Winnowing

In the dwindling days of the year,

you find me
in the fields,
ready for harvest.

Shall the culling
be bitter
or shall it
be sweet?

Harvest,
the turning of the year,
the time of turning
and returning,
for threshing
and for winnowing.

Stand amid the grain
and feel the wind,
gathering ripe stalks
with whispering
and singing.

Stand among the still tender shoots
and feel the wind,
caressing each and all
into a dance of plenty
with a song.

The winnowing fan
is aloft, riding the breeze!
The music and the dance,
the singing never ends!

The same song
garners the wheat
as burns the chaff;
in either case,
transcendence
is the fruit.

Now the song,
the sweet song,
has found me,
inside the dance,
inside the spiraling now.

Take me in the field,
and winnow on.

© 2010 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Blessings and prayers for our departed loved ones, this All Souls' Day.

Cloudy, with a chance of rain

With the waters,
I rise and,
under the burning sun,
dissipate as steam
until I am no more than a cloud,
flowing through the sky
as a grey mass
of moist energy,
waiting to be unleashed when,
tickling the ground,
my flourishes
shall paint rivers of brightness
upon a parched land.

Flow onward, my soul

—I drink to thee,
sweet life,
so full
of endless
possibility.

© 2010 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

The Shores

In ways that we could not ever have predicted,
the waves of our discontents and frustrations
wash up, in perpetual canon, on the shores,
and nothing we can do will still them;
long after the wreckage has been disseminated,
these waves continue to arrive,
your flotsam to my jetsam,
beaching in the very place
where our hearts should lie glowing together, warmly,
bleaching, instead, to a unity of purposelessness.

Perhaps a saving grace,
ours is not the only dreck to litter the shores,
and, somehow, all still manages to gleam
with an unencumbered purity.

Perhaps all the waves to follow
will pound into soluble atoms
all that drew us to this insoluble conclusion,
and we shall sift with the sands,
under alternating rains and sunshine,
into the peace
love deserved
and passion longed for
when we were sought out
to belong together,
within the song of the sea.

© 2010 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Word for Word

We take the Word,
we make it new,

entangling it
in other words,
on the other hand,
inch by inch,
step by step,

slowly turning,
word by word;
it is like a bartering
at a swap meet,
a bargaining for
just the right one
to finish the house
we’re remodeling.

Our house,
it is a temple
and a living organ,
whose tissues need renewing
in the rivers of the latest idiom,
to be enhued by more current colors,
hanging in the designer couture
of the vibrant now.

God smiles,
even when some of it seems silly,
for even the small ineptitudes
validly contribute to the 

co-creation of all-that-is.

The Word not used
is useless;
when meaning,
when being
evolves no longer,
time stops.

© 2010 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Acting Locally, Living Small: Density, Driving and Drilldown

There is a lot of talk about how people can decrease auto dependency.  Much of what I hear is linked to a visioning of high-density urban dwelling that purports to increase open-space and eliminate the need for driving.

This all sounds like a lovely idea, but there are a few wrinkles that need to be ironed out.

I live on an island in the San Francisco Bay. The town that is now an island was originally part of a the Peralta Land Grant, and a peninsula. At some point, someone had the bright idea to turn the peninsula into an island by blasting through the rock and creating a channel. There are 4 bridges and one underwater tunnel that lead off the island.

This island that I live on is home to a superfund site, a formal Naval Shipyard. Now that the shipyard has been decommissioned, everyone is looking at that land, which takes up roughly under a third of the island, as a potential gold mine. Ka-ching, ka-ching. This has led to some very acrimonious politicking, particularly of late, but for about 15 years.

Various developers have rolled through the island community and tried to soften up the municipal leaders toward buying into their plans. The most recent developer is theoretically in deep financial trouble, but nonetheless has plenty of money tucked away for filing frivolous lawsuits against the local government, which let the clock run out on its ENA (Exclusive Negotiating Agreement).

The plan was to place over 4,000 units of housing on this property, much in the form of high-density dwellings, such as those we see springing up all over in the largest of our California cities. Additionally, the developer wanted to add lots of mixed-use business, a library, a school, parks, playing fields. The biggest carrot dangled was "jobs," although what those might have amounted to are an unknown, and likely mostly comprised of the short-term jobs of the building contractors. The developer also lobbied various local groups and service organizations, such as parents interested in sports for their children, to get them all onboard to support the plan because it included parks and playing fields. At the meetings, there were big artist renderings of the sports fields.

However, if you looked carefully at the more than 300 page plan, reading all the fine print and following the meandering trail of supporting documents, you saw that fields, school, library and parks would only happen after phase three, and the developer could "cause" the city to fund it, if the developer did not have the money to do so.

Green development, it was called. And then a "citizen's initiative" was placed on the local ballot, and we were being asked to mandate this plan, at a time when our civic finances were like everyone else's--that is, kind of shaky.

But what this really meant is that our town would go into more bonded indebtedness, and then not reap any property tax benefits until the bonds are paid off--up to 30 years or more. Who would benefit in the meantime? Well, of course, the developers would, and they would do it by tearing up historical buildings, adding high density high-rise buildings, all of this on landfill that is currently still toxic and would be subject to liquefaction in the event of an earthquake.

There were too many unanswered questions for the public.

Who would pay to staff the library and the school? Well, the muddied answers that came were not assurances. Having said that our civic finances are shaky, you have to know that the first thing that popped into most local citizen's minds was "parcel tax." After supporting the local schools (whose district receives less funding than other similar districts), the local hospital, and the new state-of-the-art library, the local populace feels a bit over-taxed. Add to this all the maintenance that has been deferred for so long that it can't be deferred any longer...

What about traffic mitigation? How can one reconcile that there will be more carbon emissions when there are more people present?  Oh, there will be jobs right there, you won't need a car.  We'll get the buses to run through the development, we'll build a new ferry terminal, increase service throughout the town, build an additional bridge... Hmmm... Sounds lovely, but when you read about the cuts to local transportation and the elimination of routes and ferry service, it also sounds like pie in the sky.

And it is. All part of the latest "product rollout." (You think I am joking. I'm not. A few years back, the "product" that was "rolled out" was historic theater remodels. Remember? People will come to our theater because it is beautiful and new, and we will get more sales tax money! they said. Then we heard that there were similar projects happening in communities all through the state. And we found out that there is no sales tax on movie tickets. And remembered that there is no sales tax on the food dispensed at the theater concessions. We were sold the bill of goods on the "theater rollout," and it was only after the grand opening that we realized or found out that there really was no extra sales tax generated.)

There is money to massage the ideas on the public, more specifically the local municipal government officials, many of whom are members of the California Redevelopment Association. And who knows about officials in other agencies, such as public utilities and transit; perhaps they are massaged also. But the developer, in the case of my island community, has no money to deliver completion at other developments that are supposedly under way in other communities.

