[This is a short selection from a book I am working on about growing up in Pasadena]
Christmas was always a special time, though in my very earliest memories, there were no religious overtones. I was taken to church every Sunday, of course, but the Christmas decorations and gatherings were all something that happened at home, not at church. When I was too young to speak, I realized that Christmas was the season that happened during the coldest time of the year, and it meant that we’d have a fire going in the fireplace, people would be coming over, and there’d be lots of gifts and food.
My earliest specific memory was when I was told that Santa Claus could come to our home and bring gifts, and that he had some way to figure out where I lived. I didn’t know exactly why, but there was a great mystery about this fat, bearded, red-suited Santa man. People spoke about him in hushed tones, and would even sometimes stop talking about him when I came near.
My brother Tom told me that Santa Claus would come down the chimney – something I found hard to believe considering how fat he appeared in the pictures. We both peered up into our fireplace one day and wondered how Santa could get through the narrow passageway.
"Plus, doesn’t dad have a screen over the top of the chimney to keep the pigeons out?" Tom asked. I didn’t know. "I hope he remembers to remove it for Santa."
On Christmas Eve, our dad showed us a plate of cookies and a pot of coffee that had been set out for Santa.
We barely slept, and I tried to not sleep so I could be the first to rush out and catch a glimpse of this Santa. But I fell asleep, and Tom woke me and Rick. We jumped out of bed, and ran down the hall. We weren’t particularly interested in gifts, but we wanted to catch Santa. We were too late, but the three of us carefully examined the remaining evidence. There were no cookies left on the plate – only crumbs – and there was only a small amount of coffee left in the cup. Tom held the cup and carefully peered into it, and then Rick and I stared into the cup, the proof that Santa had come and departed.
"See?" said Tom. We all continued to stare into the cup a while longer, as if it might reveal some secrets to us.
In a few more years, I noticed that people didn’t fully hide their comments from me when speaking about Santa Claus. "He believes in Santa Claus?" was met with muffled response. What an odd question, I thought. Why shouldn’t I believe in Santa Claus?
When I actually learned about this mythical aspect of Christmas, I did go through a period of confusion and even anger at the world of make-believe perpetrated entirely by adults and foisted upon me. I suppose I felt bad because I really wanted to believe in Santa Claus, and I felt that he was a positive figure. And I had been told to "be good" for Santa Claus, and that Santa Claus knew everything I was doing. I was very puzzled by all this, but I got over it.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Wednesday, December 09, 2009
PLANTING THE ASHES
[Note: This is part of a book Christopher is working on about his lessons and experiences with Dolores' death, and how they both dealt with issues of death during their marriage.]
As Dolores wished, her body was cremated. In about three weeks after her death, a brown box was delivered to me which contained her ashes. It was heavier than I expected. We received it too late for the Memorial we held in the back yard a week and a half after she died, otherwise we might have planted a tree that day.
The search was on to find the ideal tree to plant over Dolores’ ashes. The first choice was breadfruit, a Hawaiian tree, in honor of Dolores’ love of things Hawaiian, and her feeling of a connection to those islands, and the memory of her having lived there. But there was no breadfruit to be found. If anyone would have a breadfruit tree, I figured Steven Spangler of Exotica would have it, but he told me that the tree would not grow here unless in a greenhouse. That wouldn’t do.
So then I tried to find a terebinth tree, rich in symbolism and seemingly ideal to memorialize Dolores. But could not find one. I was told by a botanist at the Huntington Garden that there weren’t any of these trees in North America. I sought a certain species of fragrant lilac, a certain variety of deodar, and other trees. Each of these inquiries took time, and it was clear that we should not wait too long for such a memorial.
We had felt the presence of Dolores very strong through December and early January, but she seemed further afield now in that different sort of work that someone must be engaged in once their body dies. So I decided to plant Meyer lemons, a tree that Dolores enjoyed because not only did it provide food, but also fragrance and medicine, and it was drought-tolerant.
Finally, we planned the event for Saturday, February 7, 2009 at 3 p.m. Alvin Toma provided the two Meyer lemons – we planned to plant two trees, symbolic of all things two, like frontal column and spinal column, like Boaz and Joachim. We planned the trees so that Dolores’ trees would watch over and overlook where her dogs were buried.
On Saturday, Talal and I spent an hour finding the just-right spots for the trees. Where I first placed them, still in their pots, seemed symmetrical, but as we looked at it, we realized one would have much more shade than the other. So we moved the trees and finally found the just-right spots, where one would walk down the path and through the two lemons, into the dog cemetery. We dug two holes and built up the hillside on the outer edge of the holes so they’d be secure and not wash away.
Soon guests came. Prudence, Julie, Racina all helped with the site preparation. Nicole and Candace came, as did Mike, and Ben, and Jonathan, and Mel. Even an Hungarian woman showed up after seeing the notice in the L.A. Times. I beat the sacred Taos drums as guests arrived, drums passed down in Dolores’ family, now to me.
We began by filling and touching our cups, and sharing a Toast to Dolores.
We read poesic arts works, and discussed death. A few words were spoken about Dolores. Then we went to the trees. Everyone gathered around. I cut Dolores’ last garment in two, the garment that she wore on her last days. It was a long gray cotton night shirt, and I put half in each hole, explaining how it would be also good for the tree to maintain moisture during dry times. I cut a few inches of my hair and added it to each hole. We put some Otis (our pot-bellied pig) manure into each hole.
Then it was time for the ashes. The dust from which we came and to which we return. I opened the brown box and found a plastic bag inside. I opened the tie. Inside was the dense white ash. I knew that Dolores was no longer her body, but I also knew that this was left of the body within which Dolores resided. I reached into the plastic bag with my hands and took a handful of the powder and placed it in one hole. I put about half of the power into each hole. My hands were white with Dolores’ ash, which gave my hands a silky feel. I saved a little ash to see if anyone else wanted to save some, but no one did. Everyone had been so very quiet. (I was later told, privately by four different people, that they had never seen human ash before, and that they were a bit shocked that I handled them with my bare hands. Prudence told me it seemed like an act of Love. I can only say that it seemed like the right thing to do, to not have fear or repulsion for the ashes of my beloved, but to touch them.)
Then we planted the trees, everyone pitching in to get the trees aligned and watered.
When done, everyone put a rock around the base, and added a little water to the trees. We read more readings, looked at Dolores’ beautiful and unique photography. I smoked Luther Standing Bear’s pipe, blowing smoke to the four directions, to honor Dolores’ site, where her ashes will nourish the trees, where the fruits will absorb the nutrients from that ash, where we will one day consume lemons nurtured by Dolores’ essence.
The weather was perfect for the event. The rain stopped as we began, and the sky had a unique shade of blue, as large billowing clouds filled the sky. It was the sort of skyscape that you expect to see in classical European art.
Finally, Racina sang a wonderful rendition of "You Lift Me Up" and John Denver’s "Country Road." It was beautiful.We cleaned up and departed, and wished the very best to our dear friend Dolores.
My friend Christopher Reamer could not join us that day, but he wrote, "I am one person who was inspired by Dolores, and will continue to be. Peace to you and her in this awesome journey of life. Christopher Reamer."
As Dolores wished, her body was cremated. In about three weeks after her death, a brown box was delivered to me which contained her ashes. It was heavier than I expected. We received it too late for the Memorial we held in the back yard a week and a half after she died, otherwise we might have planted a tree that day.
The search was on to find the ideal tree to plant over Dolores’ ashes. The first choice was breadfruit, a Hawaiian tree, in honor of Dolores’ love of things Hawaiian, and her feeling of a connection to those islands, and the memory of her having lived there. But there was no breadfruit to be found. If anyone would have a breadfruit tree, I figured Steven Spangler of Exotica would have it, but he told me that the tree would not grow here unless in a greenhouse. That wouldn’t do.
So then I tried to find a terebinth tree, rich in symbolism and seemingly ideal to memorialize Dolores. But could not find one. I was told by a botanist at the Huntington Garden that there weren’t any of these trees in North America. I sought a certain species of fragrant lilac, a certain variety of deodar, and other trees. Each of these inquiries took time, and it was clear that we should not wait too long for such a memorial.
We had felt the presence of Dolores very strong through December and early January, but she seemed further afield now in that different sort of work that someone must be engaged in once their body dies. So I decided to plant Meyer lemons, a tree that Dolores enjoyed because not only did it provide food, but also fragrance and medicine, and it was drought-tolerant.
Finally, we planned the event for Saturday, February 7, 2009 at 3 p.m. Alvin Toma provided the two Meyer lemons – we planned to plant two trees, symbolic of all things two, like frontal column and spinal column, like Boaz and Joachim. We planned the trees so that Dolores’ trees would watch over and overlook where her dogs were buried.
On Saturday, Talal and I spent an hour finding the just-right spots for the trees. Where I first placed them, still in their pots, seemed symmetrical, but as we looked at it, we realized one would have much more shade than the other. So we moved the trees and finally found the just-right spots, where one would walk down the path and through the two lemons, into the dog cemetery. We dug two holes and built up the hillside on the outer edge of the holes so they’d be secure and not wash away.
Soon guests came. Prudence, Julie, Racina all helped with the site preparation. Nicole and Candace came, as did Mike, and Ben, and Jonathan, and Mel. Even an Hungarian woman showed up after seeing the notice in the L.A. Times. I beat the sacred Taos drums as guests arrived, drums passed down in Dolores’ family, now to me.
We began by filling and touching our cups, and sharing a Toast to Dolores.
We read poesic arts works, and discussed death. A few words were spoken about Dolores. Then we went to the trees. Everyone gathered around. I cut Dolores’ last garment in two, the garment that she wore on her last days. It was a long gray cotton night shirt, and I put half in each hole, explaining how it would be also good for the tree to maintain moisture during dry times. I cut a few inches of my hair and added it to each hole. We put some Otis (our pot-bellied pig) manure into each hole.
Then it was time for the ashes. The dust from which we came and to which we return. I opened the brown box and found a plastic bag inside. I opened the tie. Inside was the dense white ash. I knew that Dolores was no longer her body, but I also knew that this was left of the body within which Dolores resided. I reached into the plastic bag with my hands and took a handful of the powder and placed it in one hole. I put about half of the power into each hole. My hands were white with Dolores’ ash, which gave my hands a silky feel. I saved a little ash to see if anyone else wanted to save some, but no one did. Everyone had been so very quiet. (I was later told, privately by four different people, that they had never seen human ash before, and that they were a bit shocked that I handled them with my bare hands. Prudence told me it seemed like an act of Love. I can only say that it seemed like the right thing to do, to not have fear or repulsion for the ashes of my beloved, but to touch them.)
Then we planted the trees, everyone pitching in to get the trees aligned and watered.
When done, everyone put a rock around the base, and added a little water to the trees. We read more readings, looked at Dolores’ beautiful and unique photography. I smoked Luther Standing Bear’s pipe, blowing smoke to the four directions, to honor Dolores’ site, where her ashes will nourish the trees, where the fruits will absorb the nutrients from that ash, where we will one day consume lemons nurtured by Dolores’ essence.
The weather was perfect for the event. The rain stopped as we began, and the sky had a unique shade of blue, as large billowing clouds filled the sky. It was the sort of skyscape that you expect to see in classical European art.
Finally, Racina sang a wonderful rendition of "You Lift Me Up" and John Denver’s "Country Road." It was beautiful.We cleaned up and departed, and wished the very best to our dear friend Dolores.
My friend Christopher Reamer could not join us that day, but he wrote, "I am one person who was inspired by Dolores, and will continue to be. Peace to you and her in this awesome journey of life. Christopher Reamer."
Monday, December 07, 2009
TERUMASA'S QUESTIONS
Terumasa – Nami’s friend from Japan – had arranged to visit in December of 2008. Though Dolores tried to work out the details of his stay, she wasn’t really able to fully do so, even with my help. Nevertheless, Terumasa arrived after Dolores had already died. In the few remaining days before Fikret returned to Germany, Fikret taught Terumasa how to feed the dogs and perform several of the tasks that Fikret had admirably taken on.
In the evenings of late December and early January, I would often sit with Terumasa and Nami and have dinner together, often watching television, and always trying to converse with Terumasa. Terumasa was a noble man who exuded greatness. I loved to be around him, and wished that our language barrier was reduced.
One late afternoon, after we had the backyard memorial for Dolores, a few people lingered in the backyard and living room to talk. Terumasa sat there next to me, with Mel sitting there listening. Terumasa looked at me while we talked about Dolores. He said, "Christopher," to gain my attention.
"Christopher," he repeated with great concern in his voice.
"Why are we born? Why are here? Why do we live this life? Why must we experience all this pain?" He paused. He was about to cry. He added, "Why do we die?"
We were all silent for a few moments. Joe Hall looked at me, wondering what I would say. Joe had previously made it clear to me that he didn’t believe in reincarnation, so I suppose he wanted to see how I would respond. Mel commented, "Those are the questions, alright."
I nodded to Terumasa. What could I say? Should I offer my opinion as to the meaning of life and death in a few simple words with the attempt to cross the chasm of our English-Japanese divide.
"Yes, what is this all about?" I asked rhetorically. I felt that I was certainly able to intellectually approach those questions, but I did not feel emotionally up to it in that moment.
"Let’s talk about that some more soon," was all I offered.
Eventually, only Joe Hall and Mel remained talking, and when I finally walked Mel to his car, he turned and said, "We should get together and talk about Terumasa’s questions. I’d really like that."
"OK," I told him. "We will, but you have to promise to come." Mel said OK.
About a month later, on Thursday January 29, we planned Boy Voyage party for Terumasa, who would be actually departing Saturday morning. We invited many people, and planned to have Japanese tea and Japanese food.
We set up an outside table up on the hill at the wildlife sanctuary, with lights and a table full of dinner. Nami came up with Terumasa and we invited them to sit down. It took a little while for Terumasa to realize that this was a party for him. He laughed loudly when he realized this was a surprise for him!
We filled our tea cups and touched them together for our toast, reciting the words of a little cartoon – Love Is…
Then, all holding hands in a circle in the darkness of the evening, we recited a work called "Friendship Bridge."
Then, after asking Terumasa about the details of his departure, and what he’d be doing back in Japan, we made the effort to answer his questions. Prudence and I prepared with different parts of the book "Thinking and Destiny" by Harold Percival, along with our own insights.
We didn’t want our bon voyage to Terumasa to become a strict metaphysical study, but rather we wanted to provide some preliminary answers to his serious query. It was as much for us as it was for Terumasa.
We decided that we were born upon this world in order to continue our spiritual evolution. Each of us added some comments to this, but everyone seemed to concur that this is why we are here, and which is why we are here to live this life.
The subject of pain was much more complex. Yet, we quickly denounced the notion that our pain is something given to us, or done to us, by "god," as is so often averred by religious zealots. In fact, in all the cases of individual and large scale pain that we could list, we felt that we are our own worst enemy. We men and women are the sources of pain on the earth, which usually come about by some violation of natural law, some breaking of the Ten Commandments, not abiding by the Golden Rule, and by partaking of the Seven Capital Sins. Our pain is the result of our own choices, and when we learn from our pain and our choices, we – if we are intelligent – learn to make other choices.
This was a big topic, but again everyone was in agreement that we bring our own pain upon ourselves, and that pain is largely unavoidable.
Then we talked about death. Prudence read from "Thinking and Destiny" and pointed out that death can be a friend to our Spiritual Self, that our bodies are simply not destined to live forever, and that – like it or not – we will all die as part of our long progress towards spiritual perfection.
This was not wholly agreeable to all, but the topic of death is so full of emotion and opinion and religious dogma that we did not attempt to have agreement all around, and that was OK.
By now we were feasting on some delicious Japanese fish and soup, and we gave Terumasa some gifts to take back to Japan. He really enjoyed the roll of the new George Washington brass dollars that he was given.
We all exchanged phone numbers and emails and we all hugged. It was clear to all that change was coming soon, and that this wonderful warrior would soon be gone. By 9:30, we all departed, and on the following Saturday morning, Terumasa flew away to Japan.
In the evenings of late December and early January, I would often sit with Terumasa and Nami and have dinner together, often watching television, and always trying to converse with Terumasa. Terumasa was a noble man who exuded greatness. I loved to be around him, and wished that our language barrier was reduced.
One late afternoon, after we had the backyard memorial for Dolores, a few people lingered in the backyard and living room to talk. Terumasa sat there next to me, with Mel sitting there listening. Terumasa looked at me while we talked about Dolores. He said, "Christopher," to gain my attention.
"Christopher," he repeated with great concern in his voice.
"Why are we born? Why are here? Why do we live this life? Why must we experience all this pain?" He paused. He was about to cry. He added, "Why do we die?"
We were all silent for a few moments. Joe Hall looked at me, wondering what I would say. Joe had previously made it clear to me that he didn’t believe in reincarnation, so I suppose he wanted to see how I would respond. Mel commented, "Those are the questions, alright."
I nodded to Terumasa. What could I say? Should I offer my opinion as to the meaning of life and death in a few simple words with the attempt to cross the chasm of our English-Japanese divide.
"Yes, what is this all about?" I asked rhetorically. I felt that I was certainly able to intellectually approach those questions, but I did not feel emotionally up to it in that moment.
