Exceptional Excerpts: Revolutionary Ripostes, Barbs and Aspersions

American politics. If you think it’s bad, now (and it is), let’s consider how it began. Maybe the atmosphere has been mild and more to our liking from time to time, but our leaders have really never come to terms with each other, beyond agreeing that regime change will not happen by a militaristic coup d’etat. There is a public contract among officials that we all will conduct ourselves according to law, of course, but a general and reciprocal sense of high regard and mutual respect among the elected isn’t even an aspiration, let alone a requirement, for office.

Our discourse is vulgar and accusatory, and often beggars belief, but the overall intent to discredit the opponent was the same then as now. Although the founding fathers managed to vote as one for independence, that unified spirit was transitory. Reputations were not protected, intentions were not assumed to be honorable, and enormous egos marched across state lines and sailed across the Potomac. 

For all that, here we are, at one more celebration of another revolution around the sun as a Union. So, for one day, perhaps we can refrain from clutching our pearls over what news anchors said about what was said about them, and let our forbearers flip their wigs in perpetuity:

Archived at DelanceyPlace.com:

From the book The Unknown American Revolution: The Unruly Birth of Democracy and the Struggle to Create America by Gary B. Nash, Copyright 2005

" 'The history of our Revolution,' fretted John Adams, 'will be one continued lie from one end to the other. The essence of the whole will be that Dr. Franklin's electric rod smote the earth and out sprang George Washington.' Adams complained endlessly about how Franklin was overrated and underhanded, and it pained him immensely to think that the story would go on 'that Franklin electrified [Washington] with his rod, and hence-forward these two conducted all the policy negotiations, legislatures, and war.' 

Adams couldn't decide who would be best remembered in history—Franklin or Washington—but he knew for a certainty that both deserved less credit than he. 'I never knew but one man who pretended to be wholly free from [vanity]' Adams wrote of Franklin, 'and him I know to be in his heart the vainest man and the falsest character I have ever met with in life.' Washington wasn't much better. Adams grumbled about 'the superstitious veneration that is sometimes paid to General Washington,' because 'I feel myself his superior.' ...

"The author of the Declaration of Independence also took his lumps, and administered a few, as he and his band of brothers tried to assess the American Revolution after the smoke had cleared and the ink on the peace treaty had dried. Jefferson found Adams impossible: 'He hates Franklin, he hates Jay, he hates the French, he hates the English,' wrote the Monticello patriarch in 1783. 

Adams returned the favor. At one point he assured a friend in Philadelphia that Jefferson was not 'a true figure' of the Revolution and that drafting the Declaration of Independence was a 'theatrical show' in which the man from Monticello had 'run away with all the stage effect ... and all the glory of it.' After losing the presidency to Jefferson in 1800, Adams called his rival so 'warped by prejudice and so blinded by ignorance as to be unfit for the office he holds.' 

Many of Adams's Congregational minister friends agreed. One predicted that Americans would 'rue the day and detest the folly, delusion, and intrigue which raised him to the head of the United States.' Other clergymen bombarded their parishioners with descriptions of Jefferson as an adulterous atheist and a toadying lover of the hopelessly corrupt French, whose revolution was as attractive as a plague.

"Washington quickly became the avatar of revolutionary achievement because the nation could hardly do without a conquering hero. But privately—and sometimes very publicly—many of his closest associates thought differently. Charles Lee, who became Washington's third-ranking general and had a low opinion of his commander's generalship, sneered at what he called the 'infallible divinity' of the commander in chief and called him 'a bladder of emptiness and pride.' Tom Paine, even after Washington had virtually been sanctified, told the public that had honored him for the crucial essay Common Sense that Washington was 'treacherous in private friendship . . . and a hypocrite in public life.' In an open letter to the retiring president he capped his denunciation: 'As to you, Sir... the world will be puzzled to decide whether you are an apostate or an impostor; whether you have abandoned good principles, or whether you ever had any.' "

If John Adams could have picked a song to sing the blues about political rejection and recrimination, perhaps he might have turned to a young Elton John, who sang for “The Top of the Pops” during America’s Bicentennial in 1976:

"Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word"

What have I got to do to make you love me

What have I got to do to make you care

What do I do when lightning strikes me

And I wake to find that you're not there

What do I do to make you want me

What have I got to do to be heard

What do I say when it's all over

And sorry seems to be the hardest word

It's sad, so sad

It's a sad, sad situation

And it's getting more and more absurd

It's sad, so sad

Why can't we talk it over

Oh it seems to me

That sorry seems to be the hardest word

What do I do to make you love me

What have I got to do to be heard

What do I do when lightning strikes me

What have I got to do

What have I got to do

When sorry seems to be the hardest word

100th Post Grand Prize Giveaway!