The bid to have the public "mandate" this particular plan, on my island, failed at the ballot box in June.

However, it is election time again, folks, and the developer is now spending a lot of money to smear local incumbent candidates who were either "disloyal" or were never on board with the developer's plan. My small island community is being tortured with repeated robocalls, push polls, fake surveys and wads of expensively printed campaign literature against certain candidates, and even more expensive literature for the candidates who are expected to reopen negotiations, if elected. Big bucks, ready to drilldown with borrowed money or federal funds.

If you have not heard the term drilldown, I can tell you that this is a term that has been co-opted from information technology, and is now being used to refer to any plan that helps a municipal government alter its urban landscape in such a way that previously untapped buying power will surface, resulting in economic growth. This is, of course, tied to redevelopment, rezoning and eminent domain, and leads directly to your local "planning department." You have to look around a bit on the internet, but you can find municipal governments that have drilldown plans. Baltimore, MD has one, here is a link to an article about it; you can only read it with a subscription to the Maryland Daily Record, but the title is really all you need to see. And there is a drilldown plan on the table right across the channel from my island community. Not that any current resident of an older house located in one of the drilldown areas knows about it.

Initially, these plans sound really appealing. Who would not want to improve the economic viability of neighborhoods? But, as you look closer, you see that the money is not being invested in lifting up the current residents. As you look closer, you see that the bulldozers clearing the way for this economic growth will be displacing people of certain ethnicities and socio-economic statuses.

This is gentrification. It is all about money, not about improving the quality of life for all people. And money is as "green" as any of this gets.

Sounds cynical, sounds dystopian, sounds unthinkable. But I want you to think on it, as we approach election day.

One wonders where the drilldown displaced will go.

One also wonders when the rich and semi-rich will realize they are being exploited.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If our true intention is to improve the quality of life for all people, housing density can be a crucial part of the puzzle. The problem is that we are being sold a product that is not entirely produced by real urban planning, or an intent driven by anything other than the pursuit of money.

In the absence of real urban planning, what we have is local redevelopment agencies gone wild with greed, ready to pave everything over to build bigger mansions for rich people to live in, massive condo complexes and multi-level garages and more shopping centers for people with SUVs to drive to, so that they can shop and accumulate more stuff for landfills. I call the people who work for these local agencies the Pod People, but they are redevelopment "specialists," masquerading as your city staff. They are hired by a former city manager, now retired, and approved by people who have since termed out of elected positions on city council, and receive hefty salaries, benefit and retirement packages (have you been following the story out of Bell, California?). Sometimes, redevelopment directors and their staff also receive payment from the developers--did you know that? This can amount to an increase of 1/3 of their city salary! In my little town, it has been explained away in this fashion: well, they are doing so much extra work having to do with the planned development... To which I reply, they are doing the job the city pays them a salary to do; the money they receive over their salaries from the developer indicates a clear conflict of interest.

If, as I said above, our true intent is to improve life and save the planet, we must live smaller, not larger.

We need to drive less. People are driving as much as ever they were, and their cars are bigger and take more fuel. Sometimes the emissions are cleaner than in the bad old days before unleaded gasoline, but not always. Hybrids are good, but they still require energy to run, and the emissions are still happening somewhere, even if they are not directly caused by operating the vehicles.

If we are going to become less dependent on oil and driving, the transportation gap must be filled with something. Will that something be more public transportation? Current economic indicators suggest not; by that, I mean that transportation agencies are cutting back. Yes, we hear glowing commentary on how great life will be, once California has high speed rail. But we are back to the pie in the sky again, since there is no money to build it. Or only Federal money to build it. Or, let's be real, our tax dollars. Think back to the the old railroad robber barons, and wonder who the new ones really are...

If we are going to fill the transportation gap, then we need to think about real urban planning: urban micro-villages. What is an urban micro-village? Honestly, I just made that up off the top of my head, but here I am Googling it, and behold! I find a blog article about sustainable urban micro-villages in Western Europe. Someone else has already thought of this, and so there are working models out there. We need to examine these for best practices, and integrate the notion into real urban planning, not just planning departments, where there is no oversight, raking in permit fees and demanding people make picayune changes to what they are doing, things that have nothing to do with codes or public safety. That is not planning. Neither is rezoning entire areas so that they can be built up into giant condo complexes, with no thought to how quadrupling or quintupling the population in the area will impact quality of life.

The above referenced article doesn't say much about what the micro-village consists of, but I can tell you some of what it needs to have to be successfully sustainable.The urban micro-village needs to be centered around business and social services. Current development models create a sometimes gated, generally isolated tract of housing that may have the amenities of a park and/or school, but does not have accessible shopping or services. If you need something, like milk or eggs, you either have to hassle your way via thin public transit, or drive. If you are economically distressed, you have no access to help, unless you can walk there. The way to change that is to conceive of central service orientation at the outset.

The urban micro-village needs to have a centrally located municipal government outpost--this could be connected to a the local library. The local branch library is, of course, part of a network of local branch libraries, and you can obtain media through interlibrary loan via and internet request system.

There need to be jobs in the micro-village, but yes, people will be traveling to jobs outside the micro-village, to hopefully adjacent villages, so you have to have a good transportation network using smart cards. Hopefully, people will settle in micro-villages so that they can conform to the so-called Marchetti Constant, in which people adapt their way of life so that the total travel time from home to work and back does not exceed one and a half hours in the day. Ideally, it is great to live in the town where you work: I have done so, and it makes sense economically, as well as spiritually. This business of hopping into a car and driving for two hours, twice a day, on increasingly crowded freeways that are in a continual state of being widened, is insane; aside from being horrible for the environment, it is not good for one's quality of life.

Social service access offices need to be... well, accessible, which means centrally located. Could this be attached to the branch library, like the municipal government outpost? YES. The systems in place now are horribly outmoded. All these agencies, and few to none of them talk to each other. (Even the IRS does not have a central computer or a completely networked computer system.) Agencies are too frequently located at the outskirts of town. The crazy thing is, we have the technology, but we must find ways to make sense of our service and government infrastructure. There is so much waste and inefficiency because our technology is not tethered properly to serve us; instead, we are always asked to serve our dysfunctionally arranged technology.

All but forgotten are the writings of a brilliant 20th century economist named E. F. Schumacher. He wrote several excellent books. Central to his thought was a principle later called appropriate technology, but the terms he used were intermediate size and intermediate technology. A simple explanation: if we have smaller industry and technology tied to specific development areas, this reduces the need for gigantic factories and huge, cumbersome technology dependent on long-distance transport for delivery. Production would be local, according to need, not merely to stock shelves and hang out in warehouses and float across the oceans in boats. In a way, it is a return to the medieval guild system. Less production requires less energy and uses less materials (one of the keys to sustainability), but it does not mean reduction to a decent standard of living. It means moving more toward production on-demand, in your local shops. It means a return of repair shops, it means training, it means people will know how make things again... (and that is where all the jobs will be...) It also means that, to a certain extent, there will be times when you cannot have it all right now. This means changing patterns of thinking, as well as changes to infrastructure. And maybe, if you are able to travel to a foreign country in this newly revised  and rethought world structure, you will once again be able to purchase a souvenir crafted locally, rather than manufactured in China or Taiwan.

