WHAT CAN WE SUSTAIN?

I have set before you life and death . . . therefore choose life. —Deuteronomy 30:19

What does it mean in the context of our contemporary  society to choose life.

What does it mean in this time of  the whole earth  dissemination of corona virus.

Certainly nothing else has made us more aware of how  we are part of a global community. The time has come to unite and to  see that our survival depends on  our recognition that we all have and must  solve the same problems--pollution--disease--violence .

I just received a message on MESSENGER  from a  woman whom I met in Romania --VIOLETTA took up her  task of self-appointed translator and helper of me.  
Now she speaks from Italy where she is living saying that she is totally alone and has not seen anyone for two weeks. She raises and shows gorgeous dogs--so  I trust they are with her.  She made my time in Romania much richer and more interesting. 

Eco-philosopher, Earth elder, friend, and spiritual activist Joanna Macy, now ninety years old, 
has been promoting a global transition from the Industrial Growth Society to a Life-Sustaining Society for most of her life. She calls it the Great Turning, a revolution of great urgency: “While the agricultural revolution took centuries, and the industrial revolution took   , this ecological revolution has to happen within a matter of years.” [1] She is hopeful as she sees individuals and groups participating in “1) Actions to slow the damage to Earth and its beings; 2) Analysis and transformation of the foundations of our common life; [and] 3) A fundamental shift in worldview and values.” [2]

Macy understands that the third type of action—essentially, a new way of seeing— “require[s] a shift in our perception of reality—and that shift is happening now, both as cognitive revolution and spiritual awakening.”

 [3] While the shift may not be obvious in my own generation, we need look no further than the ongoing powerful and prophetic presence of young leaders, like indigenous teenagers Tokata Iron Eyes (a member of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe who plays a key role in the “Rezpect Our Water” campaign) and Autumn Peltier (also a water protector and a citizen of the Wiikwemkoong First Nation); they have been joined recently by Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg, who spoke at the United Nations Climate Action Summit and helped inspire Climate Strikes around the world. 

In the face of criticism, Greta calls her Asperger’s syndrome a “superpower” that gives her a clear perspective on the climate crisis. May we be motivated by these committed young advocates and lend our voices and strength to heal our wounded world.

Macy explains:

The insights and experiences that enable us to make this shift may arise from grief for our world that contradicts illusions of the separate and isolated self.

Or they may arise from breakthroughs in science, such as quantum physics and systems theory. Or we may find ourselves inspired by the wisdom traditions of native peoples and mystical voices in the major religions; we hearken to their teachings as to some half-forgotten song that our world is a sacred whole in which we have a sacred mission. [4]

St. Hildegard von Bingen (1098–1179), a Germanic nun, mystic, and healer, was doing this 800 years ago. In her book Scivias she wrote, “You understand so little of what is around you because you do not use what is within you.” [5] 

Somehow, she already understood what science is now affirming: 
“The macrocosm is mirrored in the microcosm.” 

Science is finding that the world is an integrated whole rather than separated parts. Nothing in the cosmos operates independently. We are all holons, which are simultaneously whole in themselves, and at the same time part of a larger whole. This understanding is moving us from a narrow, mechanistic, Newtonian view of the universe to a holistic/ecological view. [6]

Nothing is static, and if you try to construct an unchangeable or independent universe for yourself, you will be moving against the now obvious divine plan and direction.

BORN TO BLUSH UNSEEN

STILL RISING IN THE BUCKET

But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page

50Rich with the spoils of time did ne'er unroll;

51Chill Penury repressed their noble rage,

52And froze the genial current of the soul.

53Full many a gem of purest ray serene,

54The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear:

55Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,

56And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

These lines have always  thrilled me. 
They are from Grey's "Elegy in a Country Church yard."
They lament the dead who had narrow lives and obscure  experiences. The lines assume that
 among the buried rural  dead there are  brilliant and beautiful people who never gained 
recognition in their  lifetimes.


 I tend to agree with these sentiments 
in my own  life the poor  and working class I came to see that there were brilliant and  gorgeous people
among them.  I have described the  talents of  someone like Flavius Boucher, a stone 
mason who became a sculptor.  Most of all my daily  experience of my brilliant mother  
who was forced to leave school after completing grade 8. I did not meet anyone smarter
 than  her until I met the celebrated poet and translator --Richard Howard.

  Sometimes I express my understanding of the  specialness and uniqueness of every  person with
the saying "Genius is like a bird it can alight on any branch.".  But when I say this in
front of a person of privilege I often receive the answer:: "No,  the cream always  rises to the top"
What they mean by that sentiment is that everyone is in the right place. They like to see themselves as the  CREAM and  people on the bottom as  something that cannot rise--curdled milk perhaps.
This idea that we are already where we should be in life is unacceptable to me.

Think of Maya Angelou's words  "STILL I RISE,"

Still I Rise

BY MAYA ANGELOU

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,

You may trod me in the very dirt

But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?

Why are you beset with gloom?

’Cause I walk like I've got oil wells

Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,

With the certainty of tides,

Just like hopes springing high,

Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?

Bowed head and lowered eyes?

Shoulders falling down like teardrops,

Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?

Don't you take it awful hard

’Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines

Diggin’ in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,

You may cut me with your eyes,

You may kill me with your hatefulness,

But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?

Does it come as a surprise

That I dance like I've got diamonds

At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame

I rise

Up from a past that’s rooted in pain

I rise

I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,

Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear

I rise

Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear

I rise

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,

I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise

I rise

I rise.

STILL TIME TO RE-INVENT?

