I am listening to Andrea Fella on death and impermanence.

Feline state of post-bellyrubbing bliss.

“It’s not a depressing thing, actually.”

Most of my lessons the past year have involved living with uncertainty. How can a person root when reality requires constant adaptation?

Fella describes the lesson of physics that tells us everything is always changing, everything is made of atoms – and they aren’t even atoms – they are particles in constant flux. “It’s hard to be in touch with this kind of change,” she says. Generally, Fella continues, people tend to stay at the surface – dealing with change only when it rocks assumed solidities – the World Trade Center is attacked, earthquakes and hurricanes happen . . . however, if we notice the subtleties occurring all around us: “Things are ending all the time.”

Snuggling.

Quoting* The 8th Duino Elegy from Rainer Maria Rilke (who inspired me, most deeply, many years ago), Fella wants to spin grief on its head:

Who formed us thus:
that always, despite
our aspirations, we wave
as though departing?
Like one lingering to look,
from a high final hill,
out over the valley he
intends to leave forever,
we spend our lives saying
goodbye.

Too often (dwelling in insecurity), my sentiment has been one of “always saying goodbye” – which is ironically so much the opposite of the attitude I prefer:  ”I don’t care if I am possible . . . We must learn to trust thin air” (Ursula LeGuin, ”Newton Did Not Sleep Here“).

One of Fella’s antidotes is to adopt the stance of Don Juan (at 18:22):

Laps are for crossing over...

… The thing to do when you’re impatient is to turn to your left and ask advice from your death. An immense amount of pettiness is dropped if your death makes a gesture to you, or if you catch a glimpse of it, or if you just have the feeling that your companion is there watching you. Death is … a wise adviser that we have. Whenever you feel, as you always do, that everything is going wrong and you’re about to be annihilated, turn to your death and ask if that is so. Your death will tell you that you’re wrong; that nothing really matters outside its touch. (You) have to ask death’s advice and drop the cursed pettiness that belongs to men that live their lives as if death will never tap them.

“A Strange Consuming Happiness”

...sometimes with a pause to knead.

Fella says joy comes from contemplating death, from living as if each act in the world — no matter what it is — might be one’s last. This attitude increases care and ethical action. I suppose one might call it mindfulness, or perhaps grace.

Working with “Broken Bits of Information”

Broken bits of perception are “the base level of our experience,” Fella explains, describing how our mind uses vision to perceive and make sense of light. Referring to a particular experiment she adds, “if you’re moving your eyes at the right speed.” Always, then (I extrapolate), there is coordination (or lack thereof), whether it is the eye-mind or some other sensory perception with consciousness, or two people having a conversation. Coordination is the essence of communication. “When we cling to what we construct in our minds through this perceptual process,” Fella warns, “we suffer.”  Off I go again – “understanding,” “meaning,” the abstract subtle and relational ‘things’ we believe we have communicated or comprehended – these too pass into impermanence.

Farewell, 2011.

[The animal] is not exempt from an unclear
memory-which subdues us as well:
the notion that what we seek was once
closer and truer by far than now…
and infinitely tender.

No clinging to reflections in the mirror; all things change – are always, forever, changing. Fella completes her talk with a quote from “A Walk in the Woods” by Phra Khantipalo:

Everything and everybody — that includes you and me — deteriorates, ages, decays, breaks up, and passes away. And we, living in the forest of desires, are entirely composed of the impermanent. Yet our desire impels us not to see this, though impermanence stares us in the face from every single thing around. And it confronts us when we look within — mind and body, arising and passing away.

So don’t turn on the TV, go to the pictures, read a book, seize some food, or a hundred other distractions just to avoid seeing this. This is the one thing really worth seeing, for one who fully sees it in himself is Free.

