Advent

When the feasting is done,
the workers return to the fields,
the householders return to the hearth;
the boards are swept of the leavings,
and actions return to sameness.

Is this indeed our lot?
Is this what all the celebration was for?

That being abounds in sameness
is a misapprehension
of our purpose.

The Divine One sighs.

Celebration,
it should be a sending forth
into revolution,
nothing less than
a miracle of conception,
that will be nurtured
with warm and loving hands,
an alchemy of all the elements
and all that is unseen.

Life cannot be measured,
cannot be calculated
into minutes of this,
hours of that.

Life is even beyond
the measure of the mead
that raises warmth to the cheek,
that raises the inner spirit toward
the unexpected.

Life is the journey,
pushing beyond all boundaries
of the known and comfortable,
to a place wholly unknown.

There is no arrival,
but expect the abyss
to be open before you,
waiting.

A divine bridge will appear
for all who have the courage
to step forward.

This is the morning after,
the Dawning Day of Next,
wherein we meet God
in the work of creation.

© 2010 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Pointed

Words and numbers are pointers
leading to infinity,
asking to be traveled long and well,
poetically.

Points are not fixed;
they cannot stand still,
but shimmer and fly,
depending on the weather.

The relative atmospheric pressure
depends upon Mind and Soul,
and an apprehension of Tomorrow,
the child of time and timelessness.

Gathering creative wool,
the planets roll in search of nextness,
being points not fixed,
bur rather poetical.

Meanwhile, the unspeakable mystery
casts its pointed light on All,
making visible the invisible
for all that are poetically ready.

© 2010 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Sabbath Rest

Oh, for a quiet day,

a day where there is no rush at all,
because there is no place to go
and nothing that needs doing.

Oh, for a quiet day,
and a ramble over frost-frizzed fields,
tracing a circle that begins and ends
at a hallowed hollow called home.

On that quiet day,
we can contemplate all we have done
and all we that might yet to do,
within the spectrum of desires.

But this is quite a day,
for there is no expectation of doing,
accomplishment, planning or plotting;
today, all that is beside the point.

Oh, bless this cold, quiet day!
Day where all the world finds rest
away from all trials and tasks, to bask,
in the unexpected warmth of the sun.

© 2010 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Passages

An image forms in my internal spaces,
brought by a sudden breeze off the water,
a message from a twin being
somewhere, beyond the seas
of my imaginings
            and of quantum realities.

My thoughts break from mundane patterns
to recourse themselves
along deeper channels of my knowing,
to weather among more ancient longings,
connecting earth to sky and ocean.

Where I am embedded in this life's frame,
the meaning of the message is perplexing.

But where my unseen roots in the earth
reach depths beyond fathoms,
where my invisible wings soar
to heights beyond the moon,
I know, my dear, I know.

It is from those places
that a song wells up for you,
a return message sent up, out and over,
back on the changing breeze,
back through the waters
that bind and sustain us.

© 2010 Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Black Friday: In the Vale of Retail

The term “Black Friday” is only endearing to big business. This is the day that launches the annual ritualized cultural insanity of consumerism that lasts until the New Year, and keeps most companies afloat, if not overflowing.

Historically, the term “Black Friday” started out as a description for the stock market meltdown of 1864, but was, in 1966, used by law enforcement in Philadelphia, PA to describe the traffic management problem that was on their hands—holiday shopping mob control.

Later on, accountants were able to see the silver—or gold—lining in the ugly term. Ka-ching, ka-ching!

We all know what it means, but do we really understand what it does to us?

Crowds will jam the malls between now and Christmas, like ants on a hill. When I worked in retail, we called these people mall maulers. They were pushy, nasty and rude. Driving anywhere becomes a drudgery, most especially if you are not headed to shop. Drivers are pushy, nasty, rude and full of rage.

People will be rushing to buy the very latest gizmos, not to mention clothes and brick-a-brack, for themselves, as much as for others.

Psychologically, many of us talk ourselves into it because it is supposed to be all about an event; our obligatory gift giving is supposed to commemorate the alleged gifts that wise men apocryphally gave to a baby, after whom a religion was named, thousands of years ago. We imagine ourselves kings and queens (perhaps not wise persons) when we flex our buying power, don’t we? But is this spiritual? I think that if it is spiritual, it is most clearly defined as spiritually material.

Another aspect to this is that we must have it NOW (or “off with their heads!)”

Some people talk themselves into this madness by pretending that they can purchase everything they want for prices that are lower than they would be at any other time of the year.

However the incantation goes that allows people to join the grasping throngs, this is all really nothing more than rampant consumerism, and it is inexcusable. Everything purchased is overpriced, over-packaged and overblown—which is to say that it will all blow over, and the gizmos du jour will be yesterday’s news very shortly, and stacked in your garage or the nearest landfill not too long after that.

What is this collective insanity worth? Of what value is it? How can this be an expression of gratitude or faith—or love—when it lines the pockets of some and renders others destitute, as well as damages the earth?

I want you to think on these things, as you follow in the footsteps of millions of other drones on this Black Friday death march through the vale of retail.

Gratitude

thanks,
such a small word
to exchange for
the magnificence
of glittering pools of light that,
spilling through
all the mornings of my life,
stir me first to wakefulness,
and then to rapture,
at the illumined beauty
of the world;
of family, friends &
familiar places;
of tactile relationships &
flavors on the tongue;
of music to the ears &
flower scented air;
of being empty &
then being filled, full and
fully satisfied;
of being busy,
in work and in play,
then to stop for rest &
for the sleep that renews—
all of this in daily doses,
for a lifetime of wonder
—thanks,
this word so small, so humble,
is really all that can sound
from these lips,
awed by life’s beauty,
the so far & the more

I know is yet
to be revealed.