"Let’s talk about that some more soon," was all I offered.
Eventually, only Joe Hall and Mel remained talking, and when I finally walked Mel to his car, he turned and said, "We should get together and talk about Terumasa’s questions. I’d really like that."
"OK," I told him. "We will, but you have to promise to come." Mel said OK.
About a month later, on Thursday January 29, we planned Boy Voyage party for Terumasa, who would be actually departing Saturday morning. We invited many people, and planned to have Japanese tea and Japanese food.
We set up an outside table up on the hill at the wildlife sanctuary, with lights and a table full of dinner. Nami came up with Terumasa and we invited them to sit down. It took a little while for Terumasa to realize that this was a party for him. He laughed loudly when he realized this was a surprise for him!
We filled our tea cups and touched them together for our toast, reciting the words of a little cartoon – Love Is…
Then, all holding hands in a circle in the darkness of the evening, we recited a work called "Friendship Bridge."
Then, after asking Terumasa about the details of his departure, and what he’d be doing back in Japan, we made the effort to answer his questions. Prudence and I prepared with different parts of the book "Thinking and Destiny" by Harold Percival, along with our own insights.
We didn’t want our bon voyage to Terumasa to become a strict metaphysical study, but rather we wanted to provide some preliminary answers to his serious query. It was as much for us as it was for Terumasa.
We decided that we were born upon this world in order to continue our spiritual evolution. Each of us added some comments to this, but everyone seemed to concur that this is why we are here, and which is why we are here to live this life.
The subject of pain was much more complex. Yet, we quickly denounced the notion that our pain is something given to us, or done to us, by "god," as is so often averred by religious zealots. In fact, in all the cases of individual and large scale pain that we could list, we felt that we are our own worst enemy. We men and women are the sources of pain on the earth, which usually come about by some violation of natural law, some breaking of the Ten Commandments, not abiding by the Golden Rule, and by partaking of the Seven Capital Sins. Our pain is the result of our own choices, and when we learn from our pain and our choices, we – if we are intelligent – learn to make other choices.
This was a big topic, but again everyone was in agreement that we bring our own pain upon ourselves, and that pain is largely unavoidable.
Then we talked about death. Prudence read from "Thinking and Destiny" and pointed out that death can be a friend to our Spiritual Self, that our bodies are simply not destined to live forever, and that – like it or not – we will all die as part of our long progress towards spiritual perfection.
This was not wholly agreeable to all, but the topic of death is so full of emotion and opinion and religious dogma that we did not attempt to have agreement all around, and that was OK.
By now we were feasting on some delicious Japanese fish and soup, and we gave Terumasa some gifts to take back to Japan. He really enjoyed the roll of the new George Washington brass dollars that he was given.
We all exchanged phone numbers and emails and we all hugged. It was clear to all that change was coming soon, and that this wonderful warrior would soon be gone. By 9:30, we all departed, and on the following Saturday morning, Terumasa flew away to Japan.
Sunday, December 06, 2009
VISITING SWITZERS
Since the Angeles Crest Highway was opened last week, and since I heard that it might be closed again with possible mudslides in the coming rainstorm, I drove up there this morning. It was quite a sight to see mile after mile of grey and black hillsides from the Station Fire. I noted that lots of new growth was here and there, such as sprouts from Laurel Sumac, and chamise, and grasses.
I wanted to see Switzers, so I parked there along the road, and happened to see my great mechanic, Raz from Eagle Rock. He was all smiles and telling me about his reactions to the burn.
I walked down the quiet road and examined the camp -- I was happy to see that the fire left the bridge, the outhouses, all the tables intact! The fire came right down to the river bottom in places, but didn't burn through the bottomland where all the tables and infrastructure are located.
I saw bear scat, and portions of a recently killed deer on the trail in the camp. The trail was all covered with leaves, and it all had an abandoned feel to it. But I was very happy to see the picnic area more or less intact.
I even spotted a yucca plant in full bloom, as if the fire tricked it into thinking it was April.
I took many pictures, and really enjoyed my morning jaunt. But it cost me $75 in the ticket that was on my windshield, payable to some agency in North Carolina! Oh well.....
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
THE MOMENT OF DEATH
December 9, 2008
[Part of a book I am working on about Dolores, and our life’s lessons]
It had been a tough week so far, and it was only Tuesday morning. Dolores’ left leg had continued to get swollen the last few days, while her right leg appeared thin from her weight loss of the previous month. She was still only "eating" juices, mostly frozen, and I was constantly worried that she still could not hold down anything more solid.
And I slept lightly and sporadically Monday night, as most nights the previous weeks. I had the occasional dark nightmares which would wake me up, and then I’d try to fall back into a light sleep.
I don’t recall if Dolores called me to wake me up or if I just hopped up and checked on her. But I could tell something was really wrong. Dolores seemed to be in a state of shock. It wasn’t something she said but just the way she was. I could tell she was struggling, and that she was distant. The room was cold and I was immediately upset with myself that I had allowed the fire in the corner wood stove to die down. I went to Dolores and asked if she needed anything. She seemed to have difficulty talking, and asked me to turn her from side to side, something I often did.
But this morning was different.
I felt a panic and my body was instantly in a light sweat. The room was cold but not icy. I asked
Dolores how she was. She responded that she wanted to be turned. I rolled her over to her other side. She could not get comfortable. I rolled her a few times, and she was trying hard to find a comfortable spot, which was difficult.
I told Dolores that I was going to call Prudence, that I needed help. She said no, don’t bother. I could tell that Dolores simply didn’t want to be a bother to anyone else. She knew that Prudence had to go to work and was concerned about Prudence.
"I’m going to call her," I told Dolores, for I could tell Dolores’ body was in trouble. She didn’t look right, and there was a bit of bloating. I had been hoping that Dolores would get much better and that we’d go to Hawaii. We had laughed about going to Hawaii two days earlier. Now I was panicked.
I got Dolores some of her iced juices to suck on and then I continued rolling her from side to side. She could not get comfortable.
Prudence arrived and began massaging Dolores’ bloated leg. My panic subsided, and I somehow clicked into a clinical perspective so I could keep my emotions under control. Deep inside I was crying deeply, praying deeply to whatever Life Force and gods controlled our part of the universe. I wanted Dolores to live and I wanted to continue the momentum of our renewed relationship. I knew that Dolores said she was content to do this body purging, as she called it, come what may. But I also know that she wanted to live. She often told me all of the things she still wanted to do. The publication of so many books and cards. The promotion of all the works of her mentor. The renewal of her relationship with her daughter Barbara. A second chance, she said. We had watched a movie called the Second Chance, and this made Dolores’ face so bright and alive. We both knew that we would go forward together, another chance, and that a bright future awaited us. Dolores could not die.
Prudence and I spoke little, and we worked on Dolores’ legs and body like two workers who had done this a million times. We were doing what we felt needed to be done, in accord with what Dolores was telling us. I later learned that Prudence hid her panic well, and she experienced more fear and panic than I did.
I was glad to do all that I could for Dolores. We’d lived the better part of our lives together. We’d had our ups and downs, and for better or worse, our lives were completely intertwined. I wanted Dolores to live and be healthy as naturally as I wanted that for myself.
Dolores seemed less able to guide us in what we were doing. We kept rolling her from side to side, kept on some music, and Dolores worked the swollen leg. It was exhausting, and Prudence was reaching her limit before she had to go to work. I called Julie.
Julie came quickly and we both continued to massage Dolores legs and feet. One leg was emaciated and the other was swollen. She had good sensitivity in her soles. I began to talk to Dolores constantly even though she was less and less responsive. My mind was racing. Should I call the paramedics? If I do, what if she dies in their care and doesn’t recover? Then I would not be able to fulfill her final wishes? Plus, Dolores didn’t want to go to a hospital.
Julie and I continued to turn her body from side to side, and I tried to get her to drink liquids. By 11:30 a.m., she had become unresponsive, though she kept asking me to turn her. It seemed that a sort of panic overtook Dolores’ mind, and she wanted me to roll her rapidly from side to side, as if it was impossible to be comfortable. Julie watched in silent wonder, and maybe fear.
After a half hour of this, I worked on massaging Dolores arms, and Julie worked the feet. Dolores was silent. She rolled a bit, and then I watched as Dolores seemed to pull up into herself—hard to describe. I watched as her face pulled up into itself, as there was some inner pain Dolores was experiencing. I knew she was going, but didn’t want to believe it. Her face pressed into the pillow and the elasticity that you normally see in the skin of the face wasn’t there as her face froze into a death pose. I closed her eyes, motioned to Julie that Dolores had died, and I lay down next her, and hugged her for the next 30 minutes as I could barely breathe through my choked tears. My best friend was gone.
In many significant respects, parts of me died with Dolores, and yet many parts were awakened.
[Part of a book I am working on about Dolores, and our life’s lessons]
It had been a tough week so far, and it was only Tuesday morning. Dolores’ left leg had continued to get swollen the last few days, while her right leg appeared thin from her weight loss of the previous month. She was still only "eating" juices, mostly frozen, and I was constantly worried that she still could not hold down anything more solid.
And I slept lightly and sporadically Monday night, as most nights the previous weeks. I had the occasional dark nightmares which would wake me up, and then I’d try to fall back into a light sleep.
I don’t recall if Dolores called me to wake me up or if I just hopped up and checked on her. But I could tell something was really wrong. Dolores seemed to be in a state of shock. It wasn’t something she said but just the way she was. I could tell she was struggling, and that she was distant. The room was cold and I was immediately upset with myself that I had allowed the fire in the corner wood stove to die down. I went to Dolores and asked if she needed anything. She seemed to have difficulty talking, and asked me to turn her from side to side, something I often did.
But this morning was different.
I felt a panic and my body was instantly in a light sweat. The room was cold but not icy. I asked
Dolores how she was. She responded that she wanted to be turned. I rolled her over to her other side. She could not get comfortable. I rolled her a few times, and she was trying hard to find a comfortable spot, which was difficult.
I told Dolores that I was going to call Prudence, that I needed help. She said no, don’t bother. I could tell that Dolores simply didn’t want to be a bother to anyone else. She knew that Prudence had to go to work and was concerned about Prudence.
"I’m going to call her," I told Dolores, for I could tell Dolores’ body was in trouble. She didn’t look right, and there was a bit of bloating. I had been hoping that Dolores would get much better and that we’d go to Hawaii. We had laughed about going to Hawaii two days earlier. Now I was panicked.
I got Dolores some of her iced juices to suck on and then I continued rolling her from side to side. She could not get comfortable.
Prudence arrived and began massaging Dolores’ bloated leg. My panic subsided, and I somehow clicked into a clinical perspective so I could keep my emotions under control. Deep inside I was crying deeply, praying deeply to whatever Life Force and gods controlled our part of the universe. I wanted Dolores to live and I wanted to continue the momentum of our renewed relationship. I knew that Dolores said she was content to do this body purging, as she called it, come what may. But I also know that she wanted to live. She often told me all of the things she still wanted to do. The publication of so many books and cards. The promotion of all the works of her mentor. The renewal of her relationship with her daughter Barbara. A second chance, she said. We had watched a movie called the Second Chance, and this made Dolores’ face so bright and alive. We both knew that we would go forward together, another chance, and that a bright future awaited us. Dolores could not die.
Prudence and I spoke little, and we worked on Dolores’ legs and body like two workers who had done this a million times. We were doing what we felt needed to be done, in accord with what Dolores was telling us. I later learned that Prudence hid her panic well, and she experienced more fear and panic than I did.
I was glad to do all that I could for Dolores. We’d lived the better part of our lives together. We’d had our ups and downs, and for better or worse, our lives were completely intertwined. I wanted Dolores to live and be healthy as naturally as I wanted that for myself.
Dolores seemed less able to guide us in what we were doing. We kept rolling her from side to side, kept on some music, and Dolores worked the swollen leg. It was exhausting, and Prudence was reaching her limit before she had to go to work. I called Julie.
Julie came quickly and we both continued to massage Dolores legs and feet. One leg was emaciated and the other was swollen. She had good sensitivity in her soles. I began to talk to Dolores constantly even though she was less and less responsive. My mind was racing. Should I call the paramedics? If I do, what if she dies in their care and doesn’t recover? Then I would not be able to fulfill her final wishes? Plus, Dolores didn’t want to go to a hospital.
Julie and I continued to turn her body from side to side, and I tried to get her to drink liquids. By 11:30 a.m., she had become unresponsive, though she kept asking me to turn her. It seemed that a sort of panic overtook Dolores’ mind, and she wanted me to roll her rapidly from side to side, as if it was impossible to be comfortable. Julie watched in silent wonder, and maybe fear.
After a half hour of this, I worked on massaging Dolores arms, and Julie worked the feet. Dolores was silent. She rolled a bit, and then I watched as Dolores seemed to pull up into herself—hard to describe. I watched as her face pulled up into itself, as there was some inner pain Dolores was experiencing. I knew she was going, but didn’t want to believe it. Her face pressed into the pillow and the elasticity that you normally see in the skin of the face wasn’t there as her face froze into a death pose. I closed her eyes, motioned to Julie that Dolores had died, and I lay down next her, and hugged her for the next 30 minutes as I could barely breathe through my choked tears. My best friend was gone.
In many significant respects, parts of me died with Dolores, and yet many parts were awakened.
CHRISTMAS CHEER
Memories of Christmas Season 2008
[This is one small section of a book I am writing about my life with Dolores, how we lived, and how we dealt with death.]
In the days after Dolores died, I still spent my evenings with Nami and Fikret and Nellie (the little dog that Dolores boarded), cooking dinner, sharing dinner, talking over television. Both Nami and Fikret were living in rooms in the front part of the duplex. Nami was from Tokyo, working at a Japanese firm in downtown Los Angeles while she earned her CPA license. Fikret was a student from Germany who’d be going home in a few days.
That December was dark, pressing, my mind a constricted box of sorrow and loss.
RW had earlier suggested to Dolores that she take Nami and Fikret to see the annual Griffith Park festival of lights, and Dolores had mentioned it to Fikret. I brought it up to Fikret and he wanted to go. I think he was more concerned about me getting out and "getting normal" than he was about seeing some electric light display. Anyway, he arranged with Nami to go one evening after Nami got home from work, and I drove.
I had never seen the light show either, and though I was in no mood for "joy," I wanted Nami and Fikret to feel happiness, and the joy of the season that the youth can best appreciate.
My mental state was very constrictive, narrow, even subdued horror. It was as if I’d been hit in the face with a 2x4, and I could not see beyond my shocked pain. But I tried, with great effort, to "enjoy" an evening out with Nami and Fikret as best I could. It was the weekend after Dolores died. Nami got home early from work, and it was already dark. Fikret made a very light meal – more of a snack – for everyone before we drove off to Griffith Park in my Jeep. I was preoccupied with now living a life turned upside-down, with no perception of light at the end of my tunnel.
Fikret and Nami were noticeably happy, upbeat, and they seemed to be happy to be doing something with me. Fikret had come on a few field trips with, but I’d only gone out rarely with Nami. I know they were both fully cognizant of my pain and I think they were being happy because they wanted me to be happy. I think that the lights of Griffith Park were a very minor attraction.
As we drove, we spoke about their day, and other light matters. I always enjoyed talking with Nami over dinner about what sort of day she had at work, and what new English words she learned. We drove into the large expansive parking lot east of the Los Angeles Zoo, and drove around until we saw where to park for the festival of lights. People parked their cars, and then boarded buses which set sail every 15 minutes or so, or until the buses were full. The three of us were the first to enter a bus, so we got the seats we wanted. A few adults filed in, and then a whole group of school children came in and filled the bus. The driver turned off the lights, and we were off down the two miles or so of the electric light display.
The children spontaneously sang Christmas carols at the tops of their voices. Nami and Fikret tried to follow along: Jingle Bells, Rudolph, Silent Night, all the classics. Mostly, the children sang enthusiastically and loud with lots of laughter for the first verse until the song faded as the children didn’t know the words. After loud laughter, another song would begin.
I could tell they were all having great fun, though I was barely there. I had to shut off most of my painful feelings and emotions and turn on only that part of me that was needed for ordinary interactions with others. I was glad that there was so much happiness in the world, but I was in pain.
I was in a darkness of my own, alone, as if I was severely and suddenly cut off from all that was important to me. Which was, in fact, what happened. After the light show, we returned to the Jeep, and I drove on in a stupor. I asked Nami and Fikret if they wanted to see more Christmas lights, and they said yes. Christmas Tree Lane was impressive, but monotonous to me. Nami and Fikret just said "Oohh," and "Ahhh," and "Look at those, wow!" I tried to explain the history of Christmas Tree Lane, how I grew up just around the corner, and I drove by our family home on North Los Robles.
I didn’t want to go home quite yet. "Going home" would mean that I would go back to the rear duplex alone, would sit there for awhile listening to music or watching TV, feeling the full grief of losing Dolores, by myself. It meant I would go to sleep with my grief, unable to find solace in music or TV. I would turn off the TV and music, and in the darkness I would fall into my abyss of sorrow until I awoke the next day. No, I didn’t want to go home yet.
I told Nami and Fikret that I knew of another Christmas light display and we drove across town looking for it. We never found it, but they got a tour of East Pasadena and Sierra Madre before we stopped for some snacks and finally went home.
