It didn't come that evening. Sometimes, I get in trouble with it. It leaves me a little manic, my mouth running like a broken water main and the fix-it guy lost for a solution. I may turn to alcohol and that might lead to God knows what. I have learned to be careful once I get going.
Since Tuggs driver doesn't have a phone, we had to inform him, in person that His Tuggishness was expected at the picknick the next day. I rode my bike there, to the marina under the bridge, late, as one keeps running into people one has to talk to. It can take hours to go a few blocks in this small town. It is our version of traffic congestion, though it is infinitely more pleasant.
We pegged the picknick at exactly two-ish, at Marthas' Beach and I got to wondering if I had invited too many people. What if everybody showed? Yikes, the town would empty and there would be nobody to sell crap to tourists.
I have learned a few things about social gatherings. I no longer worry if there will be enough food and if anybody will show up. Or what are we gonna do? All that worrying is in the past. Now I mostly worry about behaving myself. People figure out on their own what is what.
For me the highlight of the day was watching Tugg snag piece of bread and nonchalantly trot over to a gravel plot to bury it. Of course, I ate too much and it was hot and I was dehydrated. I drank a lot of water, a rare event as I hate water. I found, to my surprise, it tasted good and I could drink a lot, without the normal havingtodoitity that I so rebel against.
It was a full summer day.

Helping Steve, helping Me

Nearly twenty years ago I met a man that had a profound effect on me. His name is Steve and he was a wonderful artist, a Human Being and a mentor to me. My relationship with Steve was tainted by my unforgivable naivete. Steve had had an interesting life. I use the word "interesting" as a euphemism for something much coarser. Steve was already a well known artist when he finished High School and went on to get a degree in Art. At the very end of his formal education, he started having problems and was diagnosed with Schizophrenia. From there on, nothing but problems, myself included.
I was such a little shit; stupid, judgemental, arrogant, know-it-all and mouthy. In other words, I had the 'plague'; removed from my Humanity. It is a fine indication about his character that he didn't just push me off a bridge. Now that I am redfaced and eating humble pie, let me explain just how he impacted me. Since he had gone through the mill, finely ground and reground, he understood mental illness. I was in the grips of it without any clue. I didn't hear voices or cut myself or do really weird stuff, so I thought that I was "normal". I was so shut down that I couldn't see myself as I was. I had a lot of money, all of it illicit. Double Manhattens for lunch, to go with the 'healthy' hot spinach salad. No friends, no future, numb to myself and no recourse.
I thought I was there to help him! How considerate. I gave him advice and I was sure if only he would follow that advice, he would "pull out of it". He just didn't get that I was dispensing lifesaving words of wisdom and if only-----. Dear Reader, picture me then and picture you giving me a swift kick in the gonads. Thank you. Ahhm, once more, please, with feeling and resolution, I deserved it.

You know who taught me about transparency? Steve did. His transparency was just heroic. I was stunned. Even then, with all the dumbshitness piled on, I knew that I was witnessing something remarkable. All my headtalk couldn't drown out his authenticity. Something about that pierced my armor. I was on the road to better, without my knowing.

Poor, Poor Africa

I went in search of coffee this morning. I would either be a coffee begging Booty'st Monk or else buy half and half for my own home brew. I called my friend Alan: "Hey, got any coffee?" Hesitation. "Yeah, I got some." Off I go, astride my faithful mount Bikey.
I am like Don Quijote without the rusty armor or Sancho Panza, not fighting giant windmills, rather giant mental cobwebs, that will only come undone with the application of copious cups of hot, tropical broth brewed from a roasted magic bean. As I turn left on Park street, I notice somebody sitting on Patty's porch. It is Judy Booth.
Time gets stretchy, uncountable, as it will in a small town. Everything gets shifted around, the moment is at hand and there is talking to do. Patty apologetically has no coffee.
"Hey, Judy, you are back! How you been?" She's been back for at least a week. She is having a hell of a time recovering from Jetlag. Judy opens a kind of story book and Africa pours out. Now it is all over me and I am drinking in the stories. My cell phone rings. It is Alan. "Where are you?" Oops. "Judy Booth is back from Africa and I ran into her. We are talking." "I have to go to Everett, you want to go?" I hate the freeway. It is the last thing that is free, cloggedway or stressway is more like it. My NO probably sounds desperately harsh and smacks of abandonment. Sorry Alan.
More talk and I get a picture, broadly painted. I still need coffee. I apologize and back on Bikey, pedal off. I am going to the store for half and half. I stop at Kevins'. He's not home. Damn. No coffee here. To the store. Before I go in I check to see if I have any money. Five bucks in my wallet. Survival money. I get the half and half, freshly ground coffee and some day-old donuts. Crap, I can't get the donuts, I am short a buck. Kevin is outside and I hit him up for donut money.
Back on Bikey and to Pattys'. Judy is still there, I ask Patty to make me coffee. More talk. We commiserate the closure of the cafe and wonder what the new place will be like. More Africa talk and the picture becomes clearer. Judy talks of the many difficulties, yet how wonderful it all was, the suffering and inconveniences adding a flavor that though bitter, still did not take anything from her enjoyment.