© 2010 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

From Scratch

Ah! The rains pour down

their balm for the earth,
and in the night, cold
brings on a freeze
that will break
the buried seeds,
when spring finally leaps
out of the womb of winter.

Morning is announced
by a blazing sunrise.

This calls for
Celebration!

Warm the ovens;
oil the pans;
bake ye the bread of life!

Start again from scratch:
chopping onions,
adding herbs,
roasting roots and meats,
tossing a mild salad;
in all things,
be the salt
you sprinkle
with care,
the sugar added to balance,
and test the flavors
as you go!

At last,
fill all the glasses
to their fullest
from any flagon
stayed upon you
[setting aside the best for later]
and place baskets of apples
on the candlelit table.

The time has always been Now!
But, see, you are ready:
Fling wide the doors,
with welcome
and with Love.

Warm embraces of greeting
will lead us to the table,
where we may
fill our hands with
the blessings of this day,
and delight
in the bounty
we all share
that is Life.

© 2010 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Sudden Storm

Clouds burst overhead,

yet wind floods the vision,
blowing rain sideways,
and the world flows away.

At last,
washed away,
we fall off the edge,
only to float upward,
improbable
as that seems.

Laugh,
it’s all we can do
when we find ourselves
on vertical planes,
horizons having
become extinct
in our wake
and our waking.

Laugh,
and look around,
and discover what you are:
a missing link,
a wave of laughter,
or a crazy music,
propelled omni-directionally
through a gold-lined, purple cloud of rain.

© 2010 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Threads

Dangling threads command your attention.

They wait for you to weave them,
first inward,
then outward
on your spiraling strands.

It never will be done;
the weaving goes on forever.

Hard work,
even tedious;
But what you weave is a garden,
the garden of your soul,
in which you grow yourself,
and the places you’ll go
will glow
with all the colors of your dreams.

So, let those threads command!
The Kosmos awaits your reply:
what are you waiting for?
Weave, weave; for God’s sake, weave!

© 2010 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Reflections on Social Networking by Computer: Living From Our Smallness

If you have not read it, I highly commend to you an article (in the November 2010 issue of the New York Review of Books) by Zadie Smith, entitled Generation Why? 


The article offers some review and commentary on the much discussed film The Social Network, and also includes some bit of review and context from You are not a Gadget: A Manifesto by Jerome Lanier.

Zadie Smith amazed me by putting into print a lot of the discussion I have been having (with myself in my mind, and with peers) about being part of the "Facebook Generation". The title grabbed me, first of all: why? Is all really about networking? What do we get from sharing what is often most banal of our daily existence with our list of friends?

Not much in the way of substance seems to be my answer and Smith's.

I don't ultimately think this lack of substance is horrible, but I do think that if one seeks deeper and more integral relationship with family, friends and other travelers on this grand journey of ours, the first place one can count on not finding that is on Facebook.

Once again, I can feel the outcry "Luddite! Luddite!"

Not at all, not at all. No, not so.

Here are the things I really like about Facebook: I have been able to reconnect with people I knew in High School and elsewhere. There are people that I really wanted to keep in touch with, and it was a shame that we all lost track of one another when we went off to university, got married, moved away, such and so on, etc. I love being able to see what people have done in their lives. It is marvelous to be able to "chat" with people in other parts of the world. To share recipes and jokes. Possibly the biggest plus is to get the earliest report of some critical national or international news happening from someone closest to the scene.

But, as Ms. Smith points out in her article, all this had been possible before Facebook, and is possible now through various other computer options. While Facebook is touted as being all about networking, it is really all about taking our "personal information," mostly in the form of our likes and dislikes, and forwarding this to various parsing agencies that will, over time, bombard us with offers based on them. In other words, it is not about promoting brotherhood and sisterhood, but about promoting sales.

If you are a member of Facebook, you don't have as many choices as you might think you have for controlling the your personal information, and what is available reaches a wider audience than you would imagine. You might not want to have everyone be your friend, first of all. And you might not want to have some of the quips you share with pals be shared with absolutely everyone you know and all the people they and their friends and family know. But that happens, and we have no control over it. We are at the mercy of our most unguarded moments on the internet. And it is can be hilariously laughable, such as this very funny BBC satire of Queen Elizabeth as Facebook member.

Hilarious. Laughable. Okay, now what?

The internet was invented to be a tool for the free exchange of information, but, to some extent there is nothing free about it, and what is being exchanged is our personal dignity. Why? Because all of our cute (or not so cute) little quips and quirks live on and on, even after we have departed from the internet or, indeed, the world. Zadie Smith recounts that the FB "wall" of a murdered British teen had notices from people to the deceased, as if she was still alive or would be checking her FB account from the grave.

I have not seen The Social Network, yet, and I am not sure that I particularly want to. Yes, I am sure that the portrait of Mark Zuckerberg is slanted in a particularly vile way, and I am equally sure that Zuckerberg is the kind of geek that lives from and through his computer.

There is a smallness about boiling the human brain and heart down to binary code in "if-then-else" language parsing. I have not read You Are Not A Gadget, by Lanier--but I plan to, based on what Zadie Smith has shared in her NY Review article, and what I see in an excerpt made available by the publisher through the New York Times. It is clear the book is a reminder that being is much more than the sum of parts. Here is a quote from Lanier's book: "Information systems need to have information in order to run, but information underrepresents reality."

Facebook can only ever show an extremely limited portion of our reality. It boils us down to the smallest we can be, for as many people as want to view that. This is not where revolutions will be fostered, or world peace, or very much, indeed, in the way of achievement. Marketing and sales are likely all we can expect of Facebook. And what we share there, discreet or indiscreet, will be "carried forward" into whatever fad the next computer generation cooks up, networking or otherwise.