More can be said of all of this. For now, I commend to you Schumacher's writings: Small is Beautiful, A Guide for the Perplexed and Good Work.

And, whoever you are, wherever you live, I hope you will not allow yourselves and your communities to be sold the redevelopment rollouts, the techno-green buzz words, or the drilldown mandates at the ballot box.

Turnings

—for Emily

Trees,
She reaches out to the trees
all the year long;
between them there is a song.

And now, with the turning of the season,
her friends reach out to greet her.

The warm breeze
frees the leaves,
carrying them aloft
to her hands so soft.

Into a book they are pressed;
a future blessing, encountered blest,
still colorful in most cared for rest.

Kindness and Cooperation: Lessons in Daily Living

We so often hear that "boys will be boys", particularly if the phrase is being offered as an excuse for episodes of bad behavior. Girls can also be mean. And so can parents be mean, as well as people of an adult age who do not have children. How much mean-spiritedness are we modeling for our children and youth? If we see our child behave badly, do we step in and say something, or hang back, because it is too much trouble?

We hear so much in the news about bullying, and there have lately been many tragic consequences. We wonder at the decline in civilized behavior, and we comment on how "those other people" should behave (whomever "they" are).

But, here is a news flash, people: we are all "them".

Kindness is a blessing, but generally not a natural gift to most people, although I have met some people who are, I think, naturally kind in every encounter. Meeting the embodiment of kindness and generosity is edifying and humbling for me.  Hopefully this is true for everyone, but perhaps not; many merely take someone else's kindness for granted. Some people meet kindness and generosity believing that is a form of weakness, and feel free (or obliged) to take advantage; little do they realize that they are the losers in such an exchange.

In a world of kindness, there is no pecking order, no top-down authority; all are equal and respected in the eyes of the observer. A world of kindness requires a specific type of engagement with the world: mutual attentiveness between any two people. Martin Buber characterized this beautifully in his book I and Thou:

The primary word I-Thou can be spoken only with the whole being. Concentration and fusion into the whole being can never take place through my agency, not can it ever take place without me. I become through my relation to the Thou; and as I become the I, I say Thou. All real living is meeting.

What he means, of course, is that real living requires that two or more engage in an activity; it takes two to tango. If one can acknowledge another, meeting that person as an equal and actively engaging in relationship, even if that relationship is only a simple transaction at the grocery store, or cars merging on the freeway, or a game at the park, that meeting is where life happens. Transcendence occurs in every action between individuals who engage to solve a problem.

In the same vein, Aldous Huxley says of love:

There isn't any formula or method. You learn to love by loving - by paying attention and doing what one thereby discovers has to be done.

You could easily substitute the words "live" for "love" and "living" for "loving".

What is suggested is a type of ongoing education. Goodness and compassion may not be natural, but they can be learned and taught. Teaching goodness and compassion is every bit an attentive action as that meeting that Buber describes and that love that Huxley wrote about. And it requires more than yelling across the park "hey, quit picking on that kid!"

If we want to teach our children well, we cannot avert our eyes and mouth worn phrases like "boys will be boys"--that is inattention at its most self-contained and in complete disregard for "what needs to be done."

If we want to teach kindness, we must recognize and be humbled by our own capacity for meanness. If we can do that, the next step is to engage with our children honestly about meanness and its consequences, about the inattention that leads to disregard or objectification, and likewise about attention leading to mutual engagement and problem solving.

That mutual learning experience is where life really happens; it elevates the everyday world and lifts people up.

But life is all about choices; living life attentively, with kindness and compassion, is a choice, like any other. People are not the isolated beings they like to think they are; we cannot live for ourselves alone. We live in a world that faces destruction if we do not fit ourselves into the picture that is so much bigger than ourselves, and turn our attention to solving the problems we have created from a position of selfishness. An integral world demands mutual integrity; every day introduces the opportunity for a new lesson.

Integral life must be thought of as a continuing journey in the practice of kindness and cooperation.

May we learn from our mistakes and teach our children well.

Ever After

Ceaselessly on call;

the days manage to compress
ever more duties
into action frenzies,
punctuated by dreamless sleep.

To find the lost,
feed the hungry,
remind and retrain,
to do unto others as self,
but selflessly and never for self,
to fix the broken,
mend the torn,
clean the mess others made,
to be undermined at all turns,
to fit my roundness
into the chipped square concept
of someone else:

This is my world.

But, even so,
the breeze still blows
that calls me
to the foot of the Throne,
where thither I am drawn
by strands of silken thought.

There, golden Sapientia
blinds me with her brilliance,
but, in her mercy,
sings to me songs of

finding hidden treasure,
feeding the flock,
teaching and remembering the Story,
giving through doing and being love,
repairing the breach,
cleansing the temple,
falling and surrendering,
yet to rise again
as a shining light.

She says,
O daughter of Zion,
these gifts I grant
especial to you;
you are among the few
capable gardeners of Eden;
If not you, who?
Serve and be fulfilled.

And so,
from the Throne Room
I return
to my small cell,
the room not quite my own,
to begin the day anew,
to ply the ever after,
to properly tend the garden,
that the young shoots
will grow into trees,
to bloom and be fruitful,
fit homes for birds
whose songs will lull me
to my needed rest.

© 2010 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Off to a rainy patch for a bit of soggy singing, about water, trees and life.  Back on Monday. Have a good weekend!

Everyperson, Equal Access and Perpetual War Economy

Justice is a loaded word. Everyone wants justice, even if they don’t know all the meanings and implications of the word, as if it is a product that can be purchased. Mostly, when people use the term justice, they are referencing it from the standpoint of equitable treatment and equal access. The democratic essence of our American republic is founded on the notion of such an equality.

And yet, justice, in this sense of equality, is not a reality, only a dream and a political buzz word.

Everyday, when I relate some mundane happening, and how it affected me, I hear reflected back from others, “oh, yes—that happened to me a while ago. I know how you feel.” And I believe those persons do have an idea how I feel. And when others tell me their stories, I believe I know how they feel. We are all unique individuals, but we also share the same capacities for existential experience, the same needs and feelings, the same desire for recognition, inclusion, acceptance, exchange, respect and dignity. If you have ever met anyone who does not share these things with you, I would love to hear about it. I have never met anyone who is other than me or you, in these respects. One could generalize: we are each an Everyperson, and we are each stymied in some aspect of acquiring justice, as in equality, that ideal everyone talks about so vividly.

