"...how to keep from becoming evil..."

I don’t know what else to do with 2020 but just roll with it. Lately my body has been rebelling with aches and pains and general grouchiness against any kind of sitting at a desk so I’ve been putting my energy into moving instead. I can’t remember an autumn when I have written less or been more caught up on yard work. All the bulbs are in, the gardens are put to bed, the herbs are harvested, the roses are pruned, and my yoga game is strong.

Maybe all that physical work is also a way of distracting myself from the state of the country (what in the hell is even going ON, people?!) which is probably a good thing since my Enneagram 1-ness would ordinarily be in high-distress mode about all the ideal-smashing and not-improving that is going on these days.

I mostly gave up alcohol a few months ago, but I’m making it through by being exhausted at night and keeping company with wise mentors. Right now I’m reading Distant Neighbors: The Selected Letters of Wendell Berry and Gary Snyder, which I highly recommend. Both Berry and Snyder have been fighting the good fight (each in their own, often very different, ways) for longer than I’ve been alive. WB had this to say back in 1978, and I’ll leave you with it:

“…living at peace is a difficult, deceptive concept. Same for not resisting evil. You can struggle, embattle yourself, resist evil until you become evil - as anti-communism becomes totalitarian. I have no doubt of that. But I don’t feel the least bit of an inclination to lie down and be a rug either, and now I begin to ask myself if I can live at peace only by being reconciled to battle….I am, I believe, a “nonviolent” fighter. But I am a fighter. And I see with considerable sorrow that I am not going to get done fighting and live at peace in anything like the simple way I once thought I would. So how to keep from becoming evil?

Maybe the answer is to fight always for what you particularly love, not for abstractions and not against anything: don’t fight against even the devil and don’t fight “to save the world.” […]

If you don’t see how much badness comes from stupidity, ignorance, confusion, etc - if you don’t see how much badness is done by good, likeable people, if you don’t love, or don’t know you love, people whose actions you deplore - then I guess you go too far into outrage, acquire diseased motives, quit having any fun, and get bad yourself.”

Be gentle to yourselves. And each other.

with love,

tonia

Portland, July 27, 2020

I have good news: Portland is not burning or trashed! It’s the same old complicated, messy, beautiful, wonderful city it always was. My son and I walked around this morning, about 5 hours after the last protest ended, just to get some pictures and to spread some love. We bought coffees from a favorite spot, searched high and low for a bathroom (seriously, the lack of public bathrooms might be the most unexpected horror of the pandemic, amiright?), sat in the sun at Pioneer Courthouse Square, drooled outside Powell’s Books (which is only open for online orders), and then went to the protest block (yes, one main block) and got a little tear gas residue and a little teary-eyed.

A brief tour of Portland this morning:

Everything’s pretty empty because of the pandemic.

Pioneer Courthouse Square. (It doesn’t usually have polka dots. That’s just a happy art installation.)

Murals outside the Apple store and down the block. Most of these businesses have been closed since the Stay-Home orders.

This is the block right before the protest zone. You can see some graffiti on the parking structure across the street.

This is the Federal Courthouse building where most of the action takes place. It’s made of concrete and marble. It would be very hard to burn it to the ground, even if people were actually trying to do that.

People cleaning up trash in the street.

The end of the block. The buildings you can see further down are also Federal buildings, but we didn’t see much graffiti or damage there.

This is the park across the street from the Federal Courthouse. Protestors have food and medical stations set up here. There’s a lot of talk about businesses suffering from the protests, but this 3 block area is mostly Federal buildings and parks and most businesses downtown are closed or limited service because of the pandemic, so I’m not sure how many are being directly affected by the protests at night.

And that’s it. It’s a strange thing to watch somewhere you love on the news, to hear lies about it and watch it become a pawn in a political battle. It makes your heart grow bigger for that place, makes you want to shield it and defend it. That’s why I went downtown myself today. I can’t control a government’s actions any more than I can control an individual protestor’s actions, but I can witness reality, and I can carry love and peace with me and release it into these precious streets.