We'll never be able to live large or deeply on Facebook. And, thankfully, we don't have to live on Facebook at all.

Rain in the Desert

Drops fall from the sky;
infinite views of life that glitter
as small globes of resonance,
while they land and find place,
pooling in community to be
common with one another,
one in another,
ad infinitum.

Each a message,
together a manifesto,
a movement gradual
that gathers swift momentum,
swirling from puddle to pool to rivulet,
thence on to stream and river,
then rolling on into ocean.

This is love;
without this wet and wild kiss,
there is no life.

© 2010 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Mandoline

Plectrum moves across the strings,
finding melodies
in imitation
of songs ancient and modern.

She does not sing the words
--that would be superfluous:
life is the music,
the words are the life;
unbidden, they float on the melodies
of their own concordant accord,
weaving the world into being.

The player smiles,
knowing this.

There is even no need to make music:

We are the instruments,
all of life is the music,
if we would but listen
to one another;
within and without,
we should be able to hear it
playing our hearts.

© 2010 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Dreaming

The desert has been so wide,
no thought has been able to take root.

At once, a passing thought did tread,
only to die for lack of food and water;
relegated to delusion by way of miraging masquerade
for lack of moisture that might explore a truer shape.

Loneliness and wondering;
Loneliness and wandering.

The sun carves deep shadows and dries them
into the shape the arroyos take.

Thirst—
drought—
death…

Lightening—
storm—
flood—

Motions of notions,
so thick the whole earth could not contain them,
and caught, as I am, in this flash flooded desert,
I can barely grasp a single thread,
much less find my feet long enough
to follow any path that might be drawn.

Follow!  Follow us!  Follow us all!
taunt the silken strands of thought,
but I cannot stem their tide and bide,
and so caught in their merry pranking pools,
I drown.

© 2010 Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Fear and Trembling, Sold and Purchased

More and more, I think we live in what Frances Moore Lappé calls “a thin Democracy.” In her 2007 book, Getting A Grip, she demonstrates that one of the major thinning aspect of democracy is the existence of, not to mention the over-riding interest of, capitalism and free market economy. Lappé suggests that we are sold on the idea of scarcity, and that the complicit, if not leading, marketplace drives consumption by promoting fear. Lappé is not the only person to have made this observation.

In an interview with Amy Goodman on the radio program Democracy Now!, Naomi Klein, author of Shock Doctrine; the Rise of Disaster Capitalism and other books, said. 

[Milton] Friedman believed in a radical vision of society in which profit and the market drive every aspect of life, from schools to healthcare, even the army. He called for abolishing all trade protections, deregulating all prices and eviscerating government services.

These ideas have always been tremendously unpopular, and understandably so. They cause waves of unemployment, send prices soaring, and make life more precarious for millions. Unable to advance their agenda democratically, Friedman and his disciples were drawn to the power of shock… Friedman understood that just as prisoners are softened up for interrogation by the shock of their capture, massive disasters could serve to soften us up for his radical free-market crusade. He advised politicians that immediately after a crisis, they should push through all the painful policies at once, before people could regain their footing. He called this method "economic shock treatment." I call it "the shock doctrine."

Take a second look at the iconic events of our era, and behind many you will find its logic at work. This is the secret history of the free market. It wasn’t born in freedom and democracy; it was born in shock.

To return to Frances Moore Lappe:

… Private power supersedes public power—as FDR warned us seven decades ago… To pick just a few frightening examples:

* for almost six years after 9/11, the chemical industry lobby was able to resist measures needed to secure fifteen thousand chemical plants against attack.

* While five thousand Americans die annually from food-borne illnesses, the food industry is able to block mandatory recalls.

* Ex-oil lobbyist Philip Cooney was so tight with the Bush White House that he edited official reports to downplay climate change.

* Pharmaceutical lobbyists helped craft a healthcare law that forbids Medicare to negotiate drug prices—while we pay double what Europeans do for identical drugs.

The biggest product on the market today is fear. We purchase fear every day, in the form of some product marketed to protect us. Overstatement?

Think about the recent H1N1 pandemic that was forecast and, supposedly, averted by means of a vaccine. Do you remember how there was a scarcity of the vaccine? Then, suddenly, a huge flood of the vaccine hit the marketplace, but mostly right after the containment of the outbreaks. This did not stop people from purchasing the vaccine. Interesting that we had to purchase it, if we wanted it and didn't have a health plan that provided it. When I was a child, inoculations against Rubella were given to every school child by the county health department, for free. People purchased the H1N1 vaccine based on their fear, not because there was an outbreak, or even just a few reported cases, in their area.

Now, think about the new TSA (Transportation Security Administration) airport security pat downs. The fear being marketed here is terrorism. The price of your airline ticket entitles you to the indignities of an extremely invasive full-body search, that by law you must submit yourself to. The public outcry has been loud. But Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and TSA Administrator John Pistole Monday claim the new practices are necessary to protect the flying public.

Now, recall the last visit you made to your local pharmacy. Have you looked around the shelves immediately adjacent to the pharmacist’s window? What are the primary products lining those shelves? I’ll tell: hand sanitizer. The fear being marketed here is germs, viruses and bacteria that lead to sickness and possibly death. The sanitizers that are alcohol based are probably fine, unless over-used, but those that are marketed as being anti-bacterial are probably overkill. Why? Because, as a friend of mine who is an emergency room physician said, “oh, these products are good. They are so good that they take away the good stuff as well as the bad stuff.”  The human body naturally contains bacteria, yeast fungi,  and bunches of other things like protists and archaea. Details from www.wisegeek.com: 

Bacteria help digest complex carbohydrates which would be indigestible otherwise, promote growth of intestinal cells, repress pathogenic microbes, prevent allergies, inflammatory bowel disease, and play crucial roles in the immune system. Body flora and the body it occupies have been co-evolving for tens of millions of years. 

