E piangevo

This post has links to my current reading, to things I have stumbled across on the web by chance and things I encountered while searching for something different.  It involves some of my deepest pains and passions.  It is about yesterday, today, and always.

Rembrandt's Prodigal Son

Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg

This photo was just taken in my hallway 

where a print I bought at the Hermitage hangs.

I want to begin with the most striking take on the familiar parable of the prodigal son that I have ever encountered.  The story comes from commentary on a current crisis in a seminary, but that is not part of my story today.

[The commenter] was once doing a bible study on the Prodigal Son, asking each member to share with whom they identified -- the older son, the younger son, or the father, and why.  One person had not shared, so [I] invited her to speak. "No," she said, "what I have to say is stupid."  [I] assured her that it was not, and her reflections were as valid as anyone else.  "I identify with the Fatted Calf," she said.  "Think about it:  the Fatted Calf is the only one in the story that didn't do anything.  The younger son ran off, the older son was resentful, the father gets to be the good guy.  The fatted calf was happily eating his slop one day, next thing you know, he's dead.  He suffers because of the decisions others have made."  

 It seems that most humans throughout history are in the situation of the fatted calf, suffering poverty or war or oppression because of the decisions of others.  I just finished reading the opening argument between Agamemnon and Achilles in the Iliad. Each of them gets his fee-fees hurt, as we now say of big bad persons whose delicate feelings are disturbed and then proceed to make a huge stink about it. For that the Trojan War is prolonged and many die horrible deaths.  For that matter, the entire story of the Trojan War traces back to bruised feelings.  Eris is not invited to a feast, a golden apple sets  up rivalry, and then all hell breaks loose.

But Achilleus weeping went and sat in sorrow apart from his companions beside the beach of the gray sea looking out on the infinite water. (Iliad I.348-350, tr. Richmond Lattimore)

He had been publicly humiliated, though he gave as good as he got when it comes to insults.  So more death ensues, including death of comrades.

Whenever we read of mighty deeds by glorious heroes there is usually an ineluctable consequence: death.  Who pauses to think of the "common" person, the innocent victim, the collateral damage?  Do U.S. drones protect us in any lasting sense or merely sow the seeds of future terrorism, a harvest that must one day be reaped?  For any talk of surgical strikes we know there is no such precision.  People die for the decisions of others, by instruments guided from the other side of the world.  And the decisions of others, throughout human history, are not always rational but rather driven by our deep passions and dark anxieties.

"The First Funeral" in the Petit Palais, Paris.  I took this photo in 2012.  Adam and Eve first taste death in the loss of their son Abel, victim of his brother's envy.

Almost a century ago the world witnessed, though some of it still denies, the Armenian genocide.  I grew up among survivors and their descendants.

Genocide in Darfur, South Sudan.

The Holocaust under Hitler.  And I lived among survivors and descendants of this genocide.

The Killing Fields of Cambodia under Pol Pot.  I also worshiped and ministered among survivors of this genocide and their descendants.

Kosovo, 1999.

The muddy fields of Passchendaele, WWI.

Rwanda, the genocide we all ignored.

Perhaps it is easier to step back from the mass horrors, they are so overwhelming.  Yet even one human lost because of the passions of others remains tragic.  I posted a while back about how this sculpture touched me as I was becoming sexually aware but continues to move me deeply as it captures the dying moments of a warrior far from home. And what of the wounded warriors who return but cannot leave the battle behind them?  Ever.

The Dying Gaul, Palazzo Nuovo, Campidoglio, Rome

But if we move to the particular we find ourselves facing the individual, the personal, the familiar: people we know or have known.  These are the loved ones, the relatives and friends, the friends of friends, the neighbors, the men and women we see in our communities or transiting through airports. We know some of their stories.  Or, more likely, we will never know because they are unable to tell them. What has been called shell shock or battle fatigue is now named post traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD.

What deadly sacrifices do we insist on making, generation after generation?

I had to scroll back quite a bit to see where I posted this on Facebook:

Think / Neither fear nor courage saves us. Unnatural vices / Are fatherred by our heroism. Virtues / Are forced upon us by our impudent crimes.
--T. S. Eliot, Gerontion (1920)

In spite of all I am writing here, I do believe in a true heroism.  This is seen in sacrificial action in the face of, not the denial of, fear.  I believe most heroes are those who do the kind and generous and true and noble thing in everyday life, even when it costs them in time, effort, anguish, pain, and doubt.  Especially in moments where there are no easy answers.

But then there are the dark demons that tell us we are doing something noble, important, and worthwhile.  And we sacrifice to those demons.  Not only ourselves but we sacrifice others.

Rembrandt again: The Sacrifice of Isaac

Akedah

To all the sons not rescued by a ram,

To father’s gods and demons sacrificed,

Whose bonds were never mercifully sliced

And thus became themselves the offered lamb:

This mount was surely never sacred ground;

Just one more evil spot upon the earth

Where death could reign instead of joyous birth

And witnesses were deaf to victim’s sound.

The Lord did not provide.  You bore the flame

Of your own holocaust and hauled the wood.

You both assembled stones and then you stood

And wondered what would happen.  Then it came:

The moment when all filial trust was broken

And you, yourself, became the demon’s token.

Paul E. Strid

20 March 2014

Not all the stories have a happy ending.  I have no problem saying I do not believe in any deity that would make the demand narrated in Genesis 22.  It is too horrible a story, though it is also far too true in human history.  I believe in a God who never needs, and never required, to have honor satisfied or arbitrary justice fulfilled, to demand sacrifice to be placated, or to see the blood of Jesus to make everything all right. That God in Christ bled and died to satisfy our blood lust: that I grasp all too well.  I was raised on the most awful atonement theology and a sadistic streak runs through it, speaking of our own need for something terrible.  It has troubled me all my life and I gradually came to reject it and I totally renounce it.

And so we join Rachel, weeping for her children. She is another Eve from The First Funeral, only now her children are more numerous and senseless slaughter has multiplied.  She is the Sorrowful Mother.