We then went into the front kitchen when we got home, and enjoyed some cookies and coffee. We all laughed together and we watched a little bit of a Christmas movie on TV. It was a good evening overall, but it would be a long time before I could feel joy again.
[This is one small section of a book I am writing about my life with Dolores, how we lived, and how we dealt with death.]
In the days after Dolores died, I still spent my evenings with Nami and Fikret and Nellie (the little dog that Dolores boarded), cooking dinner, sharing dinner, talking over television. Both Nami and Fikret were living in rooms in the front part of the duplex. Nami was from Tokyo, working at a Japanese firm in downtown Los Angeles while she earned her CPA license. Fikret was a student from Germany who’d be going home in a few days.
That December was dark, pressing, my mind a constricted box of sorrow and loss.
RW had earlier suggested to Dolores that she take Nami and Fikret to see the annual Griffith Park festival of lights, and Dolores had mentioned it to Fikret. I brought it up to Fikret and he wanted to go. I think he was more concerned about me getting out and "getting normal" than he was about seeing some electric light display. Anyway, he arranged with Nami to go one evening after Nami got home from work, and I drove.
I had never seen the light show either, and though I was in no mood for "joy," I wanted Nami and Fikret to feel happiness, and the joy of the season that the youth can best appreciate.
My mental state was very constrictive, narrow, even subdued horror. It was as if I’d been hit in the face with a 2x4, and I could not see beyond my shocked pain. But I tried, with great effort, to "enjoy" an evening out with Nami and Fikret as best I could. It was the weekend after Dolores died. Nami got home early from work, and it was already dark. Fikret made a very light meal – more of a snack – for everyone before we drove off to Griffith Park in my Jeep. I was preoccupied with now living a life turned upside-down, with no perception of light at the end of my tunnel.
Fikret and Nami were noticeably happy, upbeat, and they seemed to be happy to be doing something with me. Fikret had come on a few field trips with, but I’d only gone out rarely with Nami. I know they were both fully cognizant of my pain and I think they were being happy because they wanted me to be happy. I think that the lights of Griffith Park were a very minor attraction.
As we drove, we spoke about their day, and other light matters. I always enjoyed talking with Nami over dinner about what sort of day she had at work, and what new English words she learned. We drove into the large expansive parking lot east of the Los Angeles Zoo, and drove around until we saw where to park for the festival of lights. People parked their cars, and then boarded buses which set sail every 15 minutes or so, or until the buses were full. The three of us were the first to enter a bus, so we got the seats we wanted. A few adults filed in, and then a whole group of school children came in and filled the bus. The driver turned off the lights, and we were off down the two miles or so of the electric light display.
The children spontaneously sang Christmas carols at the tops of their voices. Nami and Fikret tried to follow along: Jingle Bells, Rudolph, Silent Night, all the classics. Mostly, the children sang enthusiastically and loud with lots of laughter for the first verse until the song faded as the children didn’t know the words. After loud laughter, another song would begin.
I could tell they were all having great fun, though I was barely there. I had to shut off most of my painful feelings and emotions and turn on only that part of me that was needed for ordinary interactions with others. I was glad that there was so much happiness in the world, but I was in pain.
I was in a darkness of my own, alone, as if I was severely and suddenly cut off from all that was important to me. Which was, in fact, what happened. After the light show, we returned to the Jeep, and I drove on in a stupor. I asked Nami and Fikret if they wanted to see more Christmas lights, and they said yes. Christmas Tree Lane was impressive, but monotonous to me. Nami and Fikret just said "Oohh," and "Ahhh," and "Look at those, wow!" I tried to explain the history of Christmas Tree Lane, how I grew up just around the corner, and I drove by our family home on North Los Robles.
I didn’t want to go home quite yet. "Going home" would mean that I would go back to the rear duplex alone, would sit there for awhile listening to music or watching TV, feeling the full grief of losing Dolores, by myself. It meant I would go to sleep with my grief, unable to find solace in music or TV. I would turn off the TV and music, and in the darkness I would fall into my abyss of sorrow until I awoke the next day. No, I didn’t want to go home yet.
I told Nami and Fikret that I knew of another Christmas light display and we drove across town looking for it. We never found it, but they got a tour of East Pasadena and Sierra Madre before we stopped for some snacks and finally went home.
We then went into the front kitchen when we got home, and enjoyed some cookies and coffee. We all laughed together and we watched a little bit of a Christmas movie on TV. It was a good evening overall, but it would be a long time before I could feel joy again.
Friday, November 06, 2009
An Unlikely Insight
What Happened on the Roof on Columbus Day 2009
There I sat on top of the world, contemplating all of creation. I felt wonderful, enlightened, elevated. I felt one with all my dearly departed – Dolores, Cassius, Marie, Frank, Ramah, and others.
But I was not really "on top of the world" – it just seemed that way. I was taking a break from all-day roof repairs, hurrying to beat the coming rain. Full of tar and Uncle Henry’s Solar 278, I sat on the only flat spot on the roof, crossed my legs and breathed deeply. All I could see were the tops of trees and roofs of houses. It was an amazingly beautiful scene, and I could barely believe I was looking out over Los Angeles. I could have easily fooled myself into thinking I was at the border of ruralness and forest. Yet, here I was in the ‘hood, relaxing, seeing things from another perspective and suddenly Europa starts playing on the radio.
Europa. That was Ramah’s song, the song that played as our pit bull Ramah died in my arms 15 years earlier. I never fail to think of Ramah when Europa plays. I breathed deeply, and thought of Cassius Clay too, my pit bull pal who died about a year ago. I closed my eyes and felt Cassie there with me on the roof, by my side. I cried as I began to talk to Cassie, to Ramah, to Dolores, to my mother. How quickly those sounds –- that specific music – took me into the realm of all my departed dear ones. I found that I enjoyed being there with them as I sat there on the roof, and I realized that I also need to simply love more those who are still with me.
The clouds were hugs, dynamic, in shades of gray to the north as they towered over the mountain range. To the west, the clouds were breath-taking, colored in their pastel shades of pink and red by the setting sun.
I’d been feeling hectic the last few days, now rushing on a job that I’d intended to do over a longer period of time. I couldn’t tolerate another storm with leaks all over, and the weathermen were telling us to expect two to four inches of rain. One inch of rain in a 24 hour period is a lot. I was on the roof on automatic pilot. I’d neglected friends, normal niceties, preferred customs. I was in emergency mode to prepare for the rain.
Now, taking a break from this pace, relaxed in cross-legged posture on the nearly flat roof, I breathed again deeply, and let the stress flow out of me, and became one with the sound and the cloud and the wind and the coolness and the love of my dearly departed and the love of my living loved ones. My little sense of "self" dissolved into the bigger picture of "the moment." Wow, I’m alive, I thought. How wonderful that I awoke today from my dream, the "dream of life," that dream that occupies most of my mind most of the time. The dream of illusion, duty, momentum, success, and failure, and so often devoid of feeling. I let my mental words dissolve into nothingness, and became one with the dynamic reality, this moment of NOW, all around me.
I realized that I have lived so much of my life in the seeming-reality of words. Are they real? Or are they merely tools with greater or lesser clarity, greater or lesser accuracy in portraying the "what is" of life? I felt no excitement with words, with their ability to convey something, their facility to lead me into "truth," their wonderful taste and color. In this moment, I withdrew deep into my inner circle and I dissolved into this moment of awareness and I let go, and felt.
Soon, as the wind picked up and I contemplated the unfinished roof and the coming rain, I put my tar-covered gloves back on, and then got up to continue sealing the roof.
There I sat on top of the world, contemplating all of creation. I felt wonderful, enlightened, elevated. I felt one with all my dearly departed – Dolores, Cassius, Marie, Frank, Ramah, and others.
But I was not really "on top of the world" – it just seemed that way. I was taking a break from all-day roof repairs, hurrying to beat the coming rain. Full of tar and Uncle Henry’s Solar 278, I sat on the only flat spot on the roof, crossed my legs and breathed deeply. All I could see were the tops of trees and roofs of houses. It was an amazingly beautiful scene, and I could barely believe I was looking out over Los Angeles. I could have easily fooled myself into thinking I was at the border of ruralness and forest. Yet, here I was in the ‘hood, relaxing, seeing things from another perspective and suddenly Europa starts playing on the radio.
Europa. That was Ramah’s song, the song that played as our pit bull Ramah died in my arms 15 years earlier. I never fail to think of Ramah when Europa plays. I breathed deeply, and thought of Cassius Clay too, my pit bull pal who died about a year ago. I closed my eyes and felt Cassie there with me on the roof, by my side. I cried as I began to talk to Cassie, to Ramah, to Dolores, to my mother. How quickly those sounds –- that specific music – took me into the realm of all my departed dear ones. I found that I enjoyed being there with them as I sat there on the roof, and I realized that I also need to simply love more those who are still with me.
The clouds were hugs, dynamic, in shades of gray to the north as they towered over the mountain range. To the west, the clouds were breath-taking, colored in their pastel shades of pink and red by the setting sun.
I’d been feeling hectic the last few days, now rushing on a job that I’d intended to do over a longer period of time. I couldn’t tolerate another storm with leaks all over, and the weathermen were telling us to expect two to four inches of rain. One inch of rain in a 24 hour period is a lot. I was on the roof on automatic pilot. I’d neglected friends, normal niceties, preferred customs. I was in emergency mode to prepare for the rain.
Now, taking a break from this pace, relaxed in cross-legged posture on the nearly flat roof, I breathed again deeply, and let the stress flow out of me, and became one with the sound and the cloud and the wind and the coolness and the love of my dearly departed and the love of my living loved ones. My little sense of "self" dissolved into the bigger picture of "the moment." Wow, I’m alive, I thought. How wonderful that I awoke today from my dream, the "dream of life," that dream that occupies most of my mind most of the time. The dream of illusion, duty, momentum, success, and failure, and so often devoid of feeling. I let my mental words dissolve into nothingness, and became one with the dynamic reality, this moment of NOW, all around me.
I realized that I have lived so much of my life in the seeming-reality of words. Are they real? Or are they merely tools with greater or lesser clarity, greater or lesser accuracy in portraying the "what is" of life? I felt no excitement with words, with their ability to convey something, their facility to lead me into "truth," their wonderful taste and color. In this moment, I withdrew deep into my inner circle and I dissolved into this moment of awareness and I let go, and felt.
Soon, as the wind picked up and I contemplated the unfinished roof and the coming rain, I put my tar-covered gloves back on, and then got up to continue sealing the roof.
Friday, October 09, 2009
The Search for Meaning -- and Home
Sometimes I wake up in the early morning, and I sit out on the front porch, looking down on the fog that slowly ascends up the canyons. I am still far-away in my dream world, trying to make sense of the world I have just awaken to, the "real world." So often this world of ours seems to lack meaning, and I struggle with what to do each day that has meaning.
The quest to "Find Home" seems so universal that my mind dwells on that. "Home" is not a house, but it is the place where your heart resides, where your dreams can be fulfilled, where you can do that which you were destined to do. As I think of these things, I recall a poem I wrote last year. I share it with you now…
TATAVIAM SUMMER
Christopher Nyerges
In flat grassy lands hot and dry
Where mountains rose steeply to the sky
We walked narrow canyon and watched ravens fly
Along fire-burned willows that would not die.
Past acorn pancakes could smell if you try
And buckwheat mush that mama would fry.
A hot summer day, a distant hawk cries
I’m trying to see what the present denies.
Vibrant little village hundreds years ago
Down by river where the waters did flow
Sheltered by rock from the winter winds blow
Open fields where wild crops did grow
Good clay abounds, lots of ochre yellow
And asphaltum seeps back in the canyon low
Back in the willows could see hidden doe
And grew here all the reeds for crafts and show.
It’s Tataviam summer in this wild grass plain
Where men fasted in the cave out of the rain
And social structure kept you from going insane
While families collected the wild grain
It’s Tataviam summer and I’m looking for home
I’m getting tired of my civilization roam
It’s been a hard millennium away from our loam
It’s time to get back to our Tataviam home.
The quest to "Find Home" seems so universal that my mind dwells on that. "Home" is not a house, but it is the place where your heart resides, where your dreams can be fulfilled, where you can do that which you were destined to do. As I think of these things, I recall a poem I wrote last year. I share it with you now…
TATAVIAM SUMMER
Christopher Nyerges
In flat grassy lands hot and dry
Where mountains rose steeply to the sky
We walked narrow canyon and watched ravens fly
Along fire-burned willows that would not die.
Past acorn pancakes could smell if you try
And buckwheat mush that mama would fry.
A hot summer day, a distant hawk cries
I’m trying to see what the present denies.
Vibrant little village hundreds years ago
Down by river where the waters did flow
Sheltered by rock from the winter winds blow
Open fields where wild crops did grow
Good clay abounds, lots of ochre yellow
And asphaltum seeps back in the canyon low
Back in the willows could see hidden doe
And grew here all the reeds for crafts and show.
It’s Tataviam summer in this wild grass plain
Where men fasted in the cave out of the rain
And social structure kept you from going insane
While families collected the wild grain
It’s Tataviam summer and I’m looking for home
I’m getting tired of my civilization roam
It’s been a hard millennium away from our loam
It’s time to get back to our Tataviam home.
Wednesday, October 07, 2009
DOLORES' 63rd MEMORIAL BIRTHDAY
[Note: this is a bit long, but please be sure to read the final message.]
I planned a gathering to commemorate what would have been Dolores’ 63 birthday. It was for Saturday October 3, 2009, the day after her birthday. The full moon was Saturday night – it was the "harvest moon." It may have seemed like a casual gathering, but a lot of planning and preparation went into our small gathering.
Michael and I cleaned up the area around the two trees where we buried Dolores’ ashes earlier in the year, and we made sure that the many steps leading down into the Island orchard were safe and not slippery. We set down strips of carpeting on the terraces so that guests would have a place to sit. Plus, I’d noticed that a raccoon had been coming and digging around Dolores’ two Meyer lemon trees, so the layer of special rocks and quartz and handstones that I’d carefully placed under the trees was now tumbled and jumbled. So I re-aligned these specially-placed stones.
This is Dolores’ gravesite, I kept realizing. This is where I go to commune with Dolores. That is not strictly true, however, since I often feel Dolores with me while walking, while driving, while typing at home. But the grave site is still that one unique spot where her final physical remains are buried, where "she" could overlook the burial site of our three beloved dogs, Ramah, Lulu, Cassius Clay.
I invited 50 friends to join us for the October 3 event, and by Friday – Dolores’ actual birthday – I felt pretty prepared for the gathering.
I drove to the Island around 5 p.m. and set things out in the grave site. I was greeted by both Racina and Nicole, who’d arrived before me. Nicole practiced her violin while I set out pictures and burned white sage. Prudence arrived. Frank Loaiza arrived. Frank never met Dolores but seemed to know her through her writings, and through me. Helena arrived. It made me happy to see Helena, since she, Dolores, and I were partners 15 years earlier producing maybe a half-million pencils for gift shops. We had a good several-year run of the business and became close friends.
We began with a toast. We filled our cups, and as we touched them, I read the Shining Bear work called "Herbs and Meat," which Dolores orated at the closing ceremony of the 1989 commemoration of the Trail of Tears in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. I pointed to a photo that I set up by Dolores’ tree. It was Dolores reading "Herbs and Meat" in the Cherokee amphitheatre in Tahlequah.
The sun was low and it was cool, and I felt an aliveness of the spirit of Dolores as we touched our cups in that act of communion.
I then began the prepared Thinking and Destiny reading, which described each afterlife stage, and compared each lifetime to a day in our life, and compared the death stage to the sleep and dream stage each night. After looking at some photos of Dolores, I told everyone how I intended to continue some of Dolores’ life’s work, such as the corn research I’d be sharing that day.
We all then added some more quartz stones to Dolores’s grave site, and then we planted a little corn patch. For this planting, Frank Loaiza gifted an ear of blue corn that his father had raised for several generations. I had soaked the corn in water for some time, and then we each made little holes in the patch with sticks and planted our corn.
Prudence asked me if Dolores had ever worn long robes and beads. In response, I read a paper Dolores had written about how she made and sold clothes when she lived in Hawaii. Prudence said that she "saw" The Lady Dolores there with us, adorned in what appeared to be blue and maybe tan long garments and beads – like braided with her hair and falling on either side of her face. It was as if the beads were part of her hair. It looked just right.
That made me happy that someone else "felt" and "saw" Dolores presence. I couldn’t remember Dolores dressing like that though, except maybe when she did a SerpentDove reading on the Island and dressed the part like an older Native American woman.
Everyone was quiet as Nicole played beautiful sounds on her violin.
As it was getting dark, we all gathered up the hill around Dolores’ redwood table by lamps, and shared her favorite brand of pie, by Fabes, which had no processed sugar. It was a pumpkin pie, along with coffee-elixir, water, and fruit juice.
I shared some of the details about corn, and how the Hopi and others believed that humans were created way back in time from corn kernels. Plus botanists do not know the exact origins of corn, adding to its mystery.
Despina showed up and we read more of the Thinking and Destiny reading.