______________
* Andrea Fella reads the last two stanzas of Rilke’s 8th Duino Elegy (at 13:24) from a different translation than the one I found online. The comparisons are interesting – I prefer certain phrases from each version. My curiosity about synchrony is piqued by the fact that the poem, overall, compares the animal and human gaze upon death and things (”objects”). Mei Mei remains among the living as I type, an acupuncture treatment granting yet another temporary reprieve.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Testing tolerance and endurance in Amherst, MA

Half a dozen tents were visible as I gazed out the third-floor window of Bartlett while waiting for discussion to begin in a course on postcolonial literature. My view of the tents was shrouded by pale yellow and brown autumn leaves that refuse to fall, despite the devastating snowstorm that recently wreaked havoc to the trees and, collaterally, the power grid. Or is it the other way around?

Occupy.

Occupation.

. . . “have sexual intercourse with” . . .

Gazing out the window this morning, I marveled at the surreality of the moment: students busily focused on an in-class writing assignment while elsewhere police chase protesters from city squares to college campuses and off of them, too. I wonder what mixture of fear and hope inspires the activists, considering ways I can provide support. My curiosity includes the mindset of bystanders and critics: those who cannot be bothered or see no point, and those who have a problem with the demonstrations of collective action, the insistence on public participation in the guts of democracy.

I remembered that there was something reassuring about people resuming normal routines as soon as possible after snowtober, even though it was also unsettling that most people’s response to disaster seems to be to continue going on in the way one always has.

Life and Debt with No Telephone to Heaven

“That was the worst of being a servant. The waiting around for cuffy-pretend-backra or backra-fe-true while your life passed, the people in the house assuming your time was worthless.”

Michelle Cliff 1987:  19

It is a random synchronicity that I am interpreting an undergraduate course in postcolonial literature while Occupy Wall Street unfolds in biographical and historical time. Nonetheless, I am struck (again) that the descendents of former colonizers are discovering major faults in the system. Now, many white middle-class lives are passing in thrall to a financial engine that eats culture, discarding and replacing human cogs at whim.

OWS: The Defining Symbol of this Generation?

“[Occupy] is bigger than the 2012 elections…this is something that’s going to grow and grow and grow. This is America, this is America bubbling up to the surface… This is something… that is earthquake…you know – seismic.”

Lupe Fiasco on The Stream

A friend working on some Twitter research has created a visualization of  Tweets containing the word “occupy.” Watching the barrage of names, emotions, attitudes, accusations, reports, insults could seep in like a bad dream, the social miasma of our times unfolding in real time. It is too easy to get lost in the public sphere as an impenetrable discussion zone of colliding billiard balls. A privileged few political themes crash and spin off each other in crazy, chaotic directions. I find articulate voices making sense of what’s happening among hip hop artists who are using their art to engage issues of social justice. At AJstream, Derrick Ashong asks Lupe Fiasco and Basim Usmani why the clear point of the Occupy movement – ECONOMIC JUSTICE – is not translating to mainstream media.

“This new generation that’s at Occupy Wall Street . . . coming out of high school now, they’ve got the Arab Spring, they’ve got, seen the election of Obama, people power, I think that my generation could learn a lot from the one that’s coming up, that I see out at the Occupies, I think that those people actually believe earnestly that they can change things.”

Basim Usmani, The Kominas

Navigating through the inertia of the force of old ideas requires calm thinking and the ability to reflect on multiple and diverse perspectives. I take heart from the intelligence displayed both by this hopeful generation coming up now and the results of last week’s elections, which the New York Times opined as

“…an overdue return of common sense to government policy in many states. Many voters are tired of legislation driven more by ideology than practicality, of measures that impoverish the middle class or deprive people of basic rights in order to prove some discredited economic theory or cultural belief . . . . It is not clear that [November 9th's] votes add up to a national trend that will have an effect on 2012 or even the deadlock in Congress. But they do offer a ray of hope to any candidate who runs on pragmatic solutions, not magical realism, to create jobs and reduce the pressures of inequality on the middle class and the poor.”