I do not know the ultimate source of the words that follow.  I came across them on tumblr.

e piangevo, perchè sapevo che l’avrei sempre avuta dentro, quella tristezza che mi fa sentire vuota, che non si può speigare

[and I wept, because I knew I would always have within me this sadness that makes me feel empty, that I cannot explain]

This is a crucifix attributed to Michelangelo in the Basilica of the Holy Spirit, Florence.  It is the bookmark I am using as I read the Iliad.  It keeps me mindful of the cost of our passions.

Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever. --Hebrews 13.8

Just as suffering and slaughter as a result of the decisions of others is the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.


--the BB

Torpore e rimpianto

The shade of Tiresias, consulted by Ulysses in the underworld

Wikimedia Commons

In English 101 we read T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land.  It seems an incredibly undisciplined poem, roaming all over the place as though Eliot could not rein in his love of words and how they sound, heaped upon each other, with allusions going in all directions.  It is a veritable tour through mythology and imagery.  Vegetation deities and the Paschal mystery, the two already hardly unacquainted, and the history of European literature all seem to bounce about.  Well, as a lover of words and images and mythology I could only fall in love with it.

As Barbara Kaiser and I walked toward our English class with Dr. Barnes on the day this poem was to be discussed, we had a chat.  I do not recall who initiated it but I do remember we always called each other Miss Kaiser and Mr. Strid, mimicking in reverse the way all professors at the school were addressed with no "Doctor" thrown in. Whichever of us began, it ran something like this:

Well, Miss Kaiser, what did you think of The Waste Land?
I hated it, Mr. Strid.
Really?  Why?
I couldn't understand a word of it.  Could you?
No, but I loved it.
How can you love it if it makes no sense to you?
It doesn't have to.  I just loved the words and the way they sound.

This may be a poor approximation of the words, but I assure you it was the content.  I have read and reread the poem many times, savoring Eliot's notes.  I loved that it incorporated fragments of so many other works (and in several languages).  My polyglot mind must have danced.  A couple classmates and I even recorded our own dramatic reading (reel-to-reel tape, children).  Many years later I ran across Jessie Weston's From Romance to Ritual, which inspired the work, and read that plus rereading Eliot, with a deck of Tarot cards at hand as well.  I have read it dozens of times, I suppose, and also came to love The Four Quartets by Eliot.  But they were the subject of a series of musings on this blog some time back.

Some segments of The Waste Land delighted me with their wit and invention.  Some amused me highly.  The poet knows how to do the most literate snark.  Some passages invite prolonged reflection.  Occasionally I am overwhelmed by the imagery, just as one can be overwhelmed by the perfumes in section two on "A Game of Chess."  Some phrases stir up some deep shit bred of memory and desire.  And then there are scenes that touch some barely perceptible chord deep within, evoking a stirring, perhaps a touch of disquiet or tender sympathy.  I believe disquiet and sympathy lie behind this post.

Here is the scene that triggers my musings:

At the violet hour, when the eyes and back

 215

Turn upward from the desk, when the human engine waits

Like a taxi throbbing waiting,

I Tiresias, though blind, throbbing between two lives,

Old man with wrinkled female breasts, can see

At the violet hour, the evening hour that strives

 220

Homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea,

The typist home at tea-time, clears her breakfast, lights

Her stove, and lays out food in tins.

Out of the window perilously spread

Her drying combinations touched by the sun’s last rays,

 225

On the divan are piled (at night her bed)

Stockings, slippers, camisoles, and stays.

I Tiresias, old man with wrinkled dugs

Perceived the scene, and foretold the rest—

I too awaited the expected guest.

 230

He, the young man carbuncular, arrives,

A small house-agent’s clerk, with one bold stare,

One of the low on whom assurance sits

As a silk hat on a Bradford millionaire.

The time is now propitious, as he guesses,

 235

The meal is ended, she is bored and tired,

Endeavours to engage her in caresses

Which still are unreproved, if undesired.

Flushed and decided, he assaults at once;

Exploring hands encounter no defence;

 240

His vanity requires no response,

And makes a welcome of indifference.

(And I Tiresias have foresuffered all

Enacted on this same divan or bed;

I who have sat by Thebes below the wall

 245

And walked among the lowest of the dead.)

Bestows one final patronizing kiss,

And gropes his way, finding the stairs unlit…

She turns and looks a moment in the glass,

Hardly aware of her departed lover;

 250

Her brain allows one half-formed thought to pass:

“Well now that’s done: and I’m glad it’s over.”

When lovely woman stoops to folly and

Paces about her room again, alone,

She smoothes her hair with automatic hand,

 255

And puts a record on the gramophone.

 It is a tawdry vignette of two people doing what lost and lonely people do.  When I read it as a freshman I was, no doubt, initially tittered, then troubled, amused, and saddened.  I find it disturbing, far more now than back when I was a frustrated virgin.  Before I add my personal reactions I want to
add what Eliot says in his notes to the poem:

Tiresias, although a mere spectator and not indeed a “character,” is yet the most important personage in the poem, uniting all the rest. Just as the one-eyed merchant, seller of currants, melts into the Phoenician Sailor, and the latter is not wholly distinct from Ferdinand Prince of Naples, so all the women are one woman, and the two sexes meet in Tiresias. What Tiresias sees, in fact, is the substance of the poem. 

Tiresias, the blind seer, is mentioned in Ovid's Metamorphoses as having struck two coupling snakes and been turned into a woman for seven years.  When he sees coupling snakes again he strikes them and is turned back into a man.  As one who has "seen both sides" he was called upon to settle a dispute between Jupiter and Juno over which sex gets the most pleasure out of lovemaking.  That is background; you can read his verdict and its consequences on your own.

As a gay man I can experience the delights of both pitching and catching, so there is a certain identification with Tiresias, though I have never wanted to be anything but a male.  Role confusion I may have known in a society of rigid expectations but never gender confusion.  Still, I can identify with both the man and the woman in the scene cited above.  Like any male I am patterned by biological evolution and societal encouragement to take advantage of opportunity where it presents itself.  When I was young and pimply I could barely recognize opportunity when it came knocking and I was too terrified to take advantage of it (I believe there was one chance in high school that haunts me still) or, well, too icked out at the thought of doing anything beyond a hug with a female.