Is it possible that we are fiddling with the delicate balance of our immune systems when we over-use some of these products, rather than rely on soap and water as our first line of hygiene? I know octogenarians who have never received flu shots and have never used hand sanitizers. They are some of the healthiest people I have ever met.

On a website called Medical News Today, there is a “fact” page about hand sanitizer. The information for this “fact” page has been provided by Johnson & Johnson Consumer Companies the makers of Purell ®. I quote from it: 

Do you have enough PURELL(R) products available to consumers? 

We are committed to providing optimal distribution of the product to meet the increasing need and demand, particularly in areas where cases of illness outbreaks have been reported.

I find that an interesting statement, from a marketing perspective. It speaks to the issue of scarcity,  relieving potential consumer fear of not being able to obtain the product.

I do not suggest that an alcohol based hand product is a necessarily a bad thing for people, but that we have been advised to use a lot of it, and in situations where washing the hands with soap and water might be quite sufficient. This USA Today article from 2007 talks about the kind of money these products generate for their producers: 

U.S. hand sanitizer sales have grown in double digits since 2003, according to marketing data company ACNielsen. Through late 2006, sales in supermarkets and drugstores alone were up 14.4% from 2005 to $70 million, with Purell the market leader at $36.6 million. That growth built on a huge 53.5% rise in 2005, according to ACNielsen.

 What I suggest is that we need to think about what is being marketed and by whom. I think that we are steered into paying out big money to buy fear, and that there are no regulations to protect us from the fear peddlers, many of whom are big business lobbyist in Washington, D.C.

If you have not read Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine, I highly recommend the book.

// 

http://www.democracynow.org/2007/9/17/the_shock_doctrine_naomi_klein_on

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/148203.php

http://www.usatoday.com/money/companies/2007-01-03-santizers_x.htm

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-some-types-of-body-flora.htm

Moore Lappé, Frances. Getting A Grip. Small Planet Media Group, 2007. Pp. 13, 17.

Book of Hours

As if in manuscript,

our days and hours
drift, as they will,
like autumn leaves
falling from a tree.

Pages turn,
although some marginalia
tries to overcome errata
by means of a tenuous grip
on aging parchment,
so to further one conversation
over another.

Pages turn,
witnessing the passing
of time and place,
and people.

As the pages turn,
we remember
the counterpoint
of joy and woe
as a fuller music,
more strident,
even more poignant,
though now we sense it
as a gentler melody.

As the pages turn,
a time will come
when we are there no longer
to witness or feel the change,
and no witness left to us.

Pages turn;
for now, awareness and being
are grounded in being fully here,
of mind and spirit,
while we can be,
to greet the subtle music
of sun and moon,
even as the body
drifts away, towards
a different kind of voyage.

© 2010 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

waterlines

water still,

while sun flows overhead,
glassy surface warm,
belying cool currents below,
belying captivating tensions

above, birds skim,
below, fish swim,
neither world meeting
except unexpectedly, by chance,
via ripples, winds, or thrashing waves

change is more inevitable
than darkness or death,
so long as parallel lives
have equal freedom
to breathe

© 2010 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

The Point

Many people ask the difficult question,
“What is the point?”

This = ,
this point,
this is where we meet;
this is a place, both metaphorical and real:
now.

There may have been a before,
which speaks to some other point of fact or being,
or may even indicate a point of origin,
if such is possible,

But this is the here-and-always-now,
the ultimate point on which we must focus our attention—
all comings and goings depend upon ti,
all shall-be and ever-beens, as well—
the turnings of universes within universes
rely on how well met we are at this point.

Shall we dance like angels on the head of a pin?
The point is what we make of it, within it,
whether guiding or following it as a moving path,
in lines or waves,
flowing on it as a stream,
surrounding it, avoiding it,
on point or off,
melding into or averting from
(rendering either a going and a return
or a point of departure)…

Now is always;
whether we “decide” to meet there or not,
now happens,
here, there and everywhere.

Now is the wellspring of creation,
the hub,
the crux,
the point of being
and, more to the point,
of beingness.

How shall we make our point?
How shall we be?
What shall we do?

Now is an opportunity that requires action
(for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health),
but action depends on how we define our point.

Shall we dance?


© 2010 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Quieter Condensations

The circles of my life are ever widening;
like the rings shaped in the pool by the falling tear,
of joy or of sorrow;
they reach out with hands that are joined,
or will be joined,
or will be joined again,
in the passing moment,
on a rose-scented breeze.

I have discovered two things in my life,
only two things of meaning, of worth,
and these two truths I know,
or apprehend:
Love and Unity.

These truths,
these beings of light,
rise up with the sun,
quietly scented, ascendant evaporations
of quieter condensations:
the collected dreams and thoughts
of all our days and all our ways,
to come and gone,
and shimmering most Now.

These rise up, offering in beauty
the better parts of us,
individual and communal;
our hopes and aspirations fly with them,
unbeknownst,
yet palpably singing a soft evolution,
an unfolding,
like the nascent bud,
whose unraveling releases its sweet and unending scent
into the breezeways of consciousness,
so that I can tell you this Now.

And as the circles of my life ever widen,
I know that Love and Unity
are met in me,
and that, starting now and ever,
and with all my befores,
and all my latters,
I shall wake,
I shall wake and keep waking,
as i rise, As I Rise, AS I RISE
with the quietly rose-scented, ascendant evaporations
of quieter condensations.

© 2010 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Camera stellata: A Place of Creativity

The Star Chamber. This was a special judicial council in England, from the late middle ages to the end of Henry VIII’s reign. The term has become a pejorative to describe secret meetings, where illegal or unfair decisions are made, against which there is no recourse. This information is neither here nor there, as far as this post is concerned.