Free Free Free!

I can hardly believe that this is my hundredth post. It feels like a celebration is in order, but I’m not sure how to do that on a platform of this nature. All of this is free to everyone, with no fees or advertisements. It has always been a repository for my thoughts that were often inspired by the perspective of others. It has provided order to what can be a jumble sale in my mind.

Although many of the things that I wrote about were thoughts I held during times of suffering, this blog has given me a place to transform them into something meaningful, instructive, fun, and soulfully profitable.

But I have noticed that when things are free, people don’t always value them. If the items at the Salvation Army didn’t have a small price tag, it would be an actual free-for-all, with the attending chaos. People would lose respect for the dignity of themselves and others. And as the saying goes in the comedy world, people laugh harder at a show they’ve paid to see.

Although there are no financial transactions on this site, there are ones of time and energy on both sides. So, I will charge you a few minutes for your reading enjoyment, with something better than the free and traditionally devalued fortune cookie. A fortune cookie isn’t from Asia, it tastes bland, and its oracular sayings are fairly superstitious and devoid of meaning.

What is from Asia, however, is the richly varied, tasty, and meaningful I Ching, or Book of Changes that Confucius consulted regularly, which has been held sacred for millennia. It’s not like a horoscope, or a reading of Tarot cards, or palms, or auras, or anything of that nature. I don’t know what it is, but my experience of it is sort of like playing dice with someone who can read your mind. They may know you, but the roll is the same as it would be for a stranger. You’re not going to win baby a new pair of shoes or lose your shirt, but you may find an interesting space for meditating on the way the world and people change, as an Immutable Law of The Way Things Are.

The Way Things Are is the Law of the Past. The Law of the Future is What Now? The Change from one to the other lies within that ungovernable space of the present moment. That space is where we find the dime that turns, the brick that falls, the hinge, the keel, the burst of inspiration, the epiphany, the startled realization, the spin on the axis, the chance, the nudge, the shot, the pitch, the tweak, the flux.

For fun, I consulted this Book of Changes for something I could give away in the spirit of celebration and accomplishment. Here are some excerpts from the reading I received:

The cast hexagram is titled Inner Truth, and seems fitting to my proposed question: What should be the topic of my 100th post? It goes on to say, "The gentle wind ripples the lake’s surface. The Superior Person finds common ground between points of contention, wearing away rigid perspectives that would lead to fatal error."

Ok, my antennae are up, because I would rather not be led to fatal error. How do I avoid that? Apparently, by finding tranquility.

“The subject discovers a key to Tranquility by first gaining insight into his own nature, then turning that vision outward. By resolving inner conflicts and being at peace with himself, he learns to gain insight into others. In effect, he enters another, sees with the other’s eyes, listens with the other’s ears, feels with the other’s heart. He then returns to his own center, with new perspective and understanding.”

If there has been any obvious aspect of this blog, it is that I have received and presented insight from the perspective of others. The time I’ve spent crafting it has been tranquil, but not sedate. I feel calm, energized, enlightened and entertained every time, and I have wished the same for my readers. My ideas have always originated with someone else; those who have been kind enough to share their wisdom. Because it was freely offered, it is freely given.

The Changing Line, upon which this reading sways: “Finding himself, his serene inner flame radiates warmth that draws others near. He does not Do; he just Is.”

If you have drawn near and felt warmth, then I do hope you feel you have indeed won a Grand Prize. I know I have, by your coming. Thank you.

To Jennifer: I'm forever indebted to your guidance from under the Teal Arbor that started me down this road of riches.

Poem on Her Spring Birthday: When My Soul

When I walk out into the street

and see the sky above the buildings

and all of the people from the ground up,

my Soul walks above the people,

the buildings, the trees,

taking them all in,

for She is not a 

thing contained,

though i am 

smaller 
than a 

robin.