Kick and Push (a.k.a. Muslim Skateboarding – Building Skateastan! Check out The Stream)

The challenge of this age is whether we – homo sapiens – can harness conversation about the many challenges, obstacles, and perspectives on these matters and turn our talk to collaborative, productive problem-solving. Rather than hard military aggression and police deployment, perhaps it is not too soon to be soft and yielding in order to cultivate collaboration.

Popularity: 2% [?]

lost in time

pastpresentfuture merge

in chaos

fencing outlines a space

positions a safe center

defines the middle of time

hummingbirds flutter

Bloomfield, NM

Popularity: 6% [?]

Amherst, MA

corn under a western Massachusetts sky

I am not actually geriatric yet, despite teasing to the contrary. An acquaintance did, however, recently bring to my attention that in seven years I’ll become eligible to join the AARP!

So what’s it mean, fellow traveler?

If a life is counted as a single cycle of seasons, then I’m in early summer: all kinds of living things growing and coming to fruition.

My life lessons to date:

Keep healing.

Build your courage.

Face down reactions to fear.

Exercise the broken places inside yourself.

Seek new internal spaces.

Expand your capacities.

Notice time.

Meanwhile…

Laugh!

Cultivate self-doubt.

Correct overshoot as soon as possible.

It’s all improv! “Yes. And…”

Strive to be gentle.

Stay firm.

Love.

See Part 2: Dental Update (life lessons, part two)

Popularity: 4% [?]

bolster your courage

dream being into this world

rush departure not

Popularity: 3% [?]

Spotted Eagle’s Land
New Mexico

Thank you for calling things what they are: “violence,” “mendacity,” “personal issues.” Such blights on beauty must be removed if one would live in a good way.

I am saddened that you had to witness and forgive my carelessness and ignorance. I am horrified that I needed you to witness residues of sheer ugliness. I strive to close the kindness-to-self gap. I am this way: originally un-parented and yearning to feel joined. I will myself to be better.

Everything is a Lesson

Nat's Cairn in the San Juan River

I arrived into a whirlwind of preparation, barely getting to chuck my gear into the sacred pop-up before being put to work. Pulling on the only pair of work gloves visible, I remember thinking I would need to be careful to avoid a blister, as the hole at the base of the left thumb was significant. Must be why no one else is wearing them, I thought to myself. A few hours later, I was reluctant to stop and go down to the river. The five women cooling off and chatting by the San Juan were all new to me; I didn’t know what to talk about yet didn’t want to be held back by insecurity, either. It took awhile for my mind to recognize this as probably the only opportunity to rinse off before the official commencement of Ceremony. Could I have anticipated that acting on such thoughts would become profound learning opportunities?

Which comes first: listening or observation?

In terms of my developmental biography, I have needed repetition and convergence. If explanatory language accompanies direct observation, then I might absorb the lesson at once, otherwise the behavioral evidence shows that I have a systemic weakness at absorbing important information upon first telling. Sometimes, depending on my internal relation to the content of the message, I might miss the point several times. My stunning ability to not notice visual information cropped up at several junctures – weakening the group, sometimes crucially. Ouch. On the second day, five of us got into the yarn: Carolina anchored the 90- and 180-degree weaving sweeps of, respectively, me & Athena and Joanne & Mary. My casual handling of the yarn invited critique.

“Matter is sacred.”

“We’re like that, aren’t we.” Margarita gazed steadily into my eyes once I realized that my zeal to line the gardens around the house with stones from the river had caused me to forget that she was not supposed to labor. It seems I couldn’t balance a focus on things equally with a focus on people. Remembering instructions – all of them always and the specifically relevant ones in particular – remains a high-priority goal for me. Passing on instructions given to one or a few of us to all of the rest of the members of our group seemed even more difficult. We were confronted not only with extending trust equally between Spotted Eagle and Viviana, but also with acting among ourselves on the basis of a similarly presumed and reciprocal trust.

There were thirteen of us and Marlene, plus Gater. The Elders had specific roles: two Teachers, one Firekeeper, and a Singer. Sheila was our Chef. MP performed her customary on-demand interventions in addition to behind-the-scenes support and logistical planning.