At the same time, Racina and Nicole glanced at each other. Nicole looked at Racina and said, "You know Dolores is present right now?" Racina nodded knowingly. A very loving and sweet Dolores proceeded to give Nicole a beautiful "soul hug" and whispered very kind thoughts about her and Christopher right into her ear. Racina then looked at Nicole and said, "Oh my gosh! Dolores is here and she is making me smile!! I just can’t stop smiling…." The next moment Dolores’ spirit lovingly moved around the table…a light and loving presence was shared by many of the guests.
And towards the end, even Mel showed up and joined in our conversation. I also read some corn-related selections from the book by Dolores’ mother, Shiyowin Miller, entitled The Winds Erase Your Footprints, a true story of Shiyo’s friend, a white woman, who married a Navajo man and moved to the Navajo reservation during the 1930s. The section I read pertained to the ma-itso, or wolf clan, which used corn pollen to "cast spells" in what was referred to as "Navajo witchcraft."
Prudence said that while I was reading this, she could "see" Dolores shielding her face with her arm, as if protecting herself from this dangerous information. I shared it to point out that all things have a "positive" and a "negative," and the passage from The Winds Erase Your Footprints described how corn pollen was used for evil purposes.
It was a wonderful gathering to commemorate the special being of Dolores, and to recognize how she affected each of us.
When Prudence, and I, and Revve Weisz further discussed the event the following day, we recognized the positive influence that Dolores was now playing in our lives.
RW pointed out something that both stunned me and made me feel uplifted. He said that there was something I should HOLD in my forethought. It was my (The Christopher’s) miraculously Loving interaction with Dolores (The Lady Dolores, as he referred to her Doer, her Divinity) that totally altered The Lady Dolores’ Doer.
We discussed that for a bit. It was obvious that my interaction with Dolores during her last days changed me, but I had not considered how I had changed her. Prudence and I both witnessed an incredible new being arise within Dolores in those last weeks.
RW added that this radical alteration of The Lady Dolores’ Doer will never be known by anyone else, because I (The Christopher) did it all alone, at a huge personal sacrifice, only to benefit The Lady Dolores and not at all "for show" to anyone else. I cried as I re-lived and re-membered those days.
It was late Sunday, and we were ready to depart. RW then shared what was a final "farewell" message from The Lady Dolores, something that Dolores conveyed psychically to him. It was her URGING for how all of us should begin interacting with each other. But it was also such a universal message that is needed by all people, that I share it here:
I planned a gathering to commemorate what would have been Dolores’ 63 birthday. It was for Saturday October 3, 2009, the day after her birthday. The full moon was Saturday night – it was the "harvest moon." It may have seemed like a casual gathering, but a lot of planning and preparation went into our small gathering.
Michael and I cleaned up the area around the two trees where we buried Dolores’ ashes earlier in the year, and we made sure that the many steps leading down into the Island orchard were safe and not slippery. We set down strips of carpeting on the terraces so that guests would have a place to sit. Plus, I’d noticed that a raccoon had been coming and digging around Dolores’ two Meyer lemon trees, so the layer of special rocks and quartz and handstones that I’d carefully placed under the trees was now tumbled and jumbled. So I re-aligned these specially-placed stones.
This is Dolores’ gravesite, I kept realizing. This is where I go to commune with Dolores. That is not strictly true, however, since I often feel Dolores with me while walking, while driving, while typing at home. But the grave site is still that one unique spot where her final physical remains are buried, where "she" could overlook the burial site of our three beloved dogs, Ramah, Lulu, Cassius Clay.
I invited 50 friends to join us for the October 3 event, and by Friday – Dolores’ actual birthday – I felt pretty prepared for the gathering.
I drove to the Island around 5 p.m. and set things out in the grave site. I was greeted by both Racina and Nicole, who’d arrived before me. Nicole practiced her violin while I set out pictures and burned white sage. Prudence arrived. Frank Loaiza arrived. Frank never met Dolores but seemed to know her through her writings, and through me. Helena arrived. It made me happy to see Helena, since she, Dolores, and I were partners 15 years earlier producing maybe a half-million pencils for gift shops. We had a good several-year run of the business and became close friends.
We began with a toast. We filled our cups, and as we touched them, I read the Shining Bear work called "Herbs and Meat," which Dolores orated at the closing ceremony of the 1989 commemoration of the Trail of Tears in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. I pointed to a photo that I set up by Dolores’ tree. It was Dolores reading "Herbs and Meat" in the Cherokee amphitheatre in Tahlequah.
The sun was low and it was cool, and I felt an aliveness of the spirit of Dolores as we touched our cups in that act of communion.
I then began the prepared Thinking and Destiny reading, which described each afterlife stage, and compared each lifetime to a day in our life, and compared the death stage to the sleep and dream stage each night. After looking at some photos of Dolores, I told everyone how I intended to continue some of Dolores’ life’s work, such as the corn research I’d be sharing that day.
We all then added some more quartz stones to Dolores’s grave site, and then we planted a little corn patch. For this planting, Frank Loaiza gifted an ear of blue corn that his father had raised for several generations. I had soaked the corn in water for some time, and then we each made little holes in the patch with sticks and planted our corn.
Prudence asked me if Dolores had ever worn long robes and beads. In response, I read a paper Dolores had written about how she made and sold clothes when she lived in Hawaii. Prudence said that she "saw" The Lady Dolores there with us, adorned in what appeared to be blue and maybe tan long garments and beads – like braided with her hair and falling on either side of her face. It was as if the beads were part of her hair. It looked just right.
That made me happy that someone else "felt" and "saw" Dolores presence. I couldn’t remember Dolores dressing like that though, except maybe when she did a SerpentDove reading on the Island and dressed the part like an older Native American woman.
Everyone was quiet as Nicole played beautiful sounds on her violin.
As it was getting dark, we all gathered up the hill around Dolores’ redwood table by lamps, and shared her favorite brand of pie, by Fabes, which had no processed sugar. It was a pumpkin pie, along with coffee-elixir, water, and fruit juice.
I shared some of the details about corn, and how the Hopi and others believed that humans were created way back in time from corn kernels. Plus botanists do not know the exact origins of corn, adding to its mystery.
Despina showed up and we read more of the Thinking and Destiny reading.
At the same time, Racina and Nicole glanced at each other. Nicole looked at Racina and said, "You know Dolores is present right now?" Racina nodded knowingly. A very loving and sweet Dolores proceeded to give Nicole a beautiful "soul hug" and whispered very kind thoughts about her and Christopher right into her ear. Racina then looked at Nicole and said, "Oh my gosh! Dolores is here and she is making me smile!! I just can’t stop smiling…." The next moment Dolores’ spirit lovingly moved around the table…a light and loving presence was shared by many of the guests.
And towards the end, even Mel showed up and joined in our conversation. I also read some corn-related selections from the book by Dolores’ mother, Shiyowin Miller, entitled The Winds Erase Your Footprints, a true story of Shiyo’s friend, a white woman, who married a Navajo man and moved to the Navajo reservation during the 1930s. The section I read pertained to the ma-itso, or wolf clan, which used corn pollen to "cast spells" in what was referred to as "Navajo witchcraft."
Prudence said that while I was reading this, she could "see" Dolores shielding her face with her arm, as if protecting herself from this dangerous information. I shared it to point out that all things have a "positive" and a "negative," and the passage from The Winds Erase Your Footprints described how corn pollen was used for evil purposes.
It was a wonderful gathering to commemorate the special being of Dolores, and to recognize how she affected each of us.
When Prudence, and I, and Revve Weisz further discussed the event the following day, we recognized the positive influence that Dolores was now playing in our lives.
RW pointed out something that both stunned me and made me feel uplifted. He said that there was something I should HOLD in my forethought. It was my (The Christopher’s) miraculously Loving interaction with Dolores (The Lady Dolores, as he referred to her Doer, her Divinity) that totally altered The Lady Dolores’ Doer.
We discussed that for a bit. It was obvious that my interaction with Dolores during her last days changed me, but I had not considered how I had changed her. Prudence and I both witnessed an incredible new being arise within Dolores in those last weeks.
RW added that this radical alteration of The Lady Dolores’ Doer will never be known by anyone else, because I (The Christopher) did it all alone, at a huge personal sacrifice, only to benefit The Lady Dolores and not at all "for show" to anyone else. I cried as I re-lived and re-membered those days.
It was late Sunday, and we were ready to depart. RW then shared what was a final "farewell" message from The Lady Dolores, something that Dolores conveyed psychically to him. It was her URGING for how all of us should begin interacting with each other. But it was also such a universal message that is needed by all people, that I share it here:
This could be the last time that I see you.
Either of us could die ere we meet again.
so please know that I deep-admire your admirable traits
and laud your ceaseless efforts to perfect your soul
and elevate your character (and that of everyone you interact with)
I hope we interact again (in this life or the next)
but if we don’t
I want you to know
my life has been enriched by having known you
and I hereby wish you Godspeed
in your sojourn through Eternity.
Either of us could die ere we meet again.
so please know that I deep-admire your admirable traits
and laud your ceaseless efforts to perfect your soul
and elevate your character (and that of everyone you interact with)
I hope we interact again (in this life or the next)
but if we don’t
I want you to know
my life has been enriched by having known you
and I hereby wish you Godspeed
in your sojourn through Eternity.
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
FATHER'S DAY 2009
by Christopher Nyerges
When my father’s 80th birthday coincided with Father’s Day some years ago, I wrote a pictorial booklet for my father which outlined key aspects of our life together. It was my way of thanking my father. My wife Dolores and I went to his home after the wild cacophonous family gathering had ended. We didn’t want an audience in an atmosphere of laugher, sarcasm, and possibly ridicule. I only wanted to share the thank you story with my father in a somewhat serious atmosphere.
Dolores and I brought some special foods, put on some music, and I began my short presentation beginning with my earliest significant memories. I shared with him my memories of how he told me I would be an artist when I grew up. He always told me to put my bike and toys away, so "the boogeyman" wouldn’t steal them. As I grew older, I learned that the world was indeed full of very real "boogeymen" and my father attempted to provide me with ways to protect myself against these unsavory elements of life.
I recalled to my father, while my mother and Dolores listened on, the birthday party adventures, getting hair cuts in the garage, and how my father tolerated my interest in mycology and wild edibles.
Everyone found the recounting amusing, even funny, but there were also tears mixed with the laughter. As with most memories, some things my father recalled quite differently from me, and some he didn’t recall at all. Some things that I saw as life-and-death serious, he saw as humorous, and vice versa.
But above it all, I felt I’d finally "connected" with him at age 80 in a way that I’d never managed to do before. My "fathers day card" wasn’t pre-made by a card company, but consisted of my own private and secret memories that I shared with him. I managed to thank him for doing all the things that I took for granted – a roof over my head, meals, an education, a relatively stable home.
Of course, all our family members – "insiders" – knew that my father was no saint. But I was at least acknowledging the good, and sincerely thanking him for it.
My mother died two years later, and we all knew my father would be lost without her. They’d been married over 50 years. His health and activities declined and he finally passed away on the Ides of March a few years later.
Though his death did not come as a surprise – I was nevertheless left feeling his absence. That early Saturday morning when I learned of his death, I even felt parent-less. My view of the world changed and I was forced to acknowledge the limits of life and the futility of pursuing solely a material existence.
After I learned of his death via a phone call, I walked out into the morning rain, in shock, crying, thinking, remembering. I was not feeling cold or wet, and somehow I was protected by that unique state of mind that enshrouded me.
During the next three days, I did as I had done with my mother when she died. I spent the next three days reviewing my life with my father.
At first I allowed the random memories and pain to wash over me. I talked to Frank constantly during those three days, inviting and allowing him to be with me as we did the life review together. I felt his pain, his frustration, his emptiness and loneliness in his last few years of life. I did nothing to stop the pain of this – I allowed myself to feel it all.
I spoke to Frank as I’d speak to anyone living. I felt his presence and even his responses. I did this for myself as much as for Frank and his on-going journey.
I began to see him as a young man, who met, fell in love, and married my mother. Somehow, this was a major revelation to me. I had never seen my own father in that light before. He had simply been "my father." Suddenly, he was a unique individual, with his own dreams, aspirations, and goals. Amazingly, I’d never viewed him in this way during our life together.
And then, after perhaps 12 hours of this, and miles of walking, I began a more chronological review of my life with my father, point by point by significant point. I saw his weaknesses and strengths, as well as my own. As I did this review, I looked for all the things that I’d done right with my father, all the things I’d done wrong, and all the things that I could have done better. I wrote these down, and the "wrong" list was shockingly long. The "right" list only contained a few items!
I asked my father to forgive me, and I resolved to do certain things differently in order to change and improve my character. I know I would not have imposed such a rigor upon myself had it not been for the death of my father.
A week later, when there was the funeral at the church, I felt that I’d come to know my father more than I ever was able to do in life. I briefly shared to the congregation my three days of "being with" my father, and learning what it was like to be Frank, in his shoes, and how we forgave one another.
More importantly, I shared to family and friends gathered that day the importance of constantly finding the time to tell your living loved ones that you indeed love them, not waiting until they die to say the things that you should be saying all along.
I remember Frank now on Father’s Day, and continue to express my heart-felt thanks for all that he – and my mother – gave to me.
When my father’s 80th birthday coincided with Father’s Day some years ago, I wrote a pictorial booklet for my father which outlined key aspects of our life together. It was my way of thanking my father. My wife Dolores and I went to his home after the wild cacophonous family gathering had ended. We didn’t want an audience in an atmosphere of laugher, sarcasm, and possibly ridicule. I only wanted to share the thank you story with my father in a somewhat serious atmosphere.
Dolores and I brought some special foods, put on some music, and I began my short presentation beginning with my earliest significant memories. I shared with him my memories of how he told me I would be an artist when I grew up. He always told me to put my bike and toys away, so "the boogeyman" wouldn’t steal them. As I grew older, I learned that the world was indeed full of very real "boogeymen" and my father attempted to provide me with ways to protect myself against these unsavory elements of life.
I recalled to my father, while my mother and Dolores listened on, the birthday party adventures, getting hair cuts in the garage, and how my father tolerated my interest in mycology and wild edibles.
Everyone found the recounting amusing, even funny, but there were also tears mixed with the laughter. As with most memories, some things my father recalled quite differently from me, and some he didn’t recall at all. Some things that I saw as life-and-death serious, he saw as humorous, and vice versa.
But above it all, I felt I’d finally "connected" with him at age 80 in a way that I’d never managed to do before. My "fathers day card" wasn’t pre-made by a card company, but consisted of my own private and secret memories that I shared with him. I managed to thank him for doing all the things that I took for granted – a roof over my head, meals, an education, a relatively stable home.
Of course, all our family members – "insiders" – knew that my father was no saint. But I was at least acknowledging the good, and sincerely thanking him for it.
My mother died two years later, and we all knew my father would be lost without her. They’d been married over 50 years. His health and activities declined and he finally passed away on the Ides of March a few years later.
Though his death did not come as a surprise – I was nevertheless left feeling his absence. That early Saturday morning when I learned of his death, I even felt parent-less. My view of the world changed and I was forced to acknowledge the limits of life and the futility of pursuing solely a material existence.
After I learned of his death via a phone call, I walked out into the morning rain, in shock, crying, thinking, remembering. I was not feeling cold or wet, and somehow I was protected by that unique state of mind that enshrouded me.
During the next three days, I did as I had done with my mother when she died. I spent the next three days reviewing my life with my father.
At first I allowed the random memories and pain to wash over me. I talked to Frank constantly during those three days, inviting and allowing him to be with me as we did the life review together. I felt his pain, his frustration, his emptiness and loneliness in his last few years of life. I did nothing to stop the pain of this – I allowed myself to feel it all.
I spoke to Frank as I’d speak to anyone living. I felt his presence and even his responses. I did this for myself as much as for Frank and his on-going journey.
I began to see him as a young man, who met, fell in love, and married my mother. Somehow, this was a major revelation to me. I had never seen my own father in that light before. He had simply been "my father." Suddenly, he was a unique individual, with his own dreams, aspirations, and goals. Amazingly, I’d never viewed him in this way during our life together.
And then, after perhaps 12 hours of this, and miles of walking, I began a more chronological review of my life with my father, point by point by significant point. I saw his weaknesses and strengths, as well as my own. As I did this review, I looked for all the things that I’d done right with my father, all the things I’d done wrong, and all the things that I could have done better. I wrote these down, and the "wrong" list was shockingly long. The "right" list only contained a few items!
I asked my father to forgive me, and I resolved to do certain things differently in order to change and improve my character. I know I would not have imposed such a rigor upon myself had it not been for the death of my father.
A week later, when there was the funeral at the church, I felt that I’d come to know my father more than I ever was able to do in life. I briefly shared to the congregation my three days of "being with" my father, and learning what it was like to be Frank, in his shoes, and how we forgave one another.
More importantly, I shared to family and friends gathered that day the importance of constantly finding the time to tell your living loved ones that you indeed love them, not waiting until they die to say the things that you should be saying all along.
I remember Frank now on Father’s Day, and continue to express my heart-felt thanks for all that he – and my mother – gave to me.
Monday, March 09, 2009
CRISIS OR OPPORTUNITY?
