Goodbye to All That and Thank You

En Español, Adios a Todos Eso 

Poet and historian Robert Graves wrote his autobiography Goodbye to All That to explain his change of thought and feeling about English society and other conventions after his experiences in the First World War. Conflict causes many pairs of opposites to arise in sharp relief within us. We cling or renounce, preserve or release, as necessary. Perhaps some renunciations and releases require a great deal of anger and resentment in order to fuel the energy for change. At a certain point in life, though, there are only so many battlefields, courtroom dramas, espionage missions, or alien invasions to be faced with the same degree of certainty and vigor which youth supplies in abundance.

Change can be faced in ways that are far less fraught, maybe less exciting and stirring, but no less effective in the synthesis of opposing values. The following idea isn’t mine, but a ritual that can be engaged in during birthdays or at the outset of a new year is one of assessment and gratitude. We can take some time to think of all of the ways that we were brought to the point in life where we now reside. All of it was a combination of blessings and burdens that shifted as did the circumstance. Some things are passed down to us as valuable assets, lessons, beliefs, attitudes, visions and warnings meant for our good and for a way of life. Yet many of these can become unnecessary or burdensome and no longer serve us or our offspring.

The more it is a part of our identity, the more painful it can be to detach from it. Worry and panic can fill the void it leaves, and so we cling. But nature abhors a vacuum, and as we live and ripen, we can make more conscious choices on how the empty spaces are filled-- because they will be filled-- whether we choose or not. Or perhaps we can learn to tolerate the temporary empty feeling without shoveling something in to relieve the sensation quite so quickly.

Without bitterness, it is possible to lay something aside with compassion for why it was needed for someone else’s well-being. We can imagine the pride and joy it was for those who came before us, or perhaps alongside us, and let the dignity of that fulfillment remain, even as we lay it down. So if we are to say goodbye to all that, we can also add a thank you for those gifts, and face the Way that lies before us, more fitted to our own proceeding. This can be a ritual of our own design, private or shared, simple or elaborate, and can be a balance to the natural desire for mindless oblivion that the end of the calendar year can rouse.

Thank you for reading. As I am in a time of review as well, my blog may shift in its focus accordingly. But I will never stop wanting to share the many ways that life has been witnessed by those in their own time, and discover what will continue to emerge in my time. The instrument I’m writing with didn’t exist when I was a child, and it may not be used or even opened by those who come after me. It's transitory, as technology and style should be. But with confidence I know that what is real and enduring will always be found by someone who needs it.

Feeding the Ducks by Mary Cassatt, watercolor 1894

Autumnal Equinox: The Dog Days Are Over

I am posting this song simply because I like it. When I first heard it coming from my daughter's room, several years ago, I felt it expressing something about the change in the national mood and the reality for many who were struggling financially and making sacrifices just to stay afloat.

It's also a siren song, in the way that Florence sings it, along with the insistent harp strings. Both her voice and the strings hit high and low on the octave like an ambulance. When she slows it down, her eerie, dream-like phrasing reminds me of the winged creatures who wait for Greek sailors to pass by and then try to sink them and gather up the spoils. The wanderer is entranced, no matter how sure of his way and purpose. The most famous traveler, Odysseus, wanted to hear the song, despite the danger. He had his crew tie him to the mast of his ship so that he wouldn't jump overboard into madness. At least he has been forewarned and can prepare. He is striving to get home, but he wants to fully experience his journey, too. So does Florence, but she wasn't prepared. Fortunately for us, she knew when to run,  and knows how to bring us an invigorating song of her own.

Odysseus and the Sirens, circa 475 B.C.

Here are the lyrics, because you know you want to hear it again:

Happiness hit her like a train on a track
Coming towards her, stuck still, no turning back
She hid around corners and she hid under beds
She killed it with kisses and from it she fled
With every bubble she sank with a drink
And washed it away down the kitchen sink

The dog days are over
The dog days are done
The horses are coming so you better run

Run fast for your mother, run fast for your father
Run for your children, for your sisters and brothers
Leave all your love and your longing behind
You can't carry it with you if you want to survive

The dog days are over
The dog days are done
Can't you hear the horses
'Cause here they come

And I never wanted anything from you
Except everything you had
And what was left after that too, oh.