I read something last night that has some serendipitous link with this morning's conversation. My head is spinning. I need more magic brew.

The Grace of the Heron

I saw a heron land near me and I marveled at the undulating grace and precise movements it made. Not at all jerky like the smaller birds, it wasted no energy and moved with a sureness like a trained dancer.
In wild nature we see what we yearn for, the secret self, the as-is. Culture can be like heavy clothing in August. Yes, we can wear it and even become accustomed, but it is suffocating. The artifice of fashion has us hemmed in.
When I was an adolescent, long hair on a man was not just rebellious, it was downright dangerous. In the wrong establishment, your long hair could get you beat up and hospitalized. Less than twenty years later the situation had changed. My parents complained that my sister wasn't dating any long haired boys.
These artificial constructs seem trite, but are highly charged. In that , that they are so important lies a clue. Perhaps what is most frightening is our natural self. A thought experiment might help lead to insight. What is it about our "wild" selves that is so abhorrent? That we might become violent, unrestrained? Probably not, as violence is taught and even worshipped by this culture. It may be that as-is-ness is not easily fooled. That artificial characteristics, such as avarice, power and social standing (the pecking order) are not all that important to the AS-IS. The natural self wants to live and seeks a balance. It is not easily manipulated, nor fooled. It lives for itself.

A Marvelous Blankness of Mind

Do you meditate? I do, somewhat. I have, off and on for thirty years. If you are wondering whyfore, look at the most recent research. Longterm meditators enjoy less stress and better health. Also their brains became physically different from non-meditators.
You have possibly heard that the idea of meditating is to empty the mind. You may scoff and you are right to do so. It is obviously impossible to empty the mind, an information processing machine that can be equated to the Mississippi river, in terms of how much goes on.
Take for example Joe and Mike, the two guys in charge of monitoring the heart beat. All they do is check to see that the heart is beating at the correct rate for the circumstances. Joe sits in front of about a hundred guages; external temperature, oxygen level of the blood, pretty girl walking by, police car behind you, on and on. Mike operates the control lever that speeds-up or slows-down the heart. They are constantly shouting to each other. They are shouting because of all the noise in the brain. Gaggles of socialites whining and groaning and wringing their hands, worried about what other people think. Neural pathway construction guys hollering: "what was that measurement? What?". The serotonin hawker with a bullhorn:"Get your feel-good here, folks. Come and get it." In the background of all that, the unmistakeable voice of God:"You are going to hell!" Booming and damning. So, obviously, no way to still all that.
What to do?
We should be learning to not identify with the fracass in our heads. Get some distance, a lot like the listening block a husband develops to the nagging wife.
If you want to realy quieten the mind, become a writer. Even though the mind is full of ideas, endless dialoge and witty observations, when you sit down to get some of that brilliance onto paper, you may achieve a marvelous blankness of mind. It is called Writers' Block.

A Walk on the Saltflats

It was the hottest day of the year when my friend, Kevin, drove us to Fir Island. He told me about a favorite place, near by, where he liked to walk. Kevin was enthusiastic and high-spirited. We talked about changes in the valley, how the potato crop looked, how hot the day was and other subjects that passed the time pleasantly. We drove past the Rexville grocery, over the South Fork (of the Skagit River) Bridge. Past farms and houses and to the end of a farm road that was swallowed by a dike, which meandered left and right. Over the dike we walked and from the top, saw an expanse of grass with a hill in the distance. On the horizon was Whidbey Island, the Sound and various humpy hills, recalcitrant resistors to the last Ice Age glacier. In the shrouded distance to the South, we could make out Mt. Ranier, and snow-covered foothills to the east, going to Mt. Baker, North, now bathed in the special light of the evening sun. Graciously, high clouds had moved in and the day had cooled.
Walking along a faint path, the ground was soft and spongy. The grass tasted strongly of salt. What plants grew had to be very tolerant of the salty ground. Mostly grasses with sundry weeds and rare clumps of Cat Tail reeds. Lots of birds and bird song. Every spike of tall weed seemed to have a singing bird on it. As we walked, we came to the high-tide line with bleached storm-tossed logs and even an old refrigerator, that door-less, floated to this parking spot. Swallows dipped and glided and swooped past us, nearly colliding with us. The birds were mostly uninterested in us. We were transient to them.
The hill, Kevin told me is called Bald Island. It looks like its' name, trees and bushes growing at the base and only moss at the top. We saw Herons winging along the waters' edge and even an Eagle, that landed somewhere on the other side of the hill.
When Kevin asked me if I wanted to go to the hill or a nearer, lower rise, I opted for the near. On this rock grew moss and lichen and Service Berry bushes. We sat down on thick moss and rested, eating cherries that Kevin brought for a snack. In the distance we listened to screeching Sea Gulls that excitedly dove to the water, fishing. Somebody was telling them jokes and they were laughing uproaringly, at least that is how they sounded to me.
I was observing what went on around me, imagining the passing of time and listening to myself think. I realized that the long, flat expanse was doing something to my mind. Living in town,I am hemmed in by houses and structure and all that openness was opening my head to the wonder of the wild, that still exists, on the edges of this beautiful Valley where I live.

