Restoration Drama
Give me dreams, but let me sleep,
In peaceful rest to lie—
Haul off the tossing, counting sheep,
The nightmares passing by—
Yes, make the most of forty winks,
A hundred, if I may;
Remove insomnia and keep
Harsh wakefulness at bay—
No more foul nights as hostage to
Psychosis’ nasty knife—
Now, make a truce and make it true,
Right through eternal life!
I’m not here a second time today to announce I’ve discovered the cure for halitosis, let alone cancer. But I’m back simply to share a link with you because another blogger’s words for today had such a thought-provoking effect on me and I figured you might find them equally intriguing. Jen, the smart and compassionate translator/interpreter for her charming and handsome malamute Rumpy over at Rumpydog, is a committed animal activist. My friends, you know that it’s more likely I should be committed [IYKWIM] than true that I am disciplined, self-confident or wise enough to be an active advocate for much of anything. But today Jen addressed a topic that’s long been nagging at me, to the extent that I know I’ve actually mentioned it to you: it’s not that we as humans are incapable of caring about things enough, too stupid to figure out some solutions, or unwilling to do the hard work to enact them–it’s that we are too self-centered to do so together with anyone who fails to think and care about, and approach, those problems in precisely the way we personally approve.
I’m absolutely certain that no matter how much I liked or admired Jen it would be impossible for me to agree 100% with her on everything, or her with me. But I’m also sure that I do deeply respect her commitment and willingness to act on it and speak her mind. So I encourage you to go and visit her to read her most sensible, cogent piece I’ve seen in ages about what does and doesn’t work in discussing, promoting, advocating for or acting in *any* good cause. I don’t know a solution, because I suspect it’s such a universal ill among humans that it would require Nobel Peace Prize brilliance *plus*. But if we gather around the conference table determined to listen, learn and share the best of ourselves, there just might be some hope for us. The very thought cheers me.Happy days to all of you, and many thanks to Jen for sharing. (Click on the word ‘sharing’ to go to her blog.)
It was a wonderfully happy anniversary yesterday. The birthday of one of our nephews.
It was also a horrible anniversary, as far more people know: that of the infamous terrorist attack on US soil in September of 2001. You understand my intense desire to have the former event wholly eclipse the latter. I don’t demand that all the world celebrate our nephew’s birthday (though our niece and any one of our nine nephews would all be well worth the attention), but I would absolutely recommend that the whole planet get a lot less warlike and a lot more humane overall.
If grey is the new black, we should be mature enough by now to play well together.
Americans, first and foremost. We may be barely over 200 years old as a country, but we’re old enough to know better than to tear around the planet saber-rattling and messing around in every other country’s business whether they like it or not. Aren’t there enough things to keep us occupied in more peaceful pursuits? Many such valuable actions could probably be funded on the strength of one month’s national military expenses, things that might not only make the country better educated, healthier, more scientifically advanced but also better able, even, to improve conditions for other people, other nations.
Call me naive.
But first, here’s a nice little bouquet, from me to you. It’s a small thing, I know, but I’d like to start somewhere. You’re welcome. Pass it on, please.
The answer, if you haven’t already guessed it, is Nothing at All.
Except, that is the problem.
I saw pictures in this week’s newspapers of international leaders meeting in the Tuileries to discuss whether it would be a good idea to attack Syria in response to the country’s use of chemical weapons on its own citizens. The Tuileries, if you don’t already know it, are exquisite, bucolic, gorgeous, peaceful gardens in the City of Light, Paris. A park full of such prettiness and solace as you’d find in any fortunate, war-free spot in the privileged world. Where it wouldn’t seem out of place to have a gathering of polite, well dressed, well-fed people speaking in confident tones of insight and wisdom and deciding what would likely appear to be, if you were out of earshot, where to go for dinner and a nice glass of wine after the opera.
Except that this opera happens to be a particularly brutal one, from the chillingly despotic callousness of a leader and his henchmen willing to murder their own countrymen en masse to the remote offices, boardrooms, streets and parks where a multitude of other leaders and citizens of other countries debate whether to kill some more humans in order to redirect the battle. What’s wrong with this picture, from my view, is the frightening sense that unless all of those who think it their business to intervene in such a disastrous situation are willing and able to have these theoretical discussions in, say what was a pretty, bucolic park in Syria and now exists instead in the heart of its darkest hours and gravest danger, they will never likely have a realistic sense of the probable consequences, good or bad, of any choice for the people ‘on the ground’, their fellow humans, and of course, ultimately for themselves.
Until we Americans have something of this literal kind of skin in the game, as it were, I can’t imagine how we can expect to do any right thing in such a situation, and I sense that this same problem might well apply to many other relatively safe, privileged nations and their leaders and citizenry. I would hope that reason and logic and wisdom will prevail no matter what is decided, or how, or by whom. But more than that, I hope that the tide worldwide will turn toward resolutions of all troubles and trials through some more honest, unselfish, patient and wholesome means that leaves all parties with at least the possibility of sitting at peace in any quiet and lovely place, eventually.
Her Bones are Glass
Her bones are glass; the diamonds in her eyes
Now shining dust, yet still and otherwise,
Though time says that she must, she still decries
The need, opposes it by effort, will
And awful grief and rage at what would kill
Her body, spirit, mind and heart, until
She mounts the ridges of that final hill,
‘Til battle’s over and the victory won;
So while she harries them, Age sets her sun
A-fade, Time lets her hourglass empty run,
Approach the space where sleep and she are one;
The sands thin silently, passing to less-
Than-empty, right to utter nothingness,
In view but fading, to her pale distress,
Her winding-sheet already worn for dress,
‘Til battle’s over and the victory won;
Comfort she needs, yet I can offer none
‘Til battle’s over and her victory won.