The woman here, however, captures a theme I have already raised in this extended biographical pondering.  I have lived a life with weak, often non-existent, boundaries.  I would give without even being asked.  What I gave was my own selfhood.  In order to survive I have always kept a core locked away and inviolable and if any reader has ever had trouble connecting with me, now you know why.  Like the typist, I have endlessly been in situations where others and their ideas, intentions, and actions have been, by me, unreproved even when undesired.  I have gone along, said "yes," felt used and resentful, violated, and almost never uttered a word of resistance or reproach.  the most profound alienation existed between that with which I went along and what I felt inside.

Gradually, and very late in the game, I am getting better at (1) being myself, (2) standing up for myself, (3) speaking my truth, and (4) clarifying and defending my boundaries.  This latter is quite different from the defenses of the past, the great walls and moats, deep dungeons bound with adamant and steel.  Those preserved the endangered sparks of my threatened self, threatened because I had not learned to be strong in who I am.  True, I have the stubbornness of a Taurus, and can dig in my heels when I feel manipulated but mostly I just practiced passive aggression.  I could not be clear and communicate honestly; I simply refused to give others what they wanted.  The mere fact that these current writings are posted publicly, where friends, family, and strangers may read, is an indication that the deep dungeon door, so long defended, has inched open.

Today I feel no need to rage about this.  Well, not at the moment anyway. I have lots of grieving to do and anger still to process.  But mostly it is sadness.  I reread this passage from Eliot last night and tonight I want to weep because for me it captures so much waste, so much unhealthy relatedness, so many lost opportunities, so many moments of regret and the ensuing numbness to avoid facing what has happened. Hence the title of this post: numbness and regret.

Memory and desire.  Numbness and regret.  Living our lives as lies.  Torpore e rimpianto.

If only to get this far, I think this literary revisitation is proving profitable.

My shrink is on retreat.  When he returns we are going to have a lot to talk about.

--the BB

Il paese dei sogni

The old neighborhood

The last post commented as follows:

When I left California at age 60 it was to begin again and find myself, having lost myself in so many directions. 

This may have been one of the greatest understatements, and greatest truths, of my life.

Very early on I began to give myself away to please others.  My overactive mind and sensitive intuition were always at work trying to find ways to please, to entertain, to make others happy.  I was great at nurturing others when the chance arose.  I have the Safford gift of gab from Mom's side of the family (and the Safford tendency to embroider a story because plain facts are less entertaining).  I hasten to add this latter trait is not any conscious attempt to lie, it is just how you tell stories.  What I did not develop was a healthy way to defend my inner self: to honor my sacred flame and keep pure my deep well.  What I thought, what I needed, and what I felt were repeatedly shoved aside. In my early forties I was stunned to realize, though rarely live out, that it is all right to say "No."  All my life was lived at least trying to say "yes" and the toll has been immense.

If you have known me for a long time it may be hard to read that I tried ideas like trying out clothes in a clothing store, uttering them out loud to see how they fit. But there was no guarantee what you heard is what I really thought or felt.  That was deep within.  It is only in my sixties that I came out as a genuine introvert.  My exterior has been mostly performance. Even I have trouble to this day knowing what I really FEEL about things, knowing what I truly WANT or NEED.

Part of the reason this seems so incongruous is that many emotions that most folks feel reluctant to share I will express and share easily.  I have no problem going on a rant or crying in public. But the deeper stuff has been locked down so deep inside that when I slow down and talk about what truly matters to me it is extremely difficult to say what I am feeling.  Moments when it breaks through come as times of immense grace and I know when they hit.  I am so grateful for those friends with whom I feel safe enough to experience this and am blessed that this includes coworkers who have been there for me in the recent years of my journey.

I recently posted the satellite photo shown above on Facebook and talked about how over the decades I have had dreams set in the neighborhood where I lived as a boy, or in settings highly evocative of that landscape.  It does not happen often, just once in a while, but the geography is quite specific, even as it is also fluid and unreal in the way that dreamscapes can be.  That post led to comments from family members sharing their memories, especially of the house.  My maternal grandparents bought the house (they were the second owners).  It was built around 1910 and had the characteristic front porch with pillars of homes from that era.  There were pillars partially separating the living room and dining room too, though Dad removed those to open up the space.  And the old floor heater we would stand over (briefly) to warm up and over which Mom would put a drying rack for clothes in the winter.  Blue jeans with stretchers in them so they dried as though ironed. Sweet.

Although the house has figured in dreams, I am intrigued more by the neighborhood.  As a boy my world was, as cousin  Sharon pointed out, the territory I could walk within 1-2 miles from home.  I also rode my bike like a fiend but in dreams it is almost always on foot, rarely driving.  The streets are as they were when I was in elementary school and the walk from home to there figures in dreams.  I have acute memories of sensory details.  The darts we made from weeds.  Dirt areas where concrete sidewalks were lacking.  Mature trees, modest middle-class homes.  Quiet.  Lots of quiet.  It was not a noisy neighborhood.  Noise came from the traffic on Fresno Street and Belmont Avenue (and the Rambelaine Kennels where bulldogs were raised until those closed).  But how noisy was traffic in Fresno, California, in the 1950s?

The details that stand out are my perceptions when I was by myself.  See: introvert.  When I was (and am today) walking alone, I take in the world around me and I am not giving myself away to others.  I feel safe and happy.  And that is why I remember the physical campus of my undergraduate college far more than I remember my classmates.  And why I bond with trees.

Yes, I go way beyond tree huggers.  I have always felt a closeness to trees as though they are my guardian spirits.  Part of me has always been an animist.  To me the entire cosmos is alive.  The consciousness of a rock may be a very slow consciousness but I do not believe anything God has created is without life.  So if you are shocked to learn I have always been part pagan, well, there you have it.