Two of the participants – Betty and Mary – were tasked exclusively with tending the fire; the rest of us were supposed to be interchangeable. Athena was drafted to assist with the fire, and Nat got to enhance the chicken coop. Otherwise any and each of us did whatever needed doing. All participants had been instructed to prepare in advance by fasting and considering questions of what we hoped to bring to, and gain from, Ceremony. I had come asking to be honed. Thank you (uncomfortable though it was) for not missing a single chance to plane through my rough spots so that what I seek to give can be more accurately focused. Now I know what it means to receive tough love!

“We have gusts.”

Several storms punctuated Ceremony. One instruction that was difficult for me to absorb came from Nancy. “Don’t look out the windows. Don’t invite the lightening to fall in love with you.” There were several instances when an instruction given to one or a few of us was not passed on, culminating in confusion and sometimes resulting in a public admonishment. At least twice, I found myself discounting a message from a peer, and once I failed to pass on an instruction that had been faithfully passed to me. We improved steadily, but chaos managed to overtake us (briefly) near the end, when nature joined the contest between those of us eager for Ceremony to end and those of us wishing it could continue. Given the alternatives that we had been discussing, I was absolutely relieved when Viviana discovered it was ‘just me’ who had misplaced the special folder.

“We measure time in moments.”

It has taken decades to come to terms with the valence I have of manifesting underlying tensions in a group through things I say or do. My awareness of being immersed in group-level dynamics began to develop by accident and happenstance. Twenty years ago, Spotted Eagle presented me with an embodied lesson of “what fear can do.” The first experiment catapulted me out of a job and onto the road, launching me into investigations where I have probed a range of boundaries. No sphere of social interaction has been off-limits, from interpersonal relationships with family, lovers, and friends to the structural hierarchies between democratic freedom (individual independence of thought and action) and institutionalized authority – my own (such as with students and colleagues) and with/against ‘the system’.

Spotted Eagle’s original lesson to me was about the risk of being incapacitated by the irrational emergence of feeling frightened. Since then, I have used the visceral sensation of unfounded fear (throbbing pulse, weak legs, rising anxiety in the presence of no identifiable threat) as a guide for activism.  Somehow, I decided that this kind of intrapersonal emotional reaction suggests the presence of an alternative timestream to the typical flows engendered by the technologically- and socially-constructed momentum of the last half-millennium.

Over the years, I have learned about my proper place in society and the world from the reactions of others. Just as with the physical and hormonal changes wrought by the monthly reproductive cycle, the ‘good’ (desirable, preferred) and  ‘bad’ (undesired, dispreffered) responses – especially from people I care about – provides crucial information for the process of unifying consciousness (perceptual awareness) with occupying this/my body. For me, such self-knowledge has become foundational to ethical action in our increasingly diverse, interactive, and rapidly-changing societies.

Many of my attempts to work deliberately with the energy of these valences have been failures, some of them excruciatingly so. Nonetheless I learn from each mistake and take hope with each tiny hint of success. My awareness of consequences remains fledgling, although I work diligently to accept responsibility for conscious choices as well as my less- and un-conscious behaviors, most especially those that lead to unintended effects and unwanted outcomes.

“Laugh and free the dolphins!”

The honor of being invited to participate in a Menopause Ceremony in an Indigenous way, following rituals taught to a properly-chosen person who was raised and trained traditionally, is a gift that exceeds my capacity to comprehend. The mix of meaningful discipline and unconditional love in the Ceremonial Way gives special rigor to the task of shaping a life worth living. Additional gifts – being knighted, for instance (to Pay Attention! ) – nearly overwhelmed my limited emotional resources. Thank you for showing me some of the junctures I missed, where my selfishness or ego took us through chronotopes less beautiful than other options. The record shows that, at times, I operated in sync with a Puberty Ceremony rather than in celebration of acquired wisdom.

