INTRODUCTION + POETRY + MUSIC + ESSAYS + TRAVEL + FICTION + TEXTILE ART + HAAG'S BIO
Musing this morning, trying to remember when "the spiritual
life" left
me... The concept, the desire for,
the belief in spiritual life seems
irretrievably gone.
What has replaced it? E-commerce of the
soul?
The practicalities? The dualities of life? All existence,
experience
is particular, all dissolves into eating, sleeping,
walking, studying,
exercise, reading, aloneness, writing poems.
There is nothing
beyond the doing. The world is now! -- tight
as
the skin enclosing my body. Will guts,
muscle and bone spill out if I
peal away its gentle elasticity? Do I want
to bleed? Do I want to find my soul?
The truth, of course, is contrary to that. Desire
and fear are constant
companions, especially before dawn
in the beauty and peace of the
morning
when "the compulsion to satisfy is absent." Fear
of living
one more day in the high-blood-pressure world
men have made, fear of
more stress, more anxiety,
more desire for peace and belief, more
desire
for contentment haunt me as contentment completely cocoons
me up here with the budding trees, crows,
blue sky, the
transcendent happiness of being up top
with Mt. Rainier, ethereal,
snow-covered and wan. Why
exactly do I wake each day depressed, anxious, fearful?
It felt so good to walk again; I walked
myself into a state of exhaustion Tuesday. I
could not stop exercising. Woke myself up so
completely at night that I could not
sleep,
and therefore did not write a poem on Wednesday,
dove into bed at four in
the afternoon, foot
hurting, and slept almost until two after reading from
"Rivers of Blood..." which made my heart weep
for all the treasures of one half
of mankind
destroyed by the other half. But it is all
illusion, says
Nisargadatta. I'm willing to believe that
but, nonetheless, my heart weeps, just because I am.
Perhaps I have not lost my faith; perhaps it
has gone into a wormhole, into
dimensions
where
I cannot follow, where even memory cannot follow.
My memory grows worse
day by day, my fear
and my desire, but faith, even unconscious faith,
says
Nisargadatta, is stronger than destiny. What was my destiny?
What is it
now?
I have changed, but I
have not changed. "What is there that needs
changing? What is
wrong with me?" I settle into
my bones, I do what I do. Fear and
desire will
dissolve like calcium, leaving a chill
across my chest. Memory will stop destroying my consciousness.
Unless Nisargadatta is talking about the wholly subjective experience
of living in a
body that functions in millions
of ways all by itself with no attention
from one,
one's
consciousness, will, or awareness, I don't
have a clue what he means. One sits,
as
he describes it, passively within the body as
if in a theatre and watches the
body and
all the world perform. One is aware but unconcerned.
There is no place
else to go. What happens
happens, what doesn't happen doesn't happen. That's easy
enough.
N'est pas? Why should one want more? Why should
one think for a moment that there is more?
Horrors in the night, nightmares from "Rivers of Blood,
Rivers of Gold," trying in my
mind's eye, in
the mellifluous language I know so well,
to state -- what? --
the obliterating of the individual? Spaniards
arrive: my peaceful night annihilated,
city, body and consciousness --
the death of "I am." Head chopped, blood spurting,
I am not. High up here where the cosmic
dust is thicker and richer, headless, I
can no
longer sponge the floor, pick up the darkness laid
down by nothingness.
The light of all the translucent
world goes out when "I am" no more. The
abhorrent ruthlessness of history disappears when "I am" dead.
The vased cherry blossoms by the wall are not
trying to be beautiful. They are
beautiful pink against
blue sky, beautiful on grass, beautiful by the wall,
in my
hair, by nature. They are. Beautiful. They
do not strive. Their bloom lasts a week
or
two. They die. Humans enjoy the poignancy. But blossoms
will come again. Or not.
Think of the eight
or ten million or twenty millions of Americans killed
by the
Spanish, by disease, by the sword, by
the dogs. Each "I am" disappeared. The world
concluded.
Neither Aztec, Inca nor "Redskin" able to say: "I
am not." To be not is to say nothing.
The late sun shines in the window
-- daylight saving has begun. The birds twitter. I
am
impatient to walk the dawn, breathing. Bliss is in
my bones, light shines from
my heart. I watch
minuscule plants grow from a seed dot, the wee
leaves twinning
out, nodding toward the light, unresistent to
their code. Nasturtiums pop up, leggy
in
the light,
bowing to the sun. Whether Yogi or Bhogi matters
not.
At peace today,
I, too, will not resist
my coding. I have heard of enlightenment. I see
the sun
rise above the dawn, I have noted
the Lung-gom-pas, chained, floating off into the blue sky.
Had I given the leaf of lace
to Jere, I would not be troubled with thoughts
of a
Plexiglas box. Beauty creates vacillation
between being and not being. "Nothing
exists by itself."
Though the description of a dream is detailed, accurate,
convincing, it is but a dream. Courage is love.
When Toba exploded, most of the
world's people died.
When the Spaniards reached America, most of America's people
died. Being one moment. Not being the next. Give
away what you can while there
is time. Time
will cease as well. Shut your eyes. Dream. Open
your eyes. Know the world is what you see.
I am that, and that is all
I am. The wild rain in the night wakes
me, I feel
awful, I feel nauseous.