From Experience to Innocence: Reclaim Yourself

Tucson, Arizona

“If the young are not initiated into a village, they will burn it down just to feel its warmth.”—African proverb

“I just want to burn it down,” said a controversial millennial in the media, recently. “Burn the whole thing down." This is a battlecry turning into a mantra. The mindset of many people is that the world is in a terrible place, and they want to salvage it from a crash and burn. They want to naively go backward or forward, but somehow there is a prevailing zeitgeist that most of our present existence must be destroyed from within or from without, first. From zombiepocalypses to robot overlords, the fiction and film of our times is filled with dystopias following cataclysms. These images are exported to the rest of the world, with brief subtitles lacking nuance. The heroes are the destroyers.

Illustration of the final scene of "Fight Club". 
A schizophrenic pyromaniacal nightmare provides solace to the uninitiated. 

I believe that this is because the effect of 9/11 at the turn of the millennium captured the hearts and minds of a global generation much more viscerally and immediately than the indistinct image of an indefinite "bridge to the future" that would spread ideals of democracy. Unchecked capitalism didn't result in freedom and independence, but rather economic and societal collapse. We have epidemics of drug abuse, violence, mental illness, disengaged materialism and the rise of online exhibitionist hungry ghosts. There is a vast disintegration of authority and people are burning up with paranoia. The entire nature of reality and its facts are challenged on a daily basis.

Whenever you see humans creating chaos, you are seeing an outer reflection of their inner state. When chaos reigns externally, the internally chaotic become self-possessed, as they feel relief of the two states finally reflecting one another. The inner life will always find a way to express itself, whether or not a person or a people is conscious of this work. Like an emerging color, this expression is a primary declaration of existence of the soul. It must assert itself, and it will continue to do so, regardless of the surroundings over which it finds itself expanding. 

By contrast, to live in a compressed and limited body is to be mostly fragmented from the self that you used to know, the one that feels older than time and apart from things. No matter what direction you take, the soul is finding its way home every day. It knows the difference between going in circles and coming full circle.

Reclamation of the self seems to me to be a great portion of what our life here is about. It’s as if we were thrown out of something we knew well, and in the new place we have to find our way forward. We have to say, No, not this, and Yes, to that, until we discover this is the way; I feel more myself as I go in this direction. As I go, the shattering is coming back together, and with each step I mature. With each maturity, I heal. With each healing, I mature. Wholeness propels us forward with steady momentum.

Coming Upon the Central Point of the Self: 
Listening As An Antidote to Labyrinthitis

Whether you turn to the right of to the left, 
your ears will hear a voice behind you saying,

 "This is the way; walk in it." ~ Isaiah 30:12

Much of what we need to do in order to heal and to mature is to reclaim our innocence. But, how is this possible after so much experience? And what about the wisdom that comes with experience? Throwing out wisdom, in order to feel young, is feckless vanity dressed up as “being alive.” Wisdom is sober, but not somber. Wisdom can hold the absurd within it and laugh. Wisdom can be childlike. Innocence, then, can be a newly recovered perception that all is not what it has seemed to be, so there is still room for wonder and exuberance. This eases the painful but necessary release of illusions and fantasies of control. With release, innocence and wisdom can clasp hands as they are initiated into a changed world.

This surrendering of illusion and control can bring innocence in new forms. Despite how world-weary we may feel, we haven’t experienced all that there is, so we can become curious and interested and inspired all over again. There truly is a constant and ageless interchange between discovery and recovery and they operate to bring about our reclamation.

When will all this happen and how? That is an unknown to anyone at any time, but the unknown is a requirement for innocence and also for hope. Another requirement is renunciation, a forgotten rite of initiation. With both surrender to the unknown and renunciation of the tried and failed, we get to participate and help to shape our recovery, rather than rely on rigid formulas that create fevered anxiety about their effectiveness and a forcing of the drained will. Instead, we can wisely and judiciously examine what we were given and what we no longer require, all with gratitude. We can set ourselves to rights, without setting someone else to wrongs.

"A Wishing Well and the Unexpected Demise of Its Pail" by Inspirefirst.com

"You need to reclaim the tools necessary to penetrate to the depths of your fellows. Then the bonds you build will be as timeless and inexhaustible as the Well that nourishes them." –from the I Ching

Maybe life set your house on fire, and you had to throw out the good to try to save it from the flames. Or maybe you, yourself, set it on fire and threw everything out in several acts of desperation to make some kind of change, any change. Maybe you ran like a house afire back to familiar but dried-out wells full of glitter and sand. They couldn’t sustain you before, and unsurprisingly, they never respected your thirst to begin with. Rather, they expected you to make it rain for them. Emptiness is notorious for false advertising.