When the sycamores that defined our street were cut down by the city and replaced with holm oaks and non-bearing plum trees, I was devastated.  Those "new" trees are now mature but in my dreams it is the old sycamores (plane trees) that remain.  I have one in front of my current home in Albuquerque and they are also found by the office where I first worked in ABQ. In autumn of 2005 the sycamore leaves were falling to the ground and the wind made them scuttle across the sidewalk.  It was a distinctive sound that instantly carried me back half a century!  Their unique smell also took me back.

Growing up and spending summers in the Sequoia National Forest, I developed a deep love for the yellow pine belt, its trees and flowers, wildlife, and geologic formations. Walking alone in the woods was my private, VERY introverted time.  I saw parables and symbolism in the natural environment.  And once again, the trees were my friends.  It is interesting that I work for Smokey now, at least part-time now that I am semi-retired, helping Forest Service personnel, including firefighters, travel for work.  For all the time spent even working on staff during the summers, it is the hills and trees, streams, and wildflowers that I remember and think about.  Not the people.

It is not that I hate people, except in rare moments of misanthropy, lol. But for someone who was driven to please others, people are an invitation and demand to give, perform, and not be self-directed, self-contained, and self-aware.  In a word, draining.  And I do not blame others for the fact that I distorted myself to give them what I thought they wanted or needed, just saying that is how I responded.

Back to trees.  When Bill and I separated in 2002 I found a condo unit on a second story that looked out at lovely mature alder trees.  I had met alders on the campus of UCLA when I was doing graduate study in history.  These were beautiful trees that greeted me each morning as I left and each evening as I came home.  It was a bit like living in a tree house!  I would reach out and touch them, sometimes pausing to pray with them.  They were anchors in a difficult transition.  And within a year the HOA had them cut down because nearby pine trees had become diseased and these might also.  The joy of living there was lost. The landscape of my life felt barren and exposed.

I never felt pressure from trees.  Well, we all know people who like their pets better than humans, right?  I hope y'all are not too offended if I often prefer trees.  It is not as drastic as it sounds, especially since it is getting easier for me to be myself and guard that selfhood, so I no longer require the immense defenses of my past.  I have, to tell the truth, been like a fortified city, with thick triple walls and moats, alligators and dragons and all.  I have been opening gates.

If you have followed the past year and a half on Facebook you now have some more context for what opening myself without giving myself away has been like, why 2013 was exhilarating and unsettling, why I know in 2014 how much work I have still to do, and why I look forward to 2015 and beyond.  You also know why I needed an immense and drastic break in the pattern when I left my native state in 2006 and never looked back.

The territory in which I feel safe to be myself is expanding all the time.  It is not easy to dismantle a lifetime of defenses. But I am finally emerging from the trees.  They will always be my friends but there is a larger world in which I can now be authentic and maintain my own integrity.  I may even figure out what I want, but that won't happen overnight.

--the BB

Inizia il viaggio

Eastern gate of Troy VI

Hello, friends!  Remember me?

Perhaps not, it has been so long and so infrequent. But here I am.  Most of my musings and sharings have been on Facebook for quite a while now.  But that environment is not conducive to longer reflection so I think my current phase requires blogging once again.  I will link to FB so new and old friends can visit here if they wish.

The header reads: The trip begins.  I am intentionally beginning an inner voyage, though it has truly been going on for some time.  I suppose one might say "all my life."

Now and again confluences of events, images, encounters, memories, and dreams slap us to attention and we say, "Oh, my.  So that is what is going on."  Those who have encountered me in person or followed me on Facebook know that 2013 was a year of some rather significant transitions, even if you had to read between the lines of my often cryptic posts.  Some new persons and events entered my life and I went through both breakthroughs and breaking open on the one hand and losses and huge shifts on the other.  It was an emotional roller coaster, though I always knew it was for the good and I was going to be fine.  Pity there was no way I could totally reassure my friends of this confidence, but that is all right.  I knew and that was what counted.

2014 has continued the themes of letting go and shifting.  It is a quieter year and I am blessed with an excellent therapist who does not allow me to dazzle him with bullshit or evade but who also is there for me and invites me into deeper and deeper authenticity.  If 2013 set the ball rolling, and finally set in motion some things that had been shifting for years, then 2014 is a year of looking at these changes and consolidating the initial progress while moving forward. It is a year of slowing down (2013 was pretty damned manic, as all will attest).  I suspect this fall and winter and 2015 may be slower still.

I have been listening to lots of CDs from The Teaching Company.  I have listened to three different series on Shakespeare alone in the last several months and watched DVDs of a number of plays.  Five versions of Hamlet alone, viewed within two weeks!  The most recent series, finished yesterday evening, was on Dante's Commedia.  I read the Commedia back in my twenties.  It seemed hard slogging, frankly, but I forged through.  I really cannot recall what I thought of it.  I know I look forward to revisiting it, having lived a few more decades and with so much more personal and intellectual background for appreciating it.  The point of the work is not intellectual, however, though it possesses incredible intellectual depth and artistry, but to experience and be transformed by the Love that moves the sun and the other stars.

The first of Dante's three guides is Publius Vergilius Maro, author of The Aeneid, The Eclogues, and The Georgics.  Thanks to Betty Wiley, my Latin teacher at Fresno High school, I got to read Books I, II, IV, and VI of the Aeneid in the original Latin while still a teenager.  Some years later I plowed through all twelve books of it in English, and though I do not recall exactly when I did this, I was still young.

On the verge of rereading Dante, I felt I might like to reread Vergil first.  Dante uses Vergil as a source, so it seems reasonable. And then I felt the urge to revisit something of a journey through a lot of pre-modern Western literature, a journey I took from high school through graduate school. What might I discover with an elder's eyes? What might it tell me about my life journey and why these texts resonate so strongly for me?

It did not take long on Amazon for me to then think, oh hell!  Why not?  So I am going to start by rereading the Iliad (which I read not that many years ago) and the Odyssey (which I have not touched since my early twenties).  Then the Aeneid, and then the Commedia, holding out for options to hit other works along the way.  There are works I have never read, such as Boccaccio's Decameron, and works of which I have only read a portion, such as Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.