The Signs of all Times

You know what semiotics means? I just found out yesterday. I is the study of signs, put simply. It is not a simple subject. I am a bit excited over having this little bit of information. It adds another missing piece to the jigsaw puzzle.
We humans got where we are by our ability to think abstractly. Abstract thinking is symbolic. Symbolic thinking is a great tool, but as with nearly any tool, requires caution. Even the innocuous cotton swabie thingy has the power to harm, if used recklessly.
This is about all I know about semiotics, the rest I am making up. Bear with me. The King is going fishing. I have written about our tendency to confuse the map with the territory or the menu with the meal. Shopping for vegetables is not the same as growing a garden, or going gleaning. Relating to a person based upon past perceptions is not the same as seeing them anew. (That one is tough for me as I am stuck on being judgemental, can you hear the gnashing of my teeth? God, how I hate to admit my shortcomings;) What are the symbols of status in this society? Name the corporate logos, will ya. Flash the cash, fling the bling bling. Wear a suit and the peeple will kowtow. Badges, pins and letters behind a name. We are heavily inundated with signs and symbols and we don't believe in what our gut/heart tells us.
Guess I'm eating worms again, there's no fish in this puddle.

The Woo Woo Factor

Here is something that just burns my ass. The New Agers say that we are the creators of our world. Ok. Fine. For a while I believed that, being mentally lazy and all. I used to believe that we jump dimensions with each and every action. Then, when peace threatened to break out in the nineties, somehow I, full of hope, made the wrong turn.
Now it is 2007 and instead of a President, we got a bush. The guy running the show has "chain" in his name. I did not want that. How did I go so wrong?
I suspect that 'you get what you wish for' is a gerbil wheel meme. A meme (rymes with 'gene') is kind of an idea that infects your brain. It gets passed around and shortcircuits our thinking. Memes are easy to repeat and they sound snazzy like deep thought (but without the work). A gerbil wheel is a device that gives the illusion of getting somewhere without actually moving anywhere. It is used to give the gerbil the illusion of freedom.
Now, here is what I think. "You get what you wish for" is absolutely moronic. 40,000 children die each day of starvation. Are the all anorexic? Do you really believe that their parents are hoping for relief from the screeching little crumb-snatchers and are wishing them to a slow, tortured death? Just about half of the people on the planet are barely eating. Are they keeping up with fashion?
So, I will go along with "you get what you wish for" or "we are the creators of out world" if we add some qualifiers:
If you have enough money or power.
If somebody else, schooled in the arcane arts and practicing satanic rituals, wants the same for you.
If you wish for little or nothing.
If you get lucky.

Freedom

I have been asked to give a talk about a documentary called "Freedom to Fascism". I have been thinking a lot about what exactly 'Freedom" means.
First off, we tend to focus on external freedoms, such as those granted by the Bill of Rights. I am using the word 'granted', as historically these rights had to be wrested from the local land barons at the point of some weapon or threat. The Land Lords don't like to give up any of their avenues of exploitation, so it is a matter of continuous maintenance, as they will ungrant whenever possible. Please notice the current trend, with the abolition of Habeas Corpus, a basic right that was initially granted to lesser nobles by the King of England in the Magna Carta. The serfs would still eat cake. Finally, the serfs thought it a good idea that imprisonment at the whim of the Lords and perpetual sabbatical in a dungeon, without charges or trial, needed to be outlawed. I guess those dungeons were just too much fun.
Internal freedom is what I most focus on these days. I am my own jailer, interrogator and torturer. How to unhook from all the propaganda, habits of mind, conditioning and assumptions is what I am doing now. That's plenty.
Political freedom is about justice. Politics, simply defined is: "Who gets what." So it is about fairness, equality and opportunity. If some of us are living large at the expense of others, that is unfair. If the others are trying to get a fair share, that is politics. Nobody with any sense would begrudge you the only second helping of pie if they see that your character or skill is beneficial to all. As a matter of fact, they would insist that you accept half of their slice. They would be honored if you did.
While some of us are burning wood in the stove to keep warm, a few are burning bundles of money. That, of course, is a comical statement, but there is a lot of truth in it. Ostentatious displays of wealth, something most of us don't even get to see, as it is done on privately owned islands and acreage. Most wealth is inherited and money has the nasty habit of multiplying beyond all reason. If you are born with a silver spoon or no spoon is a matter of chance. The existence of that kind of slanted economic system, where such huge gaps, such concentrated wealth is found, speaks of manipulation and cheatery.
Just to get to the place where I can write about this, was a matter of liberation, as to question the status quo is an act of subversion. More to follow.