celtic_writer

Soul

It is Veterans Day, 2012.

Back in March of 2006, I wrote a story about accompanying Doug to The Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC. It was a trip that took him 36 years to make. You can read the original here.

The story's synopsis: Doug was an Army Warrant Officer and helicopter pilot in Vietnam from 1969 to 1971. Shortly before Doug finished his tour of duty, a fellow Warrant Officer named Mark J. Robertson and crew switched missions with Doug and his crew. Mark and his men were shot down and the whole crew lost.

Doug found Mark J. Robertson again at The Wall that cold day in DC.

And Doug finally, finally wept.

It is a story that has happened often to so many in warfare...maybe not when flying through the air, but when boots have been firmly on the ground. But stories also have a way of turning themselves inside out for a different view. That's the thing about tragedy: it can start off at one extreme and then pivot and run in the opposite direction. Some people call it catharsis. I think it is also known as soul.

Five years after that day at The Wall and the publication of the original story, a comment was posted on this blog by a man named David P. Fella. He wrote:

"Mark J. Robertson is my wife's first cousin. The traveling Vietnam Wall was recently in our home town in Michigan. When we first heard it was coming we both knew that we wanted to go and see it and find Mark's name. When we got there we went into the information tent and were asked what name we were looking for. After mentioning his name, a volunteer named Lisa pulled out a information sheet with Mark's picture and what information she had and asked my wife, " Is this your cousin? " To my wife's surprise it was him. The volunteer was so excited and had informed us that they had a march for Mark over the Memorial Day weekend two weeks prior. This has brought much excitement to Mark's family and has sparked a renewed interest in finding out more about what happened to him and we came across this blog. What a mind blower. Doug, you and Mark will forever be linked together by fate and God's will. God chose to spare your life and bring Mark home that day. Mark is survived by his father, two brothers, and three sisters. We would like to thank all who have become a part of keeping Mark's memory alive as well as the many other soldiers and their families who have paid the ultimate price for our freedom. Thank you and May God Bless America."

A day later I received an email from Lisa, the volunteer David wrote about:

"Hello. David Fella was kind enough to pass on your email and share Doug Hoyt's story. Doug's visit to DC is such a beautiful story, and I hoped you would be kind enough to share this photo with Doug. This is the sign that was carried in honor of Mark during the Dearborn, Michigan Memorial Day parade in 2011. Additionally, the link below is to the parade itself. You can see the Boy Scout group marching in Mark's honor at approximately the 1:38:52 mark. His name was read aloud during our Memorial ceremony as well. The reading of the names begins at about 2:58 on the video.

Thank you."

So on this Veterans Day, I am thinking about how it would have felt for my own father to have lost a son at war and know nothing about what really happened for so many years. Then, one day, a relative comes to my father with a simple story printed out on a piece of laser paper that proves that his son was a very brave man, that his son is not forgotten, and is honored in thought every day by someone who was there, one of the last people to see him alive.

The soul never dies.

A few years ago Doug and I took a trip to New Zealand. We met an Australian on our travels named Max. Max owns a large station in Australia, and had recently purchased a helicopter to travel about his ranch. When Max found out that Doug was an Army Warrant Officer and flew helicopters in Vietnam, Max stopped, looked up at Doug and simply said, "You guys were legend."

Where the Words Are Said

The Celts believed that our heads, our minds, are part of our souls.

And that stories connect.

The journey stories, my favorites, told to me in childhood, felt nourishing, odd and brave.

Brendan the Navigator went on pilgrimages to unknown lands in a tiny leather boat. He said Mass on a whale's back on Easter Sunday. When the Devil showed him the pain of hell, Brendan was serene. He encountered a heathen giant whom he baptized, though did not civilize.

When he reached the island of his vision, Brendan found a hermit clothed in feathers.

Brendan was Leonard Cohen, centuries before.

They proclaimed him a saint. But I don't know any of those. I think he was just a guy on a trip who kept his eyes wide, wide open.

My friend Vicky Johnsen sent me a quote the other day. And it sums up the importance of stories told, the ones we remember, the ones we always knew. It is from a man named Michael Meade:

"There is this old Celtic thing, that there is very little difference between a song and a poem, between a poem and a story, between a story and a prayer, so that anytime someone is singing a song, or telling a story or reading poetry to a child, they are also inviting the child into a prayer. There's never a need to talk down to a child at all…because something in the child already knows all this and is waiting to hear it again.

So that parents and teachers who give great stories or poems to children are feeding this old soul that is in the child and are reassuring the child that they have come to the right world, that, yes, the world may be confusing and increasingly chaotic, but this is the world where the words are said."