Across the decades I have reread some of the Greek tragedies, all of which I read in one summer, either 1979 or 1980.  I have also seen live productions and movies of quite a few. And there is Shakespeare, of course.  I will probably leave exploration of these dramas to continuing exploration rather than part of this self-set course.  I would like to revisit the classic French theatre of Corneille, Racine, and Molière.

That is the literary side.  But the point is really to reweave my life.  To do that musing, that healing and integrative work, is normal and needed in the third third of one's life.  What about those dreams I have had across the decades and in which minute details of the physical environment of my boyhood survive?  Why is that geography so firmly implanted in my subconscious and why does that matter?  What does it mean to me now?  What might it mean?

I had hoped in retirement (or semi-retirement) to return to writing the Chronicles of Mídhris.  I still do, but I suspect that I need to feed myself before I share and to do inner work before I resume the tales.  They are, after all, stories that arise from my personal depth, nurtured on the mythologies on which I fed as a boy and youth and enriched by my experience of life. They are tales of hope and loss, of sorrow and joy, of struggle and wonder and questioning.  And journey tales.  Omigod, are they ever journey tales.  Stories of individuals, groups (migrations even), and a few families whose tales span centuries.

When I left California at age 60 it was to begin again and find myself, having lost myself in so many directions.  I lived like a hermit for no less than two years and gradually emerged.  I needed that.  I will not be so shut out now, but I do plan to go within, slow down, dig deeper.  If I record my musings here you, my friends and visitors, will be invited into my journey.  It is not taken alone.  We all must sail forth and none of us knows our destination, except to be taken up into the uncreated Light, that Love that moves the sun and other stars.

--the BB

Nel giardino

Today was the fourth session of yard cleanup in seven days. The weekly garbage collection was yesterday, one day late because of a holiday, and the bin was full of yard detritus (three large bags of it) and some house trash.  A fourth bag had to wait.

Well, that bag was joined by two others today and the bin is already almost full.

The Lady Banks rose is vigorous, to say the least.  I am cutting it back severely, confident that it will cover that section of the wall once again come summer.

The sage is also vigorous.  If you ever want cooking sage, ask me during late spring, summer, or early fall and you can have lots.

In spring 2007 I planted two 3-inch pots of sage in this spot.  A couple of years ago I dug up a chunk for my friend Kathy.  The remaining plant is cut back to the ground every winter and returns as a large clump about 3 feet by 2 feet in size.

The plum tree was pruned a few days ago.  It gets thinned every year but is also quite vigorous.

I do not have comparison photos of the rest of the yard but it gladdens my soul to see it looking tidier as we head deeper into winter.  I still have work to do on two honeysuckles and several rose bushes.

And that is today's gardening report from Desert Farne. The temperature a short while ago was 39 degrees F.  That is the predicted HIGH for tomorrow with bright sunshine.  I might not feel like yard work.  We shall see.

Perhaps I should stay indoors and read, watch movies, and do some of the emotional pruning my therapist recommended for this week.  Getting down to the essential takes effort.

--the BB

The sixth day of Christmas

I took a walk at lunch time today and here are some pics therefrom.  If you click on the photos you will see more detail.

As I have said so many times on Facebook, "I love living here!"

--the BB

Saturday walk

Horse Skull

"Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return."  Ominous?  Not necessarily.  As I was taking my walk on Saturday a friend shared this with me.  We are made of stardust, after all.  Awesome.

I find time in nature restorative, as most of us do.  This is enhanced by my being a nature mystic and more or less an animist.  I see every subatomic particle as infused with the Spirit and Life of God.

So, on another glorious day in Albuquerque I drove a few miles from my house, parked the car, and started walking.  The photo above is a view across the fields of the West Mesa toward the Sandias.

After I had moseyed about two and a half miles down the road, this is the view back toward the car which is hiding just below the horizon.

I loved the back lighting on these grasses lining the road.

Emeralds are my birthstone.  The broken glass here was lovely.

A tree near a culvert.

The view toward the west and the vast expanse of the West Mesa and the New Mexico sky.

As I walked along, enjoying the sunlight glistening on pieces of broken glass in varying shades, my mind assembled them as a long stretch of stained glass.  And I thought of the imagery of the Shekinah scattered throughout creation, longing to be reunited.  My mind then turned back to cosmology.  We have so many mythoi of creation being healed and brought back together.  Yet scientists tell us the universe is expanding ever faster and will eventually become dark and undifferentiated.  I have no reason to doubt that.

If one has lived a comfortable life, as most throughout history have not, that may be enough: to have simply lived.  But if one's life has known misery, starvation, slavery, oppression, war, disease, terror, violence, abuse, chronic pain, etc. then merely having lived hardly seems enough.  We want some righting of wrongs, some healing of ills and suffering, some transformation to give us hope.  (At our worst we seek retribution for our ills, but let us set that aside.) So my rejoicing in simply existing last Saturday (and most days), is the luxury of a modern, bourgeois life that has enjoyed loving and being loved, having my needs met, and generally not being anxious about the future.  These thoughts do not undo my exhilaration but they remind me soberly that very few can feel that way.

Oh, what a glorious day it was.  Wopila!

--the BB

My faith

Since the previous post announced that I no longer attend church, folks may wonder about my faith these days.  It has certainly evolved over the decades.

I still worship the Holy and Lifegiving Trinity and in that sense remain a rather orthodox Christian.  I pray the Lord's Prayer at bedtime.  My formal prayer life is very short and very simple and resembles that of a young child remembering beloved persons with the "God bless X." formula.  I do not need sophistication or nuance.  I hold people and the world before God in my heart.  That's it. Sometimes I light candles.

My view of reality is mostly rationalistic, scientific, and I do not believe God alters the laws of physics.  I believe the universe is a combination of randomness and pattern.  If I accept randomness then I do not believe everything happens for a purpose.  Stuff just happens.  We impose meaning on it by the narratives we create.  This matches both experience and studies of mythopoiesis.   This paragraph indicates why I so often agree with my atheist friends when they reject many pieties.

