Space For Us

Noah's Ark Syndrome

Excerpted from If I Knew Then What I Know Now-- So What? by Estelle Getty, ©1988:

I've always felt that loneliness, not age, is the real killer. I get a lot of letters from women who tell me how difficult life is-- they're widowed and alone and scared and sick-- and the show (The Golden Girls) cheers them up. And how they'd love to be like Sophia and live with other women-- but they don't. They've lost their husbands; now they feel bereft of all peace and security.

Letters like that always move me, because it doesn't have to be that way. It all goes back to the Noah's Ark syndrome which prevails in our society, the notion that people have to go through life two by two. That you're less than whole-- this goes for men and women and gays of both sexes.

Damn it, it isn't so. Divorce, widowhood, break-ups-- they make all of us hurt. But life doesn't end, and life can be perfectly viable for a single person. It takes courage to reach out and form new relationships. But that courage has great rewards.

Like many of the books I read, I found this one at a charity sale and paid $1 for it.  I had low expectations, but it has surprised me.  It's turned out to be a wonderful little book about life and aging, and I'm glad I got it.

Secrets

Even if you consume as many books
As the sands of the Ganges
It is not as good as really catching
One verse of Zen.
If you want the secret of Buddhism,
Here it is:  Everything is in the Heart!

~Ryokan (1758–1831) (source)

Lens

"Of all forms of slavery there is none that is so harmful and degrading as that form of slavery which tempts one human being to hate another by reason of his race or color. One man cannot hold another man down in the ditch without remaining down in the ditch with him."  ~Booker T. Washington (source)

That's an actual quote by Booker Washington.  You can read more of his words at Wikiquote, or download his books from Project Gutenberg.

It's important to note how he really spoke.

I'm reading a biography of him written during the 40s, and it's somewhat confusing.  The author is lavish with his praise and unflinching in describing the myriad obstacles Washington was forced to overcome, yet read this sample of dialogue:

"O Lawd, de cotton am so grassy, de work am so hard, and the sun am so hot dat I b'lieve this darky am called to preach!"

That's racist, demeaning, dehumanizing, and based on the works Booker Washington created in his lifetime, it's not historically accurate-- yet that's the way every Black person speaks in this book.

I'm sure the author thought of himself as progressive and impartial, and never saw the log in his eye.  He didn't think of himself as a bad person with bad thoughts, nor did his neighbors, his editor, or his publishers, or his audience.  That was the way Amos 'n' Andy talked on the radio, they way Blacks were portrayed in movies, and I'm sure he considered this an accurate representation of Black speech patterns.

And that's a lesson we should all take to heart.  In the lens of his own time, he was ahead of the curve; that's why we all have to be on guard against the ingrained preconceptions and prejudices of or own times, and do our best to recognize and break patterns that don't serve the greater good.

 

How To Read a Novel

Excerpted from Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi, © 2004:

A novel is not an allegory, I said as the period was about to come to an end. It is the sensual experience of another world. If you don't enter that world, hold your breath with the characters and become involved in their destiny, you won't be able to empathize, and empathy is the heart of the novel. This is how you read a novel: you inhale the experience. So start breathing. I just want you to remember this. That is all; class dismissed.

Hope

I've heard many versions of this story.  I found this one HERE:

Nasrudin was caught in the act and sentenced to die. Hauled up before the king, he was asked by the Royal Presence: "Is there any reason at all why I shouldn't have your head off right now?" To which he replied: "Oh, King, live forever! Know that I, the mullah Nasrudin, am the greatest teacher in your kingdom, and it would surely be a waste to kill such a great teacher. So skilled am I that I could even teach your favorite horse to sing, given a year to work on it." The king was amused, and said: "Very well then, you move into the stable immediately, and if the horse isn't singing a year from now, we'll think of something interesting to do with you."

As he was returning to his cell to pick up his spare rags, his cellmate remonstrated with him: "Now that was really stupid. You know you can't teach that horse to sing, no matter how long you try."

Nasrudin's response: "Not at all. I have a year now that I didn't have before. And a lot of things can happen in a year. The king might die. The horse might die. I might die.

"And, who knows? Maybe the horse will sing."

Impermanence

"It is not impermanence that makes us suffer. What makes us suffer is wanting things to be permanent, when they are not." ~Thic Nhat Hanh

Sam

Even anonymously, behind the shield of a url, it's hard for me to open up.  I intended for this blog to be a lot more personal, but it ends up being book excerpts and favorite quotes.