How perfect that you were kind enough to let me know, before sending me back into the world, that I needed to wipe the boogers from my nose!

Popularity: 4% [?]

7 August 2010

On a midsummer eve, at a magnificent location on Long Island, magic was afoot.

Although most celebrants would arrive at the designated hour that Saturday afternoon, many had begun the journey days and even weeks in advance. From Italy and Romania, the Dominican Republic and Dubai, from South and North America, the east and west coast and even the US heartland, homo sapiens and favored spirits (human and feline) advanced with hearts and minds firmly focused on the impending formal consecration of Holy Crap.

As all such spiritual occasions demand (even of those who are short), planning and preparation had commenced more than a year earlier: it was all about the party. The queens of Queens’ Castle cater exclusively to those with the highest standards, privileging the rare few blessed with creative capacities for combining The Ceremonial with The Corny.

Details having been meticulously tended since the beginning, the big day dawned with a long list of easily-managed minor tasks. The expectant mood was as calm as the balmy weather, deep and peaceful – despite the faux frenzy of bride and groom seeking reprieve from the upcoming ordeal. Would she trip down the stairs? Would he stumble over the confetti? Could they speak their vows loud enough for us to hear them?!

“I must warn you. I have fed.”

If the ceremony was all about the party; the party was all about the food. And the food. And the food. (The open bar didn’t hurt.) Mainly, it was about the food: the homemade wine and family-recipe red sauce, the award-winning chef’s six or eleven dishes, the family’s seven thousand home baked cookies, the surprise Muffin cake. Oh yea, there was some dancing, too (just a bit). One hundred and thirty-four personages drank, danced, devoured – and then devoured and drank more and danced to the max. That was homemade lemoncello! In handcrafted glasses made of frozen ice!

“It’s not a party until someone is wearing a basket on his head!”

Now, we don’t have to turn this into a competition. (I’m just saying.) Just because those of us at the Dragonfly table left the biggest mess and stayed longest doesn’t necessarily mean we had the most fun. (Emphasis on “necessarily.”) If we ranked by time logged on the dance floor, the (self-identified) “Black Section” probably pulled neck-and-neck with our domestic/international mix. A nod is definitely due Consuela Bananahammock and her mate from the Bumble Bee table for cutting the first turn on the dance floor – which (if you must know) was never near empty again.

Agnostics, Christians, Hindus, Jews, Muslims, a Sikh, gays and lesbians, citizens, immigrants, and welcome guests from other countries; conversations flowing in English, Italian, Romanian, and Spanish…. …. the diverse and unabashedly happy crowd is itself testimony to the lives these two have touched and will no doubt continue to inspire.

Time to get busy!

Popularity: 6% [?]

cyberspace

Am in the process of transforming my ‘old’ blog categories into tags (in this new incarnation of Reflexivity) and also setting up “series” that re-present certain types of blog-entries in chronological order. One of the original conceits in deciding to write in this fashion was to create a record of intellectual growth.  Whether or not there’s been any is an open topic…

Social FAIL

Wild Buffalo Wings, Hadley Mall

Who would have thought that our fallback position from arriving too late to acquire tickets to the 3d showing of Avatar would be malling in a sports bar?  It was an ill-fated venture from the start.  Later we learned we didn’t even have the movie’s start time correct! In the moment we just thought it had sold out.  Trying to order a Twisted Margarita to salve someone’s disappointment generated a series of telepathic maneuvers which deteriorated from early success to an unpalatable beverage.  And how many graduate students does it take to split and pay a bill?  Ok ok, so there was friendship involved, after all.  Geez.  At least that!

Popularity: 1% [?]