Having said that, however, I have all my life been a nature mystic.  I did not have words for that growing up.  I am an animist, if you wish to use that term, because I believe in the consciousness of all matter.  I see all creation as interrelated, everything as connected. My worldview is sacramental.  The presence and grace of God are manifested in observable phenomena and not just in the formal sacraments of the church. The Spirit's primary locus of action is everywhere at all times.  I am a panentheist (not a pantheist, look up the difference if it is unfamiliar to you).  God is everywhere present and in everything but I do not conclude that whatever is constitutes the fullness of God.

I will not define God.  I am a poet, a bakhti yogi, an artist.  I follow the path of the heart and I understand and express truth in images.  I have studied the phenomenon of language enough that I believe all we communicate is metaphorical.  Nothing is literal.  That is not a problem for me.  All the words I write here are symbols of meaning, not the things they symbolize.  Whether you discuss Christian theology, Hindu wisdom, pagan ritual, astrology, Sufi poetry, etc. they all are symbolic of psychic realities and deep experiential truths, so I can chat with people of different paths without getting hung up on metaphysics.  I am rather agnostic about metaphysics, actually: yours, mine, and anyone else's.

I rejected atonement theology long ago as a tribal hangover unworthy of any deity I wish to worship. This does not mean I reject the Cross and jump to Easter but I am a Resurrection Christian and much more Eastern Orthodox than Western in most things.  I ponder the transfiguration of creation, not sin and guilt.  I would rather lose myself in the goodness of God than wallow in the alleged evil of humanity, including myself.  The former is far more important and always true and much of the latter is the projected nightmare of abused souls.

If the doors of the New Jerusalem are open day and night and the kings of the earth that lamented the fall of Babylon bring their treasure into it, then no one is shut out.  I will stick with the final images of the Apocalyps rather than popular images of some getting in and others not.  You want in, you're in.  Since I believe that the only "place" that has ever existed or ever will is deep within the heart of God, then you cannot be anywhere else and have never been anywhere else.  If that is not where you want to be, it is your hell.  But you are loved and always have been and always will be.  I have no use for preachers of Bad News.

I think Margaret Watson is one of the best theologians and priests walking upon Ina Maka [Mother Earth].  My daily office is her blog.  She repeatedly redeems the Bible for me, finding the kernels of redemption and recasting what she reads in terms that match the harsh realities of our lives and common sense.

Each day is lived in gratitude.  I am blessed beyond all measure.

--the BB

He's back!

It has been almost a year since my last post on this blog.  Other things have taken my attention and most of my public expression has been on Facebook.  I think I need to spend more time rattling on.  Probably not for the public, which will largely be indifferent to my thoughts, but for my own sake.

2013 has been an amazing year.  I have gone through more intense transition than at any time since I dropped out of the graduate history doctoral program at UCLA, came out of the closet, and became an Episcopalian in 1974.  This year has probably been more intense than that. The good part of this is that I feel more authentic than I ever have in my life, and Bill attests to this.  [If you are new to this blog or to me, Bill is my best friend, soul mate, and ex; he has known me for 36 years.]

I think I will try to recap and reflect upon much of what has taken place.  I will be oblique and cryptic, as I have been on Facebook, to protect the privacy of others who have been part of this year's journey and my own need for public boundaries.  Those closer to me already know much more about this amazing year.

This year I got into some serious bread baking and learned to make a nice rustic loaf with a good crust and do it consistently.  I was rather manic about it, as I tend to do, and bought some new equipment related to bread baking, including a proofing box and a clay cloche.  I have not made bread as much in the latter half of the year but I know how to do some things with bread that I did not know a year ago.  Look for more homemade bread in 2014.

The addition of the patio in the back yard and the installation of drip irrigation has transformed not only my back yard but my entire home.

April 2007

Summer 2013

With that external transformation accomplished, I looked at the interior of the house.  If you know me well, you know that I am a terrible housekeeper and a bit of a slob.  Also a pack rat.   So the upstairs rooms resembled way too closely those of a the hoarders you see on television.  This was a source of great shame and discomfort but it was also one of those barriers I created to protect myself. This year I hired some folks to help me tackle several rooms and although there are still some stacks of boxes here and there I have open floor space, usable rooms, and places where I am not too ashamed to allow people.

As those "walls" were taken down I also was taking down emotional walls around my heart and at that point the story is too personal for details here.  I am not unique in finding it a challenge to be authentically myself around others and find that comfortable.  If you have experienced the "performer" side of me this may seem hard to believe but Bill always found me to be the most private person he knew, and he knows me better than anyone else does, sometimes better than I know myself.  Trust me, I have carried high walls around myself all my life.  Nice to let them down.

My life has been lived so much "in the world" that I only had paid work in the church for twelve and a half of the twenty-three years I have been a priest and did not even accrue the equivalent of ten years' pay. What was central to my life has become peripheral over time.  At this point I no longer attend church at all and cannot honestly say I miss it.  I do love the people I have known in various congregations but my interest in the institutional church is close to zero.  Having said that, I must add that the People of San Gabriel Episcopal Church in Corrales, New Mexico, are an amazing group of folks who worship God, love each other, and serve the community around them with faithfulness and generosity.  They have been a blessing to me and they exemplify what church should be.

I shoot pool every week, and this is something new in the past month.  I am terrible at it, but that does not matter.  I meet friends and have a good time in a smoke-free atmosphere and I stay sober doing it.  (I have never been big on alcohol when I am out on the town.)  I rather like the chicken taquitos at the Billiards Palace on Wyoming.

A great deal of my life has been lived passively (and passive aggressively). This year I have moved toward a more proactive stance in many areas. Whereas many friends in the past have been people I met with or through the church or Bill and his family, now I meet new folks on my own.  I am trying to connect my friends with each other so there is a network of friendship to journey through life together.  This becomes especially important as we grow older. Very few desire a lonely old age; I know I do not.  I am becoming more comfortable around larger groups of people.  This is very new and I think as I feel safer being myself this is increasingly possible.