Happiness hit her like a bullet in the back
Struck from a great height
By someone who should know better than that

The dog days are over
The dog days are done
Can you hear the horses
'Cause here they come

Run fast for your mother and fast for your father
Run for your children, for your sisters and brothers
Leave all your love and your longing behind
You can't carry it with you if you want to survive

The dog days are over
The dog days are done
Can you hear the horses
'Cause here they come

The dog days are over
The dog days are done
Can you hear the horses
'Cause here they come

The dog days are over
The dog days are done
The horses are coming
So you better run

What first was singing to us-- the strains of sirens that cause our downfall--  is later turned into the name for the sound of alarm that wakes and warns us that we are heading for calamity. In this song, Florence appears to be singing of heartbreak and the need to run for freedom from passion's speeding locomotives and bullets that threaten disaster upon impact. But the times aren't right for passive acceptance. Apparently, a mired happiness based on hypnotic suggestion, rather than a chorus of awakening, leaves us and our loved ones vulnerable to being trampled.

The drumbeat of the Machine tells us it's time to get going.

Exceptional Excerpts: The Greengage Summer

I can’t recall why my mother bought me The Greengage Summer by Rumer Godden when I was in 7th grade, if she ever said. I do recall coming into my blue bedroom and seeing it lying on my rumpled, darker blue bed, among castoff clothing and school papers and other books. The cover art fascinated me, with its genderless poker face peering up at me, full of a secret. I once read that the actress, Demi Moore, had named her oldest daughter after this author, and I’ve always been curious as to why and how books show up for people, and make such a lasting impression.

For me, personally, this book figured into my imaginings for a story of my own that I wrote in college, with its equally languid title, “Ripe Was the Drowsy Hour” from a line in the poem, “Ode to Indolence” by John Keats. In Rumer Godden’s story, greengages are the litter of heaven; in mine, hedgeapples appear, but they are rough and inedible, more of a nuisance than a treasure.  My story drew upon the coming of age theme of The Greengage Summer, and my prose, with its own secret, was as awkward as my adolescence, for all of the same reasons. It was long in length, but not quite balanced at its center, and ranging into directions both silly and sinister, which is how our first forays into adulthood can feel.

Rumer Godden wrote many books set in India, but this one takes place in France, and while I read it, I felt as if I had been introduced to a vintage of wine that had been hidden away for adults, until I had slipped into the bottle itself to become infused and a little intoxicated, breathing in the semi-autobiographical story that was not written for children, but about children, which I still was. The first few paragraphs, below, is what I would call Exposition by Immersion, and I hope you enjoy it as we feel the weight of summer roll away behind us, and down a grassy hill:

“On and off, all that hot French August, we made ourselves ill from eating the greengages. Joss and I felt guilty; we were still at the age when we thought being greedy was a childish fault and this gave our guilt a tinge of hopelessness because, up to then, we had believed that as we grew older our faults would disappear, and none of them did. Hester of course was quite unabashed; Will— though he was called Willmouse then— Willmouse and Vicky were too small to reach any but the lowest branches, but they found fruit fallen in the grass; we were all strictly forbidden to climb the trees.

"The garden at Les Oeillets was divided into three; first the terrace and gravelled garden round the house; then, separated by a low box hedge, the wilderness with its statues and old paths; and between the wilderness and the river, the orchard with its high walls. In the end wall a blue door led to the river bank.

"The orchard seemed to us immense and perhaps it was, for there were seven alleys of greengage trees alone; between them, even in that blazing summer, dew lay all day in the long grass. The trees were old, twisted, covered in lichen and moss, but I shall never forget the fruit. In the hotel dining room Mauricette built it into marvelous pyramids on dessert plates laid with vine leaves. “Reines Claudes” she would say to teach us its name as she put our particular plate down, but we were too full to eat. In the orchard we had not even to pick the fruit, it fell off the trees into our hands.

"The greengages had a pale blue bloom, especially in the shade, but in the sun the flesh showed amber through the clear green skin; if it were cracked the juice was doubly warm and sweet. Coming from the streets and small front gardens of Southstone, we had not been let loose in an orchard before; it was no wonder we ate too much.

photo credit: found on Goodreads review by Hana

"'Summer sickness,' said Mademoiselle Zizi.

“'Indigestion,' said Madame Corbet.

"I do not know which it was but ever afterwards, in our family we called that the greengage summer.