-- Michael Meade

Territory of Spirit

When I was a child, I dreamt of monks. Quiet figures who owned nothing, who went about each day doing simple things. I could never see their faces, but I understood what was real to them. Silence, solitude, a life unadorned.

I always thought as I grew older, that I would write extensibly about spirit. It has always been what is most important to me. The belief of my childhood instilled in me a curious faith in life, that everything is as it should be. As an adult, I see organized religion as a cruel fate accepted by many. It leads to the crippling disease of the mundane, of instructing people how not to take responsibility for their own lives, in the here and now. I am happiest sitting on the bench of a picnic table, writing in the cool morning air. Travel is my religion now. It is a quest to continue to map out an expanding territory of spirit.

Doug, Walt and I share about 20' x 8' feet of trailer space. We also have the whole world outside. All have chores to accomplish every day. Walt only needs to be a Black Lab. Doug shops, cooks, does programming and all automotive/trailer repair. It is my job to do laundry, dishes, and to clean the small trailer kitchen, floor and bathroom each day. The cleaning takes about 15 minutes. Then I do my programming work. Then I am free to write.

There are deer here. This is a place of protection for them. They know no predators. Their babies, with white spots on their backs, walk close to your picnic table and look curiously at you with big brown eyes. I smile at them. They look back, switching their little white tails.

Soon we will be on our way again, to New Mexico. And there will be that strange light that only the desert at dawn can provide, a definite spirit of its own.

The Taoist, God's Debris, and The Big White Dog

Early Sunday morning in SC. Doug was on waffle-cooking duty, so Walt and I went for a walk around the lake. It started as an opaque journey, with spots of sunlight peeking through. The day had not yet made up its mind to be cloudy or light.

Through the mist came a man in a green coat. He was walking a large white dog.

Walt and The Big White Dog sniffed each other, wagging tails. The man pointed down through the woods to Doug's front door. "I like your prayer flags." he said. "I am a Taoist." He pronounced the word as "dow-ist," an indication the fellah knew something about it.

The prayer flags that caught his attention are called lung ta, meaning "wind horse" in Tibetan. They are horizontal squares of color, sewn along their top edges to a heavy-duty string. They come in five colors, each representing a natural element: blue/white symbolizing sky/space, white/blue symbolizing water, red symbolizing fire, green symbolizing wind/air, and yellow symbolizing earth.

Traditionally, prayer flags are used to pass blessings, such as happiness and good health, to all beings. The "wind horse" carries the blessings high into the sky as an offering to the gods, and then blows them to the people who hang the flags, their families, loved ones, neighbors, and enemies throughout the world.

The man and I talked about the gift of silence and the importance of centering self. He told me he tries to meditate at night, when he can't sleep. How his father died recently, and that he can't stop thinking about it.

"We are all energy," I told him. "We continue to come back, in some form, to participate in the world." And I talked about how each life we have gives us one chance to be who we are this time around. And that next time life's energy will rearrange for us to be someone, and somewhere, else. So we should enjoy this bunch of energy while we can.

His eyes brightened. "I have always thought that too," he said. And then he told me about a book called God's Debris: A Thought Experiment by Scott Adams, the creator of the Dilbert cartoon series. The book's message: God created the universe and everything in it. After this was done, God was no longer challenged, so he blew himself up (The Big Bang), ensuring his particles, his energy, went everywhere to land on, and become part of, everything.

The Wind Horse story, revisited once more.

We walked on, parting company where the geese gather for handouts of bread, and the ducks stand in the middle of the road to quack their displeasure at cars just trying to get by.

Phyll's Creed

Temp is due to climb to 70 degrees here today in the woods of northern Virginia. Ken died six years ago this morning, and Martin Luther King's birth is celebrated today. Marg and Walt are gnawing on rawhide bones out in the yard under overcast skies. And I am happy to report that so many still want to believe in so much.