FINDING THE REAL WORLD BEYOND THE MONETARY WEBBERY
Money. Greed. Fear. The three horsemen of the new apocalypse. Everyone wants a scapegoat – the bankers, Bush, Obama, The Fed, the highly-paid CEOs. But in our zeal to find someone to crucify, we forget that all of us played a role in this economic crisis. Greed fueled the “housing boom” that had to inevitably crash.
An acquaintance told me during the height of the dizziness, “I can’t afford to NOT use all that equity in my home,” as he refinanced his way to debt. “That’s MY equity,” he assured me, not even realizing that “home equity” is a phantom asset. Where did we lose the notion that it is sound and wise to pay off our loans?
In our book “Extreme Simplicity: Homesteading in the City,” we shared in the last chapter some of the illusions of money that most of us carry around with us every day in our brains. We shared our perspective of something called “the four illusions of money,” which we originally read about in the 1979-80 Co-Evolution Quarterly.
One of these illusions is that if we have a lot of money, we will be free to do whatever it is that we feel we want to do. Of course, few people who are victims of this mental illusion ever define what they mean by “a lot” of money, and – amazingly – few take the time to specifically define those things that they “want to do.” I say amazingly, because how can one ever achieve any goal if you have not carefully and specifically defined the goal?
And the reason this idea is an illusion is because when we focus upon money – an abstraction – we tend to then lose sight of the fact that money is a tool to achieve some other goal. How and when did the acquisition of money become a goal in itself?
Of course, in a modern society, everyone has daily needs which are most readily met by money: paying rent or mortgages, buying food, medical needs for the family and children, insurance, gasoline for the car, clothes, etc. These are not the things I am speaking about.
I am referring to the need for us to define, personally, our short-term and long-term goals. Also, we should – perhaps even daily – continue to ask ourselves: What is the meaning of life? Why do I do what I do all day? Am I fulfilling whatever it is that I was born to do? If not, what can and should I do?
I strongly urge you all to read these details in the “Extreme Simplicity” book – and you can get the book from our store at www.ChristopherNyerges.com, or you can get it at Amazon, or any bookstore which can order it.
But here is one way to break free from this particular monetary illusion. List several of your important goals in life. You cannot list “making more money” as one of your goals. Yes, money may help you to achieve your goals more quickly, but you cannot list earning more money as a goal. List those things that you want to do, or achieve, or those skills that you want to master.
List each of these goals on a separate piece of paper. Next, write a simple series of steps that you can see yourself actually doing that leads you in the direction of achieving that goal. Do not list money on this list.
Your steps for achieving your goals should include some of the following: Asking others to work with you to achieve your goals. Asking others to give you things that you need to achieve the goal, or barter with you for objects you need. Consider ways to trade your time or labor so that someone else can give you things or trade consultation or labor so that you might achieve your goals. See?
Begin to see the real world, apart from the webbery of money, and see the people in your life who can work with you to achieve your goals.
Those of you who take these steps, and move forward towards your goals, will find that world seems like an entirely different place. You will discover your brother, and you will find that when two or more of you are working cooperatively towards a meaningful goal, your life will be richer, more meaningful, and your fulfillment will come in the journey.
Money. Greed. Fear. The three horsemen of the new apocalypse. Everyone wants a scapegoat – the bankers, Bush, Obama, The Fed, the highly-paid CEOs. But in our zeal to find someone to crucify, we forget that all of us played a role in this economic crisis. Greed fueled the “housing boom” that had to inevitably crash.
An acquaintance told me during the height of the dizziness, “I can’t afford to NOT use all that equity in my home,” as he refinanced his way to debt. “That’s MY equity,” he assured me, not even realizing that “home equity” is a phantom asset. Where did we lose the notion that it is sound and wise to pay off our loans?
In our book “Extreme Simplicity: Homesteading in the City,” we shared in the last chapter some of the illusions of money that most of us carry around with us every day in our brains. We shared our perspective of something called “the four illusions of money,” which we originally read about in the 1979-80 Co-Evolution Quarterly.
One of these illusions is that if we have a lot of money, we will be free to do whatever it is that we feel we want to do. Of course, few people who are victims of this mental illusion ever define what they mean by “a lot” of money, and – amazingly – few take the time to specifically define those things that they “want to do.” I say amazingly, because how can one ever achieve any goal if you have not carefully and specifically defined the goal?
And the reason this idea is an illusion is because when we focus upon money – an abstraction – we tend to then lose sight of the fact that money is a tool to achieve some other goal. How and when did the acquisition of money become a goal in itself?
Of course, in a modern society, everyone has daily needs which are most readily met by money: paying rent or mortgages, buying food, medical needs for the family and children, insurance, gasoline for the car, clothes, etc. These are not the things I am speaking about.
I am referring to the need for us to define, personally, our short-term and long-term goals. Also, we should – perhaps even daily – continue to ask ourselves: What is the meaning of life? Why do I do what I do all day? Am I fulfilling whatever it is that I was born to do? If not, what can and should I do?
I strongly urge you all to read these details in the “Extreme Simplicity” book – and you can get the book from our store at www.ChristopherNyerges.com, or you can get it at Amazon, or any bookstore which can order it.
But here is one way to break free from this particular monetary illusion. List several of your important goals in life. You cannot list “making more money” as one of your goals. Yes, money may help you to achieve your goals more quickly, but you cannot list earning more money as a goal. List those things that you want to do, or achieve, or those skills that you want to master.
List each of these goals on a separate piece of paper. Next, write a simple series of steps that you can see yourself actually doing that leads you in the direction of achieving that goal. Do not list money on this list.
Your steps for achieving your goals should include some of the following: Asking others to work with you to achieve your goals. Asking others to give you things that you need to achieve the goal, or barter with you for objects you need. Consider ways to trade your time or labor so that someone else can give you things or trade consultation or labor so that you might achieve your goals. See?
Begin to see the real world, apart from the webbery of money, and see the people in your life who can work with you to achieve your goals.
Those of you who take these steps, and move forward towards your goals, will find that world seems like an entirely different place. You will discover your brother, and you will find that when two or more of you are working cooperatively towards a meaningful goal, your life will be richer, more meaningful, and your fulfillment will come in the journey.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
DOING THE BIRTHDAY RUN
How I reviewed my life one year at a time
By Christopher Nyerges
[Nyerges teaches classes in practical survival, is the editor of Wilderness Way magazine, and the author of "How to Survive Anywhere," and other books. He can be reached at www.ChristopherNyerges.com]
My new year came Sunday, January 11, my date of birth. So that’s my personal New Year. As has been my custom, I did a birthday run where I run one lap around a track for each year, and review that year as I run. In a sense, I run through my life, looking back at where I started, where I went, what’s happened in between, and seeking whatever lessons I can.
This year, I didn’t do laps around a track, but ran up and down a dirt driveway for each "lap," a distance of about a fifth of a mile.
For me, 2008 had been a year of pain – losing my dog of 17 years on Easter Sunday, and losing my wife of 22years in early December. Christmas and New Year’s burned by in the time warp I was in, not wanting another close person to be gone. I focused hard as I ran my birthday run, trying to re-live my life, trying to really feel, again, what I felt back then, and my pain came back.
My first awareness of being born was that something was very wrong, that I came from some very holy sacred place and now I was back in a human body on this Dark Age planet. I cried uncontrollaby as I ran, just as I did in my first few years of incoherence and confusion. Yet, I slowly learned what it was to be human, and though I never grew out of my feeling of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and forever out of the loop, I learned the ways of man, of deceit, of double-talk, lies, beguilement.
I’d forgotten – until I did my life-review run – that I once knew that I came from some level of purity and Innocence, then descended to human-ness, and then I worked to learn how to "fit in" to the ways of the grown up world. As I ran each lap, I tried hard to just feel it, and to find the lessons that I still needed to learn.
I remember visiting my grandfather in Ohio, and how he yelled at my mother for some petty thing. I was only a child, but I never forgot that puzzling scene. I somehow thought that getting older meant that people grew wiser, more respectful, more controlled – but this was merely one experience that taught me that was not so.
I remembered as a teen stealing cigarettes and other things at local stores, and eventually getting involved in marijuana for a short while. Both my parents were working and there was no one watching. I looked up to the neighborhood "bad boys" who smoked and swore and stole things, and were it not for getting caught and exposed, I could have stayed on that pointless, nowhere path of crime.
Fortunately, I went through some sort of internal renaissance at age 14, and began taking martial arts classes, learning music, and studying Buddhism and philosophy. I saw that I knew next to nothing, and still I looked positively to the future. At age 54 as I ran, I could see that the past is very much alive in all I we do now, and the future is already written by what I think, and do, and feel as I live each moment.
I found I could do my birthday run with mental eyes wide open, facing all my fears, and perceptions of inadequacy.
In high school, I entered into the world of ideas, and the vast potential good that was available for the world if people – if I – lived ecological lives, though I was too naieve at that time to see the vast overwhelming influence of the pursuit of money in most of us.
I constantly felt the frustration of never really learning anything in school, but I learned to play the game, and learned how to play at journalism so that I could write and share ideas. I didn’t learn how to think, nor did I receive any moral rudder of any sort while in school. I simply learned about the tools I needed in order to go forward.
As I ran, I reviewed my travels, seeking something, rarely finding it. I reviewed my search for "real community," and my various successes in this regard. I felt so happy reviewing the time Dolores and I drove all the way to Oklahoma to take part in the 150th commemoration of the Trail of Tears, and Dolores spoke to the gathered audience with a Shining Bear reading. The whole trip was a magical dream.
Amazingly, I came to the realization that I wasted a vast portion of my life in the pointless pursuit of sex, or whatever I thought that meant. I was too dumb most of the time, too driven by my own animal nature, to cognize the difference between Love and Sex. Even studying Eric Fromm’s classic "Art of Loving" – though a step in the right direction – only began to reveal to me that "love" is not what we are shown on TV shows. True love fulfills, yet only sex is fleeting, and a terrible waste of time, and often a destroyer of families and neighborhoods. It was sobering as I ran to see that dark side of sex all throughout my life, something that I have only slowly been able to deal with.
In the last 10 years, I felt both uplifted by my work, and depressed by my own weaknesses and deficiencies. My separation from Dolores was a source of great sadness, but that sadness was later replaced by the inner enlightened joy of two people, respecting each other, freely coming together for certain goals. We worked together for some of the public gatherings we conducted at our WTI non-profit, and many writings, and other projects. So when Dolores made her final transition in December of last year, I felt both devastated, and forced to review all that was good, all that would take me into the future with the world we created.
So many lessons flowed from this run that it would take a book to record them all –most very personal lessons. I remember thinking that Dolores had created a wonderful life for herself, and that I wanted to do the same, and still want that. I also took faith in a quote from Michael Savage, that "Work is the only salvation."
By Christopher Nyerges
[Nyerges teaches classes in practical survival, is the editor of Wilderness Way magazine, and the author of "How to Survive Anywhere," and other books. He can be reached at www.ChristopherNyerges.com]
My new year came Sunday, January 11, my date of birth. So that’s my personal New Year. As has been my custom, I did a birthday run where I run one lap around a track for each year, and review that year as I run. In a sense, I run through my life, looking back at where I started, where I went, what’s happened in between, and seeking whatever lessons I can.
This year, I didn’t do laps around a track, but ran up and down a dirt driveway for each "lap," a distance of about a fifth of a mile.
For me, 2008 had been a year of pain – losing my dog of 17 years on Easter Sunday, and losing my wife of 22years in early December. Christmas and New Year’s burned by in the time warp I was in, not wanting another close person to be gone. I focused hard as I ran my birthday run, trying to re-live my life, trying to really feel, again, what I felt back then, and my pain came back.
My first awareness of being born was that something was very wrong, that I came from some very holy sacred place and now I was back in a human body on this Dark Age planet. I cried uncontrollaby as I ran, just as I did in my first few years of incoherence and confusion. Yet, I slowly learned what it was to be human, and though I never grew out of my feeling of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and forever out of the loop, I learned the ways of man, of deceit, of double-talk, lies, beguilement.
I’d forgotten – until I did my life-review run – that I once knew that I came from some level of purity and Innocence, then descended to human-ness, and then I worked to learn how to "fit in" to the ways of the grown up world. As I ran each lap, I tried hard to just feel it, and to find the lessons that I still needed to learn.
I remember visiting my grandfather in Ohio, and how he yelled at my mother for some petty thing. I was only a child, but I never forgot that puzzling scene. I somehow thought that getting older meant that people grew wiser, more respectful, more controlled – but this was merely one experience that taught me that was not so.
I remembered as a teen stealing cigarettes and other things at local stores, and eventually getting involved in marijuana for a short while. Both my parents were working and there was no one watching. I looked up to the neighborhood "bad boys" who smoked and swore and stole things, and were it not for getting caught and exposed, I could have stayed on that pointless, nowhere path of crime.
Fortunately, I went through some sort of internal renaissance at age 14, and began taking martial arts classes, learning music, and studying Buddhism and philosophy. I saw that I knew next to nothing, and still I looked positively to the future. At age 54 as I ran, I could see that the past is very much alive in all I we do now, and the future is already written by what I think, and do, and feel as I live each moment.
I found I could do my birthday run with mental eyes wide open, facing all my fears, and perceptions of inadequacy.
In high school, I entered into the world of ideas, and the vast potential good that was available for the world if people – if I – lived ecological lives, though I was too naieve at that time to see the vast overwhelming influence of the pursuit of money in most of us.
I constantly felt the frustration of never really learning anything in school, but I learned to play the game, and learned how to play at journalism so that I could write and share ideas. I didn’t learn how to think, nor did I receive any moral rudder of any sort while in school. I simply learned about the tools I needed in order to go forward.
As I ran, I reviewed my travels, seeking something, rarely finding it. I reviewed my search for "real community," and my various successes in this regard. I felt so happy reviewing the time Dolores and I drove all the way to Oklahoma to take part in the 150th commemoration of the Trail of Tears, and Dolores spoke to the gathered audience with a Shining Bear reading. The whole trip was a magical dream.
Amazingly, I came to the realization that I wasted a vast portion of my life in the pointless pursuit of sex, or whatever I thought that meant. I was too dumb most of the time, too driven by my own animal nature, to cognize the difference between Love and Sex. Even studying Eric Fromm’s classic "Art of Loving" – though a step in the right direction – only began to reveal to me that "love" is not what we are shown on TV shows. True love fulfills, yet only sex is fleeting, and a terrible waste of time, and often a destroyer of families and neighborhoods. It was sobering as I ran to see that dark side of sex all throughout my life, something that I have only slowly been able to deal with.
In the last 10 years, I felt both uplifted by my work, and depressed by my own weaknesses and deficiencies. My separation from Dolores was a source of great sadness, but that sadness was later replaced by the inner enlightened joy of two people, respecting each other, freely coming together for certain goals. We worked together for some of the public gatherings we conducted at our WTI non-profit, and many writings, and other projects. So when Dolores made her final transition in December of last year, I felt both devastated, and forced to review all that was good, all that would take me into the future with the world we created.
So many lessons flowed from this run that it would take a book to record them all –most very personal lessons. I remember thinking that Dolores had created a wonderful life for herself, and that I wanted to do the same, and still want that. I also took faith in a quote from Michael Savage, that "Work is the only salvation."
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
What Happened on the Massage Table
Falling into inner space
It was already getting dark at the Highland Park farmers market, and my back was hurting me from all the running I’d done two days earlier. My birthday was two days earlier and I followed my two-decades long custom of doing a birthday run where I ran a lap for each year of my life, as I mentally reviewed that year. It had been an awesome run which took me two hours. Anyway, I told my assistant that I was going to get a massage at the shiatsu booth at the market. My back was killing me. Plus I was thinking about my wife Dolores – it had been over a month since she passed away, but I was still missing her very much.
Chiyoki had me lie down on her massage table, and I instantly felt some relief just by lying down. Then she went to work, first on my scalp and then working her way down my back. There’s something about pushing, squeezing, working the flesh and muscle – it was simultaneously painful and enlightening. Something about the pain I was experiencing, both mentally and physically, allowed me to enter into some other twilight-zonish space where time didn’t exist. Maybe the massaging released certain chemicals into my bloodstream and brain – I don’t know. But as Chiyoki continued to twist my arms and knead my back as if it were dough, my mind went into early childhood memories as vivid as yesterday’s breakfast.
I was sitting in the kitchen late at night with my mother, talking about all the things we used to talk about when everyone else was asleep. I would be trying to identify plants that I’d collected that day with my many books, while my mother would drink tea and read her newspapers and magazines. "How can God have had no beginning?" I would ask her. "How can the Pope be infallible?" I would ask her. We discussed these matters at length, and she would often say that I should ask the priest. But later, when word got back to her that I was debating the parish priest, she would yell at me and say "Who do you think you are, talking back to the priest?" It was a pleasant memory, whether we agreed or not, since we could sit there and talk, and she died about 10 years ago.
Time was non-existant as Chiyoki worked my back, and the incense from the next booth wafted over me, reminding me of being an altar boy at the Catholic church, and getting up early before school to practice and to help the priest say Mass. Why was I thinking of that? Was it merely the smell of incense triggering a memory? I thought long and hard about spiritual matters of that sort, and was once serious about going into the priesthood, but something along the way disillusioned me. The past was no less alive then as it was now, as the thoughts and ideas coursed through my consciousness, as the music of the Vera Cruz singers down the block rang out and reminded me of travels to Mexico.