Mom and I had many conversations in the 1990s about euthanasia. She was afraid of pain and did not want to suffer. I took a bunch of notes back then about what kind of service she would like, what to do with her body and such, trying to anticipate the kinds of information I would one day need. Eventually the topic slipped off the map.
When she went to the Emergency Room last spring, I began to watch and wait for her to let me know when it was time. I thought I was paying very close attention, but she fooled me for quite a while. I learned more about my mom’s parenting style in the last two weeks of her life than during the previous forty-six years. Through my childhood and adolescence, she had displayed no maternal instincts that I recognized. Her deepest lover, Albuquerque John, got it right: “You and your brother raised yourselves.” Whenever Mom told stories about how she had agonized over my brother’s and my safety, and felt our pain as hers, I was astonished at the disparity between our perceptions. I could not reconcile our respective versions of reality.

Abducted by Aliens
Mom called three weeks ahead of schedule to tell me she was ready to move from her beloved Albuquerque, NM to live the rest of her life with me in Amherst, MA. Within 72 hours, she was here. That very first night, I met my roommate in the hall at 4 am. “Did you just hear the front door?” he asked me. I had; what was going on? Mom burst back in. “Honey, we’ve been had!” She was in a state of total panic, convinced our lives were at stake. “That man” had made her sign a paper, and “they” were coming to get her. I tried to understand what was happening. The story she told was fantastic: a hidden life of crime, things done to her blood, how she would soon disappear without a trace. Over the next day and a half, she slowly came down from the double dose of prescription medications that she’d swallowed in an attempt to end the pain (of bone cancer, of increasing fatigue, of fundamental loss…). Mom had thrown me quite a curve! I wasn’t even looking in the right direction.

Call it Coincidence?
“If I had to say,” Mom explained to the social worker from The Hospice of the Fisher Home during the intake interview, “I believe in music.” Anticipating that I was going to need help at some point, friends had provided resources and I had done just enough homework to know who to call for help. Within hours of what looked to me like instant dementia, we had visits from the Clinical Director of the Hospice and from a representative of Elder Protective Services. Mom was reassured, “Massachusetts has the best protection in the country!” Between myself, my roommates, Hospice staff and a sweet neighbor, mom immediately had 24/7 companionship. It took a full two days to get Mom into the health care system, but by Wednesday evening she had suitable medication and proper referrals. Mom was lucid again, and it seemed we were getting the situation under control.
By Thursday afternoon the pain was back. My gaze was becoming clearer, but I still couldn’t see the ball.

or Carefully Coordinated Choreography
I didn’t tell Mom that she had called for rescue within a half-hour of my preliminary visit to The Fisher Home as I checked out potential (future) resources. I never expected Mom to qualify for palliative care so soon. While I was still in the mode of imagining us settling into some kind of home routine for at least a few months, the Hospice offered a couple of nights of respite care over the weekend, since the transition had proved to be so rough – and they happened to have a bed available. They were already gently facilitating my process as well as easing Mom’s. As Mom and I went to bed in my apartment Thursday night, Mom reassured me – despite my goof that had delayed a timely dose of painkiller: “Things are going to work out.” Of course I agreed, oblivious to the fact that our definitions of “working out” were hardly related.
The next shock came at the doctor’s office Friday afternoon, where Mom met her new primary care provider en route to the Hospice. “Not to be too blunt,” he said, after Mom told him in no uncertain terms that she wanted to die sooner rather than later, “but it’s going to happen. You’re going fast.” Cognitively, I processed the information, asking if he was talking about days or weeks. Emotionally, I could not absorb the answer: “Days.” At the Hospice, I said a teary goodbye to Mom, afraid she would die before I returned on Sunday but not believing it. I was also still struggling with my selfish desire for more time with her, despite her obvious and persistent clarity in not suffering the unendurable any longer. She made it through the weekend, relieved to be in good, constant care. Sunday and Monday were tough days, as no pain medication proved effective in catching up with or controlling the bone pain. Monday morning, one of the nurses explained that they were hesitant to start increasing the morphine because Mom was “still so alert” but all the alternatives were failing. As soon as they cranked up the dosage, Mom would begin to move closer and closer to unconsciousness.
Mom was calm as I explained the situation. I wanted her to agree that if we could find another way to control the physical pain, then maybe the emotional aspects could be addressed? “I don’t see any difference,” she told me, “they are mixed up together.” According to the Hospice guidelines for care, “Pain is what the patient says it is.” As long as Mom experienced pain, and told them, they would continue to provide medication. “It’s all done, sweetie,” she told me. Finally, I had caught up.