I received many emails and comments about the last post called Creed. The response has reminded me that, despite war and tension and the difficulties life throws at us, we humans still find the small specs of contentment and wisdom that contribute to a satisfying life. My friend of almost 30 years, Phyllis Sheerin Ross, known as Phyll, sent me her creed. And here it is:

• The truest saying is: 'If you always do, what you always did, you always get what you always got.'
• Everyone has a BIG secret.
• If you're stuck, only you can get yourself unstuck. Conversely, you cannot unstick anyone else.
• Most people will smile back, when you smile at them. Especially babies.
• Nobody laughs harder at old family stories, than old families.
• The most boring thing that old people can do is to talk about their illnesses. On the other hand, old people make a good audience, as they know it will be their turn next, to talk about their illnesses.
• There's a big difference between silence, solitude, and loneliness. Silence can be punitive, solitude is chosen, and loneliness is not.
• The best remedy for a blue mood is to reread a favorite book.
• The music of Bach can soothe, like no other music. That's all I could listen to for months after 9/11.
• The 1960s were the best time to try recreational drugs, grow your hair long, get drunk, and drop out. If you're still lost in the 1960s, get over it.
• It's even better to sing in your car, than it is to sing in the shower. But, never sing Karaoke.
• People become more attractive, as we get to know them.
• Everyone wishes that Woody Allen would make funny movies again.
• There's no such thing as a good toupee.
• Every day really is an opportunity to start all over, or, at least to try.

Creed

Back before many of us were born, there was a radio show hosted by Edward R. Murrow called This, I Believe.

The show featured both famous and common people reading essays about the principles that have guided their lives.

If you tuned in then, you would have heard Albert Einstein, or a woman from the hollers of Kentucky, recite their original thoughts into air, delivered to the eager ears of millions of radio listeners. The show has since been revitalized by National Public Radio. It is worth tuning in. There's a great essay by a fellow who believes life can be described by the marbling in a pastrami sandwich.

The last few days, I have been thinking about belief, and what it means to have a creed in one's life. What are the things I still believe at the age of 51? I've come up with a list.

I believe in dogs. These creatures are our teachers. They love us unconditionally. They are always happy to see us, no matter what. They do not judge us. They listen, and act like you are the most interesting person on the planet. They simply treat us the way we should all treat each other.

I believe in misfits. They are the hope for our society. They think for themselves, have loads of creativity, yet have never been told they are smart. They are unafraid to discover. And they don't like being told what to do. They are my students. Who they really are: my teachers.

I believe in something much bigger than I can ever be, and it is called nature. If we peer through the microscope, nothing is calm. All is chaos. And that's what fosters creativity. And that's what contributes to flow.

I believe in not knowing. Life can be a surprise, if we let it.

I believe in silence. We all need it. The unencumbered hour spent simply listening is food for the soul.

I believe in books written a very long time ago. It reminds me that many people who lived centuries back had it right in the first place.

I believe time is the most important thing we've got. It's not things and big houses and fame and all that petty nonsense. It is time, 'cause we can't get it back. Yeah, we can make more money next week, but we can't get back one millisecond of yesterday.

I believe our characters are set in stone at a very early age, and that we don't change very much. We physically grow bigger, and hopefully, we mature enough to understand that remembering childhood innocence helps us live a long time.   

I believe there are people in this life we outgrow, and it has nothing to do with loyalty. There is nothing more they can teach us or we can teach them, so we have to let each other go.

I believe you should only hang around with people who make your life better. Otherwise, it is a deplorable waste of time. You don't have to put up with the bossiness and guilt, judgement and ignorance, pride and dishonesty. You can simply say "good bye" with your silence. No other explanation is needed.

I believe in coffee. Caffeine fuels creativity.

I believe you can support yourself...emotionally, physically and financially if you just keep learning.

I believe you should live unafraid. It is never anyone else's call. It is up to you.

I believe in life...as well as death. I have held both in my arms, and know we cannot have one without the other. And one teaches us about the other.

And I know belief is tested, every day. So when that happens, I try to remember a time when I was around seven or so, sitting at the kitchen table after dinner, drawing horses on a clean, white sketch pad. My father came into the room, and sat in a chair beside me. He asked, "What do you want to be when you grow up, Mary?"

I continued to draw, and thought about the question. After a few minutes, I looked up at him, and replied, "I want to be a good person."

I did not understand then why his eyes watered up, and the reason he got up and left the room.

But now, I believe I do.

Envelope of the Heart

It is 2007, and there is a new dock down by the river.

Near sunrise this morning, the Labbies and I wandered down to walk upon it once more. Neighbor Scott and his friends have constructed a plain, sturdy place where one can sit on an edge of wood and listen to the sound of water.

Have been away for a few weeks, and it has been wonderful. It was the first Christmas in over 20 years I wasn't doing eight or more dishwasher loads in a silent house on Christmas night. Things never have to remain the same. I rented a large automobile that looked like a gangstah car, piled the Labbies and assorted gifts and stuff into its environs, and motored off the Thursday before Christmas. We ventured south to see our favorite cousins, then south again to a wooden home with fireplace near a lake. There I helped put up a fine Christmas tree in a newly-painted peach room, then ate goose with a special chef, a man who makes me laugh a tremendous amount. That was my Christmas gift. To be able to open up the envelope of the heart and drop something new inside.