Chiyoki began pulling each arm into the middle of my back and I was about to scream, but I just let her do it. I felt my body needed it. And as I relaxed into the pain, I was climbing the Pyramid of the Sun again, standing at the top as I did in 1974, wondering about the people who planned and built such majesty, and wondering what happened to it all. Past, present, future -- all aspects of the same reality. We think, we build, we live, we die. Our parents and families form our character, and then we make choices, and then we do whatever it is that we were genetically destined to do. What was I destined to do, I thought at the top of the pyramid? Does all life, and all culture, end? If so, what is the point of it all?
I was experiencing some sort of mental free-fall, an internal Fellini movie, highlights of memorable conversations, meetings, endings, as the incense flowed, and the singing rang through the street, while my muscles were being given a good beating.
"OK, all done," she finally told me. I got up, put on my hat, and walked back into the market, realizing once again the illusion of time, and the reality that nothing matters in and of itself, but only how we approach what we do, and whether or not we learn from life.
-- Christopher
It was already getting dark at the Highland Park farmers market, and my back was hurting me from all the running I’d done two days earlier. My birthday was two days earlier and I followed my two-decades long custom of doing a birthday run where I ran a lap for each year of my life, as I mentally reviewed that year. It had been an awesome run which took me two hours. Anyway, I told my assistant that I was going to get a massage at the shiatsu booth at the market. My back was killing me. Plus I was thinking about my wife Dolores – it had been over a month since she passed away, but I was still missing her very much.
Chiyoki had me lie down on her massage table, and I instantly felt some relief just by lying down. Then she went to work, first on my scalp and then working her way down my back. There’s something about pushing, squeezing, working the flesh and muscle – it was simultaneously painful and enlightening. Something about the pain I was experiencing, both mentally and physically, allowed me to enter into some other twilight-zonish space where time didn’t exist. Maybe the massaging released certain chemicals into my bloodstream and brain – I don’t know. But as Chiyoki continued to twist my arms and knead my back as if it were dough, my mind went into early childhood memories as vivid as yesterday’s breakfast.
I was sitting in the kitchen late at night with my mother, talking about all the things we used to talk about when everyone else was asleep. I would be trying to identify plants that I’d collected that day with my many books, while my mother would drink tea and read her newspapers and magazines. "How can God have had no beginning?" I would ask her. "How can the Pope be infallible?" I would ask her. We discussed these matters at length, and she would often say that I should ask the priest. But later, when word got back to her that I was debating the parish priest, she would yell at me and say "Who do you think you are, talking back to the priest?" It was a pleasant memory, whether we agreed or not, since we could sit there and talk, and she died about 10 years ago.
Time was non-existant as Chiyoki worked my back, and the incense from the next booth wafted over me, reminding me of being an altar boy at the Catholic church, and getting up early before school to practice and to help the priest say Mass. Why was I thinking of that? Was it merely the smell of incense triggering a memory? I thought long and hard about spiritual matters of that sort, and was once serious about going into the priesthood, but something along the way disillusioned me. The past was no less alive then as it was now, as the thoughts and ideas coursed through my consciousness, as the music of the Vera Cruz singers down the block rang out and reminded me of travels to Mexico.
Chiyoki began pulling each arm into the middle of my back and I was about to scream, but I just let her do it. I felt my body needed it. And as I relaxed into the pain, I was climbing the Pyramid of the Sun again, standing at the top as I did in 1974, wondering about the people who planned and built such majesty, and wondering what happened to it all. Past, present, future -- all aspects of the same reality. We think, we build, we live, we die. Our parents and families form our character, and then we make choices, and then we do whatever it is that we were genetically destined to do. What was I destined to do, I thought at the top of the pyramid? Does all life, and all culture, end? If so, what is the point of it all?
I was experiencing some sort of mental free-fall, an internal Fellini movie, highlights of memorable conversations, meetings, endings, as the incense flowed, and the singing rang through the street, while my muscles were being given a good beating.
"OK, all done," she finally told me. I got up, put on my hat, and walked back into the market, realizing once again the illusion of time, and the reality that nothing matters in and of itself, but only how we approach what we do, and whether or not we learn from life.
-- Christopher
Monday, October 06, 2008
Brother Can You Spare Some Change?
A current social commentary
By Christopher Nyerges
They’re telling us on the radio
That change is coming soon
They seem to think that they’re talking to
People living on the moon.
O brother can you spare some change?
I ain’t eaten since noon
The police have made me change my tune
I’ve changed three times since noon.
They’re telling us on the TV
That change is coming soon
I saw the guy who was talking fast
He was born with a silver spoon.
Another bum hit me on the head
He sure looked like a goon
He took what little change that I did have
And he contributed to my ruin.
They’re telling us in the papers
That change is coming soon
They’re lying to us through their red-tie suit
they sound like the outcasts of Dune.
O brother can you spare a dime
I’ve missed a meal another time
I’ve moved my tent three times since full moon
And they’re saying change is coming soon.
They’re telling us on the internet
That change is coming soon
but with no change in my pocket
I can’t even buy a prune.
Please take me to your leader
My life is full of changing tune
I don’t know where I am anymore
I feel like I’m living on the moon.
My life is full of too much change
But I can’t even buy an apple core.
I see the men in their clean suits
But each looks like a whore.
I’m staring out the window
Of the blue bus going downtown
The world was changing around me
There’s just too much change goin’ round.
They’re telling us on the street corner
That change is all the rage
I can’t live forever in the alley
I’m much too old for my age.
But these men in spotless suits and ties
From their open mouths do flow their lies
They speak with straight face and smile
That change will be here in a while
They’re telling us on the billboards
The world’s coming to an end
I don’t have enough change for a sandwich
But there’s plenty for the bailout to lend.
I long so much for the good old days
Back when no one even had a fridge
Back when Wall Street’s big bust hit
and bankers jumped from every bridge.
They’re telling us on the radio
That change is coming soon
They seem to think that they’re talking to
People living on the moon.
092508 – all the talk of change, while the homeless ask me for change, and banks are failing every day – change is certain…
By Christopher Nyerges
They’re telling us on the radio
That change is coming soon
They seem to think that they’re talking to
People living on the moon.
O brother can you spare some change?
I ain’t eaten since noon
The police have made me change my tune
I’ve changed three times since noon.
They’re telling us on the TV
That change is coming soon
I saw the guy who was talking fast
He was born with a silver spoon.
Another bum hit me on the head
He sure looked like a goon
He took what little change that I did have
And he contributed to my ruin.
They’re telling us in the papers
That change is coming soon
They’re lying to us through their red-tie suit
they sound like the outcasts of Dune.
O brother can you spare a dime
I’ve missed a meal another time
I’ve moved my tent three times since full moon
And they’re saying change is coming soon.
They’re telling us on the internet
That change is coming soon
but with no change in my pocket
I can’t even buy a prune.
Please take me to your leader
My life is full of changing tune
I don’t know where I am anymore
I feel like I’m living on the moon.
My life is full of too much change
But I can’t even buy an apple core.
I see the men in their clean suits
But each looks like a whore.
I’m staring out the window
Of the blue bus going downtown
The world was changing around me
There’s just too much change goin’ round.
They’re telling us on the street corner
That change is all the rage
I can’t live forever in the alley
I’m much too old for my age.
But these men in spotless suits and ties
From their open mouths do flow their lies
They speak with straight face and smile
That change will be here in a while
They’re telling us on the billboards
The world’s coming to an end
I don’t have enough change for a sandwich
But there’s plenty for the bailout to lend.
I long so much for the good old days
Back when no one even had a fridge
Back when Wall Street’s big bust hit
and bankers jumped from every bridge.
They’re telling us on the radio
That change is coming soon
They seem to think that they’re talking to
People living on the moon.
092508 – all the talk of change, while the homeless ask me for change, and banks are failing every day – change is certain…
THE SINKING SHIP
Copyright Christopher Nyerges
Commentary on our current state of society
We’re whirly giggling very fast
Gotta hurry make these profits fast
No time for boring prophets past
Wear white robes, said first will be last
Today we seek the dollar profit
So from his pulpit throw him off it
We no longer need to rough it
Tell the preachers they should stuff it
We’re bright future moving fast
Hair that shines, polyester pants
Cut down more trees to build our plants
Try to ignore Ed Begley’s rants
Our great profit must be vast
Cuz we’re number one, future and past
What matters fresh? Let food be gassed
If dollars there, we’d mine Mt. Shast’
Wild land is a thing I hate
It’s non-performing real estate
Tree-hugging is a weakness trait
Save them a tree for go-away bait
O ye who control the fate
Of our vast land and of the state
Humbly look to what your action’s worth
Can’t you see beyond your wide girth
Don’t you see what your thoughts give birth
Your greed it makes a hell on earth
This greed it now is a pervasive thing
It causes us to no more sing
We hide inside our computer king
And no more does our mind take wing
We’re slaves indeed, our brain’s in sling
No more good fortune does tooth fairy bring
The mystery’s gone and no more awe
Our world is tightened by obey law
Mindlessly with spiritual flaw
Would choke us to death if we only saw
The ever-tightening order control
Little by little heads do roll
We pretend it won’t destroy our soul
But our lives become more grassy knolls
Computer chips, and credit cards
Cell phones, ipods, make us dullards
Our minds drained, no more chance for Bards
We open embrace our prison guards
We’ve met the enemy and he is us
We’re already locked inside blue bus
We justify and say "don’t fuss"
We’re already dead in New World crush
We’ve already made money our god
We’re all in body-snatchers pod
If we don’t like it, we’re called odd
We pretend OK with faceless nod
We’re already dead to spirit within
We’ve all committed too many sins
Maybe we hope for something that’s been
But all we see is grim reaper’s grin
God, there must be way out of here
But can’t be drugs and can’t be beer
Find a way to overcome fear
Can’t jump on comet when it is near
I don’t want to be forever podded
I one day want to say "I got it"
Don’t want life to be ‘bout what I’ve boughted
Want to know the point before I have death-nodded
O ye who control the fate
Of our vast land and of the state
Humbly look to what your action’s worth
Can’t you see beyond your wide girth
Don’t you see what your thoughts give birth
Your greed it makes a hell on earth
Commentary on our current state of society
We’re whirly giggling very fast
Gotta hurry make these profits fast
No time for boring prophets past
Wear white robes, said first will be last
Today we seek the dollar profit
So from his pulpit throw him off it
We no longer need to rough it
Tell the preachers they should stuff it
We’re bright future moving fast
Hair that shines, polyester pants
Cut down more trees to build our plants
Try to ignore Ed Begley’s rants
Our great profit must be vast
Cuz we’re number one, future and past
What matters fresh? Let food be gassed
If dollars there, we’d mine Mt. Shast’
Wild land is a thing I hate
It’s non-performing real estate
Tree-hugging is a weakness trait
Save them a tree for go-away bait
O ye who control the fate
Of our vast land and of the state
Humbly look to what your action’s worth
Can’t you see beyond your wide girth
Don’t you see what your thoughts give birth
Your greed it makes a hell on earth
This greed it now is a pervasive thing
It causes us to no more sing
We hide inside our computer king
And no more does our mind take wing
We’re slaves indeed, our brain’s in sling
No more good fortune does tooth fairy bring
The mystery’s gone and no more awe
Our world is tightened by obey law
Mindlessly with spiritual flaw
Would choke us to death if we only saw
The ever-tightening order control
Little by little heads do roll
We pretend it won’t destroy our soul
But our lives become more grassy knolls
Computer chips, and credit cards
Cell phones, ipods, make us dullards
Our minds drained, no more chance for Bards
We open embrace our prison guards
We’ve met the enemy and he is us
We’re already locked inside blue bus
We justify and say "don’t fuss"
We’re already dead in New World crush
We’ve already made money our god
We’re all in body-snatchers pod
If we don’t like it, we’re called odd
We pretend OK with faceless nod
We’re already dead to spirit within
We’ve all committed too many sins
Maybe we hope for something that’s been
But all we see is grim reaper’s grin
God, there must be way out of here
But can’t be drugs and can’t be beer
Find a way to overcome fear
Can’t jump on comet when it is near
I don’t want to be forever podded
I one day want to say "I got it"
Don’t want life to be ‘bout what I’ve boughted
Want to know the point before I have death-nodded
O ye who control the fate
Of our vast land and of the state
Humbly look to what your action’s worth
Can’t you see beyond your wide girth
Don’t you see what your thoughts give birth
Your greed it makes a hell on earth
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Thinking About My Father
I never liked the manner in which some parents continue to treat their "children" long after they’ve grown up. I remember reading about a 90 year old father who still chided his 70 year old son as if he was still a boy.
As I grew older and lived apart from my parents, I wanted an enlightened relationship. Perhaps "friends" was too much to hope for, but I wanted to be treated as an equal, not spoken down to, but listened to. But how to slowly bring about such a change?My mother was always easier to converse with, and she was much more willing to relinquish her reins of parenthood on her 30-something, and then 40-something, child. My father had much greater difficulty. He grew up in the Depression and lived his life in that mindset. He never fully trusted banks, didn’t communicate much with his children but expected our obedience, and "taught" us what he could via yelling at us.
I have said, jokingly, that I learned everything from my father. His ideas were too often tinged with stubbornness and folklore, and I often took a contrary path to his advice. Mushrooms were messy and dangerous, so I took up mycology. Everything I needed to know about plants was in the grocery store, so I took up botany and ethnobotany. A computer was absolutely not needed, so I learned how to use a computer along with the rest of the world. Oil, high heat, and a teflon frying pan was all that you needed to know about cooking, so one of my brothers became a chef.
Still, he was my father. As the years rolled by in our separate adult existences, I made the effort to get to know my father as a person, to talk to him, to be a real friend. So I refused to go to the normal family holiday gatherings where there was too much food, a nonstop blaring TV, and loud simultaneous talking (and yelling) by everyone. Instead, I would visit the next day and sit and talk with my father and mother, sometimes with a pie or other home-made dish. He regarded it as odd that I’d rather do that holiday meeting the day after everyone else met, and he even once went so far as to call me a "bad son." But as time went on, I could tell he was touched by having us share a reading and small meal the day after. He no longer chided me for non-attendance at family events.
Once, when trying to dissolve the parent-child bonds, I called him and began a discussion.
"Can I call you Frank," I asked.
"Is something wrong?," he responded.
"No, nothing is wrong," I told him. "I’m just trying to have a better relation with you."
"Do you need money? Are you in trouble?" he asked with worry in his voice.
Needless to say, that conversation did not go as planned, but was still a step in the right direction.
When he died (after a long illness), I got the word via an early morning phone call. In a daze, I walked into the moderate rain, crying, talking to Frank. I walked for hours, and I felt that I "reached" him, and he seemed to appreciate our continuing conversation.
I’d learned to love and appreciate him in his final years. He was by no means an ideal father. He was full of strengths, and weaknesses, talents, and flaws. He knew quite a bit of stuff that was not so. But I grew to admire and attempt to emulate his positive attributes, while also attempting to learn from his mistakes and avoid those patterns in my life.
In this way, I can say that my father taught me. I chose to no longer hold him in the mental bondage of "flawed father," just as I had demanded that he no longer hold me in the mental bondage of "deferential son." Rather than see him as a "flawed father," I saw that he was just another individual with his own life’s challenges, trying to make sense of this life, flaws and all.
By trying to see his life through his experience, I found that I could simply accept who he was, my father, one-half of the formula for bringing me into this world. At long last, I felt at peace with my own father, and felt an unconditional love towards him, years after he died.
As I grew older and lived apart from my parents, I wanted an enlightened relationship. Perhaps "friends" was too much to hope for, but I wanted to be treated as an equal, not spoken down to, but listened to. But how to slowly bring about such a change?My mother was always easier to converse with, and she was much more willing to relinquish her reins of parenthood on her 30-something, and then 40-something, child. My father had much greater difficulty. He grew up in the Depression and lived his life in that mindset. He never fully trusted banks, didn’t communicate much with his children but expected our obedience, and "taught" us what he could via yelling at us.
I have said, jokingly, that I learned everything from my father. His ideas were too often tinged with stubbornness and folklore, and I often took a contrary path to his advice. Mushrooms were messy and dangerous, so I took up mycology. Everything I needed to know about plants was in the grocery store, so I took up botany and ethnobotany. A computer was absolutely not needed, so I learned how to use a computer along with the rest of the world. Oil, high heat, and a teflon frying pan was all that you needed to know about cooking, so one of my brothers became a chef.
Still, he was my father. As the years rolled by in our separate adult existences, I made the effort to get to know my father as a person, to talk to him, to be a real friend. So I refused to go to the normal family holiday gatherings where there was too much food, a nonstop blaring TV, and loud simultaneous talking (and yelling) by everyone. Instead, I would visit the next day and sit and talk with my father and mother, sometimes with a pie or other home-made dish. He regarded it as odd that I’d rather do that holiday meeting the day after everyone else met, and he even once went so far as to call me a "bad son." But as time went on, I could tell he was touched by having us share a reading and small meal the day after. He no longer chided me for non-attendance at family events.