“'You are the one who should write this,' I told Joss. 'It happened chiefly to you.' But Joss shut that out as she always shuts out things, or shuts them in so that no one can guess.

“'You are the one who likes words,' said Joss. 'Besides'— and she paused— 'it happened as much to you.'

I did not answer that. I am grown up now— or almost grown up— 'and we still can’t get over it!' said Joss.

'Most people don’t have… that… in thirty or forty years,' I said in defense.

'Most people don’t have it at all,' said Joss.

"If I stop what I am doing for a moment, or in any time when I am quiet, in those cracks in the night that have been with me ever since when I cannot sleep and thoughts seep in, I am back; I can smell the Les Oeillets smells of hot dust and cool plaster walls, of jasmine and box leaves in the sun, of dew in the long grass; the smell that filled the house and garden of Monsieur Armand’s cooking and the house’s own smell of damp linen, or furniture polish, and always, a little, of drains. I can hear the sounds that seem to belong only to Les Oeillets: the patter of poplar trees along the courtyard wall, of a tap running in the kitchen mixed with the sound of high French voices, of the thump of Rex’s tail and another thump of someone washing clothes on the river bank; of barges puffing upstream and Mauricette’s toneless singing— she always sang through her nose; of Toinette and Nicole’s quick loud French as they talked to each other out of the upstair’s windows; of the faint noise of the town and, near, the plop of a fish or of a greengage falling.”

To read Keats’s “Ode to Indolence” stroll over here:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52995/ode-on-indolence

Waiting for Permission to Rebel

CAUTIONARY NOTE: this post will refer to suicide as it relates to those who are identified as a creative type. I wrote it in 2014 and decided not to publish it. In light of recent events in 2018, I fear that it is an increasingly weighty topic.

Mexican-Western 1971

I've noticed a common dynamic in creative types toward their work. Whether the tension is about making their daily work more creative, or about endeavors outside of daily work, there is a back and forth between permission and rebellion that seems to stem from being trapped by guilt.

Before we get into that, I firmly believe that there is hardly anyone who doesn't have a creative capacity. Many people are considered to be creative simply because they were identified that way, and made some sort of commitment to maintaining that identity. While talent is subjective, and success has criteria, creativity is a human trait that finds its way out, even if we don't always recognize it as such.

Because creativity is not always under our control, we sometimes regard it dubiously and as a kind of illegitimacy, as if it fell off the back of a truck and we have to hide and launder it to avoid raising suspicion. We may feel guilty for neglecting this part of ourselves, and we offer it defensive explanations when it tugs at us. We minimize our need for it, and downplay our desire for it. If we didn't, then we would be threatening all of the other necessities that press on us, and we don't want to disappoint.

Disappointing others is painful for how much guilt and shame it can produce. When this goes unchecked it can lead to self-destructive impulses. Many suicides are compelled by guilt feelings in extremis. Having talent doesn't save people from their massive feelings of guilt and obligation. I often think of the double-bind that globally successful creatives have found themselves in. Their creativity comes under contract and then other people's livelihoods become attached to output and a financial bottom line. The person becomes a victim of their own talent. 

Unfortunately, we see far too many people rebelling against this system of being taken, by taking their own lives, instead. Many of us naturally respond to this loss by imagining and being certain that the superstar would have continued to produce and shine brilliantly for many more years to come. Their work is given a new life as a requiem. In this sense, the creative person paradoxically has died in a second birth.

Despite all of the potential for tragedy, we can protect our creativity, and not become an unmerciful stage parent to it, where reality becomes skewed. We get to decide which pearls of ours are of great price, apart from what we produce. There is absolutely no shame in trading our goods for a price, as long as we know what our work is truly worth. There is no shame in devoting ourselves to a work that few would want to buy. We are in service to creativity and not to the gods of criticism, nor to the groupies in search of an identity, who all get upset when the revered person changes their style. Think Bob Dylan going electric.

From seeing what can happen to creatives, many people fear going into that service, and the best way to get rid of a fear of something is to devalue it. But creativity is too strong to stay down indefinitely. Dismissing it is to underestimate it. Discarding it makes us vulnerable to allowing our creativity to become wedded to fear or hate, and like a reversed tarot card, the future becomes upside down and grim. We rebel against the guilty feelings caused by fear of disappointing ourselves and others, and all the while, use our creativity to do the rebelling rather than the work. 