And today, the gifts keep coming. This afternoon, Marg chased her tennis ball across the cold sleeping lawn for the first time in many months. She felt like retrieving. She was well enough to be herself. And she is smiling again.

Leonard Cohen wrote:

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.

And tomorrow at sunrise, we will walk to the dock once more, to investigate how the water has changed.

QUOTE: From Anthem. Lyrics and music by Leonard Cohen.

Loop

Life has certain commands one can't ignore.

There's a thing in programming called a for loop. This kind of computer chatter uses a counter, and in the code, you find a set of characters called i++. It means increment the value of i by 1.

This is a fact today, folks. Must add 1 to 50. At 3:30 p.m., I am 51.

Am currently editing the first draft of a book I've been writing for the last long while about a trip I took last summer across the United States and back. Exactly a year ago today I was in Flagstaff, Arizona. I left my rented room located in a reasonably seedy, smoke-smelling hotel at 6:30 a.m. and motored west on Rt. 40, then north on 64 to spend the day at the Grand Canyon.

And wrote:

"The Canyon is ahead. Can see a part of the bucket that holds its depth. I have a large coffee with cream contained in styrofoam, and I hold to my face, rest it against my cheek. Its warmth comforts me, for now, I am crying. I cannot believe that I have made it here, this long way, this 50, this far. I am not sad I have left the East, am away from everyone I have ever known. Back there some simply consider me a dead man's woman. I am so much more than that. Today I do not need a party, but to see the magnificence of something inexplicable. And I will get there in a small blue car."

At the Grand Canyon, I paid my admission fee, got a map and drove to the South Rim. I stopped, pulled the parking brake tight, and opened the door.

"I heard yapping. That incessant human blather. Men with camcorders ignoring their children, made-up women in capris talking about shopping, children fighting for the attention of the people who birthed them, those humans self-absorbed for their own sanity in other matters. I simply walked, only to be surrounded by the noise of others as we neared the fence of the South Rim."

"As soon as we saw it, everybody shut up. Even the babies stopped crying. We were in earth's church. Its hymn is silence."

I don't know how long I sat there, on that hard rock, in the 107 degree heat. Maybe it was a few minutes, or a couple of hours. I never looked at my watch. Eventually I walked back to the Bug, unlocked the door, turned the key, and motored out of the parking lot towards the East Rim.

"Along the way, I saw a coyote. He was running along the side of the road, looking back over his shoulder. He didn't look scared, but disgusted. Why are all these people here? I also saw a biker couple in argument, pulled off in a small turnabout. Face to face, their quarrel was a circle. She took a swing at him. He pulled back. She missed. He laughed."

I pulled into a turnoff uninhabited by others. I sat on a rock wall and contemplated this:

"I sat for a long time. There was no sound. In that place, I heard what it is like to feel empty, and it felt familiar. But the silence was broken by a caw and a black flash."

Raven.

"The Trickster. He flew past me, a few inches from my face, circled around and landed on the rock wall about a foot away from where I sat. He had yellow eyes, sharp beak, purple-black feathers. He wasn't afraid of me, and seemed curious. Perhaps he was looking for food. I had none to give him. He faced me and considered me for a while, then turned and looked at the Canyon. He stood there, and I continued to sit."

"Some think the raven to be a bird of death, toting only destruction and darkness. But in the spirit world he is the protector bird. His visit brings resolution of opposites. In dark there is light. Dying is necessary for rebirth, and renewal means something must be destroyed. Death can mean depth. Our actions can be ones that build idols, the experiences that never change or evolve. How many of us get caught in lives that have grown old, but we persist in protecting them, as we think it is truth and the only thing that can exist? "

So we simply sat there, the bird and I, and looked at the rock wonder, like two old friends sitting on a park bench, losing all track of time.

IMAGE: by Hopi artist Fred Kabotie. Part of mural located on interior wall of the Desert View Watchtower, East Rim, Grand Canyon.

if

Sunday is usually a day of rest. Today's menu includes laundry and programming. It is humid. A long walk around the quiet neighborhood early causes Labbies to pant, their pink tongues to show.

Today I write if statements.