"Rain on Water" by Jennifer Quick, acrylic on canvas,  Lynwood, WA

God gave Noah the rainbow sign. No more water but fire next time." ~ James Baldwin

We have to find ways to cool down our existential inflammation and droughts. We're our own rainmakers. We have to make decisions of what to claim and reclaim, and what to let go into the riptide. We will not be prepared for the next stage of the soul until we have gathered within ourselves only what we need to carry forward. Complete. Not perfect, just no longer missing in action.

"Real World" by Matchbox 20, a song for the disillusioned, discouraged and disenfranchised

Dedicated to my brother, who will never read these words, but who has been claimed and is now complete in his innocence. You were a true guitar hero.

My Spiritual Birthday Went Wrong

If my blog seems to have taken on religious overtones lately, well, that’s just because the winter season provides a lot of tradition that is handy for a writer to use. And this place is one of many forms into which I pour some of myself out, as a drink offering. 

Today is supposed to be the 30th Anniversary of my Spiritual Birthday. For anyone who has not been part of an evangelical faith, I will explain: your spiritual birthday is the day you decided to repent of your earthly and worldly ways and receive the Holy Spirit by way of the acknowledgment of Jesus Christ as your lord and savior. I’ve already lost half you reading this, because you’ve had some sort of bad experience with these kinds of words, or they don’t interest you, or this description of spiritual transactions are as confusing and numbing as legalese, or because you disdain religion altogether, or you are currently following a different path of faith. I get that, and that’s fine. I just want to tell my story, because that’s what this blog is for. It’s not an easy story for me to tell, simply because it’s so inescapably part of my history. I’ll try to make it easy to hear.

I have often sensed that someone is with me— a presence— as it is sometimes called. I know how that can sound. Please bear with me a little longer. I like to be around people in general, and I love to be with the people that I know personally. But, I also need to be alone much of the time. Sometimes this is because I prefer experiencing the world solo, which means I am not under the influence of someone else. It’s direct and uncomplicated. Sometimes the world is a bit much and I need to withdraw. Yet many times, this is because I want to be in the company of this presence, because I feel accepted as myself, no matter where I am exploring or what I am observing, imagining, doing or creating. People of the Buddhist tradition might call this the Buddha Baby who lives in all of us. A pop psychologist might call this the inner child. A theist would title it God.

I was about to say, “I don’t care what that eternal presence is called” in some conciliatory fashion, but that’s not entirely true. Rather, I should say that I care a great deal about what is said of the eternal presence that I experienced first-hand, because my conversion experience— my spiritual birthday— messed it up for a long time. That doesn’t mean that I have lost my faith, it’s just that I have since reclaimed the faith that I’ve always had and can never lose, regardless of what is said in words. But, here comes a bunch of words, anyway.

In my senior year of High School, I accepted an invitation from a good friend to attend a spiritual retreat in the White Mountains of Arizona. I was feeling a bit lonely and untethered at the time, which is usually a ripe condition to be in for all sorts of spiritual shenanigans to transpire. It’s as if a flare goes up, signaling that there is an empty space, and all sorts of things start to compete to take up residence, for better or worse. In my decision to move across the country from the place and people I knew before, I had lost my sense of home. I think I mistook that feeling for a loss of the neutral witnessing presence I was familiar with. I didn’t realize that the presence was experiencing the loss of home as well, and was facing the unfamiliar right along with me, even if it knew better. I was in a homesick and empty emotional state, but not an empty spiritual state. But at that time, I couldn’t tell the difference. It’s still difficult.

Before I go any further, I want to be clear that I’m not going to say that I “came to Jesus” on this retreat and found my home, and that you should, too. I’m also not going to say, instead, that I was fooled or tricked into fakery and now I’m embittered. I’m just going to tell what happened. 

The people that I went with on this mountain retreat were lovely, hospitable people. Nothing strange or creepy or lurid happened around the bonfire or in the cabins or woods. I didn’t feel coerced or hypnotized into following a cult leader or anything of that nature. In fact, the pine trees and the altitude and the fluctuating energy of the other kids made me feel more awake than usual. I remember laughing a lot. But I admit that my emotional state was still one of vulnerability. And being on the edge of seventeen, everything is turned up to eleven.