My wife Mona writes much more from the heart, and I thought she did a good job talking about the loss of our beloved pet, Sammy:  LINK

"They err who think Santa Claus enters through the chimney… He enters through the heart." ~Charles Howard

Nessun Dorma

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The look on his face-- a combination of triumph and relief when he knows he nailed it-- is priceless.

Plenteous

"Christmas is not a time nor a season, but a state of mind. To cherish peace and goodwill, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas."  ~Calvin Coolidge

Lord,

Prayer During Battle
by Hermann Hagedorn

Lord, in this hour of tumult,
Lord, in this night of fears,
Keep open, oh, keep open
My eyes, my ears.

Not blindly, not in hatred,
Lord, let me do my part.
Keep open, oh, keep open
My mind, my heart!

This poem disturbs me. The author seems to think of war not as a horrific failure of human morality and virtue, but more as a wearisome chore that comes along from time to time in which we all must "do our part."

If his mind and heart were open, I don't think he'd be there.

Yeah, I kind of miss 'em...

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You Will Never

"I should have been more kind. That is something a person will never regret. You will never say to yourself when you are old, ‘Ah, I wish I was not good to that person.’ You will never think that."  ~Khaled Hosseini, in And the Mountains Echoed ©2013 (via)

Not A Secret

Not me.

I hated school, and dropping out at 15 was absolutely the best decision I ever made.  I wish I could have found a way to leave sooner.

PostSecret updates every Sunday, HERE.

 

Less Seriously

"If we’re not too confused or hard on ourselves, we will discover the sanity beyond habitual reactions. Identifying less with habits and more with our basic nature lightens things up. With more space in our mind, we take our reactions less seriously. We can watch them the way we would watch children at play– knowing they will quickly wear themselves out."  ~Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche, from It's Up to You: The Practice of Self-Reflection on the Buddhist Path ©2006 (via)

Various Animals to Pet

"Every child should have mud pies, grasshoppers, water-bugs, tadpoles, frogs, mud-turtles, elderberries, wild strawberries, acorns, chestnuts, trees to climb, brooks to wade in, water-lilies, woodchucks, bats, bees, butterflies, various animals to pet, hay-fields, pine-cones, rocks to roll, sand, snakes, huckleberries and hornets and any child who has been deprived of these has been deprived of the best part of his education.  By being well acquainted with all these they come into most intimate harmony with nature, whose lessons are, of course, natural and wholesome."  ~Luther Burbank (via WikiQuote)

Basic Instincts

“Have you ever thought about how we’re living in a society designed to give us anything we want, but we’re essentially the same people who lived during tribal times? We’re catering to the same base needs like warmth and sex and social gratification, but we’re doing so through unnatural means. If you think about it, the scrolling mechanism on a phone is a bit like strolling through a forest. We still come across unknown things. But now the first judgment that comes to our mind is immediately reinforced. We can say “I like it,” and we’ll be given more of the same. Or we can say ‘I don’t like it,’ and the thing will go away forever. That single mechanism ascribes permanence to our most basic instincts. We’re never forced to ask: ‘Why do I like it?’ Or ‘Should I like it?’ We’re living in a world that always adapts to us, so we never have to adapt to the world."  ~HoNY

Bewildering

"The people of the United States are a strange and occasionally bewildering mixture of the enlightened, the superstitious, and the plain ignorant. In certain backward sections, notably but not exclusively in the Southern states, a form of religious dogmatism has perpetuated doctrines and prejudices which other sections, on a higher intellectual level, have rejected as no longer tenable by intelligent minds. In this 'Bible Belt,' as it is called, where the Bible is still interpreted literally and any conception contrary to such a literal interpretation is regarded as blasphemous, the Darwinian theory is anathema." ~Hermann Hagedorn, in Americans: A Book of Lives ©1946.

I didn't realize how long the South has been noted as a singularly backward area of the country.

 

Sea

“An entire sea of water can’t sink a ship unless it gets inside the ship. Similarly, the negativity of the world can’t put you down unless you allow it to get inside you.”  ~Goi Nasu (via JulesOfNature)

I couldn't track down an original source for this quote; in fact, the only thing search engines could come up with for "Goi Nasu" was this quote.  That gives me pause.

But whoever said it, in whatever context, I still like it.