I find this notion of re-invention to be a slippery one and probably a recent one.
But for Tom Brady's sake , I hope it is  truly not too late for him.

Reinvention

by Eric Nixon

At one age

It seems as if life is going

Firmly in a certain direction

And you head that way

Chugging along at full speed

But then

Things change

Sharply

And after a time set adrift

In a place that's unfamiliar

And completely unknown

From where you thought

From where you planned on being

Stunned, wondering what happened

Some people in this place

Break down completely

Pining away for the life

They feel is due to them

They feel should be theirs

Some people though

Go through a period

Of introspection

And experience

A type of reinvention
Where they pick themselves up
And rebuild their lives
With what they've been given
With what they have in-hand
And are surprised to see
They are now in a better place
Than they would have been
Before the life-altering change

We are all a bit stunned and maybe even a little inspired by Tom Brady's decision to leave the Patriots.  How will he look in the Tampa Bay Buccaneer's uniform and  not the familiar red-white and blue of the Patriots?

I can't picture it but I cheer his  choice to  leave the niggling--DO YOUR JOB-- begrudging attitude of his coach and to see what he can accomplish in a new place.  
He is  not old but he is old for  a quarterback and he chose a team with some real  weapons in terms of the  receivers he so lacked once Gronk stepped away. 

In this season of the corona virus and total social isolation--which my age and disability already have dealt me--it gives me  something to look forward to watching unfold.

I am also in the phase of re-invention that the poem describes. I am  involved both intellectually and emotionally in researching the life of a left activist of the 30s and 40s Anne Burlak Timpson who was called THE RED FLAME .


She actually ran for Mayor of Pawtucket on a Communist ticket! 

I remember my mother talking about her when she was a textile worker--ALL HER LIFE FROM 14 YEARS TO 64--  she mentioned that she had  heard Anne Burlak speak. 

My mother was active in trying to start unions in various factories where she worked and was the shop steward  when she was at Darlington Fabrics. She called Anne the RED FLAME--she had brilliant red hair-- and she said  "I was not afraid to listen to her."

That statement sums up my mother's sense of fair play : everyone has a right to an opinion and she was never afraid to listen to  them and make up her own mind.

I am trying to re-invent my self as a playwright now after  many years of care taking and not writing plays.  I hope it comes back to me like swimming or riding a bike. 

And I wish TOM BRADY GREAT SUCCESS IN HIS REINVENTION AT TAMPA BAY

“Reinvention” by Eric Nixon from Equidistant. © Double Yolk Press, 2019. 

A POET'S PROPOSAL IN THE BUCKET SUITS THE DAY

LET'S DO WHAT WE ALWAYS DO

This poem perfectly suits the events of today.

A Proposal

by Carl Dennis

Why don't we set aside for a day
Our search for variety and have lunch
At the same café where we had lunch yesterday
And order the same avocado and Gouda sandwich
On whole wheat bread, toasted and buttered?

Why don't we stroll again after lunch
To the river and back? I'll be glad to interpret
Your wearing the blouse you wore yesterday
As a sign you're still the person I think you are,
That this is the walk you want to take,

The one you didn't get your fill of before.
And later, why don't we hope for a sunset
That duplicates the valiant effort of yesterday:
Enough clouds for the light to play with,
Despite a haze that dims the hues?

Isn’t the insight worth repeating
That the end of the day may show itself
To be just as colorful as the beginning,
That a fine beginning isn't a veil
That the end is destined to strip away?

The same words, but yesterday
They may have sounded a little tentative,
As if we weren't sure we were ready
To stand behind them. Now if we choose
To repeat them, it means we are.

Today without planning to we enacted this poem. 

It was a gorgeous unseasonal warm sunny day in March in Pawtucket.  After a visit from the nurse and another from my favorite physical therapist I felt a resurgence of energy and I said the  magic  words to my husband  LETS GO OUT FOR LUNCH.

He immediately agreed and changed from slippers to shoes.  We went down the steps and  with the help pf my  cane  I went tot he car and got into the driver's seat.

I drove us through Slater Park where the trees are still "bare ruined choirs."  But the scene was lively with  walkers and their dogs and  I drove out  to the KFC. We got a  lunch to split and went  back to the park and stopped by the pond and watched the  antics of the ducks.

 After we finished our lunch,  I drove out of the park and was inspired to visit two cemeteries.    
First we went to Oak Grove on Central  Avenue which was quite close. I drove by the  gate house and wished I had the resources to restore it. Then I drove around and tried to find the remnants of Bucklin Brook that  someone had posted about online. 
 I love the old Civil War era  stones --one in particular  affects me because it  has the image of a sinking ship carved on white marble and it honors the over 300 men who drowned at sea. I always stop there and admire that stone and say a prayer for  them. They gave so much.

Then thinking of how enhanced the old historical  place would look with an alley of blooming dogwoods  near the entrance, I drove out. 

 I wanted to  see the Historical Cemetery on Mineral Spring  Avenue  which hold many Jenks or Jenckes graves-- my family  ancestors.

So we drove there and it has a gate and a small gate house--but again I wished  it were  fully painted and made  useful. And again I  picture flowering trees --maybe pears along the  roadside entrance.  I thought how that would make it  much more lovely. And how  good it would  be to plant some flowering shrubs, maybe hydrangeas, in the circle around the hill that has the statue of the Union soldier and the graves of Civil War dead.

This is how I spent the afternoon drive and this is a  route and a fantasy that I have  often entertained.  I hope that I  find the   courage to approach the Mayor and make a serious proposal.

I think that we can judge a  community by how we remember and honor our dead.