The youth pastor was an upstanding young man. The guest speaker was a nice older man with a white, well-groomed beard. I think his name might have been Bill. Their wives and children were there, too. All of the other kids were perhaps on their best behavior, because there were “the unsaved” among them. That meant me, and a few others. At the time, I didn’t think that I was in any sort of peril, other than the daily challenge of trying to find my way around hundreds of strangers and buildings and streets in a new city. All I knew was that these polite and gracious kids seemed to want me to be one of them for a while, and that felt fine. What I didn’t know was that I was a part of someone’s mission; someone who believed they had both the right and the wherewithal to mess with something as undefined and innocent as my soul.

Photo credit: E.J. Peiker, Apache Nat'l Forest

Bill told several stories in a gentle and captivating style. There were campy songs and skits, and because I was raised with the church, praying as a group was routine and nothing to be uncomfortable about. What was different about this church-like setting was the earnestness and focused attention on me, even if it was just furtive glances or sometimes stares from others at my reactions to everything that was going on. There was definitely something in the air asking, “Does she get it, now?” If that question had been spoken aloud, I could have replied, “I’ve always had it.”

Here’s where I got turned around on the Mountaintop and stuck in my journey. Bill gave a speech on the last evening, a Saturday night. In his speech, he made an analogy regarding the freedom offered by Christ. He told a parable about an average guy named Richard standing before a judge. Since the speech was directed at unsaved targets like myself, it was actually a parable about me. I was the average Richard, and suddenly I was picturing myself in a courtroom, and I didn’t even remember having been arrested. The imaginary judge looks over my crimes against God and everything in the universe and rules that I am to be sentenced to prison. It’s nothing personal, it’s because I’m a sinful human. But lo and behold, in walks Jesus, himself, and says, “I will carry out the sentence in your place!” He goes into the prison cell, and bingo-bango, I am free to go! I’ve been liberated, saved, bought and paid for, redeemed. Except I felt none of those things.

As I was listening to this story, I felt like the presence I had known all my life had been named as Jesus. I didn't have much of a chance to check this idea. Because suddenly, Jesus is in jail, and it’s all my fault. I didn’t feel free. I felt obligated and honor-bound to his plight. I wasn’t going to abandon— what had mistakenly been identified as the core of my being—  to a life behind bars. Instead, my mind turned around and faced the Jesus in that cell, and from there, my body went in search of ways to get him out: regular attendance at church functions, service to mankind in a variety of ways, studying and memorizing scriptural passages, praying and journaling and pleading and fretting without one taste of freedom. 

None of the tasks that had been set before me were hardships in themselves. There were many rewards. The religious education and observance of ritual expanded and disciplined my thinking. But as all of this contemplation and activity grew and blossomed into a prudent and profitable lifestyle, my spirit diminished, still standing outside the prison cell, holding onto the bars, guilt-ridden for having put him there just by my being born with an outstanding debt. In the scenario Bill had described, my part was a cypher, someone who can assume many forms and roles in the service of the greater good. That’s not a spiritual covenant drawn up between a Person and a person. That’s a social contract, which is self-limiting. Worse, yet, it's a double bind.

Did anyone intend for me to take that courtroom analogy so literally? I highly doubt it. I know I didn’t intend to. But the implications did take root inside that temporarily empty emotional place which I can see only in hindsight. And with the grace of hindsight, I can go back and preface the story I was told with, “The following program is brought to you by very well-meaning people. They will go on to show you many kindnesses, and excepting a few individuals, they mostly just want to serve alongside you to increase the love. Now, to the more imaginative among you, don’t go crazy with all the heavy symbolism.”

When it comes to stories about souls, even the Apostle Paul said, “For the kingdom of God is not in word but in power” (1 Cor 4:20).  That sounds right, because words are an invention. They can obviously carry power in them, but they are never a substitute for the power itself. They just sort of hover and point at it. So, here at the end of my topsy-turvy testimony, I offer you a hopeful song, like all good “goin’ to meetin’” rituals do. Wherever your power is, please feel truly free to go to that rich and never-closed-for-repairs kingdom at hand as you listen, not to the literal words, but to the spirit of the song. Kick it.

Exceptional Excerpts: LOST and FOUND

In the video below, it would seem that the music was written to accompany the animation, or vice versa. Actually, they were created years apart by different people for different reasons; and somehow, the two creations found each other. What this short film says to me is, All of us are both lost and found at the same time, all the time. The surprise comes when we realize just how much. So, I offer this as an encouragement to insist upon your lostness and to insist upon your foundness.