Once, when trying to dissolve the parent-child bonds, I called him and began a discussion.
"Can I call you Frank," I asked.
"Is something wrong?," he responded.
"No, nothing is wrong," I told him. "I’m just trying to have a better relation with you."
"Do you need money? Are you in trouble?" he asked with worry in his voice.
Needless to say, that conversation did not go as planned, but was still a step in the right direction.
When he died (after a long illness), I got the word via an early morning phone call. In a daze, I walked into the moderate rain, crying, talking to Frank. I walked for hours, and I felt that I "reached" him, and he seemed to appreciate our continuing conversation.
I’d learned to love and appreciate him in his final years. He was by no means an ideal father. He was full of strengths, and weaknesses, talents, and flaws. He knew quite a bit of stuff that was not so. But I grew to admire and attempt to emulate his positive attributes, while also attempting to learn from his mistakes and avoid those patterns in my life.
In this way, I can say that my father taught me. I chose to no longer hold him in the mental bondage of "flawed father," just as I had demanded that he no longer hold me in the mental bondage of "deferential son." Rather than see him as a "flawed father," I saw that he was just another individual with his own life’s challenges, trying to make sense of this life, flaws and all.
By trying to see his life through his experience, I found that I could simply accept who he was, my father, one-half of the formula for bringing me into this world. At long last, I felt at peace with my own father, and felt an unconditional love towards him, years after he died.
Friday, April 04, 2008
CASSIE'S GIFT
"The Greatness of a Nation can be determined by how its animals are treated" – Ghandi
[Nyerges is the editor of Wilderness Way magazine, and the author of "How to Survive Anywhere." He can be reached at Box 41834, Eagle Rock, CA 90041, or www.ChristopherNyerges.com]
In memory of Cassius Clay, Christopher’s canine pal of 16 years
I have many fond memories of Cassie, but I remember the end the most right now. I thought that I was taking care of Cassie and helping and saving Cassie – I had to carry him in and out, and was always concerned about his welfare. In the end, I realize that Cassie was helping and saving me. He instilled in me a sense of responsibility and caring that maybe I never had before.
When I walked today, I missed Cassie so much, and I thought about his role in my life. I thought about how I tried to see his dog pictures of the world, how he processes the many smells that he takes so long each day to smell. When I attempted to go into his mind, like Beatrice Lydecker described in her What the Animals Tell Me book, I "saw" a colorful, very dynamic image of flowing geometric shapes that all moved like the wind in varying patterns, in a three-dimensional complexity. To me, it was the complexity of odors that meant so much to Cassie, and very little to me.
Shortly after he died, I asked him to show me his picture, and I "saw" in front of my his big face licking mine. He was telling me that he was happy, in peace, no pain and that I was OK.
As I walked this morning, I thought about Easter Day when Cassie died. Though he had had trouble walking for weeks, he seemed OK in the morning. When I came home in the early evening, it was dark and Cassie was warm but I could not rouse him from his house, and when I pulled him out, I knew it was over, even though I tried to bring him back. There was no music, no singing of birds, just the quiet of the night and the final sounds of his dying body.
As I walked this morning, I realized that Cassie’s gift was his unconditional love. And now that he was gone, I tried to sort out the meaning of that love. I have heard it said that Eternal Life is synonymous with Eternal Love. That Eternal Love is also impersonal. It is universal loving without concern for prejudice or opinion or preferences. It is doing what is right, and not being concerned about my group, or my party, or my race, or my gender, or my family. It is finding those ways of thinking, and of living, that exemplify the Golden Rule, and Jesus’ command to "Love ye one another as ye love your self." Which means we must love our spiritual self, and see that every single one of us is the same.
Cassie taught me to be a better person. He taught me to see that only through impersonal love can we ever find real meaning and harmony. Of course, I feel a personal love for Cassie, and for other close people in my life. But now again, Cassie has made me realize that death is inevitable, and personal love is full of pain and heartache and disappointment. Impersonal loving is not focused exclusively towards one person or animal but is a way of thinking about all life, including all animals. This was Cassie’s gift to me.
NOTE: We held a "fauneral" for Cassie a week after he died. We buried him in the lower orchard, planted a tree over him, and 30 people joined us to talk about our love of dogs and animals.
by Christopher Nyerges
In memory of Cassius Clay, Christopher’s canine pal of 16 years
I have many fond memories of Cassie, but I remember the end the most right now. I thought that I was taking care of Cassie and helping and saving Cassie – I had to carry him in and out, and was always concerned about his welfare. In the end, I realize that Cassie was helping and saving me. He instilled in me a sense of responsibility and caring that maybe I never had before.
When I walked today, I missed Cassie so much, and I thought about his role in my life. I thought about how I tried to see his dog pictures of the world, how he processes the many smells that he takes so long each day to smell. When I attempted to go into his mind, like Beatrice Lydecker described in her What the Animals Tell Me book, I "saw" a colorful, very dynamic image of flowing geometric shapes that all moved like the wind in varying patterns, in a three-dimensional complexity. To me, it was the complexity of odors that meant so much to Cassie, and very little to me.
Shortly after he died, I asked him to show me his picture, and I "saw" in front of my his big face licking mine. He was telling me that he was happy, in peace, no pain and that I was OK.
As I walked this morning, I thought about Easter Day when Cassie died. Though he had had trouble walking for weeks, he seemed OK in the morning. When I came home in the early evening, it was dark and Cassie was warm but I could not rouse him from his house, and when I pulled him out, I knew it was over, even though I tried to bring him back. There was no music, no singing of birds, just the quiet of the night and the final sounds of his dying body.
As I walked this morning, I realized that Cassie’s gift was his unconditional love. And now that he was gone, I tried to sort out the meaning of that love. I have heard it said that Eternal Life is synonymous with Eternal Love. That Eternal Love is also impersonal. It is universal loving without concern for prejudice or opinion or preferences. It is doing what is right, and not being concerned about my group, or my party, or my race, or my gender, or my family. It is finding those ways of thinking, and of living, that exemplify the Golden Rule, and Jesus’ command to "Love ye one another as ye love your self." Which means we must love our spiritual self, and see that every single one of us is the same.
Cassie taught me to be a better person. He taught me to see that only through impersonal love can we ever find real meaning and harmony. Of course, I feel a personal love for Cassie, and for other close people in my life. But now again, Cassie has made me realize that death is inevitable, and personal love is full of pain and heartache and disappointment. Impersonal loving is not focused exclusively towards one person or animal but is a way of thinking about all life, including all animals. This was Cassie’s gift to me.
NOTE: We held a "fauneral" for Cassie a week after he died. We buried him in the lower orchard, planted a tree over him, and 30 people joined us to talk about our love of dogs and animals.
Sunday, March 09, 2008
WHO IS SAINT PATRICK?
IN SEARCH OF THE REAL SAINT PATRICK
by Christopher Nyerges
Who was Saint Patrick? Really, who was he? Not the mythological story we tell to our children each March 17 in sing-song voices: "Saint Patrick wore a green suit, talked to leprechans (he was probably drunk at the time), and while trying to convert the pagans with a shamrock, he marched all the snakes out of Ireland." Will the real Saint Patrick please stand up?
His real name was Maewyn Succat, born around 385 A.D., somewhere in Scotland, or possibly somewhere else, as there is conflicting historical data on his exact date and place of birth. His baptismal name was Patricius.
Around age 16, he was sold into slavery in Ireland and worked for the next 6 years as a shepherd. Keep in mind that human slavery, as well as human sacrifice, was considered normal for those times.
After his six years in slavery, an angel came to him in a dream, prompting him to escape and seek out his homeland. He actually walked about 200 miles to the coast, where his dream indicated a ship would also be waiting for him. He successfully escaped, and spent the next twenty years of his life as a monk in Marmoutier Abbey. There he again received a celestial visitation, this time calling him to return to the land where he’d been enslaved, though now with a mission as a priest and converter.
Patrick was called to Rome in 432, where Pope Celestine bequeathed the honour of Bishop upon him before he left on his mission.
Patrick returned to Ireland not alone, but with 24 supporters and followers. They arrived in Ireland in the winter of 432. In the Spring, Patrick decided to confront the high King of Tara, the most powerful King in Ireland. Patrick knew that if he had the King's support, he would be free to take his Christian message to the people of Ireland.
Patrick and his followers were invited to Tara by the King of Laoghaire. It was there that he was said to have plucked a shamrock from the ground as he tried to explain to the Druids and the King that the shamrock had three leaves just like the idea of God’s three aspects - The Father, The Son and the Holy Ghost. This was called the Trinity.
Of course, triads and trinities were a common concept among the Druids. In fact, one could argue that the trinity (a term not found in the Bible) was a concept given to Christianity by the Druids, rather than the other way around. Nevertheless, King Laoghaire was very impressed and chose to accept Christianity. He also gave Patrick the freedom to spread Christianity throughout Ireland.
When Patrick returned to Ireland, he treated the "pagans" with the respect implicit in his dream. Part of this respect was attempting to communicate with the Druids on their terms, which is why he used the shamrock as a teaching tool. He also blended the Christian cross with the circle to create what is now known as the Celtic cross. He used bonfires to celebrate Easter, a Holy Day that Christianity supplanted with the already-existing spring equinox commemoration. In fact, he incorporated many of the existing symbols and beliefs into his Christian teachings.
He spent his last 30 years in Ireland, baptizing the non-Christian Irish, ordaining priests, and founding churches and monasteries. His persuasive powers must have been astounding, since Ireland fully converted to Christianity within 200 years and was the only country in Europe to Christianize peacefully. Patrick's Christian conversion ended slavery, human sacrifice, and most intertribal warfare in Ireland.
Patrick was also unique in that he equally valued the role of women in an age when the church ignored them. He always sided with the downtrodden and the excluded, whether they were slaves or the "pagan" Irish.
According to Thomas Cahill, author of How the Irish Saved Civilization, Patrick's influence extended far beyond his adopted land. Cahill's book, which could just as well be titled How St. Patrick Saved Civilization, contends that Patrick's conversion of Ireland allowed Western learning to survive the Dark Ages. Ireland pacified and churchified as the rest of Europe crumbled. Patrick's monasteries copied and preserved classical texts. Later, Irish monks returned this knowledge to Europe by establishing monasteries in England, Germany, France, Switzerland, and Italy.
When the lights went out all over Europe, a candle still burned in Ireland. That candle was lit by Patrick.
Veneration of Patrick gradually assumed the status of a local cult. He was not simply remembered in Saul and Downpatrick, he was worshipped. Indeed, homage to Patrick as Ireland's saint was apparent in the eight century AD. At this time Patrick's status as a national apostle was made independently of Rome. He was claimed locally as a saint before the practice of canonization was introduced by the Vatican. The high regard in which the Irish have held St Patrick is evidenced by the salutation, still common today, of "May God, Mary, and Patrick bless you".
Patrick was not Irish, had nothing to do with leprechauns, almost certainly was not a drunkard, and didn't drive all the snakes out of Ireland. In fact, there were no native snakes in Ireland, though this story is believed to be an analogy for driving out the so-called "pagans," or, at least, the pagan religions.
Patrick was one of the "greats" of history who nearly single-handedly preserved the best of Western culture when much of Europe was devolving into chaos and ruin. He deserves far better than remembering him in the silly ways we do today, such as wearing green, pinching each other, and getting drunk. Rather, he deserves an accurate memory, and our emulation. Unfortunately, like all true Saviors of history, they are either killed off, or relegated to the closet of ridicule.
Perhaps it's time for all of us to re-think how we commemorate this special man, and his vast contribution to world culture.
by Christopher Nyerges
Who was Saint Patrick? Really, who was he? Not the mythological story we tell to our children each March 17 in sing-song voices: "Saint Patrick wore a green suit, talked to leprechans (he was probably drunk at the time), and while trying to convert the pagans with a shamrock, he marched all the snakes out of Ireland." Will the real Saint Patrick please stand up?
His real name was Maewyn Succat, born around 385 A.D., somewhere in Scotland, or possibly somewhere else, as there is conflicting historical data on his exact date and place of birth. His baptismal name was Patricius.
Around age 16, he was sold into slavery in Ireland and worked for the next 6 years as a shepherd. Keep in mind that human slavery, as well as human sacrifice, was considered normal for those times.
After his six years in slavery, an angel came to him in a dream, prompting him to escape and seek out his homeland. He actually walked about 200 miles to the coast, where his dream indicated a ship would also be waiting for him. He successfully escaped, and spent the next twenty years of his life as a monk in Marmoutier Abbey. There he again received a celestial visitation, this time calling him to return to the land where he’d been enslaved, though now with a mission as a priest and converter.
Patrick was called to Rome in 432, where Pope Celestine bequeathed the honour of Bishop upon him before he left on his mission.
Patrick returned to Ireland not alone, but with 24 supporters and followers. They arrived in Ireland in the winter of 432. In the Spring, Patrick decided to confront the high King of Tara, the most powerful King in Ireland. Patrick knew that if he had the King's support, he would be free to take his Christian message to the people of Ireland.
Patrick and his followers were invited to Tara by the King of Laoghaire. It was there that he was said to have plucked a shamrock from the ground as he tried to explain to the Druids and the King that the shamrock had three leaves just like the idea of God’s three aspects - The Father, The Son and the Holy Ghost. This was called the Trinity.
Of course, triads and trinities were a common concept among the Druids. In fact, one could argue that the trinity (a term not found in the Bible) was a concept given to Christianity by the Druids, rather than the other way around. Nevertheless, King Laoghaire was very impressed and chose to accept Christianity. He also gave Patrick the freedom to spread Christianity throughout Ireland.
When Patrick returned to Ireland, he treated the "pagans" with the respect implicit in his dream. Part of this respect was attempting to communicate with the Druids on their terms, which is why he used the shamrock as a teaching tool. He also blended the Christian cross with the circle to create what is now known as the Celtic cross. He used bonfires to celebrate Easter, a Holy Day that Christianity supplanted with the already-existing spring equinox commemoration. In fact, he incorporated many of the existing symbols and beliefs into his Christian teachings.
He spent his last 30 years in Ireland, baptizing the non-Christian Irish, ordaining priests, and founding churches and monasteries. His persuasive powers must have been astounding, since Ireland fully converted to Christianity within 200 years and was the only country in Europe to Christianize peacefully. Patrick's Christian conversion ended slavery, human sacrifice, and most intertribal warfare in Ireland.
Patrick was also unique in that he equally valued the role of women in an age when the church ignored them. He always sided with the downtrodden and the excluded, whether they were slaves or the "pagan" Irish.
According to Thomas Cahill, author of How the Irish Saved Civilization, Patrick's influence extended far beyond his adopted land. Cahill's book, which could just as well be titled How St. Patrick Saved Civilization, contends that Patrick's conversion of Ireland allowed Western learning to survive the Dark Ages. Ireland pacified and churchified as the rest of Europe crumbled. Patrick's monasteries copied and preserved classical texts. Later, Irish monks returned this knowledge to Europe by establishing monasteries in England, Germany, France, Switzerland, and Italy.
When the lights went out all over Europe, a candle still burned in Ireland. That candle was lit by Patrick.
Veneration of Patrick gradually assumed the status of a local cult. He was not simply remembered in Saul and Downpatrick, he was worshipped. Indeed, homage to Patrick as Ireland's saint was apparent in the eight century AD. At this time Patrick's status as a national apostle was made independently of Rome. He was claimed locally as a saint before the practice of canonization was introduced by the Vatican. The high regard in which the Irish have held St Patrick is evidenced by the salutation, still common today, of "May God, Mary, and Patrick bless you".
Patrick was not Irish, had nothing to do with leprechauns, almost certainly was not a drunkard, and didn't drive all the snakes out of Ireland. In fact, there were no native snakes in Ireland, though this story is believed to be an analogy for driving out the so-called "pagans," or, at least, the pagan religions.
Patrick was one of the "greats" of history who nearly single-handedly preserved the best of Western culture when much of Europe was devolving into chaos and ruin. He deserves far better than remembering him in the silly ways we do today, such as wearing green, pinching each other, and getting drunk. Rather, he deserves an accurate memory, and our emulation. Unfortunately, like all true Saviors of history, they are either killed off, or relegated to the closet of ridicule.
Perhaps it's time for all of us to re-think how we commemorate this special man, and his vast contribution to world culture.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Earth Day Every Day?
CHANGE THE WORLD BY CHANGING YOURSELF
Seeking the Path of Practical Ecology
"Live light upon the Earth,
If you would not be earthbound."
-- Shining Bear
I was only a teenager, but I could never get it out of my mind: "How should we be living our lives? Is there not more to life than seeking money, possessions, and pleasure?" These questions, and their countless variations, were the driving force that led me on my path of botany, ecology, indigenous skills, and spiritual evolution.
Back in the early ‘70s, there was the beginning of a heightened ecological awareness, but you were still a "kook" if you expressed an interest in practical survival, and if you expressed concern about the growing ecological crisis.
A lot has happened in 30 years. Things have gotten worse. "Great interest" and "good intentions" of the 1970s did not succeed in materially improve our overall trends in the United States. Our rapid population growth, both from within and without, has only exacerbated the situation.