This week I hosted Christmas dinner at my home, a first.  Others helped bring food and serve and clean up but I did clean, decorate, cook, and then serve a multi-course meal for ten people.  This is huge and was most enjoyable.

I want to send a shout out also to my coworkers who are not just folks I work with.  We are a close team and in a rather impressive way are there for each other.  They are friends, not just fellow office mates.  Some of them have put up with an incredible amount of me processing aloud, going through my rather all-over-the-map emotions this year.  Bless them for their patience, understanding, and support.

Online friends, some of whom I am blessed to have met in "meat time," have supported me this year and my family has also been supportive.  I am surrounded with so much love and friendship it is staggering and I give thanks daily for it.

Four very significant men entered my life this year.  No, I do not have a new partner, though my soul mate does have a new partner who is a wonderful chap and counts as one of the significant men in my life.  I rejoice for the two of them.  Each of the four has contributed something important to my life journey.  The stories of how they did so are complex and private but all have changed me and I have some amazing new friendships.

This has been a year of therapy.  I had physical therapy for my damaged arthritic shoulder and have moved from 24/7 pain to only occasional pain as I make certain movements.  I have a new massage therapist who works on joints, connecting tissues, and pressure points and makes my body feel better.  I have begun psychotherapy again and feel good about that process, though it is going to difficult and painful.

In May Bill and I spent a week in Istanbul, an amazing trip.  I may post photos here, though I never finished posting photos of the Rome and Florence trip way back when and in between Italy and Turkey we had two weeks in Paris.  Oh well, I will post whatever whenever I can.

Since the trip to Turkey I lost 35 pounds and went down six inches in waist size. This was through more careful eating.  Exercise still lies ahead.

 Next year I will semi-retire and hope to get to the gym and have other exercise regularly, get back to writing novels, and spend more time reading, traveling, and feeding friends.

So there is your catch-up.

--The BB

Heart thread - 01/18/2013

Our beloved brother, David@Montreal, asks for our prayers:

beloved Giants:
next Monday will be President Obama's public inauguration.second term of office.
i'm asking  a ongoing special intention of prayer and practice for the safety of the President and his family, as he has assumed such a prophetic role in a long-overdue discussion of the role of guns in American life and culture.
another special intention of prayer and practice for the transformative opportunities America is being offered with President Obama's initiatives.

in the wider world i'm asking prayers
for the people of Syria & South Sudan, for the people of Mali, and for the leaders of African and middle Eastern nations to assume their responsibilities for fraternal care  instead of continually relying on American, Canadian and European intervention.
prayers for  6 y.o. Austin who is incapacitated by blinding migraine headaches which confound his doctors
for Doreen living the last days and weeks of her life
prayers for all those undergoing discernment
all of those without proper housing
all those in search of a way forward
and prayers for a certain 'new retiree' and his husband

love always-always Love

 I also ask your prayers for my nephew Jay who has surgery on February 5, for his mother Ivajeane, and for the surgeons, nurses, techs, etc.  Jay's health is fragile.

And for the repose of the soul of Doris Hagen, a pillar of St Cuthbert's Church, Oakland.  She was there from the beginning of the church and headed the altar guild for many years.  A hard worker, she volunteered in the office, was a major organizer of fund raisers, and served on vestry and other committees.  She also looked after and supported me in good times and bad.  She died yesterday after a long and productive life.  Please remember also her husband, Paul, and their daughter Carol and grandchildren.

Doris Hagen

--the BB

Uncle Bori's Brussels Sprouts

I was discharged from the hospital after my recent bout of cellulitis (again) with the admonition to follow a "heart healthy" diet.  Please.  The reality is that most of my eating is reasonable.  I have oatmeal every morning (so good for fiber and cholesterol).  I drink nonfat milk.  I eat lots of raw nuts (not roasted or salted) and dried fruits (all that fiber, natural sugars, and antioxidants).  I use far less salt than I did when young, though I should never come near French fries where I am quite naughty.  I do not eat much red meat, tending toward lean pork and chicken without the skin.  I cook with olive oil.  I rarely use prepared foods as I like to know every item that goes into my cooking.

But I do cook with real butter and lots of it and I make sauces with heavy cream.  The cream is not something I use that often but the butter, well, I am half Swedish and the motto of Swedish cooking is "Smör och kärlek."  It translates as "butter and love" (in that order).

Winter is upon us and what could be more warming than Brussels sprouts in a cream sauce.  So here it is, something I have improvised and made several times.  It tastes really good and the hospital dieticians would freak.  I use some technical cooking terms here but you will easily figure them out.

I start with a package of Brussels sprouts.  It is best to cook them right away as they can spoil quickly.  I trim them ruthlessly, trimming stems and outer leaves and anything that looks yucky or proto-yucky.  See, technical terms.  The photo above is the trimmings which can equal the savings in volume.

 These are the trimmed sprouts.  I also halve them.  I don't think it makes any difference to cooking, though there are elaborate theories about this.  It does make it easier to absorb sauce, which is the whole point of this dish.

I rinse the sprouts, put them in a dish, cover with plastic film, and microwave for three minutes.  This is so much easier than parboiling.

 Meanwhile I need some chicken broth.  Not a lot, so the easy way is to use some Better Than Bouillon and about half a cup of water.  When the sprouts are microwaved I put the base and water mixture in the microwave and heat for 30 seconds, then stir.

 Now for a quick roux: equal amounts of butter and flour stirred until it starts to brown.

 Add the chicken broth mix and some heavy cream and a buttload of dill.  That's another technical term.  You may use any herb you prefer.  As you can see, I use lots.

Stir constantly as this thickens.  I add some sea salt and white pepper.

 Add the Brussels sprouts and keep stirring on high heat as the sauce continues to thicken and coat the sprouts.  Taste and adjust seasonings if needed.

The end result is rich and yummy.  Those who don't care for Brussels sprouts might convert over this.