The Outer Fringe

Americans: A Book of Lives ©1946 by Hermann Hagedorn has been really fun and informative.  In this excerpt, he shared horticulturist Luther Burbank's concept of life, the universe, and everything:

"Life," Burbank wrote, "is not material… the life-stream is not a substance. Life is a force-- electrical, magnetic, a quality, not a quantity.” He saw a universe which was “absolutely all force, life, soul, thought, or whatever name we may choose to call it.” The time would come, he predicted, and the world of science caught up with him a generation later-- when there would be no line left between force and matter. A dead material universe moved by outside forces, seemed to him “highly improbable. A universe of force alone,” he declared, “is probable, but requires great effort to make it conceivable, because we must conceive it in terms of our sense experience… All life on our planet is, so to speak, just on the outer fringe of this infinite ocean of force… We get discouraged with the material, but, if we could think of the force, we should see how steadily and surely it is impelling us all toward a better and higher and nobler destiny…”

The punctuation seems a little suspect, but I left it as I found it.  Maybe standards have changed over the last 70 years.

Burbank's books are in the public domain, but they are very hard to come by.   Google Books has most of them available HERE,  but unfortunately they require you to have an account and use their app to access them; it's a cumbersome process, the scan quality is poor, and frankly I decided it just wasn't worth it.  I'm looking for better sources.

You can read more about the life of Luther Burbank at LutherBurbank.org.

 

Pete's Smile

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I have the album, and always enjoyed the story and the song, but didn't know there was a film of it.

Benignant

benignant (adj) /bəˈnɪɡnənt/

1. (now rare) Kind; gracious; favorable.

 

One fun thing about reading old books is learning cool words that have fallen into disuse.

I like "benignant."  I'm going to use it.

Phonograph

In this excerpt from Americans: A Book of Lives ©1946. Hermann Hagedorn describes the moment Thomas Edison first tested his new invention to record and play back sounds:

Three weeks after his interest had first been stirred, he (Thomas Edison) handed his chief mechanic a rough sketch of a queer-looking instrument, including a metal cylinder spirally ground and mounted on a long shaft, running in two upright bearings.

The mechanic wondered. Most of the apparatus he head hitherto constructed had been electrical, but this one called for no coils, no magnets, no wires. He kept his mouth shut and followed the sketch. The instrument he subsequently brought to Edison for his approval was a cylinder covered with tinfoil and turned with a hand-crank. "What's it supposed to do, chief?" asked the mechanic without enthusiasm.

"The thing must talk," answered Edison.

The mechanic smiled dubiously. The bookkeeper, standing near, offered to bet a handful of cigars in support of his skepticism, whereupon the mechanic laid two dollars against the chief's faith. Edison, lacking the two dollars, matched his bet with a barrel of apples.

Thereupon he turned the crank and in a loud voice recited, ("shouted," he told Henry Ford):

"Mary had a little lamb,
Its fleece was white as snow,
And everywhere that Mary went
The lamb was sure to go."

He adjusted the reproducer, restored the cylinder to its original position, and again turned the crank.

"Mary had a little lamb…"

came the words in a strange voice, unlike his own, but unmistakably clear.

The mechanic nearly fainted for fright. Edison himself admitted that he was "a little scared"; partly of the machine he had created, partly because success had come so easily. "I was always afraid of things that worked the first time."

It's hard to imagine a time when hearing a human voice coming from a machine would inspire fear and awe.  The incredible has become commonplace.

Not Ever

“Woman does not emerge from a man’s rib’s, not ever; it’s he who emerges from her womb.”  ~Nizar Qabbani

Blue Nightscape

The artist is Jane Newland, who can be found HERE.

I love the repetition in the hatch work.  It gives it a peaceful, easy feeling.

Two Quotes about Circles

"People often say, ‘Meditation is all very well, but what does it have to do with my life?’ What it has to do with your life is that perhaps through this simple practice of paying attention – giving loving-kindness to your speech and your actions and the movements of your mind – you begin to realize that you’re always standing in the middle of a sacred circle, and that’s your whole life. This room is not the sacred circle. Wherever you go for the rest of your life, you’re always in the middle of the universe and the circle is always around you. Everyone who walks up to you has entered that sacred space, and it’s not an accident. Whatever comes into the space is there to teach you."  ~Pema Chödron (via)

•

"Remember: no matter where you go, there you are."  ~Buckaroo Banzai (via)

As Good

"Don't treat people as bad as they are, treat them as good as you are." ~Ralph Smart

Not Because / Because

“We are only here today not because what does not kill us makes us stronger, but because what does not kill us does not kill us.”  ~Sam Sax

It occurred to me that if life is eternal, then Jesus didn't really "sacrifice" anything.  He just had a really bad day.

And I don't mean that as a dig at Christians.  I was just thinking how much better things could be if more of us were willing to have a Really Bad Day every now and then.