Apparently, in some text dating from the 16^th century, the Star Chamber was described as a room with a vaulted ceiling of azure, with golden stars. There are many such, throughout Europe, and even a few here in the United States, in cathedrals and churches. Have you ever been in one?

Starry, starry night.  The depiction of earth as an eye, open to the cosmos.

The star chamber is my metaphorical place of creativity.

I can enter this chamber at any time of day; frequently, this happens between 2 and 4 a.m., but also during daylight hours. I can enter this chamber at home, at sea, across borders and boundaries, and in any weather.

What is in this metaphorical chamber? How exactly do I get there? What is in the chamber? And what happens next?

I’m afraid I don’t have precise answers to these questions, but I will venture toward something necessarily imprecise.

There is an invitation made to me. From whence, I know not. This comes in the form of a twinge at the forehead, a series of words that drift into my mind and don’t drift away. There could be a tug at my sleeve, an itch on the sole of one foot or a breeze blowing across my forehead. Whatever the invitation, it will not allow me to avoid giving it due attention.  Come on, it says—in no uncertain terms.

Then, something like this happens. My conscious mind and my unconscious mind join hands. My right-brain and left-brain join hands. My heart and mind join hands. And then, in words somewhat like Dogen’s description of meditation, body and mind drop off, leaving the rest of me free to enter.

And there I am. What is in the chamber? I could not describe exactly what is in there for you or tell you what it is like, but I can say that Divine Genesis resides there, and the chamber is full, indeed.

What happens next? Mmmm. Difficult to say, for the circumstances are different each time. There is a meeting, and a spark sets the proceedings alight. Is it a conversation? Perhaps. Yes, it could well be a conversation. It could also be an exploration. A flow and mix of ideas.

And then I return to mind and body.

But the very elements that made the invitation arrive back with me, transformed into something else.

Is the result by my hand? Hmmm, I would have to say partly.  Yes—as filtered through my being—yes, it is by my hand. But, there is something more there than me. An alchemy, a music, a melding, a grace bestowed by Divine Genesis.

While I am not sure what to call this something more, it is a definite meeting.

All art, I am convinced, is derived from such meeting.

Becalmed

Hours beyond the stormy row,
wind has laid down spent arms,
to lay up storm for another day.

But for the soft bobbing of a tiny barque,
smooth as glass the waters lie
as far as horizon gleams in wearied eye.

Sun veiled by clouds belies a warmth,
one meant to beckon thirst
to this floating desert island.

No movement is called for,
and from crew none called forth,
nay, no movement at all.

Forward momentum shall be determined
not by willingness of reasoned effort,
but by serendipitous circumstance alone.

© 2010 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Boredom, Mother of Invention

When my kids sigh and exclaim “mom, I’m bored,” I clap my hands and respond, “Yipee! So what are you going to do about it?” And I return to whatever it was I was doing; probably something exciting, like folding laundry or cleaning out the cat box.

They want me to find something to entertain them, but I won’t do it. It is up to them. Just like it was up to me, when I was their age.

Long before I was married with children, I began seeing middle school kids with Palm Pilots and Blackberries. I wondered what kids would need those for. Finally, someone told me what it was all about. “Their parents have overscheduled them. These kids have so many activities, they have to keep track of them electronically, and sync them with the family calendar.” I was shocked. 

When we got married, I made my husband promise that we would not over-schedule ourselves and make our child carry a Palm Pilot. I'm sure he thought I was getting ahead of myself. And I was. But not by too far. 

Now, twins and ten years later, I am still shocked, even though we have moved on to Smart Phones and the iPhone and Droids that seem poised to evolve into yet more complex items. Just for the sake of example: does it make sense that some of us have as many as four different contact numbers and/or addresses? That means we have to wade through double, triple, quadruple the messages when people try to get in touch. 

I have a cellular phone, but I don’t text. I had a Palm Pilot, but gave it away years ago, and returned to having a calendar I can write in with a pencil. I have a laptop, but not the latest model or operating system or applications.

You must be thinking I am a Luddite.

Not so, not so. No, not at all. 

I think all this technology is fabulous and grand and totally gizmotic! --(I am totally looking forward to getting my very own Dick Tracy HoloTeleporTextoGraph wristwatch, as soon as they roll off the assembly line!)-- I just don’t happen to think we need to be tied to it every minute of the day and much of the night. I don’t believe that we are required to have every moment of our day filled with some sort of electronic transaction in order to feel useful and productive. In fact, I believe we are making ourselves sick with the constant influx of messages that require response. This is not productivity, people, this is overwhelm, leading to a short-circuit.

I won't even go into the shoot-em-up video games and the vapid television content, running along the lines of Beady Eye for the Con Guy, Trailer Court Cookery,America's Got Trash, Touched by a Zombie, Project Informercial and CSI Bell, California. My husband and I don't want to watch this junk, and we sure as heck don't want our kids watching it either. Whether it is television, video games or email, screen time sucks at you with constantly programmed stimulation and message intervention until your mind is not free to roam. Hours go by, empty of you and your thoughts.

Anna Quindlen wrote a lovely essay for Newsweek in 2002. She, too, had noticed all the children with afternoons full of scheduled and structured time, being chauffeured around by harried and resentful parents, and it disturbed her, as well. Reflecting on her own childhood, she said, 

How boring it was. Of course, it was the making of me, as a human being and a writer. Downtime is where we become ourselves, looking into the middle distance, kicking at the curb, lying on the grass or sitting on the stoop and staring at the tedious blue of the summer sky. I don't believe you can write poetry, or compose music, or become an actor without downtime, and plenty of it, a hiatus that passes for boredom but is really the quiet moving of the wheels inside that fuel creativity.