Too bad there is no such thing as justice. Oh, yes, justice could be attained or enacted or even enforced where it has been enacted. Justice is possible; but there are some persons who do not believe that Everyperson should have it. There are some persons who don’t believe that Everyperson should believe in anything, behave in any fashion, or appear in any way other than do they. There are some persons who will pretend that others do not share the same capacities for existential experience as they have. And some of those persons won’t allow others the same access to the good things in life that they themselves possess, even if what they have is so much that it could not possibly be used up.

When We the Everypersons ask for equal access to healthcare, for example, we are continually rebuffed by folks who tell us that this is not possible because it is too expensive and there is not enough money. How facile that response! It has been suggested by various organizations that the entire amount of the annual budget of the U.S. Department of Defense, not even including the nuclear weapons program, could provide clean water, access to healthcare and food for the entire world. And yet, we are led to believe this money is best spent perpetuating wars that bring anything but justice, or peace, to the places where they are waged.

I would suggest that if money were invested in people, that is Everyperson, rather than weapons—for the cultivation of healthy food, the provision of basic housing, the assurance that drinking water is clean and available, the insuring, not underwriting, of access to healthcare delivery—“that war would be no more”, in the words of the beloved spiritual.

Yes, I know, my argument is facile also. I know that I cannot convince the world’s wealthiest persons or their lobbyists or their muscle or their bought-and-paid-for politicians that this is the heart of justice; what I suggest comes between them and their right to do business. But the truth is, there is no shortage of money; there is more than enough money, indeed, there are persons who have more money than they know what to do with—there is plenty of money with which to do all the wrong things, such as parting Everypersons unjustly and inequitably from their earnings as often and soon as possible, with little redress from any governing body that should provide oversight and protection in such matters, and polluting the planet with toxic garbage and nuclear weapons.

Why can't all this money be spent on the right things? Not only would it be better spent, but I think it would be cheaper than all this other nonsense. And there would be so many more hero/ines that we could venerate!

Change will only occur when there is a willingness on the part of those few persons, controlling the majority of the money, to accept the validity and equality and rights of Everyperson to those of themselves. When their actions speak otherwise, as they do everyday when millions of Everypersons are denied access to the basic protections, much less the basic quality of life necessities, it seems clear that these other persons particularly want a world full of illiterate, impoverished, starving and dying people to control.

This is injustice.

This is unthinkable.

But I ask you to think on it, particularly while you are preparing to vote in the upcoming election.

I also commend to you the United Nations Millennium Development Goals.

And check out the PowerPoint presentation at www.miniature-earth.org

Forest or Trees

Deeper into the forest of books go I,
but less seem to learn of them;
the thickets of words, veritable mazes,
of which depth is oft proclaimed,
soon wear out their glib welcome
and inevitably thin to the same weedy patch,
wet and reedy, murky and muddled,
that I have explored before
--but I desire more.

The in-depth studies, the colorful analogs,
the structured cases resemble less
the actual beauty of the forest or the tree
--and I desire more.

The universe smiles wearily at my dilemma,
the untamed wilderness yawns lazily at my feet,
and the wild unknown beckons me toward its reality
--and I desire its shore.

Didn't she know? they sigh, sharing their inward smile,
experience trumps book-learning, every time;

Desire, bared upon the open shore,
shall most surely find more.

© 2010 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Written while lucid dreaming in 2008. Reading is a passion of mine; “so many books, so little time” is such an apt description of me that it is alarming (especially when you know that I have as many books in the garage as I have in the house…). But, the forest beckons, as does the beach. And the Buddha's best sermon was a flower in his hand.

Siren Songs

Siren songs,
like scintillating sonnets,
sound forth from the frothy seas,
which, having served me up
onto the sands of unknown shores
(from some depth of great distress),
impart a Sibylline significance:
you are a mystery
we do not understand;
as such, you are a blessing,
and your silence in our depths
will not suffice,
so go forth,
see, sing, speak
—reveal what beauty is yours

in the world,

and be lost from it

no more.

© 2010 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

(A reply to Kafka)

A View from the Garden

A butterfly sails quietly over sun-dappled leaves;

barely a whisper she makes in her journey,
but what the breeze sings while it lifts her.

The humming bird chooses this moment to land,
and, with wings stilled, looks lovingly at the world,
feeling a stillness from which to find revel in new flights.

Sun sends slant soft warming rays to caress all cares,
in this, the last flowering of summer's bloom,
known to us as the rosy blush of ripening autumn.

Summer has flown south to make way for winter chill;
the geese have all regained their far distant homing place,
while here the squirrels fidget and fuss over their winter pantries.

Small hands reach forward and up, fingers lovingly outstretched
to belovenly stroke tree trunks and the leaves in their turning,
waving with imploding delight when a leaf offers itself as an unexpected gift.

In this light more subdued, quiet calls one, upward and away,
to ponder the mysteries of our slow yet steady revolutions,
and to wonder why each moment could not be as perfectly serene as this.

© 2010 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Reuse, Renew, Recycle--and make someone happy!

It was a project that started last winter. My portion of it began in the Spring, collecting miniature sewing kits, notions, needles, thread, buttons, thimbles and used pharmacy prescription bottles (washed thoroughly) from members of our congregation. Scraps of fabric, hair rollers, thread, gallons of glue and 4 months later, there they were, 60 of them, and a few extra (just in case).

What were these things? Well, I took all those ingredients (with the help of a few little elves that reside at my house) and turned them into miniature, decoupage decorated sewing kits.

These kits were added to handmade ditty bags, along with hand knit wool caps and scarves, soaps, playing cards, postcards, candy, chewing gum, calling cards and holiday greetings, collected, donated or made by children and adults at our parish.

What in the world?

This was an outreach effort made by members of our church, Christ Episcopal Church in Alameda, CA, to benefit the seafarers on two ships that will dock at the Port of Oakland this month. These gifts were blessed by this morning by our Interim Rector, The Rev. Anne Jensen and our congregation. This labor of love has been handed over to the Port of Oakland office of SCI, The Seaman's Church Institute, and thirty bags will be given by the Port of Oakland SCI Chaplain, The Rev. James Lindgren, to the captains of the two ships our Church has "adopted." The bags will be gifted to the seafarers on board these vessels on Christmas morning. This is actually a nationwide effort that involves churches and other groups, all over the country, for the benefit of seafarers on many ships.

Well, there you have it. A fun little project. Honestly, a huge little project. We were painting layers of glue onto these bottles for weeks. And I was shifting bags and boxes of supplies all over our house for months.