(A reading suggestion for such a time: Ilya Kaminsky’s parable in poetry : Deaf Republic)

future reapers

Hot days give me a headache. Literally. I am not a big fan of ye olde summer, but it will keep coming around annually. The other day I went up into the loft of our garage/barn/shed and smacked my head on a low beam and banged my teeth together so hard that one of my front teeth cringes every time I have a cold drink now. Also, I hurt my wrist doing yoga and haven’t been able to down dog for a month. I could really use some yoga about now. Especially with the Federal invasion in my hometown streets and so many more presidential months to endure.

On the other hand, the poppies I planted a few years ago have self-seeded all over and keep surprising me with their happy little faces in unexpected places, the peaceful goddesses are rising, and hot days are also an excuse to lie in the grass and stare at the underside of trees.

Everyone I know is bent close to the earth with a lens, looking for something, anything, beautiful to focus on. “Look at these pictures of foxes!” someone posted online, desperation in the giving and receiving. I poured over them eagerly. Yes, foxes still exist. They are still lovely. So many lovely things still exist.

I’ve been trying to pay attention to my dreams lately, hoping maybe my subconscious (or perhaps the Divine) might inspire me while I sleep, but my dreams are painfully utilitarian. Recently, I spent an entire night cleaning a dream house. Once I registered an unknown child for school. Maybe that’s the kind of things dreams are made of in a dystopian year. Sparkling windows and fresh linens, the smell of carbon-paper enrollment forms.

I’ve been thinking of something Donna Cates said in her post this week: “the future unrolls from nothing other than the entire material of the present, like a roll of fabric unfurling.” I’m looking at the fabric in my hands wondering what I am weaving into the future. Do you see this thread that I spun from my fury? Here is the one where I walked away. Here is a cord made of poppy and nettle, a twist of rabbit fur, an image of a fox; I held it for awhile in my cringing teeth.

Then again, Jay Griffiths asks, “Would society be different if its profoundist models of time were not structured in a past-to-future narrative at all, but if time were seen as an unarrowed thing - if, for example, the Bible began with the rhapsody of a psalm and ended with the sashay of the song of Solomon?”

Perhaps I should imagine a garden, where my life is the fruit planted by gardeners long-dead, where others will one day reap the harvest planted in my body. (Forgive me, future reapers, there is still poison in my veins, but I have swallowed rhapsody for you as well.)

Last week, I found an old frame in a trunk. It enclosed two perfect butterflies mounted on paper. A google search tells me they are common to Asia, particularly India. Their antennae are delicately intact, a single one of each pair curving softly toward the right, like tiny signals from a dying hostage: “The way out is over there,” or perhaps, “Remember the way the sun glints on the Ganges.” I do not know, but I put them on the shelf in my office, where I can stare at them and wonder.

of mowing and mindfulness

Yesterday we took some time out to mow the pasture. My husband rented a big brush mower which he had to push up and down hills and around, but I worked with my scythe on the edges and the places too narrow or delicate for the mower. I love working with the scythe; it’s quiet, rhythmic work, and the swish of the blade cutting through the grass is enormously satisfying. I’m not a person who loves outdoor labor, but that’s a job I would do willingly every day.

I’ve been reading on mindfulness lately and it occurred to me as I worked that’s exactly what I love about it: the design of the scythe, the grass, the sharpness of the blade, they all invite mindful attention and presence. I can’t have the scythe in one hand and my phone in the other. My whole body is engaged with the swinging, my eyes and my thoughts are always aware of the blade. It’s one of the few times I don’t feel pulled in myriad directions.

I carried that little gem of insight with me at the end of the day and thought about why I have been feeling so fragmented lately and what I can do about it. As dark came on, I turned off most of the lights and lit a few candles and sat with my knitting. I usually listen to a reading or something while I knit, but last night I wanted to let my mind roam through what I’d learned during the day. It’s strange how rarely I do that, just sit in the quiet with my own mind. It didn’t take long to identify ways I could help myself. I already know what they are, they just get buried under other, competing messages.