"Creative accounting” in how our ego measures our accomplishments is an example of this, as well as fabricating stories, making empty promises or threats in an effort to keep others from seeing our failings, grinding out justifications for squandering our talent or opportunities, and worst of all, indulging in naiveté. Many of our negative experiences come out of schemes designed to deceive ourselves. Although I hold the truth as one of the highest values, I have often made a concerted effort not to see it and stay mystified because I simply didn’t want to believe it. That sort of ambivalence and cowardice is a dealbreaker for originality. If our hearts aren’t sincere in what we’re doing, with devotion to skillfulness, then the whole thing feels tedious and overdone.

If we experience our creative selves only in conjunction with our darker or hidden sides, then we can begin to believe that we require the components or paraphernalia of dark purposes in order to feel some creative juice. Any tender intentions may end prematurely, because they were commandeered without our full consent. We're involved in some sort of racket, where we have to wait for permission or the perfect setup before we act on our aspirations. That permission will never come. Even if we have a "mob" in our lives, who truly want us to be happy, their blessing will never feel like permission, or even encouragement, unless we truly value creativity as a birthright and expect it of ourselves without excuse.

Everything surrounding that right becomes negotiation that is doable, when it comes to how time, money and energy is spent. We all have chips to bargain with-- some more than others-- but part of the fun is in finding chips we didn't know we had. We were just giving them away invisibly, under a feeling of duress to ward off disappointment and guilt. We helped to build the trap so that we could blame everyone else for our indecision, passivity and resignation.

From "Casino Collectible News", Vol. 2 pg 24 found on antiquegamblingchips.com

Discovering what is truly the case-- what we are laying down our lives for, one hand at a time-- is liberating in its clarity. First we must recognize to ourselves, "No, I can't do all of that and also live with any healthy sense of self. But here is what I can do." If the response to that stance is fear, obligation or guilt— attempts to control or further entrap— then the answer is clear. These people want what they want from you regardless of what it does to you. They want you to make sacrifices so that they don't have to make any. This is because supporting someone comes with a price. If a person says all of the right things about supporting you, yet is unwilling to give anything that actual support requires, then you know that support to them just means, “Whatever is leftover after me.” This is not the right attitude of true family or friendship. That is consumption of another. That is grounds for not just rebellion, but a full-scale, at home revolution.

Part of compassionate support that we can all provide for each other is to help someone find their own chips, so they are not as fearful about giving up what protects them from the demands of creativity. It is understandably difficult to watch a person struggle, and want to design a path for them as we see fit. I, myself, at times have wished for someone to just tell me what to do, in order to lay down the burden of my own potential, like some sort of celestial blueprint, or an Everlasting Hall Pass that allows me to skip over the responsibility for my own life. Self-determination is often up in the air, but it isn’t weightless. The difficulties are real, which is why we need to guard against the abandonment of the self and its requirements, even when pushing all of that aside would be easier. While ease is an enjoyable state, it is only temporary and not a virtue. It leads to stagnation and depletion which fail to reinforce autonomy. Struggle is not the desired end, but autonomy is, in ourselves and others. Protecting the autonomy of another can mean letting go of our plans and misguided efforts to provide comfort rather than encouragement.

There is nothing noble in doing something for someone when they could be discovering and deriving enjoyment from doing it themselves. It is not our place to rob them of that joy, just to keep the peace. If we are misjudged in the midst of taking a stand for ourselves or for them, and allow a space for their frustrated creativity to emerge, then we may have to accept that misjudgment. If we are trying to control and keep everyone completely on track, pain-free and entertained, then we have only cheated them from what they really need, which is our priceless, true self that keeps the faith.  Autonomy need not equal aloneness.

How do we go about living within self-generated freedom? How do we grant ourselves permission to rebel? Simply by making both conscientious advances and retreats and seeking wise counsel from whomever appears to be making progress and not going in circles. Within and without, there are countless examples, demonstrations and expressions for us to excavate, emulate and exercise, until we realize that we have been bursting with a declaration of adoration all along.

And if you've got the summertime blues, Revolution can come to you in a red dress.