Due to the vagueries and caprices of youtube, this video, itself, has often been lost and then found again. If it is not available at the time you are reading this post, please check back again. In the meantime, the writing below from "Brother Void" (Andrew Boyd) is offered as a tonic during times of adversity.

Excerpted from The Book of Daily Afflictions by Andrew Boyd:

Finding Sorrow

Let my hidden weeping arise and blossom – RAINER MARIA RILKE

When you get depressed, it's comforting to remember that deep inside you is a well of pain. This pain can help you. It's a reservoir of self-knowledge and nourishment. When you welcome this pain, it can carry you out of depression and into sorrow.

When depressed, you are merely numb and listless. But in sorrow, you feel the fine-grained texture of loss. Whereas depression diminishes your world, sorrow teaches you the true value of the things you mourn. Sorrow is the other side of joy– a dark, moist cradle of grief that slowly nourishes you, a solemn vigil that honors what you love. So the next time you are ensnared in darkness, cut through the gray armor of depression straight to the dark heart of sorrow.

Lost in depression, I am found in sorrow.

Mind All the Maggie Mays

In Britain’s underground train, the Tube, there are painted signs and a loudspeaker that intones “Mind the Gap” between the platform and the train. In the U.S., we see yellow warnings of “Caution.”  I prefer the admonishment to mind something because it seems more focused as a directed mental state rather than an emotional one. “Mind” suggests a watchful awareness of something specific, whereas “caution” evokes a generalized heightening of anxiety. After 9/11, the terror alert status was always somewhere around orange on a spectrum of colors from green to red, yet no one knew exactly what that meant in terms of action, and what could a traveler actually do about that warning, anyway? Then began a lot of “exercising caution” that felt like a nervous treadmill in the chest. 

Awareness of the human condition and the threats to its welfare is the responsibility of all people, but the expression of the human heart is the purview of the artist. Sometimes artistic expressions can be cautionary about society's ills, and those expressions hold up various red flags to us. But the kind of art that allows us into a singular person’s underground–and back out again– can reassure us that all is not lost, even if it seems that way at the time.

Which brings me to Rod Stewart’s "Maggie May", curiously. Usually, I hear it as a cautionary tale– lifted from the book of Proverbs–of a young man who was led astray, ending up heartbroken and empty as a result. Now that I’m older, I hear an invitation to a enter a mindful state of who and what Maggie May is, without recrimination or paranoia to always be on guard.

The original rendition begins with the lull of a mandolin followed by two rousing thumps and a command of “Wake up, Maggie! I think I’ve got something to say to you.” By contrast, this later live Unplugged rendition calls us to listen more tenderly. So let’s wake up, too, however rudely or gently, and mind what he has to say. There is so much in this performance that is instructive about what happens between us and our creative muses, displaying harmony in actuality:

The lyrics to this version:

Wake up, Maggie, I think I got something to say to you

It's late September and I really should be back at my school

I know I keep you amused, but I feel I'm being used

Oh, Maggie, I couldn't have tried any more

You lured me away from my home

Just to save you from being alone

You stole my heart, but I love you anyway

The morning sun, when it's in your face really shows your age

But that don't worry me none, in my eyes, you're everything

I laughed at all of your jokes

My love you didn't need to coax

Oh, Maggie, I couldn't have tried any more

You lured me away from home

Just to save you from being alone

You stole my soul, but I love you anyway

All I needed was a friend to lend a guiding hand

But you turned into a lover, and mother, what a lover, 

You wore me out

All you did was wreck my bed

And in the morning, kick me in the head

Oh, Maggie, I couldn't have tried any more

You made a first-class fool out of me

But I'm as blind as a fool can be

You stole my soul, but I love you anyway

I suppose I could collect my books and get on back to school

Or steal my daddy's cue and make a living out of playing pool

Or find myself a rock 'n' roll band

That needs a helping hand

Oh, Maggie, I couldn’t have tried any more

You lured me away from my home,

Just to save you from being alone

You stole my soul, and that’s what really hurts

Maggie, I wish I'd never seen your face

I'll get on home, Maggie, one of these days

Oh, Mag

by Martin Quittenton/Rod Stewart

Well, I don’t need to be coaxed, either. I’m here to learn, I’m dropping my fishing nets, and I’m all in. Firstly, I notice that he wants to sing without too much accompaniment or embellishment. He’s vocally naked, and this exposure is what every artist has to risk. At some point, the second guitar and other instruments join in for emphasis, but the musicality doesn’t seem to be the highest priority here. The baring of the soul and the bearing of the message are. There’s no time for mere navel-gazing and strumming when you’ve got the attention of this many people.