I get up, exercise and feel better. The body
is like a
barometer reading the condition
of the soul. I kiss the cherry blossom, one
petal
clings to my lips. I am grateful, amused.
If I slow down sufficiently, I see the
beauty
of being, I walk through the dark, the light,
the space, notice, after
awhile,
the wind, the silence.
The rain has stopped. My nausea is at bay.
My soul has melted to the nothingness of words.
Sick to my stomach this morning, pain
irritable bowels, feverish, and yet, for all that,
not
much different than usual. At times, I
give up in despair, terror. Will I ever
feel
healthy and energetic again? O yes, I
can be frenetic, get things done each day,
but
always the fatigue, darkness of the mind
-- which gets worse if I stay in bed to
assuage the fatigue. So forget the body, Gnani says,
watch the pain, don't
participate in the illusion. But
which is illusion? Stomach-ache, Gnani or
disregarding madmen who
despite flood, fire, fever, careen to work each day?
The embarrassment of Koolhaas last night! -- rude,
boorish. A case of the Emperor's New Clothes? Has
Koolhaas ("kwely" monikered!) run amuck -- fame, riches,
his own fat ego in fashionable fleshless black? His
observations coinciding with my own: the magnitude
of insane shopping, "gone maddest," he says, "in Africa"
the capital-quantification of economics-ridden America, the inability
for even he to be outrageous enough to be
sacked by frenetic manipulateable patrons. He deserved
the non-working slides test! Was it Dutch-made slides? Imperfections
usual to University of Washington equipment? Koolhaas Karma? Have
I seen one building of his worth the arrogance?
There is a certain irritability in my
friendships, toward the people I like best and
-- I
noticed yesterday, after learning of the death
of Leah -- that mirrors the
relationship I have with
myself -- a certain irritability. Maybe it takes
dissatisfaction to initiate movement, like throwing sand to make
traction on
snow. Everything is pure, white,
clean and beautiful, but you can't go anyplace
until
there's friction, the grain of sand to
make the pearl. I used to think my
steps
along the gravely path left miracle dust
for known and unknown others. I know Leah's did.
Leah inhabits my life, my heart, my concern.
She did leave me a second letter. It arrived
yesterday. It is enough to know she
did not want to live blind. Her joie de
vivre persisted, but the coping became too
much, the not wanting to live at
the mercy
of others, of medicine, of not being
able to dance in the world to her
own
rhythm. Off she chose to go. How
pleased I am with her, how glad. I
would/
will choose the same solution -- if necessary.
I wish she had left the
formula. She probably
knew a vet, who let her die as
easily as a cat. What
mercy we (some of
us) show our pets. Others torment them,
as we torment our
fellows, with (sic) "life support."
Not Leah. Happy voyage, Leah! Though I
do not
so much feel you have gone, as
that you sit here with the rest
of the Gods,
spinning good fortune, miracles, by dying
becoming more useful, distributing gifts,
loving all,
being helpful to me. Thank you. I'll know who
the prize comes from
when it gets
here. I'll dance, shout and sing Hallelujah, Amazing Grace!
"Itself" -- odd and glorious word containing both human
and divine, oneness,
neutrality, persona. I search the horizon
for sunrise; yesterday Charles extolled its
glory. I
patrol the self to see the rise and fall
of the universe. "It" and "self"
stalk the Tao,
pink with fallen cherry blossom petals. After
noon, Aldona
visits: Polish, awkwardly beautiful in
the asymmetrical way of divinity itself.
While she gave
her fine, intense, exquisitely drawn presentation in
Vikram's class,
in her elbow-y, hunched way, I visioned
her in one of Bertolucci's magical, early
films of beauty, life and glory BEFORE THE REVOLUTION.*
Even as I begin, I begin the concealing.
I have an exaggerated sense of who I am,
who I want to be. Why do I
want to be "who"? Why can I not be
who I am? I
ask Leah (in my
heart) now that she is everyone, everywhere, to cleanse
my heart
of anxiety, fear, shame. Let
it go, let it go. Shame of being who
I am. Fear of
being who I
am. Anxiety at being who I am. Let them
all go. The who changes every
day.
The fear, the shame remain. "Who" remains timorously invisible.
If you imagine yourself in control, you should
also imagine yourself as responsible.
Let the inner self
manifest itself. A body is a room: There --
but you don't
have to be in it all
the time. Stand in the wind and rain.
Even the cherry
blossoms dance for the dark glowing
storm. Shave your head, shave your sister's
head.
Take a vow. Attend the labor, not the fruits.
The sun shines on the new
buds,
they burst into leaf-song. The Eastern sky is leaden
blue, every
Western-facing surface in Seattle gleams
like gold. New-minted poplar leaves trumpet winter's late fall.
Hollowness. Howlessness. I once wrote a poem called
HOWLESSNESS. I must write a poem
called HOLLOWNESS. "There
is nothing that cannot be achieved by
training."
Nisargadatta recommends: "This is not me, this is not
mine. I am beyond all
this." The sun,
rising today, will go down. I am at peace.
My friend Eva is with me
for today.
Lately, we have known many deaths. But death does
not welcome us. Yet.
We go on. Overnight,
twenty daffodils bloomed. Birds sang at dawn. Now they
are
silent. Wisps of grey seep beneath
the window sash, the tef* droops in green splendor.
INTRODUCTION + POETRY + MUSIC + ESSAYS + TRAVEL + FICTION + TEXTILE ART