"Miss Celie's Blues" by Quincy Jones from the film The Color Purple, 1986

While I Weep, Your Guitar Gently Plays

Desire for the Earth

Your name means "valiant fighter".

Beloved,
I wrote this poem about you, months ago, before I went looking for the song below. I had sent you a different version from this one, during a conversation about guitar solos. 

The Light From Outside

Wherever you are, now

you’re not my brother anymore.

You’re someone else.

I don’t know how I felt the change.

You’re someone who exists as

Desire for the Earth.

You want things to happen here

for the people you love,

and yet, you don’t want to be here anymore,

not part of it, in the same way as you were, before.

You are quite relieved, I feel. So deeply and thoroughly relieved.

There aren’t any seas as deep as the relief you feel.

One day, I listened to your music for quite a while,

for longer than seemed wise.

I used my hands to feel the solid flesh of my arms

and cushions, and the drape of the sheet.

The shadows around the room were warm and not lonely.

The lights from the cars outside,

all going home at the end of their days

were cast low to the ground,

meeting the road with every revolution, very much here.

But I didn’t feel tears start to well up

until many songs had been played and replayed.

And that seems good.

You are starting to be part of 

feelings outside of grief, now.

You don’t live within its confines as much.

I think that will be more and more

the case.

And seeing the word, case

I’ll now make a bad pun

and think of you as the guitar that is no longer in its case.

But you’re not your guitar

and not your music.

I know that I am not the words I write, not the thoughts I think a few seconds

before I type them. I’m not all of these feelings.

I don’t know what I am, but I think someday,

we will recognize each other enough that it won’t

seem strange at all to just 

start seeing, instead, what we both want

for the Earth.

                                                                                        ~~~~~~~~~~

Now that you're gone, and there will be no more two-sided conversations, I wanted to write and attach this song to my poem. This video came up that I'd never seen before, with all of its uncanny images. Every string of my heart wishes this could have been your fate, instead. And maybe, now it is.

No more performing or teaching and not getting paid, no more worrying about the sale of your gifts, no more being controlled by what you could not conquer, no more cheap hotel rooms, canceled gigs, bait and switch, no more buying and selling your guitar. You are with the right ones, now. They delivered you from all that was unbearable. And those of us here, we still love you and thank you.

Carlos Santana plays George Harrison, accompanied by Indie Arie and Yo-Yo Ma

I look at you all, see the love there that's sleeping

While my guitar gently weeps

I look at the floor and I see it needs sweeping

Still my guitar gently weeps.

I don't know why nobody told you

How to unfold your love

I don't know how someone controlled you

They bought and sold you.

I look at the world and I notice it's turning

While my guitar gently weeps

With every mistake we must surely be learning

Still my guitar gently weeps.

I don't know how you were diverted

You were perverted too

I don't know how you were inverted

No one alerted you.

I look at you all, see the love there that's sleeping

While my guitar gently weeps

Look at you all

Still my guitar gently weeps.

Honor and Humility: The Kissing Cousins of Love

If you want to be a person of honor, then you must bring honor to what is valuable in life. We need not honor only what is light, beautiful, and pleasant, but also the good that can be learned from what is dark, messy, and difficult. I prefer the first set, but without the others, my set of values would be incomplete. I don’t have to go very far to find any of those tussling values. We’re surrounded by opposites at every moment, and accepting them (liking them is another thing) brings a balance and harmony that feels close to a peace with one’s self. When you’re at peace with yourself, that can bring the right conditions for a clear-eyed love for your self, as temporary as the self is, with all of its frailty and strength combined.

"Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss" by Antonio Canova, 1787,  the Louvre, Paris

In my own life, I’ve discovered that a necessary ingredient for regarding the self lovingly is humility. The definition of humility mostly comes with other words to describe it: humble, modest, unassuming, not excessive. Although today is about Saint Valentine, I find Saint Paul to be a good resource for the definition of humility when he admonishes us to not think of ourselves more highly than we ought, but with sober judgment, according to the measure of faith that we are given.

There are some interesting things to notice about this statement on humility. Firstly, he doesn’t say that people should debase themselves or deny what is good and valuable about themselves. He just reminds us not to forget our shortcomings, without despairing of them. Secondly, the word “sober” is another descriptor that gets misused sometimes, to mean somber, stern, or not lively. One of its given meanings is “sensible.” When we’re sensible, that means our senses are engaged, and we’re not leapfrogging around in our minds, from one view of ourselves to another, assuming the best and worst alone. We can sense the truth, feel its shape, and see and hear how it expresses itself. We aren't cut off from our ability to know the truth of ourselves and the situations we find ourselves in.