I spent the last 30 years attempting to learn and to apply the "little things" that I can do, and that anyone can do, to choose to be a part of the solution. It is the way that I maintain hope, and that I can find a way to mentally rise above what seems a hopeless situation.
Besides learning many of the elements of what anyone can do, even if you’re in the cities, I realized that there is no "enemy" out there. The "enemy" is always within. It is my own proclivity to laziness, to choosing the path of least resistance, to choosing something based solely on economics. Though I have not always succeeded, I have attempted to take the time to determine why we’ve even here on this earth for a few score years before we die. It certainly cannot be solely to accumulate a good portfolio.
My pursuit of "what to do?" initially led me to study botany. In botany, and specifically in discovering how indigenous peoples used their floral friends, I realized that food and medicine were richly abundant on this earth. While modern agriculture continues to travel down the high-tech path of genetically modified foods, the most nutritious plants on the earth are still wild plants, plants such as dandelion, purslane, curly dock and other so-called "weeds" that are found in urban areas throughout the world.
Dandelion – richer in beta-carotene than carrots. Purslane, the richest plant source of Omega-3 fatty acids. Curly dock, one of the richest sources of vitamin A. These wild plants, and hundreds more, I have used and taught to thousands of students over the past 3 decades. Acorns still abound, and it is a fascinating path of discovery to collect the acorns and process them in the traditions of the Old Ways. In our urban areas, we can find lambs quarter, a spinach relative that is arguably nature’s best mineral tablet. We find abundant carob trees planted as ornamentals, and these are edible right off the tree, with three times as much calcium as the same amount of milk. Chickweed is a common weed of lawns, rich in vitamin C and a delicious salad plant.
And get this – because chickweed has the audacity to grow on lawns, there is a poison you can buy in most nurseries that promises to kill all the chickweed on your lawn, as well as dozens of other so-called weeds, which are actually good foods and good herbs.
WHY A LAWN?
Why, why, why? It is apparently because "we" believe that there is some socially redeeming value in lawns. We have never cared for lawns, and have always used that space to create compost, and raise such plants as fruit trees, roses, lavender, and edible groundcovers such as nasturtiums, mints, and tradescantia. This is one of the "little ways" we choose to not contribute to the waste of water and fuel that goes into the care and maintenance of lawns. It is one of our little ways in which we can take charge and be a part of the solution.
And we have spoken up when other neighbors cut their "weeds" down to the bare soil. This is as foolhardy as a lawn, even worse, for it dries the soil, reduces the amount of moisture that that soil can release into the local atmosphere, and contributes to desertification.
Once you learn about the uses of plants, you become a confirmed ecologist. You will not want to pull "weeds" pointlessly, and you would not scrape plants down to the bare soil, as so many of the so-called "gardeners" do with their weed-whackers.
It is difficult enough to create a beautiful area where there was once a pointless lawn. It is more difficult to convince others, since most in today’s mindset will not only ridicule you, but will find ways to fight you, legally or otherwise.
It is wise to find ways to become a part of the solution, and it is also wise to go forward with eyes open, to avoid unnecessary battles. It is wiser to convince your neighbors to the vast practicality of what you do, rather than have to fight your neighbors when they suggest your "overgrown lawn" is lowering their property values.
One person may not be able to change the world, but each of us can change ourselves. By studying plants, and learning their value, I have begun to see how botany is related to the health of the soil, and how the health of the soil is related to the network of animal life on that land, and this has led me to see how the health of the wild animals directly affects my health and well-being. This is a science, not a "New Age" word game, and the application of practical urban ecology should be approached as a hard science, where you can observe positive results, and where you can repeat those results if you follow the same procedures.
SURVIVAL SKILLS
I pursue both wilderness and urban survival skills. On most weekends, I conduct field trips where our students learn about using wild plants. We collect woods, and we make fire without matches as people in the past have done for millennia. We teach our students to find natural fibres and make such things as twine, baskets, sandals. We build shelters from branches and leaves. It has become relatively easy to be safe and sound in the wilderness using what nature has provided. But most of us live in the city most of the time.
So we teach and practice urban skills too. Urban skills include such things as making compost, finding ways to recycle just about everything, growing fruits and vegetables, and having battery-operated or hand-powered devices where possible. We have solar heated water, and a small solar electrical system. We would never just toss kitchen scraps into the city trash container, nor would we mindless "pull weeds." Kitchen scraps make good soil, and any wild plants that must be pulled get eaten by us, or the animals.
A side benefit of practicing urban ecology is that you’re a little more prepared if there’s ever a major earthquake or a blackout. But that shouldn’t be your overriding impetus for pursuing practical survival. You should pursue it because it’s the right thing to do.
We have a friend who always carries a cloth napkin of his own when at restaurants. He doesn’t want to participate in the extra paper waste that goes into the napkins. He has even collected other people’s napkins (unused) and took them home to use in various recycling projects. I once told him that the trees still get cut, and that the restaurants still use and discard massive amounts of paper. He reminded me that he wasn’t trying to change the world. He was only trying to do the right thing in his little sphere of influence. "And at least the paper I take isn’t going into a landfill," he told me.
Yes, little things, but little things add up. We carry our used dish water outside and we pour it onto our plants. Of course, this means we must buy safe detergents. All things are related.
We are often confronted with the challenge that things are just too bad, "we don’t want to think about it, and besides, we’re not the problem. What we do is just a small insignificant part of the trash problem." But don’t millions of people make that same excuse?
I hold that view that even if I cannot change the world, I should still make the right choice in those cases where I have choice. To take the path of making wise use of resources is often difficult and often inconvenient. If "karma" has any meaning, then even if I cannot change the world, I do affect my own destiny by how I make my personal choices that pertain to all the resources that I come into contact in my daily life.
I urge us all to work together to find the little ways in which we can change the world by changing ourselves. It is the right thing to do.
Seeking the Path of Practical Ecology
"Live light upon the Earth,
If you would not be earthbound."
-- Shining Bear
I was only a teenager, but I could never get it out of my mind: "How should we be living our lives? Is there not more to life than seeking money, possessions, and pleasure?" These questions, and their countless variations, were the driving force that led me on my path of botany, ecology, indigenous skills, and spiritual evolution.
Back in the early ‘70s, there was the beginning of a heightened ecological awareness, but you were still a "kook" if you expressed an interest in practical survival, and if you expressed concern about the growing ecological crisis.
A lot has happened in 30 years. Things have gotten worse. "Great interest" and "good intentions" of the 1970s did not succeed in materially improve our overall trends in the United States. Our rapid population growth, both from within and without, has only exacerbated the situation.
I spent the last 30 years attempting to learn and to apply the "little things" that I can do, and that anyone can do, to choose to be a part of the solution. It is the way that I maintain hope, and that I can find a way to mentally rise above what seems a hopeless situation.
Besides learning many of the elements of what anyone can do, even if you’re in the cities, I realized that there is no "enemy" out there. The "enemy" is always within. It is my own proclivity to laziness, to choosing the path of least resistance, to choosing something based solely on economics. Though I have not always succeeded, I have attempted to take the time to determine why we’ve even here on this earth for a few score years before we die. It certainly cannot be solely to accumulate a good portfolio.
My pursuit of "what to do?" initially led me to study botany. In botany, and specifically in discovering how indigenous peoples used their floral friends, I realized that food and medicine were richly abundant on this earth. While modern agriculture continues to travel down the high-tech path of genetically modified foods, the most nutritious plants on the earth are still wild plants, plants such as dandelion, purslane, curly dock and other so-called "weeds" that are found in urban areas throughout the world.
Dandelion – richer in beta-carotene than carrots. Purslane, the richest plant source of Omega-3 fatty acids. Curly dock, one of the richest sources of vitamin A. These wild plants, and hundreds more, I have used and taught to thousands of students over the past 3 decades. Acorns still abound, and it is a fascinating path of discovery to collect the acorns and process them in the traditions of the Old Ways. In our urban areas, we can find lambs quarter, a spinach relative that is arguably nature’s best mineral tablet. We find abundant carob trees planted as ornamentals, and these are edible right off the tree, with three times as much calcium as the same amount of milk. Chickweed is a common weed of lawns, rich in vitamin C and a delicious salad plant.
And get this – because chickweed has the audacity to grow on lawns, there is a poison you can buy in most nurseries that promises to kill all the chickweed on your lawn, as well as dozens of other so-called weeds, which are actually good foods and good herbs.
WHY A LAWN?
Why, why, why? It is apparently because "we" believe that there is some socially redeeming value in lawns. We have never cared for lawns, and have always used that space to create compost, and raise such plants as fruit trees, roses, lavender, and edible groundcovers such as nasturtiums, mints, and tradescantia. This is one of the "little ways" we choose to not contribute to the waste of water and fuel that goes into the care and maintenance of lawns. It is one of our little ways in which we can take charge and be a part of the solution.
And we have spoken up when other neighbors cut their "weeds" down to the bare soil. This is as foolhardy as a lawn, even worse, for it dries the soil, reduces the amount of moisture that that soil can release into the local atmosphere, and contributes to desertification.
Once you learn about the uses of plants, you become a confirmed ecologist. You will not want to pull "weeds" pointlessly, and you would not scrape plants down to the bare soil, as so many of the so-called "gardeners" do with their weed-whackers.
It is difficult enough to create a beautiful area where there was once a pointless lawn. It is more difficult to convince others, since most in today’s mindset will not only ridicule you, but will find ways to fight you, legally or otherwise.
It is wise to find ways to become a part of the solution, and it is also wise to go forward with eyes open, to avoid unnecessary battles. It is wiser to convince your neighbors to the vast practicality of what you do, rather than have to fight your neighbors when they suggest your "overgrown lawn" is lowering their property values.
One person may not be able to change the world, but each of us can change ourselves. By studying plants, and learning their value, I have begun to see how botany is related to the health of the soil, and how the health of the soil is related to the network of animal life on that land, and this has led me to see how the health of the wild animals directly affects my health and well-being. This is a science, not a "New Age" word game, and the application of practical urban ecology should be approached as a hard science, where you can observe positive results, and where you can repeat those results if you follow the same procedures.
SURVIVAL SKILLS
I pursue both wilderness and urban survival skills. On most weekends, I conduct field trips where our students learn about using wild plants. We collect woods, and we make fire without matches as people in the past have done for millennia. We teach our students to find natural fibres and make such things as twine, baskets, sandals. We build shelters from branches and leaves. It has become relatively easy to be safe and sound in the wilderness using what nature has provided. But most of us live in the city most of the time.
So we teach and practice urban skills too. Urban skills include such things as making compost, finding ways to recycle just about everything, growing fruits and vegetables, and having battery-operated or hand-powered devices where possible. We have solar heated water, and a small solar electrical system. We would never just toss kitchen scraps into the city trash container, nor would we mindless "pull weeds." Kitchen scraps make good soil, and any wild plants that must be pulled get eaten by us, or the animals.
A side benefit of practicing urban ecology is that you’re a little more prepared if there’s ever a major earthquake or a blackout. But that shouldn’t be your overriding impetus for pursuing practical survival. You should pursue it because it’s the right thing to do.
We have a friend who always carries a cloth napkin of his own when at restaurants. He doesn’t want to participate in the extra paper waste that goes into the napkins. He has even collected other people’s napkins (unused) and took them home to use in various recycling projects. I once told him that the trees still get cut, and that the restaurants still use and discard massive amounts of paper. He reminded me that he wasn’t trying to change the world. He was only trying to do the right thing in his little sphere of influence. "And at least the paper I take isn’t going into a landfill," he told me.
Yes, little things, but little things add up. We carry our used dish water outside and we pour it onto our plants. Of course, this means we must buy safe detergents. All things are related.
We are often confronted with the challenge that things are just too bad, "we don’t want to think about it, and besides, we’re not the problem. What we do is just a small insignificant part of the trash problem." But don’t millions of people make that same excuse?
I hold that view that even if I cannot change the world, I should still make the right choice in those cases where I have choice. To take the path of making wise use of resources is often difficult and often inconvenient. If "karma" has any meaning, then even if I cannot change the world, I do affect my own destiny by how I make my personal choices that pertain to all the resources that I come into contact in my daily life.
I urge us all to work together to find the little ways in which we can change the world by changing ourselves. It is the right thing to do.
Friday, February 01, 2008
"Indian Gaming" is not "self reliance"
A commentary on Indian Gaming Propositions
A friend asked me, "So, are you voting in favor of Indian gaming?" He was referring to Propositions 94, 95, 96, 97, to be voted upon by the California voters on February 5, which would effectively expand so-called "Indian gaming." [Note: by the time you read this, Feb. 5 will likely have past. Still, the overall principles are important.]
"No," I said, "I’m voting against it."
"Really," my friend retorted. "Don’t you realize that the opposition is actually just other casinos and racing concerns who don’t want more competition?"
I signed. "That might be true," I responded, "but that’s not why I’m voting against it."
I explained to my friend that I vote against any and all gambling measures. It is not a good element for any society to promote get-rich-quick schemes which statistically will get very few people rich. I find it particularly perverse that the native Americans who are now so enriched by gambling profits choose to call this "self-reliance."
That’s an inappropriate use of the phrase, "self-reliance." Self-reliance refers to farming, food processing, manufacturing, creating energy (wind, solar, etc.), building stores, building schools, putting people to work in a self-sustaining way that benefits the society.
Creating and supporting the infrastructure of gambling certainly produces money, but it is not true self-reliance. Gambling fosters the notion that we might get something for nothing, or at least, get a lot for a very small investment. It relies on luck or chance, not skill, merit, or work. Gambling does not pay us! The hopeful gamblers pay to support the gambling institutions. That is, no one really "wins," and most "lose." It is this very fact that keeps "gaming" alive and able to generate so much money.
There are those who feel that native Americans deserve this chance to bring in the needed money to the tribe. This is understandable, given the history of broken promises, of extermination via warfare, and massive deaths brought by the white man’s various diseases. So
I don’t fault the desire, and the need, to grow in financial health. I am against the means to do so, which brings along with it all of the unintended consequences.
It is sad to me that after so long of being the "forgotten minority" in America, the native Americans have hit upon one of the least overall beneficial means to become "self-reliant." By the pursuit of gambling, such proprietors also take on the karma of all that the enterprises generate, and whether native Americans or other gambling operators, they become another soulless lemming in the pursuit of Mammon. So be it, since that has already happened to 95% of us. Let’s just not call this "self-reliance."
It is not spiritually uplifting to the individual or society to choose luck and chance as a means of making one’s living. It invites the underworld so long associated with Las Vegas – money laundering, drugs, prostitution, mafia. How well have our native brothers been holding up against such tremendous pressures which the avalanche of gambling money brings?
I vote against all such measures on principle. It is why I voted against the California state lottery, and why I encourage all thinking individuals to also vote against yet another Trojan horse in our midst.
A friend asked me, "So, are you voting in favor of Indian gaming?" He was referring to Propositions 94, 95, 96, 97, to be voted upon by the California voters on February 5, which would effectively expand so-called "Indian gaming." [Note: by the time you read this, Feb. 5 will likely have past. Still, the overall principles are important.]
"No," I said, "I’m voting against it."
"Really," my friend retorted. "Don’t you realize that the opposition is actually just other casinos and racing concerns who don’t want more competition?"
I signed. "That might be true," I responded, "but that’s not why I’m voting against it."
I explained to my friend that I vote against any and all gambling measures. It is not a good element for any society to promote get-rich-quick schemes which statistically will get very few people rich. I find it particularly perverse that the native Americans who are now so enriched by gambling profits choose to call this "self-reliance."
That’s an inappropriate use of the phrase, "self-reliance." Self-reliance refers to farming, food processing, manufacturing, creating energy (wind, solar, etc.), building stores, building schools, putting people to work in a self-sustaining way that benefits the society.
Creating and supporting the infrastructure of gambling certainly produces money, but it is not true self-reliance. Gambling fosters the notion that we might get something for nothing, or at least, get a lot for a very small investment. It relies on luck or chance, not skill, merit, or work. Gambling does not pay us! The hopeful gamblers pay to support the gambling institutions. That is, no one really "wins," and most "lose." It is this very fact that keeps "gaming" alive and able to generate so much money.
There are those who feel that native Americans deserve this chance to bring in the needed money to the tribe. This is understandable, given the history of broken promises, of extermination via warfare, and massive deaths brought by the white man’s various diseases. So
I don’t fault the desire, and the need, to grow in financial health. I am against the means to do so, which brings along with it all of the unintended consequences.
It is sad to me that after so long of being the "forgotten minority" in America, the native Americans have hit upon one of the least overall beneficial means to become "self-reliant." By the pursuit of gambling, such proprietors also take on the karma of all that the enterprises generate, and whether native Americans or other gambling operators, they become another soulless lemming in the pursuit of Mammon. So be it, since that has already happened to 95% of us. Let’s just not call this "self-reliance."
It is not spiritually uplifting to the individual or society to choose luck and chance as a means of making one’s living. It invites the underworld so long associated with Las Vegas – money laundering, drugs, prostitution, mafia. How well have our native brothers been holding up against such tremendous pressures which the avalanche of gambling money brings?
I vote against all such measures on principle. It is why I voted against the California state lottery, and why I encourage all thinking individuals to also vote against yet another Trojan horse in our midst.
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