How to make the sewing kits, and particularly such details as what kind of container to use and what the size should be, were fun puzzles to figure out. (My husband thought I was crazy to use foam curlers, which I wound sewing thread on, and wrapped my felt swatch of pins and needles around. It all fits so nicely in the pharmacy bottles.)  And then, you spend the time crafting the items, assembling all the little bits and pieces (more than you imagined when you started the project), and happily deliver them, somewhat relieved that they are all done, and you can finally use the dining room table again. Whew!

About midweek, I received a call from Adrienne Yee, one of the Outreach Coordinators at our church, and also Bay Area Development Director for the SCI Oakland Center. She said that everyone was thrilled with the design of the sewing kits... so much so that they want to make it a model for the nation-wide effort! An article appears about this on the SCI blog entitled The Knit Before Christmas.

What a thrill! You do your thing, offer your time and talent, make a gift and pass it on. You never think that what you are doing is all that different or special, and then something like this happens.

The most important part of this, for me, is the renewal of something someone used and would have thrown away, or maybe recycled. There are many things we use that are needlessly added to landfill. What if we could take some of these things and extend their life cycle of usefulness by turning them into art objects?

A thing of beauty is a joy, and if it is something you made, what a gift! Why, it is bound to make someone happy!

So, I say thanks to the Seaman's Church Institute for their Christmas At Sea program, and our Outreach Commission for engaging our church in this labor of love.

Good wishes and blessings and Heavenly protection to all Seafarers, who labor on ships across the wide oceans and seas.

And to all you crafty crafters out there, keep on inventing! You never know how far it will go!

Copyright Laws: 2 Cents

The function and value and enforcement of copyright law has been constantly in the news--for years, now.

Right off the bat, I will say that I believe in an individual's right to the intellectual property s/he has generated. 

You will notice that I attach my copyright to many articles. This is just a reminder to all, as this is additionally noted at the bottom of the blog. I am grateful that there is copyright protection for my work. I believe copyright protection important to free speech and truth, as well as to the freedom of art.

That said, I believe that the way in which the courts enforce copyright law is inadequate, draconian and inequitable.

We have forgotten the whole point of copyright.

Think of this phrase from the prophet Isaiah (55:8, NIV 1984):

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD.

What if the line read this way:

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the Creator.

Or, further:

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the humble author.

I believe that each person is a fragment of a whole of Being called Life. We each perceive the world, existentially, in a different way from everyone else, and therefore have a unique expression to offer (and to share) as we so desire.  Hence, in this case, my blog. 

For my blog is not your blog! Et vive la difference!

I also believe that it is possible, like a layering of the pages in a book, that we are touched by and influenced, in our observations and perceptions, by everything that has come before us, to which we have been exposed. The growth of the human mind and spirit comes about because of all that has been written in the ages upon ages that have come before. All creativity is both self-referential and reflective of the richness of everything around us. Hopefully, we know when we are paying homage to work of the past, and so note it, legally and reverentially, when we publish.

Personally, I will always purchase an album or a book or a piece of art that I want to add to my personal collection. Many of these are artifacts are created by artists I know personally. I want to honor those artists, my friends, by purchasing their work. 

Yet, I am not interested in duplicating what they have done, even if I possibly could. Neither would I welcome seeing someone else's name on a facsimile, or close to one (plagiarists being, by nature, not terribly creative), of anything I have done.

Strange as it may seem, I am interested in expressing my thoughts, which are not your thoughts, nor could ever be. 

In saying that, I also acknowledge that I am unlikely to earn money of any substance from my own copyrighted work. That is really not what creativity is all about. There are lots of lucky folk out there who have turned themselves into popular commodities for public consumption; indeed, into veritable cottage industries. That seems unlikely to happen to most of the rest of us. But, again, I suggest: while this can be a welcome consequence, it is not the point of the exercising creativity. 

I add that I enjoy the possibility of collaboration, as well as the life of my creations moving beyond me (with my knowledge and permission, of course). And so, I thank the several composers who have moved my words off the manuscript page and into an art form, music, that lives beyond print. It is both a joy and a blessing to see and hear the work migrate into another idiom, as filtered through another mind. 

To recap: I exercise my right to what I create. I acknowledge and submit to the turning of the pages of life. I like to share. I enjoy collaboration, to see my work take on new life beyond me.

Can the courts do justice to that? Will the courts protect my rights to my small body of work and the rights of others to their small bodies of work? Or will they only protect the rights of huge corporations, littering case law with judgments against little people, who mostly have no money, for ripping mp3s? Will they protect only the cottage industry, commodified novelist or songwriter who made it big, on ideas of a work from a previous generation, because the novelist or songwriter is now a millionaire, but leave the less successful writers and songsmiths to fend for themselves?

If it is all about money, copyright justice remains to be seen.


Meanwhile, keep on creating, people! Vive la difference!

© 2010 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Multicultural Center

Humanity:

a plural noun,
naming a species
known as mankind.

Swift to divide, conquer,
label, condemn and control;
soon to be extinct
—unless a maturing
awakens people
from a childish
and deadly
slumber.

Awakening is not a revolution
of wars, weapons and
the spilling of blood,
innocent and guilty,
but is nothing less
than an evolution
to the Grand Opening
of the Multicultural Center.

This is the place
where divided mind
becomes one,
melting alchemically
into a plural Heart,
the seat of universal
compassion.

At that opening,
every window and
all the doors
of every singular heart
shall be flung wide open
to the light of Life,
a truer rite of passage,
so that the living play of radiance
reveals the visible spectrum
of all people
as joined in living
a lifelong embrace
of all colors,
all kinds,
all sounds
of life,
to be of one being
on the Earth.

© 2010 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Far to the West

Far to the west,
a people lives well,
believes they know best,
thrives on buy and sell,
yet finds little rest.

But there is a farther west, even,
and in that unmapped place,
the echoes of our struggles
sound tinny and insubstantial
as they cast thin and painful shadows,
a belying of what could be.

From that far off place,
fuller, more placid reflections and vibrations
find their way to inspire and refresh the mind and spirit,
perhaps even to stem tides of disharmony here.

May those vibrations
meet us in the gloaming,
change us from mindset best,
cease us from mindless roaming,
make us more the earth’s guest,
and guide us to gentle rest.

© 2010 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Of Ballots and Broadsides...

I am a permanent absentee voter. I have received my ballot in the mail. I have voted.

If you are also an absentee voter, and have received your absentee ballot, PLEASE VOTE.

"Under democracy, one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule—and both commonly succeed, and are right." ~ H.L. Mencken

This election is one of the most contentious I have ever experienced, in all my voting years. Aside from the various candidates who are trying to buy their office, there are some citizen's initiatives that have been written not by citizens but by corporate interests, and there are many attempts at ballot box budgeting in the works. I have done homework on all of this, and I confess to you that it is confusing, as well as contentious--nothing is straightforward; nothing is black and white; it is ALL about MONEY.