In a 2005 keynote speech about hyper-parenting and creativity, Alvin Rosenfeld, M.D. said, 

Boredom can stimulate kids to think, create, and hear the soft murmurings of their inner voice, the one that makes them write this unusual story or draw that unique picture, or invent a new game. It is diminishing free play’s importance and eliminating time to reflect that damage imagination because they do not treat as precious children’s natural joy in discovering.

I propose that what is good for kids is probably also at least equally good for adults. 

I have seen my husband sit at the computer, grinding away at a problem related to what he is working on, getting more and more keyed up and farther, it seems, from a solution. If I drag him away to play with the twins, he grumbles, but always finds the solution while he is away from the computer. Why? Because he let go long enough to think outside the boundaries he had set up for the solution—that is creativity. And it was not found sitting at the computer, it was found while flying kites with the kids. He was not bored by the kite flying, but it was time frivolously spent.

Author Aimee Bender spends two hours a day working at boredom, just sitting around, waiting for some odd thought to pass through her mind. 

I feel like sitting through boredom is a major piece of being a writer. There's this intense restlessness that comes up when bored. I have this interest in skewed storytelling, so it makes sense that the ideas would sometimes show up in these strange ways.

Susan Sontag observed in an essay: 

Boredom is just the reverse side of fascination: both depend on being outside rather than inside a situation, and one leads to the other.

So, here’s an idea for all of us, whether we are little kids or hyper-connected big kids:

Take some time to turn off, tune out, and twiddle those thumbs! Get out, get restless, go fly a kite--and see what happens!

///

Keane, Erin. Courier-Journal.com, 10/26/2010. Acclaimed writer Aimee Bender's creative process begins with boredom.

Quindlen, Anna. Newsweek; 5/13/2002, Vol. 139 Issue 19, p76:  Doing Nothing is Something.

Rosenfeld, Alan. Hyper-Parenting the Over-Scheduled Child, keynote address for the Association of Children’s Museums, Indianapolis, Indiana. April 30, 2005.

Sontag, Susan. On Photography: America, Seen Through Photographs, Darkly." Penguin, 1977. 

Meetings

Paper worn,
sheets so old
there's no rustle left in them,
more like felt under her fingers,
or softer yet,
like the worn cheek
of a beloved old friend.

Settling the pages,
making them comfortable,
she arranged herself,
just close enough
to see the signs and symbols,
and on them meditate.

Cradling the instrument
within her warm embrace,
she took a long, deep breath,
filling her being with its sweetness.

Fixing her gaze
on those worn pages—
old friends, revisited often;
“the rules of engagement,”
she had once heard;
an apt description,
the thought occurred
—she drew the bow,
forward over the strings.

Then, she leaned back,
closed her eyes,
and let the bow find the strings,
the way that they would do,
just now.

Inner ear to mind,
mind to thought,
idea to quill,
quill to manuscript,
symbols dot paper,
shapes greet the eye,
horsehair strokes steel,
steel vibrates wood,
wood sings,
space hums,
body rejoices,
soul soars.

The sum
of all these meetings
is God’s voice,
heard as music.

© 2010 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Placid Pool

           ~about singing and life

Placid pool,

font of being;
here, there is surface tension,
but there is no holding back.

Depths and heights,
aboves and belows,
all vividness reflected here
is a perfect and lively counterpoint;

Nothing that rises or falls
is ever disconnected,
nor even far-flung—
there is nothing beyond
this teeming now,
this moment,
this.

Fish, rising softly
toward sparkling light,
kiss this moment
and are quenched in air.

Birds, descending lightly
toward darkling sheen,
kiss this moment
and are quenched in water.

The rising and the falling are one,
the light and the dark are one,
highs, lows and all the in-betweens are one,
tempered to clarity and density
in this place of being
that quenches all being,
in this teeming now,
this moment,
this.

© 2010 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

The Infusions of an Amateur Herbalist

These formulas have been kitchen and illness tested by me personally. You can fine-tune them for yourself.


For Sinus Congestion

FENUGREEK
Fresh GINGER (grated)
GINSENG
PEPPERMINT
TULSI (also known as HOLY BASIL)
Lemon juice

or

For Bronchial Distress

ANISE Seed
ELDER flower
HYSSOP
MULLEIN

1. Add the herbs in equal parts to a large infusion ball or reusable teabag and toss it all into your teapot, along with the non-herb ingredients, if any.
2. Boil up some water and pour it on in.
3. Let steep for 5-10 minutes.

[Optional, add honey to the bottom of your mug (my favorite is Bio-Active Manuka* Honey)]

Pour yourself a big dose, and feel better soon.

* Manuka is better known to us as Tea tree (Leptospermum scoparium), a flowering bush from New Zealand and South East Australia. Honey containing Manuka flower pollen has antibacterial and antifungal properties. Most good health food stores will have some available.

You know I am not a doctor, so any information I have to offer is not a prescription, but a soothing recipe.

Singing Your Way To Health

I got my flu shot this week, and what do you know, but I have a cold!

So, what did I do last night? Instead of lying about in bed, I went to a rehearsal, to SING. And I came home tired, but feeling good.

Crazy? Well, I might be a little wacky, but not because of that.

Back in August, I was invited to present a vocal workshop to a church choir. The emphasis was to be on vocal technique, but as I was thinking about how to make a presentation on the technical aspects of breathing and making sound, due to the particular circumstances of certain people I know, I could not help but also think about singing from a healing perspective.

I said to the assembled choristers that our times in worship are about regrouping, re-centering and renewal, a turning and returning to being in tune with the Divine. Whether we celebrate in churches, synagogues or mosques, we are meeting the Divine from our grounding as individuals, as well as from within the harmony of our larger fellowship community or our greater culture. The shared element between each of person and the Divine could be described as unity of spirit--a vibratory exchange resulting in a sense of well being or peace.