Looking inward requires the most thoughtful, clear, exacting kind of sight. It requires both the power to see great distances through any number of intervening obstacles or distractions and the will to pay attention to and accept what’s seen. These interior distances can present the greatest challenges in our lives. And when they’re conquered, having presented the greatest risk, they can at last offer the greatest rewards. Braving this adventure into self is often frightening and intimidating far beyond the terrors offered by ordinary, real life adventures ‘on the outside’. May I always be willing to take the leap.
I wrote that thought down some time ago, and while it’s often played out in my life in a vast number of ways and to differing degrees, it seems to have come to the fore once again in a particularly pointed way. Every time I reach the crossroads I have to decide: do I dare to do what I really think I need to do? Do I want to do what I need to do? I know that other people are always undergoing these same challenges, most of them deeper and more perilous than my own, but I also know that every one of us worries and struggles and imagines and aspires uniquely, and that no one person’s journey is truly untouched by any other’s. And the more other people that I know are affected–directly or indirectly–by my decisions, the more I will wrestle with the inner process.
All of the standard stresses of existence that plague those of us fortunate enough to be beyond the most basic survival questions of food and shelter will continue to try us as long as we do exist. Health, work, age, finances, relationships, memory, strength, purpose: how we do fret and fear and puzzle our way through them is the ongoing test of our self-worth and contentment, and in turn, of our ability to give to others. Will I come out of the day on the plus side of any or all of these valuables? What decides it? The only certainty, for me, is that the need to address such questions never ceases.
Now let me close my eyes and go to work.
Here in the shade I need no shades. Every corner of the copse is cool and watery green, the shoots of grass streaking up toward those glints of sun that peep between leaves, sparkling without heat and calling me to rest. The world outside can keep tearing around like a cyclone, overheating and undermining calm and joy and peace of mind, but here in the clearing, in the sweet gloaming, I can ease back and close my eyes, and all that is, was and ever shall be washes over my memory and my soul. Shuttered thus from sight, events and people and places and gifts pour by like rivers, refreshing and kind, and in my mind I am rejoined with all that I have ever known and been. Accompanied by the delicate bubbling sound of their passing flow, I return to myself, my full self, whether with my eyes closed or open, glasses on or off–because everything I need to know is right here with me, here inside the deepest cool green shade.
The temperatures have returned to their normal just-this-side-of-hell Texan summer levels, the hot flashes are not cured, only moderated, and I shall just do my best to keep fending off the heat with a modicum of inner cool. It’s the only place any of us can hope to keep well in the shade anyway. Now shoo, go on, y’all, and let me chill down a bit.
Nothing particularly wrong with being a strange bird.
Strangeness may be my only truly notable characteristic. I may not be particularly memorable to most people, what with being a mere mortal and all. Superpowers, I’ve none. Standout knowledge or skill or charisma? Nope. But being just a teensy bit weird, yeah, I’m all over that.
So I like to make art sometimes that is as pointlessly silly and eccentrically absurd as I am. I just feel I’m in a larger company of fringe characters than ever. And that, after all, is very probably exactly where I belong. I kind of like it on my perch. From here, the view is quite quirky and therefore strangely appealing. Come on over if and when you like, all you other odd birds out there.
Room for Everyone
My friends, you are welcome to sit in my house,
admiring my other friends, family, spouse,
each one of us charming, delightful and sweet
as any convention of people you’ll meet,
as brainy and clever and heartwarming, too,
as anyone can be, and that includes you;
come in and enjoy the great company,
come in and be welcome, as welcome can be,
but please keep in mind, while you lounge in this spot:
compatible, yes, but the same we are not!
Bedding becomes at a certain time the only allowable necessity in the list of must-have, must-acquire things: a soft, squashy place in which to drop into docile dreams and a few gentle coverings to keep the nighttime’s monsters reasonably at bay. In the great grand scheme of everything, it is plain that eventually nothing matters so much to us as a modicum of food and a good night’s sleep, and that, with the essential and desirable bits of bedding to line the nest.
These are nearly universal enough desires that I think I can safely claim they’re innate and downright laudable human compulsions. And if that’s so, why then I’m quite happy to claim that as the possessor of an extreme quantity of the urge for lengthy, peaceful sleep and lots of delicious food, in that order, ergo I must be a particularly outstanding specimen of humanity. Fortunately, this approach to a philosophical stance on my being excellent by virtue of having a notable love and appreciation for the most desired of goals is so far removed from logic as to be virtually unassailable. Unassailable, at least, by persons deeply asleep, which in this tautology we all ought to be. Therefore, I adjure you, let us all seek and dive into whatever glorious sleeping comforts we can find, and make no more pretense of being productively awake.
Worlds of Peace
In the sleepy little world where
kindness can prevail and thrive
The beasts and people live in peace,
all happy just to be alive
Their gracious ways, generous hearts,
their gentle speech and thought and will
Protect them all throughout the day,
and through the nighttime hold them still—
Would that this dreamy little world
could bloom and flourish here on earth
And that such hopeful tenderness
pursue us all straight on from birth
My wistful wishing is not vain;
this virtue could embrace us all,
For we do know how to be so,
if only we would heed the call
And so each morning as I rise
I make a small and silent prayer
That by the night’s new-darkened skies,
we’ll find ourselves all living there
Art-Colored Glasses 