Interestingly, that message has changed a little bit from its earliest days. The original lyric is “It’s late September and I really should be back at school.” A more mature Rod Stewart adds in and lingers on the words, "my school" to which the audience curiously responds with approval. Perhaps this reminds us that we are always in some sort of school, some stage of learning, and staying away for too long for whatever reason, just makes it harder to rejoin, like a friend you haven’t seen in a while.

There is a great deal reflected about the neglect of self and natural growth in such a small number of words. The insertion of the word “my” is a resolve to go to wherever we have experienced the most important and meaningful expansion of our capacity to love and to put the best of ourselves into the world. “School” is just a place where we should be because we don’t know any better yet. Others who know better decide for us, and we’re thrown into it along with others. "My school" is the one we choose alongside the Should Be Places. Our continuing education is a blend of what others know and what we know, and we make it our own.

Illumination framed by a calcified window. "Pelvis IV" by Georgia O'Keefe 1944, oil on canvas

Maggie May is a distraction from all of that. She doesn’t have to be an older female lover; she is anything that calls upon us to amuse, busy and occupy ourselves or someone else until we’re spent. And yet, Maggie May has been an education for him, herself. He feels foolish, blind and robbed, but he loves her anyway, which is the startling moment of self-knowledge. But, Maggie May is not the muse— she is the a-muse, the opposite of the muse—the drain on his life force.

A few things happen with the A-muse. She seems like she’ll be a good thing, but her increasingly clinging demands bring our true needs into sharper focus. He needed a guiding hand, but she grabs his and keeps him as a toy. Admitting that he gave his all to please her, he realizes he is as lost as he was before he “saw her face”. She only took from his hands without filling them back, so now they are without purpose and his soul is bemused and bewildered. He’s trying to decide where to put the hands to good use— to hold books as a scholar, to hustle at pool, or to play in a band. In the story of Rod Stewart, he chose the last one, to his benefit and ours. 

And so a funny thing happens in the education of Rod Stewart, apart from an Institute of Higher Learning. His empty-handed experience with a Maggie May becomes a self-sustaining song, a breakout hit, and then one of the most famous and beloved songs in Rock and Roll music history. Rolling Stone ranks it at 130 of the top 500 Songs of All Time. So, naturally, he still loves her. In this version he replaces old lines of "that's what really hurts" and "that's a pain I can do without" with "I love you, anyway". Yet he still admits once to feeling the hurt, because he is not a Rock god. He is a human being, and that’s who we connect with. Whether or not we like the song, there’s a person sharing a memory under all that hair.

As a human, and not a god, he is also still vulnerable to the Maggie May occupations and fantasies that lead nowhere, and he is precociously aware of that as a very young man: “I’ll get on home… one of these days.” Inside of this sigh of self-conscious resignation, he is simultaneously hopeful that he will discover where his true home is, that his muse will guide him, even if he doesn’t yet know when. Sometimes he sings: “I’ll get a ride home one of these days.” The same line is a statement of his need to mind his own powerlessness, and is at other times a statement of faith in deliverance. 

If we want to see a muse in action, watch Rod Stewart as the inspiration to the lead guitarist, Ronnie Wood. They are like the Yin and Yang of punked-out hair, party-weathered faces and tight pants. The guitarist is taking all of his cues from his muse that is singing. See how he watches. There is focused attention, flexibility, and a temporary surrender to the leading of the musical spirit that is creating this moment. And so how could the muse not finally seal that moment with a gracious kiss, and recognize and lift up the artist for all to see? If someone wants to hide you behind them and keep you as a possession or commodity, or if an activity or occupation causes you to skip your school, they are an A-Muse, a Maggie May. Mind them, like a gap.

Magazine ad, 1926

How will all of this mindfulness play itself out? It’s impossible to know. No one can guarantee commercial success and acclaim. In the instance of this particular performance, the audience is present, but not necessary to the moment. The applause is an enthusiastic and energetic response, but is extraneous. This all could have happened away from the public in a closed session and would have been no less sacred. When this does happen, when we find our genuine muse and see her face, we couldn’t leave her if we tried.