I did not make this for tonight but put it in plastic containers that will go in the freezer when they cool down a bit.  I promised some to a coworker who really liked this when I made it last winter.  My lunches will be iniquitous but oh so good.

Enjoy!

--the BB

Sharing a fresh prayer list from David@Montreal, prayer warrior extraordinaire:

remembering the joys and the challenges of living as the living Body of Christ i'm ask your prayers for:

young Nyland whose doctor and family are serious concerned about lymphatic swelling in the groin, this very young lad was born with immune defense issues which have kept his Mum and Dad hopping.

for E. a deeply cherished sister who is dealing with 'something not right in my body' and awaits an appointment with her doctor.

prayers for Thora C., a year shy of 90, who is having serious difficulty spiritually and medically, dealing with the increaed pain brought on by her deteriorating back.

for her grand-daughter Thea, less than a year old, with compromised kidneys, and Thea's young mum, Jennifer.
for Mark, recovering  from shoulder surgery.

for Doreen in her last months
for Jacques in his last months

for Prior Aldred, who last night received news of his mother's unexpected death.
for Beatrice, Aldred's Mum, that she may rest in peace and rise in glory.

for Rosemary:who recently celebrated her birthday, and who, tomorrow will be moving into a small, quite special longterm care facility.
for Jay, Rosemary's remarkable, generous  son

for Jon and Mary: with thanks for the news of his first day back on the job, after extensive an cancer hospitalization
for Marc

for all those living with loss: especially Susan
for those undergoing discernment: for a way forward and the means

for the people of St. Columba parish, Montreal. there church was closed last Sunday (Mam and i were present for the last service). their future is not yet discerned, and there is a lot of pain and confusion amoung the congregants.

for the people of Syria as they continue to pay such a horrendous cost for their liberation.
for the people of South Sudan

for young Montel and Aleisha, who continue to live in the toxic, chaotic environment of their father's addictions. for all those living with addiction, and those who love them.

thank-you my beloved Giants

love always-always Love

David@Montreal

I would like to add my coworker Shawn recovering from arthroscopic surgery yesterday on his knee and my niece Jannita who has completed her radiation and chemo treatments.  May she now stay healthy for a long time!

--the BB

Volume Two of the Chronicles is published

The Light Bearers, the second half of Darkslayer, was released for publication this evening.

Paperback (ISBN 1477640487) is available immediately at CreateSpace eStore. If you wish to order it through Amazon, wait a few days and use the widgets in the right sidebar at OCICBW.

I expect the Kindle version will be available at Amazon by tomorrow morning. Again, OCICBW is a great place to shop.

--the BB

Self-editing

It is a risky thing to be one's own editor. On the simplest level there is the danger of missing typos because one's brain sees what one meant to write even when the eyes record what one's fingers actually typed. On many other levels one reads what one intended, regardless of what one has written. Nonetheless, I take the risk and am grateful for one reader commenting on the high quality of editing and grammar in the first book. Bless you, Marguerite.

At this point I am reading The Light Bearers for what must be the fifth time, at least. Both segments of Darkslayer were completed back in 2007, at least in the first draft. I am indebted to those who pointed out typos in the early reading. It is interesting to read it almost five years after the first draft. I have a bit of distance now, though the tale is very much in my blood. Every now and again I tweak a sentence that seems unclear in either concept or grammar or attempt to straighten what is a bit too convoluted.

There is pleasure in a fresh encounter with phrases one has forgotten ever writing. One such is highlighted in the graphic above. Ian Darkslayer may have destroyed a demon of darkness but he did not banish darkness from the world or from his own soul. In a stark moment he recognizes how much he is part of the world's ills. For me it is the climactic moment of the second book, a true loss of innocence at the ripe age of seventeen. Along with his mystical experience of Uncreated Light and his encounter with utter darkness, this moment shapes forever the man Ian will become.

Since I am just beginning to write the fourth book, the one recounting the rest of Ian's life, it is good to revisit how he grew into manhood.

--the BB

The false bodice ripper

I am proofing The Light Bearers, as y'all know. I am struck (you must remember this was first written in 2007 and I am now reading at a bit of a distance) by how it is laden with romantic play. So much so that I should probably blush. Oh well.

Confession: I am also enjoying it all.

Desh, the Raven, is the goddess of love. As our band of heroes sail toward the Holy Isle of Vios it is said of two besotted star singers that "Desh flew between their eyes." It is fun to coin phrases based on another culture's mythology, maybe especially a mythology of my own creation. We all know the look when the Raven flies between the eyes of people in love.

It has been a long time since I posted a writing/proofing update of this sort here.

--the BB

Food

This evening I had dinner with a friend then came home and watered the garden. I checked in online then returned to proofing The Light Bearers, the second half of Darkslayer and Volume Two in The Chronicles of Mídhris. I am about one third of the way through, which is encouraging.

Then I loaded the slow cooker with small potatoes, onion, yellow and orange peppers, a ton of stewing beef, mushrooms, red pepper flakes, lemon pepper, sea salt, thyme, Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, and red wine. All stowed in the fridge. Now, if I can remember to take it out tomorrow morning and turn it on, I shall come home to stew for dinner (and many meals thereafter).

Not that exciting a day but a good one.

Sweet dreams, poppets.

--the BB

Virtual cigars for all!

With little bands on them that say, "It's a book!"

Proud papa introduces the paper edition of my first book. It will show up on Amazon in 5-7 days. It is available immediately at CreateSpace. Over 500 pages of epic fantasy delight.

The photo above is of the proof copy that arrived today. I went through it and immediately approved it for publication.

Remember: It is published under a pseudonym, so search on "Grevedan Deveril." The title is The Demon Chasers.

Lots of extras at the blog dedicated to the series.

If you read it, please consider online reviews to help spread the word.

--the BB

What news lies behind these numbers?

Behold the ISBN for The Demon Chasers paperback that will be issued soon. I am supposed to receive the proof copy next Wednesday.

Can you guess I am excited?

--The BB