The Hospice Experience
Each nurse and care provider told me only as much as I needed to know, judging what they sensed I could comprehend, at each step along the way. The attention, time, and energy they provide to patients is extraordinary. Mom and I talked for hours over ten blurry days, sharing memories, moaning and groaning about the freaking pain, laughing, teasing apart selected biographical details, and choosing to leave others forever unexcavated. In the end, I realized how consistently Mom chose not to impose herself on anyone, how deeply she respected others’ autonomy – including that of her kids, and – ultimately – how much she was willing to suffer in order to honor these family values. She did her best to protect us all the way through to the very end.

Goodbye, Mom
I asked Mom what she felt was important in her own life. She answered seriously: “She sang.” I revisited the idea of a service, and Mom scoffed. “She did this. She did that.” I asked if she remembered the choral numbers she had mentioned before. “Those were sung at Mamma and Daddy’s funerals,” she explained. “Do you want to keep the tradition?” I was curious. She just snorted. Probably her most characteristic moment had already occurred. When I bid her farewell for that weekend of respite care, I told her that I was glad she had been my mom.
“I’m glad,” she replied, “that we straightened your teeth.”

“August”
by Boris Leonidovich Pasternak

As it had promised, not deceiving,
The sun pierced through morning and ran
As one bright slanted stripe of saffron
Across the drapes of the divan.
It covered with its heated ochre
The nearby woods, homes in the place,
My bed – and even my wet pillow, -
A patch of wall by the bookcase.
And I remembered why the pillow
Was slightly moist. That very eve
I dreamed you all came through a forest,
One after one – to see me leave.
You came in crowds, in pairs and singly,
And then someone was heard to say:
It is, old style, the sixth of August,
The Lord’s Transfiguration Day.
Usually a light that’s flameless
Comes from Tabor this day each year,
And autumn draws eyes to her beauty -
An omen, marvelously clear.
And you passed through the tiny, trembling,
Bare and beggared alders into
The graveyard’s red-as-ginger forest
Which burned like pressed-out cookies do.
Importantly the great sky neighbored
With those tall, calmed-down tops of trees;
The distance for some time had echoed
With sounds of rooster’s reveilles.
Death stood like some state land-surveyor
Amidst the trees in that stilled place
And scrutinized me for my grave size,
While looking in my lifeless face.
And everybody heard it really -
The quiet words of one nearby:
My former, clairvoyant self was speaking
Which no decay can falsify.
‘Farewell, blue of Transfiguration
And second Savior Day’s rich gold.
Soften for me with woman’s kindness
The bite this last sad hour can hold.
Farewell, years of prolonged stagnation.
And you, woman, let’s say goodbye -
You who challenged humiliation!
I am your battlefield and cry.
Farewell, spread of the wings out-straightened,
The free stubbornness of pure flight,
The word that gives the world its image,
Creation: miracles and light.’