One movie that portrays self-love, sober humility, and honor, is Cast Away with Tom Hanks. The story is the well-worn trope of a person finding themselves alone on a desert island, in this case, Chuck Noland, an employee of Federal Express. Chuck has to keep his senses engaged in order to survive, which means that he has to honor his body by taking care of its needs, even when that is burdensome, frustrating, and monotonous. He has to honor his need for companionship, communication, and reflection in the creation of Wilson, the volleyball. He honors his need to be out of pain and isolation by weaving a rope to hang himself from the tallest point on the island. He honors his need to not make things worse for himself by testing the rope and seeing it fail. He honors his desire to get the hell off that island, even after painful failures, by bringing his mental and physical faculties to bear upon the hope and problem of rescue.  When love is in action, the psyche can bring forth all sorts of inspiration and possibility.

Twentieth Century Fox, DreamWorks, 2000
The fire of the psyche needs room to breathe

On his life raft, he is confronted by what I can only describe as one of the most sobering sights I’ve seen onscreen. While he is floating on a gradually dismantling raft, with the sea beneath him bearing him up and along, and the air above him out to the stars, the sudden eye of a whale emerges and regards him for a moment. What could you possibly conceal about yourself and your life, paradoxically moving and in situ upon the waves, with no words to cover yourself with? There’s nothing to claim or to argue. You are a naked creature, one of many, and also one of many like you. You’re not rare and noble. You’re just another part of what the ocean contains, what the heavens look down upon, and that level plane of existence is peaceful, in spite of its potential danger and awe-inspiring gaze.

Found on Deviant Art, Etaris 333

Yet, we can also honor our uniqueness within that commonality, by choosing a meaning for what we perceive and what is behind our actions, making ourselves a little less cast away, a little more at home with ourselves, a little more tapped into many currents. On a current for this unique Chuck Noland character, there comes to the island, floating up from the plane’s wreckage, a number of parcels that are never delivered because he keeps and finds a proper and unique use for them. All except one. It has the sender’s business logo on it, a pair of wings. This logo gives him pause, and he decides not to open this package, in hopes that he may one day be able to deliver it. He later uses that symbol to decorate the sail of his raft, both a bold statement of faith, made with humility in the knowledge that the whole endeavor may collapse.

When it comes to symbols, though, they can become illusory artifacts of the past if they fail to continue to lead forward to the future.  For Chuck, there comes a moment of confusion and disappointment regarding his treasured photo of his fiancé, Kelly. When, near the end, he realizes that what kept him motivated to returning home-- a faded, idealized image of her kept locked inside a gold watch-- is no longer available to him, he takes an honest appraisal of that turn of events with a trusted friend. His Kelly belongs to the past, and the actual Kelly belongs to her own future. He honors the story of that disappointment by sharing it, soberly, with a little humor, and without blame or embellishment. 

And yet, at this point, we are only near the end of the tale, and not yet at the transitional threshold of the end. He also will realize, at a crossroads on a vast ocean of prairie land, that the symbol for his future life– the outspread and upturned wings– was on the island with him the whole time, too. Like many things, the symbol that appears can only be seen clearly in hindsight. But, like all symbols, this one only points in a direction and is not the end in itself. And even as he moves into this new life, he keeps his faithful witnessing mind by his side, his Wilson, that can always be renewed in another form and other places. Wilson was not bound to the island, either.

Where we are at today, St. Valentine, Aphrodite and Cupid (who fell in love with Psyche) are all getting a big celebration in their honor. I spent part of that day with one of my favorite writers about love, the late Amy Winehouse. Because if you can write out thoughts about love, like I do, that’s a good friend of love. But if you can write it out, put music to it, and then sing it in front of people who are gazing at you in the humility of all your ecstasy and misery, well, then that’s a lover of love for all time, and should be honored as such:

"I Love You More Than You'll Ever Know" by Donny Hathaway, 1973

""Cause there's nothing, there's nothing you can teach me

That I can't learn from Mr. Hathaway."

–– Amy Winehouse from "Rehab"