"If you have been voting for politicians who promise to give you goodies at someone else’s expense, then you have no right to complain when they take your money and give it to someone else, including themselves." ~ Thomas Sowell (writer and economist)

Even in the small town, in which I reside, the campaigning is as serious and hardball as at the state level. I have received no less than 45 non-personal phone calls in the past three weeks: campaign messages, push polls, surveys and robocalls that are undisguised smears of specific candidates, as well as one promotion for rug cleaning.

In this day, we are more distracted than ever. Politicians and their campaign managers count on this.

I urge you to do your homework. I urge you to see what your party endorses. I urge you to find out what your local service organizations and newspapers endorse. I urge you to carry on discussions with friends and neighbors.  I urge you to read the contents of the Voter Guide. I urge you to read between the lines, with your critical thinking cap firmly on your head.

"Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner." ~James Bovard, author of Attention Deficit Democracy (2006)

And then, I urge you to VOTE! It is your right, and your civic duty.

"Nobody will ever deprive the American people of the right to vote except the American people themselves and the only way they could do this is by not voting." ~ Franklin Delano Roosevelt 

Spleen

Herein, I had a brilliant idea, and had been so inclined with wherewithal to work onward until completion of said thought-train, when, of the sudden, the roar of one machine was followed by the roar of another, seemingly right in my near ear, but followed closely into my far left ear, so that both ears were hounded with the founding and sounding and the veritable pounding in the roundhouse of my mind, until the turntable began to melt and then to roll impossibly down the tracks of my spine, infecting the words on the pages of my work and the pen in my hand, to the point that all were melting and rolling over the edges of the pages, into blackening pools of pain and despair at my feet.

The tyranny of machines, pushing us to the nether regions of our living quarters and our sanity. "Resistance is futile," a space zombie said to the characters in the play and also to the audience. Does the machine outdo the gentle rake for speed and efficiency? Surveys and science say no. But nothing shall impede the progress and deafness of civilization!

The resultant black pools of words stared silently back at me, with reproach. Separating them, once in this mood and state, would not be possible, not even with finepoint needle-nosed tweezers, which I would have to borrow from a friend.

For the accomplished pleasure of dispensing noizazy noise and rackety racket, as well as hectares of dirt blown about and abroad, the lawns of the land look lean and kempt, free from the carpeting of leaves and other foreign objects, for mine benefit and convenience--as if I have chosen and ordered such amenity, all over the land--and money is taken in exchange by the prime noizazter, a polite gentleman with three arms, a motor and no ears, who distributes it among his roving team of noizazters.

My work, damp, dark, shredded and pooled irretrievably, further excuses itself from my shaking hands, and what blotchy puddles are left completely drip from my mind--claiming the call of another errand--and move on, pouring themselves through the floorboards and into the ground beneath the house. Someday, they might return, when I least expect, so I had better call in a repairman to fix the sump pump, however bumptiously that work might thump.

Nothing against the noizazters, but their noizaz, with their soaring roar and pounding round and particulate pollution take me away from where I am and even beyond the point wherever I thought I was going or even want to be.

As the noizazters bundle their many arms and motors into their truck and roar away, I say to myself, that prime noizazter,  he is a fortunate one: he makes more money than I do, and is able to help four or five families to subsistence livelihood.

When they are gone, I hold my cleaved and aching head in my hands and weep.

© 2010 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

See how someone else describes dealing with noise: "Old Bag" by Jenny Diski for the London Review of Books

Rest

Unhurried;

no pace, all space
—place
unflurried.

Moon arose,
intending to strike a pose,
instead, smiled into tired eyes,
with a long, lingering embrace.

Time chooses to slow apace,
an act of accommodation laws may belie.

Weary eyes close,
folding the soul slowly inward,
past the silent steps of sleep,
toward a farther vale of stillness,
the involution of consciousness,
beyond and Beyond Within,
until there is no farther to go,
but there nevertheless is,
for is Is, as it would be,
will Be forever.

Within the self-womb of this soft spiral,
Mind’s eye can close,
to dream tomorrow into being.

© 2010 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Silly Bandz: cute fad or environmental hazard?

Kids have been coming home with Silly Bandz now for weeks, trading them on the playground, giving them as party favors. These are brightly colored little rubber band-like items made of silicone, formed in different shapes, worn as bracelets. Inexpensive, and popular they are, yes. For now.

However, once Silly Bandz cease to be popular, they will end their life cycle as garbage. I have already seen broken ones littering the playground and street gutters near schools. Silicone is proven to be a bad thing for people, pets and other animals, birds and fish.

I point this out because our communities pride themselves in teaching "Green Thinking" and "Life Skills" to our children. I know that there are schools and even school districts that have been banning these seemingly innocent toys, mainly because they prove to be a distraction in class, even leading to problems on the playground. But parents should be thinking beyond the distraction factor, thinking in greater depth about the ramifications of ubiquitous, faddy, non-biodegradable products that are marketed to our children.

The fact is, Silly Bandz will eventually become part of the landfill and end up in our waterways, killing particularly birds and fish (they look like brightly colored worms, don't they?), but also posing a danger to other creatures. By the time that fad dies, and a new one is born, the creators of Silly Bandz (and like products) will have raked in millions of our dollars, but will not be accountable when the product becomes part of the mix of environmental problems facing the planet.

The fact that these items are cheap, numerous and readily available means that we are inadvertently teaching our kids (1) to be consumers and (2) to thoughtlessly assign value to items that have a dubious use and value, yet a life cycle that poses a future environmental threat.

Perhaps this seems a silly topic to be writing about, but we must now, at all times, be thinking seriously about the life cycle of the items we mass produce, whether they are cute toys or packaging, processed food, or whatever the items are. When we see the all too real stories about toxic sludge byproducts of aluminum manufacturing inundating Hungarian villages and flowing into the Danube river, we need to wake up to the fact that there needs to be more thought, regulation and oversight in the manufacture of just about everything.

I won't suggest that Silly Bandz need to be banned, because I know that parents will balk at the suggestion, and that I will accused of raining on everyone's parade of fun with junk.  However, I believe that this, and many other products, offer thoughtful and caring parents opportunities to teach children about consumerism of products that we know to be ultimately unhealthy for our planet.

To date, I have not spent a dime on Silly Bandz, and I have spoken of my misgivings to other parents on a selective basis. I have spoken to my children about why I think they are bad. They have a few of them, but they are informed now (by what I told them and by what they experienced recently, while volunteering on Coastal Cleanup Day), and they don't seem to be interested in collecting them.

This is a good sign.

The Right To Be Ugly

We live in a country that has many inalienable rights. Apparently, one of those rights is to be an ugly American.

People running live action video feed of another person's private activities. Woman destroys artwork because she thinks it demeans Jesus. Motorcycles and cars with tips welded on their mufflers, in order to drastically raise the decibel level and make your hair stand on end. Cars that block parking lot circulation so that their sole occupants can wait for someone to pull out of the parking slot closest to the entrance to the grocery store. Drivers who have their car stereo systems roaring at the highest volume and deepest bass rumble, so that everyone within a two block radius is forced to hear it. The garbage that is dumped on sidewalks, beaches and parks, sometimes within 8 feet of a receptacle. Runaway computer viruses that anonymously destroy equipment, while hijacking the victims' contact lists. The one-sided cell phone rants, where everyone else, standing in any line, anywhere, is a captive audience. Tailgating drivers, speeders, speed-weavers, stop sign runners, double-parkers, three-point-turners in school zones and those drivers who abandon their cars in passenger loading zones, despite the clear directives of posted signs. Bullies, bigots, bashers and trashers. This is, I hope you realize, only a partial list; you have your own list of minor to major irritants.

When did we become such rude, arrogant and narcissistic pigs?

The reason I ask this question is because the bad behavior seems to get worse as the days go by.  Celebrities, politicians and religious leaders lead the fashion trend and tend to model this behavior more than the average person; bad press is better than no press at all, I suppose. The constant need to fill 24 hours of network television on hundreds of channels heightens the visibility of the trend by creating an endless stream of trashy entertainment content, for our viewing pleasure or horror. Certainly, this all provides more that we can all natter on about. "Did you see what they did?" and "Did you hear what they said?" If you don't remember the 1998 film, The Truman Show, it is worth a watch now.

What is it all about? How about alienation?  In The Sane Society, Erich Fromm posited:

We consume, as we produce, without any concrete relatedness to the objects with which we deal; We live in a world of things, and our only connection with them is that we know how to manipulate or to consume them.

It seems as if we have moved beyond this to something even worse, a lack of concrete relatedness to the people who drift through our daily lives. Whatever the cause, there seem to be a lot of people who really only act and care about what they are doing in any given moment; consequences, intended or otherwise, don't seem to come into the thought process at all--it could be overstating to suggest that there might be a thought process involved. Meanwhile, there are other people who get their jollies from being intentionally irritating to every person within reach of their chosen mode of ugliness. What an alienable use and waste of inalienable rights and freedoms! What a waste of mind, body, spirit! What a waste of life!

I have to be honest and say that I really enjoy thoughtful people, people who think about and care about the consequences of their actions, people who are not out for everything they can get, people who will drive around the block just because they know it won't take any longer than making that dangerous three-point turn that will have them backing up into a crosswalk. I find it a blessing to be standing in a line, if it must be so, with people who are able to smile, pass the time civilly, and make a dull moment into something fresh.

If I have to live in a world that gyrates to the beat of thoughtless boobs, I say a prayer of thanksgiving for all of you thoughtful and beautiful people who redeem ugly moments, created by ugly people, with a smile and a relaxed "we're all in this together" attitude.

breath

rising and falling,

with the fullness of time,
is what makes the song
sing

following breath,
living is easy

breath of heaven,
blowing on the head,
            in the heart,
            through the lips,
in the fullness of song,
            of life
            and being

fill me now,
and always

© 2010 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Free the Arts

A few weekends ago, Cal Performances offered a Sunday "Free For All" of music, dance and performance art, at venues all over the UC Berkeley campus. It was a beautifully warm afternoon, and I was one of the many people scheduled to perform that day.

My husband drove the family to the campus, dropping me off near the venue, so that I could make the call time before the concert. He then parked and took the kids to wander about, seeing and hearing other performances before getting in line to see my concert. They got in line 20 minutes before concert time. When concert time came, they were among the more than 200 people who were turned away.

This was not an isolated incident. Hundreds of people were turned away from many performances. There were thousands of people milling through the campus on that warm summer day. All of them wanting to hear music, see dance, people watch, picnic or any number of other possible activities.

What does this say?

Living, as we do, in the wake of free-market free fall, perhaps the only affordable art experience for the average person is the free experience.

But, here is the rub: art has its costs. Being a singer and a writer, I know this all too well. Everyone involved in art personally invests so much more time (and even money), than any professional person with a 9-5 job could ever understand, to the art. Seasoned professionals are expected to continue "paying their dues" by donating their time to give free performances or showings all the time. The cliche argument is: "for the love of your art." The people who use that cliche don't really know what that actually means for the person who participates in a life of art, what is truly sacrificed. And, no, that kind of thing really isn't useful on your resume.

Once we realize we (and what we do) are commodities in a world that only understands buying and selling and value judgement, the love of our art shifts in imperceptible ways. The public desires an endless stream of entertainment to dull the blunt horrors of wage slavery. And so, there it is, an endless, even mindless, stream of entertainment sent out to meet the endless needs of the public. Some of this entertainment does entertain; much of it does not. Think about the hundreds of television channels that deliver 24 hours of dubious content, when the technology is capable of delivering on-demand content, tailored to the taste of the client. This endless stream of noise is very difficult to compete with, and who wants to?

What am I trying to say? There is a lot of money being spent to produce a lot of crap content, forcing "art" to be all about buying and selling products, most of which are not necessary for living a good life, many of which will be soon added to the pile of junk that, in many ways, looms over the future health of our planet.

But the minute a musician, actor, dancer, artist wants to receive professional recognition in the form of a decent paycheck and benefits, the buck stops. I find this interesting, psychologically and philosophically. To some extent, I find this to be evidence of a sick society.

People really cannot do without art in their lives. Art is what keeps us sane in a world crusted by layers and layers of political illogic and common denominator frustration, from which no reasonable sense of order can be derived. So many people are not or , at least, do not believe themselves capable of opening themselves up to creating their own artistic experience; this is why artistic individuals are so special and so necessary. The creative thought behind art has done as much to develop industry and technology as mathematics and science.

Singers, dancers, instrumentalists, thespians invest their bodies and psyches in the stream of artistic continuity in a way that no other set of professionals can. Fine artists and writers often sacrifice a social existence in order to have the time and solitude required to develop their art. Yes, time spent in this way is personally rewarding and edifying, but it comes at great personal cost, that even a steady paycheck can never truly repay. The personal angst (and even attendant therapy) that frequently informs an artist's work provides someone else a therapeutic experience. "Poetic Justice" would allow this exchange to have full circle closure back to the artist(s) in the form of remunerative therapy.

This leads me to my radical thought for today: The only way to truly Free the Arts is for society to earnestly invest in them. If a fraction of the money spent on crap commercial product junk were invested in arts organizations to the extent that artists could earn a decent living wage, we might be able to deliver more of what we love to do to a public that is obviously starving for it, as well as open the artistic frontier to explore and evolve beyond the mainstream of public consciousness.

Obviously, there is so much more to say. Discussion, anyone?

Pleasure

       Water laPs at my feet,
       sand s Lips through my toes,
sun-sparks evEntually dazzle
  these eyes Against all shadows
that might caSt themselves across
       this l Uxurious moment,
  one of shee R, unadulterated
         cont Entment.

© 2010 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Bananas for dessert, anyone?

My friend Shirley passed this concoction on to me, and it is delicious, as well as kid friendly. What the dessert is called, I don't know but here is the recipe:

bananas, sliced as you would to put over cereal (one, two, or more)
shredded coconut, about 1/4 cup per banana
lime juice, 1 to 2  tablespoons
cilantro, about 1/3 bunch per banana, chopped

Gently toss that together and serve it up.

Sounds crazy, but it is delicious! Great after a spicy dinner!

Indications

Water runs over rocks;
moss clings.

Feet wade in water;
light ripples.

Body crouching low;
shadows cast clarity’s net.

Beak claps like chopsticks;
expectation speaks.

Flicker in the mirror;
opportune moment.

Beak parts water;
fish protests…

Silence follows swallow;
a worthy lunch.

from Brief Encounters With Fluidity

© 2008 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

This arose from the observation of a gorgeous heron, fishing in a saltwater pond near Bay Farm Island. This bird was not shy of being watched, even with kids tossing pebbles into the water to see the resulting water ripples. The strangest thing was hearing the heron clap its beak in anticipation, or perhaps to get the fish to dart out of a hiding place in the rocks. Somehow, it seemed like the bird version of a watering mouth…

And, with that, I depart for a luncheon date with a friend! 

The First Day of the Last...

Today is the First Day of the Last Year of My First Half Century.

And, it is Sunday. So I was in church. But not my own.

I spent this Sunday over at St. John's Presbyterian Church, on College Avenue in Berkeley. By invitation, I was singing a Jazz Mass, composed by Todd Jolly, the music director there. I've worked with Todd for several years now, while a member of the San Francisco Renaissance Voices, of which he is musical director. Today's service music was from Todd's Mazz, plus a few companion anthems that he also composed. This wonderful piece is somewhat of a precis of the history of jazz.


I had a great time! Can't think of a better way to spend the morning of my birthday! Doing something I had never done before. Todd had written the piece about ten years ago, and bits of it had been done, but not the piece in its entirety. So, this day was culmination for Todd and his work. And, there we were, jamming with a fabulous combo on the dais at St. John's, sharing in the gift of creation.


It was a full circle, with an awakening to something new.


I had lived in Elmwood during my childhood years. The church, new back then, was a community center for us; my Brownies and Girl Scouts troops met there. I went to Emerson School, up the street, and lived around the block on Derby. Years later, I would rehearse on Monday nights with the Pacific Mozart Ensemble. Today, things are much the same, though different and older, in this neighborhood. Yesterday, I had lunch at the Elmwood Cafe, with one of my colleagues, and was thrilled that the old fountain counter was still there, though they no longer serve up burgers and shakes, and though the Elmwood Pharmacy that the fountain had been a part of has been gone for the longest time. After lunch, I ambled up and down the street a bit. The boutiques were all buzzing with shoppers, and people were jay walking to get from here to there. There was the general bustle of life happening. That is the part that hasn't changed or aged.


Although I have sung some jazz before, and even jazz oratorios, I had never sung a complete jazz mass. I loved it. The experience was one of life happening.

I am no preacherwoman, but one non-scriptural line pops into my head that seems as perspicacious to theology as any text from the bible. This line is from Auntie Mame (the 1955 novel by Patrick Dennis). Mame Dennis says to Agnes Gooch:

Live! Life's a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death!

This is it, isn't it? This is the essence. All the sages and prophets say this same thing, though differently. Life is already a banquet. Just wake up and be there, in the flow of things, where life is happening.

And that is what this morning was like for me, on the first morning of the last year of my first half century.

Awakening to something new.

Joining the feast.

Being where life is happening.

Sweet!

Weltanschauung

Hear,
O, Dears,
hear what Is Real:
wave and particle
at some time,
before time,
merged,
inner and outer,
upper and lower,
all opposites
joined together,
harmonious!

And from this music
emerges
One Impulse,
urging us forward
omni-directionally.

I believe in One:
that I am One,
and equally You are One,
and that One is for all,
and all for One,
each unique,
together plural,
growing steadily
in Beauty,
as Father,
as Mother,
as Sister
as Brother,
all friends and
children
of Creation,
begotten unique,
not made in any mold,
nor destined for any fold,
but solely for that exploration of
the whole wide Creation,
in its manifold
possibility
for expression.

Because of this miracle,
we are all blessed,
we are all blessing,
purposed, as we are,
to love one another
in fullness,
goodness
and joy.

And, for all this,
I perpetually
give thanks.

© 2010 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Is Texting Mightier Than The Sword?

“What is so cool is that we are all connected!” I heard this effusive comment in the grocery store, spoken by a man to the display of melons. Of couse, when he turned, I realized he had a phone dangling from his ear.

I confess to have been annoyed by this; I wanted to ask, “connected to what?” Sometimes, it seems to me that what we are truly connected with is our technological toys. I also sometimes think that our technology takes us for a walk, and not the other way around.

When my family was driving home from some event, recently, we were stopped at an intersection. My husband, who was driving, was about to make a right-hand turn when, from out of nowhere, a man on a bicycle shot off the sidewalk in front of the car, texting, while riding his bicycle. Texting! It was the most amazing thing I had ever seen in my life. Both of the man's hands were on the handlebars, somehow balancing his phone, open to it’s qwerty pad, and his thumbs were furiously flying.

My husband slammed on the brakes, and the guy on the bicycle responded by falling off of his bike in the crosswalk in front of us, dropping the phone.

Without looking to the right or the left, the fellow got up, scooped up the phone and picked up the bike, remounted it, and rode on, continuing to text. We had saved him from being road kill, and he didn’t even look our way.

This sounds like a classic entry for the annual Darwin Awards. And I ask, what was that all for? I would hazard the guess that it was not for some pithy discourse.

Because our technology allows us to, we blather. On and on we blather, whether it is by voice or by thumb, on and on we digitally promote the sound of our voice. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but I don’t call this conversation. Most of the single-side of conversations I hear are not noteworthy. Many are people yelling at each other, pretending that there is no audience to their drama. A woman actually snapped at me, on day in the grocery checkout line, “mind your own business” when I turned, startled at being barked at from behind. Groups of people walk in packs together, but are they talking to each other? No. Texting or tweeting others with cutesy one-liners about what they are doing right now. Couples in internet cafés, both parties with laptops open, not speaking to one another.

What I observe is that people, in their desire to be connected, are dividing themselves from a consciousness of what is going on around them. 

The loudness of all the blather is deafening.

The silence, in the absence of substantial real time discourse, is equally disquieting.