Circumstantial/Essential

Excerpted from Interconnected: Embracing Life in Our Global Society by Ogyen Trinley Dorje ©2017 (via):

We are in many ways creatures of habit. If we live within certain conditions long enough, they come to seem natural to us. But if we had lived in different conditions, they would seem equally natural. Looking at the cultural, religious, or material conditions that others have become habituated to may make us feel that they must be totally different from us, but we are just mistaking something circumstantial for something essential. It is largely an accident of our birth and our life circumstances that we have come to find certain conditions familiar and others alien or distant. It is not an indication of anything essentially other or different about us.

Beyond any superficial circumstantial factors that differentiate us, all living beings share a much deeper common ground… Buddhism identifies this deeper ground as the wish to be happy and the longing for freedom from suffering. This fundamental inner condition lies at the very core of our existence. Our apparent physical and circumstantial differences are relatively unimportant and shallow, compared to the more important — and much more foundational — level of reality on which we all stand.

Focusing on this deeper level can help us to access a sense of closeness and shared experience — of all being in it together. With this as our starting point, we can explore our particular conditions without experiencing them as a gulf that separates us.

 

Changes

"We often think the only way to create happiness is to try to control the outer circumstances of our lives, to try to fix what seems wrong or to get rid of everything that bothers us. But the real problem lies in our reaction to those circumstances. What we have to change is the mind and the way it experiences reality. "  ~Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche (via)

Knopfler on Guitars

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I don't play myself, but it was fascinating to hear him talk about it.  He obviously loves the instrument.

Hobbit

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Hobbit was a regional favorite at the end of the 70s, back in the days when radio stations were locally owned and disc jockeys could play what they wanted.

As you can probably guess, most of their songs were Lord of the Rings themed.

Their (derelict) website is HERE.

"Day of mourning"

CommonDreams.org documents George H. Bush's legacy of violence, racism, and corruption, HERE.

I don't know why the media is intent on whitewashing his record.  He had a lot of blood on his hands.

Little Boxes

"We have these immense possibilities of making something of ourselves, but we get sidetracked, by being a man, by being a woman, or being black, being white. All the dichotomies that Western thinking pushes us into."  ~John Edgar Wideman (via)

Rivals

"The important thing for him was to see himself as part of the cosmos and related to it, not a 'rival god,' shaking his fist at the skies."  ~Hermann Hagedorn's description of Oliver Wendell Holmes, from his book Americans: A Book of Lives ©1946

AidAccess.org

If you live in an area where abortion is not readily available, bookmark this link:  AidAccess.org

BBVD

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Big Bad Voodoo Daddy in on the web HERE.

Right now their tour doesn't take them anywhere near me- but I've got my eyes on them.

Truth and Consequences

Here are a few facts about George H. Bush you won't hear at his eulogy:

He slashed funding for AIDS research and education, insisting AIDS was "the consequence of a lifestyle choice."  In other words, if you die of AIDS it's your own damn fault-- and no less than what a pervert like you deserves.  He banned those diagnosed with AIDS from entering the country.

The first Gulf War was not about freedom or democracy, it was fought to return a tyrannical king to his throne.  The Emir of Kuwait is so oppressive that it's no exaggeration to say most citizens-- particularly women-- would actually have been better off under Saddam Hussein.  (That's not because Hussein was good, it's because  the Emir is even worse.)  Bush tacitly admitted this was a war for oil during his losing campaign to Bill Clinton, making the spurious argument that if we hadn't gone to war "gasoline would be $12 a gallon."

As Commander-in-Chief he authorized the bombing of civilian targets, a war crime punished at Nuremberg with death by hanging.  He not only bombed water treatment facilities, he then embargoed the chemicals needed to purify drinking water.  Over half a million Iraqis under the age of 18 died of dysentery.  (A decade later his son would make the claim "They hate us because we are free."  They may have had a few, more obvious reasons.)

Despite promising during the build up to his war that borders would be returned to their previous boundaries, in fact Kuwait gained several hundred miles of oil-rich Iraqi territory.

After campaigning against supply-side economics during his first run for president, referring to it as "voodoo economics," he unflinchingly rotated his position 180 degrees when it became politically expedient to do so.  Inevitably, these policies led to an economic collapse which denied him a second term.

I consider this the consequence of a lifestyle choice.

 

Listen:

 

This is my favorite line in all of literature.

I remember the first time I read it:  I smiled from ear to ear.

I knew this was going to be different from everything I had ever read before.

I still smile ever time I see it.