As many of us are learning now, we can be operating right inside of systems that are invisible to us. We can be acting on beliefs we have no real consciousness of. (This applies to all kinds of belief systems, not just racism, though that is at the top of many minds these days.) Those deep-seated, so-intrusive-we-don’t-even-recognize-them systems of belief can only be seen when we make a practice of sitting down with ourselves and looking inside. Even though it’s cliche, it is difficult to be alone with our own minds. Somehow, deep down, we know that we will see and understand things that will be too difficult to fix right away, and that’s frightening.

I’ve developed many strategies over the years to avoid such inner-looking, but one way is to imagine myself too busy. Busyness is a nice excuse to keep the eyes focused on some distant point in the future. I usually accomplish this by having ridiculous standards, too much stuff, and co-opting other people’s passions and goals (this is the intellectual version of impulse buying that print/skirt/necklace/mug I saw on Instagram that one day.) The other strategy I employ is being too overwhelmed. Sometimes, the compulsive checking of news and opinions is actually a way of not engaging. Sometimes I am giving other people’s drama too much of my inner space. If I keep myself in a state of anxiety I can’t actually be expected to deal with anything real, can I?

The hardest thing of all is to enter the quiet of this moment and attend only to that and what it reveals (especially when the war drums are beating outside). But to me this is where everything begins. Life is like a golden spiral. What I learn of love and truth in the center of my being will remain constant for my interactions with the world outside of myself. This is why the greatest rule we have is basically, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” It’s a rule that is impossible to follow without intimate knowing and engagement. But it’s also a rule that provides a livable scale.

Myself.

My neighbor.

Spiraling naturally out and out and out.

This practice of mindfulness is one in which I want to continue to learn. I would love to hear your thoughts and insights if you want to share.

Peace to you, my friends.

“The most precious gift we can offer others is our presence. When mindfulness embraces those we love, they will bloom like flowers.”

~ Thich Nhat Hahn

***

I also wanted to share with you this opportunity to help amplify black writers! Amistad Books is hosting #BlackoutBestsellerList .

“To demonstrate our power and clout in the publishing industry, Saturday June 13 – Saturday June 20, we encourage you to purchase any two books by Black writers. Our goal is to Blackout bestseller lists with Black voices.”

(I ordered the first two books in N.K. Jemisin’s The Broken Earth series. If you order books by black writers this week, please leave a note and let me know who you are going to be reading!)

at the close of a year

It’s Sunday night here - a time that always feels like an ending, but is actually a beginning. It’s late in this twilight space. I should be tidying and settling down to sleep, but it’s the last night I’ll ever be 48 and I want to write a little.

I made signs this week and I’ve tacked one up on my office wall: “Power to the Peaceful”, where I can see it while I work. I have been reminded these past days how quickly I can lose my inner equilibrium, how easily righteous anger can spill over into just plain old ugly, demeaning anger. What a balance this is, to be appropriately angry at injustice and yet not dehumanize those who refuse to (or can’t) see it. To destroy immoral systems and yet somehow care for the redemption of the people who perpetrate them, including yourself.

So the sign is up where I will see it daily, a reminder that peacefulness is difficult work, that the power that comes from it is not the kind that follows in the wake of guns and rigged systems, but the kind that flows inside vines and seeds, rivers and bloodstreams. At the end of this year of living I feel such a call to go deeper with the practice of peace, to move it out of an intellectual space into a lived space. The upheaval around us, the upheaval inside myself, only makes it more clear to me that this is important work.

~ My favorite part about birthdays is the freshness, the whole new year lying ahead, full of potential. I have written out some intentions, thought about how to maintain my attention on those things in the long term. I’m sure I will be writing about them over the next months. Right now they are so fresh and tender, small buds just emerging from under the dark of leaves; I want to keep them close and quiet.

For now, as darkness falls and I can feel sleep calling to me, I’ll share this section of one of Kyce Bello’s poems that I have put in the footer of my blog. I keep it as a prayer, a dream for going forward:

Make me a figure with a womb

And relict heart.   Make me

the seam that holds the tattered land together

and let me be the speaker that sings

rise, rise

all across the shapely ground.

Kyce Bello || Refugia

Love to you, friends.

tonia