In programming, the word if (always coded in lower case) presents a condition, a test. The simple if produces two absolute results: a true/positive/equal action or a false/negative/unequal action. Each outcome is controlled in a pair of curly braces:

if (what's the test? place the question here){
if the answer is true or equal or positive, write what will happen in this space
}
else {
if the answer is false or not equal or negative, write what will happen in this space
}

Computer code either works or it doesn't. There are no grey areas. It produces a black or white result. After the file is saved to the hard drive, I wonder about our lives, and how colorful the grey of it really is.

Last evening, thanks to broadband, I signed on to watch some of the interviews included in the new series Bill Moyers on Faith & Reason. A mixture of authors and mythmakers and faithful and agnostic gathered in New York, invited there by author Salman Rushdie, "the man who spent ten years of his life underground, hiding from Islamic assassins." The question posed: "In a world where religion is poison to some and salvation to others, how can we live together?"

Rushdie: "What kind of a god is it that's upset by a cartoon in Danish?"

Mary Gordon: "As long as you give up the idea that it will answer the questions, I think answering the questions will take place at that moment of rest, which will be in a dimension beyond our corporeal one."

Colin McGinn: "Tolerating somebody else's beliefs is not failing to criticize them. It's not persecuting them for having those beliefs. That is absolutely important. You should not persecute people for their beliefs. It doesn't mean you can't criticize their beliefs."

Sir John Houghton: "One of the most important statements you can make as a scientist is: I don't know. One of the most important statements you can make as a believer is: I don't know."

Some of the most interesting insights delivered in the series so far are by British novelist and mythologist Jeanette Winterson:

About religion:

"...if God says, that He, She is made us in His image, then we are the ones who are full of contradictions. So, that might suggest, that God also, is full of contradictions."

About life's mystery:

"...there are vast dimensions of which I know nothing. But sometimes I can apprehend them a little bit. So I think that in religious terms that sometimes I think of it as the kick of joy in the universe. It's the moment when you feel that the whole thing is bigger than you, better than you, and you connect with an energy which is gigantic. And, I think writers and artists do feel that. I hope that people who are not writers and artists feel that. And it is a moment which is absolutely true, and it absolutely cannot be proved by science. But you feel it."

About idols:

"...when a myth gets fixed, it becomes an idol. That's what idolatry really is. It's when you fix something, and you won't let it evolve, or change, or grow anymore. You get stuck with the thing, and you say, 'No, this is the truth, and only this is the truth. And this will always be the truth.' And so people evolve, society evolves, and there's your idol, slap-bang in the middle, which is the thing that is now completely out of date. You know, but when Jesus was talking about putting new wine in old wine skins; you can't do it. The thing has to keep alive. And one of the ways we keep it alive, is by retelling it. "

As I sit here writing on this Sunday afternoon, I am again reminded that there doesn't have to be an if or an else, except within some computer code. Most of the world has nothing to do with me, for I seek no control over anything or anyone. I have no idea what is possible, as the impossible has no clamp. There is a certain comfort in that, and I would miss that thought if it wasn't around.

Night Rain at Omiya

Soaked.

Water, lightning, rumbles of thundergods that loiter, swirling in circles over northern Virginia. Downtown DC is flooded. Was scheduled to go to Silver Spring MD this a.m. to teach, but there is water and mud over so many roads, and it is difficult to journey out of the woods, then on to a place called civilization. So class is rescheduled, and I sit here among the trees, in the saturated night, and write.

Margaret senses when more thunder is due. She finds me, and burrows her big black head against my leg, and she shakes and whimpers a little until I put my hand on her side to comfort her. She then lays under my desk, puts her chin on my foot, and falls asleep.

This rain reminds me of a masterpiece. It is called "Night Rain at Omiya", and it was created in 1930 by a Japanese artist named Kawase Hasui. It is a woodblock print; ink and color on paper.

I first saw it in late 2004 as part of an exhibition called Dream Worlds: Modern Japanese Prints and Paintings from the Robert O. Muller Collection at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery in Washington, DC. All the prints were made the "old way"...cherry wood, horsehair brushes, sharp steel knives to cut intricate blocks.

Hasui was part of the Shin Hanga movement. These artists merged traditional Japanese woodblock printing techniques with European Impressionism. Standard subjects like landscapes, animals, and people were used, and particular attention was given to light and the depiction of individual moods. This collection of woodblock prints breathe.

It's a stunning piece of work. When I first encountered "Night Rain at Omiya" at the gallery, I looked at it for a very long time. I could feel others around me, competing for position to have a closer view. I stood still, and did not move. How'd that Zen dude make the rain, those beautiful reeds, that reflective water?

It continues to remind me that even when surrounded by darkness, solitude sheds a small light into the night. That it is possible to be warm and dry and happy in the silence.