Brief ceremony to be held Tuesday, October 6, at 4:30 pm at The Hospice of the Fisher Home, Amherst MA. Join us there to nurture griefs and celebrate memories of your own loved ones, and/or come for dinner at Panda East (Amherst) (@ 6 pm). Mom loved sushi!
Obituary to be posted in The Albuquerque Journal, The Kansas City Star, The Denver Post, and the Mt Carmel Daily Republican Register (Illinois). Elaine was the oldest daughter of Roy and Rosaline Johnson of Mt. Carmel, IL.
Embedded: Requiem Aeternam by John Rutter
No gifts, please. Contributions can be made in Elaine’s name to the New Mexico Women’s Chorus, P.O. Box 40703, Albuquerque, NM 87106 or to the Samual W. Achziger Memorial Endowment Fund at World Learning, The Experiment for International Living, School for International Training.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Americans smile a lot. It feels good! Occasionally someone gives a fake smile, one of those that is offered up because it is socially expected, but most of the smiles are accompanied with eye contact that acknowledges, somehow, what a pleasure it is to recognize mutual presence. No more carefully-controlled neutral (or somewhat suspicious) “European” expressions. I mentioned to mom that I’ve hardly heard any Spanish – the monotony of English only accents how accustomed I became to the patter of diverse tongues. Now conversations around me unfold with too much information – I understand all the words, even if I lack context or background. She says people aren’t shopping (we’ve been taking multiple daily walks in the mall or Walmart), and I wondered if there are measurable effects of the bad economy according to language group.
After dropping mom for her PET scan I drove off to find a glass of iced tea. The Tomato Cafe was still under construction, so I wound up in Stoneface. I wondered how to reconcile their gang warning sign with the Lavender Festival.

Dad called to explain that the first thirty pages of Deaf Sentence (by David Lodge) describes perfectly his life with hearing loss.
Between medical appointments, spectacular sightseeing. We began with local architecture, specifically contemporary modern, in a new neighborhood with a bit of everything, even the hint of gargoyle.
The Lavender Festival was in Los Ranchos, with its long river-to-road lineas or tripas lots. We hooked up with my old pal, Laurel, and met some of her friends. I enjoyed the predatory bird exhibit.
From there, Laurel, mom and I took off to drive the Jemez, which turned into a long wander. We stopped at the Zia Pueblo. (I snapped the picture before the sign forbidding photography.) The New Mexico state flag features

“an interpretation of an ancient symbol of the sun as found on a late 19th century water jar from Zia Pueblo. This red symbol is called a “Zia” and is centered on a field of yellow.

Four is the sacred number of the Zia and can be found repeated in the four points radiating from the circle. The number four is embodied in the four points of the of the compass, North, East, South and West; in the four seasons of the year Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter; in the 24 hours of each day by sunrise, noon, evening and night; by four seasons of life, childhood, youth, adulthood and old age. The Zia also believed that with life came four sacred obligations: development of a strong body, a clear mind, a pure spirit and devotion to the welfare of people/family. All of these things are bound together within the circle of life.

The red and yellow colors are the colors of Isabel of Castilla brought to the continent by the Spanish Conquistadors.”

We then took the historic Jemez Mountain Trail National Scenic Byway winding up through gorgeous red stone and lush early summer greens – mom kept exclaiming at the abundance of foliage due to the higher than average rains this year. We stopped at the Walatowa Cultural Center, learning about the “4 climate zones, 5,000 years of human history and millions of years of geological ferment” (quoted from the museum timeline). This land is home to the Hemish, who built some 62 major villages, with 9-12 major pueblos, since 1275 (the approximate time they began to build permanent dwelling places in these areas where they already lived). I didn’t imagine my camera would do justice to the majestic views (although now I wish I had tried, sigh) of huge vistas, majestic stone, and the magical open vista of the Valles Caldera (see wikipedia for a few decent shots). We drifted on through Bandelier National Park, marveling at its mix of beauty and destruction; the Cerro Grande fire of 2000 still much in evidence.

There was to be no science tourism, unfortunately. Security did let us in with no fuss (three white women in a old minivan apparently not enough to warrant more than the most casual wave-through – perhaps we fit the profile of “one of those liberals from Los Alamos” which we saw on an adopt-a-highway sign on the way down from Bandelier). Eventually (after what felt like a few passages through Area 51) we found the Science Museum (which closed two minutes prior to our arrival) but managed to enjoy the museum shop. I’m failing to capture the quality of the day’s light banter covering subjects ranging from family histories, genetic forecasts, singing fish, incidents and moments that didn’t happen, what we don’t know about geology, and other assorted random topics but I will say it was an entirely happy day!

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