Outlandish? New Age? Hippy-dippy?

Not so, not so!

Everything in the universe vibrates. Even seemingly solid stone mass vibrates. Children hiking through a dark forest hum and sing songs to themselves. How could it not be so that humming, toning, chant and song are an individual’s innate vibrational self-healing tool, a built-in coping mechanism? As physical beings, we are music; everywhere we go, we carry our song with us.  That famous line from T.S. Eliot’s Dry Salvages says it all: “You are the music, while the music lasts.”  This is a truth that is not new; this is timeless wisdom.

The great Sufi teacher to West, Hazrat Inayat Khan offers this, on the power of sound:

The physical effect of sound has also a great influence upon the human body. The whole mechanism, the muscles, the blood circulation, the nerves, are all moved by the power of vibration. As there is a resonance for every sound, so the human body is a living resonator for sound. Although by one sound one can produce a resonance in all substances, such as brass and copper, the there is no greater and more living resonator of sound than the human body. The effect of sound is upon each atom of the body, for each atom resounds; on all glands, on the circulation of the blood and on the pulsation sound has its effect. (Khan, 1992)

How many times have you gone to a concert hall feeling stressed from a long day at work, and exited feeling refreshed. Moreover, everyone around you seems to feel the same things you do about the performance you just heard. What is this? It is called entrainment, a synchronization of patterns, whether they are brain wave patterns, attitudinal patterns, emotional patterns. The Wiki definition of entrainment from a pure physics perspective is given:

The process whereby two interacting oscillating systems assume the same period. (Wikipedia, 2009)

More recently, the science of entrainment is being applied in different areas, such as music for therapeutic use, in the clinical setting, as treatment for everything from depression to personality disorders to cancer.

Sound enters the healing equation from several directions: It may alter cellular functions through energetic effects; it may entrain biological systems to function more homeostatically; it may calm the mind and therefore the body; or it may have emotional effects, which influence neurotransmitters and neuropeptides, which in turn help to regulate the immune system--the healer within. (Gaynor, 1999)

Singing is an activity in which both hemispheres of the brain are simultaneously activated, coordinating and cooperating to get all the right muscles to work together to gather the breath, form the words and  sounds, find the pitches and control the air flow that results in the song. Research shows that neither side of the brain dominates in music making (Gates & Bradshaw, 1977). When you sing, or engage in any music making, it could be said that you are single of mind, because your brain hemispheres are working together toward a single outcome.

I personally know singers who have sung and instrumentalists who have played through major health crises, coming out the other side, not merely healed, but transformed.

So, whether you have a cold today (like I do) or not, help yourself to a mantra or hum a little tune, or, heck, just belt out that cool, jazzy song you love in the shower.

You'll feel better. I guarantee it.

AUM.

~~~~~~~~~~

Gates, Anne and Bradshaw, John L. Brain and Language, Vol. 4, Issue 3. Elsevier, Inc., 1977. Pp. 401-431: "The Role of the Cerebral Hemispheres in Music".
Gaynor, Mitchell L. Sounds of Healing, Broadway Books, 1999, P, 134.
Khan, Hazrat Inayat. The Mysticism of Sound and Magic, Element Books, 1992. Pp.261, 263.
Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entrainment, 2009.

Pumpkin Soup

14-15 oz of chopped or puréed pumpkin (or 1 14.5 oz can)
32 oz. of chicken or vegetable broth
1/4 cup white cooking wine or dry vermouth
1/4 cup apple cider or juice (optional)
1 medium onion, minced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 apple, peeled and cored, chopped
2-3 tablespoons olive oil
curry powder, to taste (approximately 1/2 teaspoon to 1 teaspoon, depending on type)
salt and pepper, to taste

Optional ingredients:
chives
cilantro
crème fraiche

1. Warm the olive oil in a soup pot; add onion, garlic and fresh pumpkin to sauté (if using canned pumpkin, don't add until step 3).

2. When vegetables are soft, deglaze the pan with the wine.

3. Add remaining ingredients (experimenting with the balance of spices), first bringing them to a light boil, then simmer for 20 minutes or so.

The flavor will differ greatly, depending on the type of pumpkin, broth, curry powder, and apple liquid used. The presence of the apple and cider helps balance the sometimes strong flavor of the pumpkin. Spiced cider can be used; experiment with the amounts of cider and curry powder, to balance the flavor.

If desired, you can purée by batches in a food processor to creamy consistency, or you can serve as is.

Serve in wide soup plates. Finish with a dollop of crème fraiche and a sprinkling of chopped cilantro or chives.

Pair with a light, dry Pinot Gris or Riesling.

Enjoy!

Drifting

Leaves drift, as they will,
in the breezes of the air,
in the breezes of the mind;
moments in time, they are,
pages turning in the book
of our times and lives,
turning softly,
margins ablaze
with the errata
of our thoughts,
body abuzz
of our doings.

Time drifts away from us,
through ever-present-now,
in wordless conversation
that rolls and tumbles,
in sleep gathering motions,
changing as the endless sea
reflects the same billions of stars
that have ever been
in the sight of Creation.

Awareness is that point
where I drift away,
yet still am, no less, here,
to see the changed
and the changeless,
the drifting leaves,
the swells and ebbs,
of self, other,
selflessness
and time.

© 2010 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Awareness

Deep in walk;
deep in thought.

Then wind speaks, and
hair strays into her eyes,
the ends pricking the soft, fleshly orbs.

Her attention is pulled backward,
then forward,
to Now,
but is she now focused?

[Mind does not respond to the mindless happening;
Heart does not respond to the act not originating in (com)passion;
only the body seems engaged in this wordless conversation
'twixt a neutrally aware self and environs.]

By way of response,
an arm moves upward,
fingers flex casually,
and the errant strands are flicked away,
expected by the hostess to find rest
in some more appropriate way,
or at least a way less irritating,
one that will not obscure vision, cause pain.

"Time for a haircut," she thinks, dismissively.

The wind has been slighted, however,
and the opportunity to unravel
a coded message from the Kosmos has passed.

© 2010 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Count Yourself IN!

We live in a Representational Democracy. Your preferences are only represented if you, the registered voter, participate by exercising your right and civic duty to vote.

Hopefully, we have all done our homework and know what it means if we vote "yes" or "no" on propositions. Hopefully, we are clear that the people we are voting into office are people who will do what they have said they would do, and that they have clearly, during their campaigns, stated their platform.

I leave you with some food for thought; a few quotes from Barry Goldwater (1909-1998), who lost to Lyndon Johnson in the 1964 presidential election. A Republican senator from Arizona, Goldwater was called "Mr. Conservative" for a reason. However, he was much more Libertarian in his politics than his party was willing to accept: he believed that abortion was a valid personal choice; he decried the grip the "religious right" placed on the GOP and its platforms and policies; he was for legalization of medical marijuana; and he was against banning gays from the military. A few years before he died, he told right wing leadership not to associate his name with anything they were doing because "You are extremists, and you've hurt the Republican Party more than the Democrats have."

Political wisdom from Barry Goldwater:

"How did it happen? How did our national government grow from a servant with sharply limited powers into a master with virtually unlimited power? In part, we were swindled. There are occasions when we have elevated men and political parties to power that promised to restore limited government and then proceeded, after their election, to expand the activities of government. But let us be honest with ourselves. Broken promises are not the major causes of our trouble. Kept promises are. All too often we have put men in office who have suggested spending a little more on this, a little more on that, who have proposed a new welfare program, who have thought of another variety of 'security.' We have taken the bait, preferring to put off to another day the recapture of freedom and the restoration of our constitutional system. We have gone the way of many a democratic society that has lost its freedom by persuading itself that if 'the people' rule, all is well."

“Remember that a government big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take away everything you have.”

“Equality, rightly understood as our founding fathers understood it, leads to liberty and to the emancipation of creative differences; wrongly understood, as it has been so tragically in our time, it leads first to conformity and then to despotism.”

“Where is the politician who has not promised to fight to the death for lower taxes—and  who has not proceeded to vote for the very spending projects that make tax cuts impossible?”

The point I make by highlighting the statements of a conservative politician whom I would not have voted for, had I been of voting age during the Presidential election in 1964, is that policy is bigger than the spin our parties generate about it.

Policy is most frequently about money, who gets to have, keep or spend it and who does not; no party is averse to money or clean from the taint of it.

This election has been driven by big money and corporate interests. Candidates have tried to buy their offices. Communities, mine and perhaps yours, too, have been tortured with spurious campaign mailers, robo-calls, fake surveys and push polls.

Big money is behind that. Don't wonder why. It is about parting you "soon, and often", from your hard earned wage.

This is unthinkable. But I want you to think on it, as you head to the polls to cast your vote today.

Goldwater also said, "To disagree, one doesn't need to be disagreeable."

He was right. We need to wonder at all that has been disagreeable during this campaign, and be concerned about our choices, as they have bearing not just on our rights and liberties, but also those of others.

Report Card On Democracy: The Three Ds

Here we are, on the eve of Elections. Tomorrow, we will be asked to do our civic duty, in an informed manner, by casting our votes.

But how do we, as voters, rate?

I have a list of three Ds important to Democracy. These are arbitrary, I realize; there could be others. Maybe you have your own list.

Discourse. Have politicians been engaged in honest dialogue with constituents? Have they clearly stated what their policies would be? Have we citizens engaged in true dialogue amongst ourselves? What I have read, heard, seen has been pretty rotten, even at the local level. Unseen Big Money engaged in mudslinging with expensive mailers. Candidates that harp at one another at so-called debates. Citizens, taking the lead of what they see politicians doing, talking at each other, not to one another. No one is listening. The world is painted as black or white, right or wrong, either/or, one way or the other. "If you are not for me, you are against me!" Even when that means you have to ride two horses. While we are all so busy enjoying the circus antics of those running for office (sometimes I wish there was something really entertaining to see or hear), what kind of deals are being made in government back offices?

Discretion. Have we been discrete in our dealings and discourse? In this age of the internet and the cellular phone, people seem now to be accustomed to airing their dirty laundry, and that of others, for all to see and hear. And then they want their privacy protected. When people give away their own privacy with such little disregard, they then feel entitled to take on the role of victim. When Shakespeare had Falstaff say, in Henry IV, Part 1, "The better part of valour is discretion", he follows it up with the phrase "in the which better part I have saved my life." How often do we speak without thinking? Without realizing that we are surrounded by ears that are hearing us? It has become all too commonplace for our thoughtless thoughts to become public.

Dignity. When we fail in maintaining Discourse with Discretion, we fail ourselves and others in preserving Dignity for all.

Failing Democracy is unthinkable. But I ask you to think on it, as you prepare to go to the polls tomorrow to cast your vote.

Do vote, please. I hope that you have done your homework well. I hope that you have read and listened beyond all the indiscretions and petty bickering to find the heart of the issues at stake.

My own ballot was cast weeks ago and mailed in.

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

The Choice

Lemming Leaders slouch along,

treading all their roads to nowhere,
paved, as they are,
with public monies and
sentiments misplaced
in the power to choose.

But, who
shall stand
when
I AM REAL
appears?

Lemming Leaders shall continue,
slouching along,
as they always have,
skimming the system,
and plying pretty words
by which to play
us all for suckers.

Others, seeing
the truth about our choices
and sensing another, better way,
will find the place of no road,
and from there make a start
at a different kind of journey.

© 2010 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen