Gaithersburg Book Festival (GBF),  Saturday May 20, 2017

The GBF is a tribal festival for those who love good books and who also love to share their passion with others.  The 100 or so invited authors ground the day in focused readings, presentations, and dialog with attendees.  The Politics and Prose enterprise from DC uses a big tent as a bookstore devoted to the specific books being presented by their creators that day.  It’s a great pleasure to purchase a book there after an author’s presentation, and then meet and talk with the author in a designated book-signing area.

This was my third year in a row attending this one-day celebration of contemporary authors and their readers. Two of my sisters drove all day Friday from western New York state to attend the festival and enjoy a comfortable weekend of family companionship with my spouse and me at our home in neighboring Derwood. They had ventured down for this occasion two years ago as well. Our ongoing involvement since then in our family book group was keeping our shared love of reading alive and well.

The experience of the GBF is akin to attending a summertime “Chautauqua” — an old-fashioned fair-like environment in which the lead attractions are current writers and their latest books.  Within this rich, creative environment, human encounters occur, discussions are entered into, and new ways of thinking and experiencing are articulated and shared.

I’m going to share a subjective account of my experience of the 2017 GBF. By way of disclosure, I’m a 67-year-old recent retiree who has taken up creative writing as a hobby.  My youngest sister, Anna, is a devoted teacher and librarian at a public grade school, and my middle sister, Marian, is a working mother who is about to retire from a career in accounting and finance.  Our family book group, conducted monthly via conference call, has brought us together in deep and beautiful ways over the past year.

 

Not the Cleaver Family

The three of us have each studied the Author Presentation Schedulefrom the professionally rendered GBF website.  The schedule is a full-page 10X8 grid of locations, authors, and start-times.  Our first destination is the James Michener Pavilion, consisting of a large white tent, open at the sides and front, with a speaker’s table and dais at the far end and with metal folding chairs arranged in neat rows from the entrance.  It’s just after 10 AM and a short, vivacious, middle-aged, brown-skinned woman is enthusiastically speaking about her current family life in the upscale Chevy Chase suburb of Washington, DC.

Her name is Maria Olsen and she is a “mixed race” (Filipina/Irish) mother of two Anglo-looking children.  She’s a lawyer as well an author, and also hosts a weekly FM radio show on her special topic — the radically changing demographics of the American family.  She shares personally, and painfully, about how often she is mistaken for her children’s nanny, or hired housekeeper.  She says that the challenge of being “other” is what drove her to a deeper investigation of what she calls the “beige-ing” of America.  The fruition of her work is her short, illustrated book, “Not the Cleaver Family — the New Normal in Modern American Families”.

Ms. Olsen is a dynamic, well-organized speaker and uses her half-hour to positive effect.  She speaks not only of the growing ethnic and racial mixing in families, but also of single-parent families, families led by same sex couples, the growing number of “singleton” (one child) families, and families who adopt or sponsor foster children.  She goes beyond espousing tolerance to positively endorse the rich, variegated, human environments that we are creating within this large multi-ethnic, multi-racial, multi-cultural, multi-sexual society.  She speaks with the authority of incontrovertible demographics:  in 20013, white children under 5 years old were a minority among all American 5-year-olds; by 2043, less than 50 percent of the US population will be white.

My sisters and I are taken in by this warm, smiling, intelligent woman.  My wife and I, both white, adopted Afro-Brazilian children in 1998 so this territory is already familiar to us.  We have family members and close friends who also occupy some of the “other” demographics Ms. Olsen describes.  “Leave It to Beaver” was a favorite childhood TV show for us in the 1960’s, even though our gritty working-class family life was a far cry from that of the Cleaver family on TV even then.  I leave the tent inspired by this unabashedly enthusiastic affirmation that the rich diversity of American families will continue to grow and prosper despite temporary, reactionary, fear-based attempts to ostracize and demonize “the other”.

 

The Good at Heart

The second author we visit is a German-born woman, Ursula Werner, a local lawyer and published poet, who has just written her first novel, “The Good at Heart”.  The title comes from Anne Frank’s diary, in which the Nazi-persecuted and pursued Jewish girl writes: “In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart.”

My sibs and I are children of a 2nd generation German-American father who was a sergeant in the American army fighting the Germans in northern Africa, Sicily, and Italy during World War II.  We had many uncles and family friends who were also WW2 veterans, and our parents met at an American Legion social event in Buffalo, NY, right after the war.  War stories and lore were the lingua franca of many of our family gatherings.  Two of the books we had read together in our book club this past year — “The Boys in the Boat”, and “The Nightingale” — one non-fiction, the other a novel — were set within the wrenching history of that horrible bloodbath.  How could we not be drawn to a new novel that dealt with the author’s own German family living through that conflict as subjects of the Fuhrer?

Ms. Werner was given an eloquent introduction by a young lawyer colleague and friend, a Jewish man who testified to his friend’s deep passion for human rights.  Born in Germany, she grew up in Florida.  She maintains a relationship with her family in Germany and visits there often.  She had long been curious about her great-grandfather who was an economist who had served in the government of the Weimar republic and subsequently as an assistant cabinet member in the Nazi government.  He had been arrested by the Allies after the war but was acquitted at his trial.  No one in Ms. Werner’s family was willing to speak much about this great-grandfather and Ms. Werner herself feared the worst — that he had been an ardent Nazi.  But she persisted in her attempts to get her German family to share more information and finally, one of her cousins steered her towards a box of old documents in her Hamburg basement.  Those documents proved to be the legal papers in which her great-grandfather and his lawyer made a credible case for his having kept himself apart from the worst excesses of the Nazi atrocities.

Ms. Werner has used that basic information to construct what sounds to be a highly riveting novel.  She read from a chapter in which Franz, a son-in-law and career soldier, is part of Germany’s 1939 invasion of Poland.  Until that point, Franz has sworn allegiance to the Nazis and their call to revive German nationalism.  The brutal excesses of the Polish invasion sicken Franz and he begins turning against the Nazis, eventually joining one of the anti-Nazi resistance cells that actively plot assassination of Nazi leaders.

Having recently watched the classic film “Judgment at Nuremburg” for the third time, I had concluded that no German officials of the Nazi era were wholly innocent of the atrocities committed by the government, SS, and army.  Ms. Werner was making a case that there were many shades of gray, and that it was worth taking a deeper, harder look at the historical records.  She believes in the importance of knowing the worst of what occurred, but also of investigating those incidents in which many brave Germans attempted to thwart the monstrosities of the state.

At the end of her presentation, my sisters and I looked at one another in unspoken agreement that we definitely had a candidate for our book group.  I rushed over to buy a copy of the novel and got in line at her signing table afterwards.  I congratulated Ms. Werner on publishing her work and told her a little about our book group.  After carefully inscribing my copy, she looked at me and said that she would be happy to speak on our conference call meeting if we chose her book.  I felt a kinship with her in that moment and shared her offer with my sisters.  They had already purchased the book themselves.

 

Sonora

The last author event we attended had an interview format.  Hannah Lilith Assadi is a young, pretty, articulate graduate of Columbia University’s MFA program in Creative Writing.  She recently published her first novel, “Sonora”, loosely based on her own life growing up near the Sonora desert in Arizona, the daughter of a Palestinian father and an Israeli Jewish mother. She was interviewed by the Armenian-American writer, Garine Isassi, who had read “Sonora” and had many engaging questions for Ms. Assadi.

Author and interviewer established an immediate rapport from their shared sense of growing up as “the other”.  Most of Ms. Assadi’s Arizona schoolmates and family friends were white Americans, with little previous contact with either Jewish or Arabic people.  Ms. Isassi’s family were the only Armenians in their small Texas town.  Both women spoke of their confusing attempts to gain a sense of identity and place within communities which largely held them as invisible at best.

Ms. Assadi read from “Sonora” and transported us to the hot, dry, windy domain of the Southwest desert where her taxi-driving father would often take her to find a sense of home. The young heroine began having bizarre visions and nightmares from these desert forays.  One of her classmates is an Apache girl who shares her feeling of being an outsider.  They strike up a close friendship that culminates in both setting out for New York to seek their fortune as creative artists.

The interviewing format worked superbly for this presentation.  I appreciated the genuine affection and interest that Ms. Isassi exhibited to her younger colleague.  At the end, Ms. Assadi shared her own deep scholarship and love of contemporary Middle Eastern poetry — Arabic and Jewish.  My sisters and I were taken with the rich, evocative prose-poetry of “Sonora”, and even more so by the opportunity to hear both women speak so openly and honestly about their struggles to claim their identities as authors.

 

Connecting

Another highlight of this year’s GBF for me was connecting with other writer friends. I’m a member of the Maryland Writers’ Association (MWA) and enjoy hanging out at our organization’s table on the festival grounds. I had an inspiring connection there with Randall Luce, a local author who has written a series of mystery novels set in the Mississippi delta.  I’d met Randy at previous MWA meetings and admired his soulful expressiveness and rich facility with language.  At the MWA table, I had a chance to hear about the inspiration for his Mississippi novels – the years he had spent living there as an anthropology graduate student, working on his dissertation about the local history and culture.

I also connected with my writing buddy Mark and enjoyed a picnic lunch with him.  We shared a table with a man my age who was reading that day’s Washington Post.  The three of us had a lively discussion about the current political circus in town.

I drove home with Anna and Marian late that afternoon tired but happy.  The three of us were bubbling over with stories about what we had seen and heard.  The Gaithersburg Book Festival had exceeded our expectations once again.

John Bayerl, Derwood, MD

[I wrote this piece after participating in the Native Nations Rising march in downtown Washington, DC, on March 10, 2017]

The story of the Standing Rock people’s resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) has been in and out of the national news for well over a year now. By most accounts, the story ended with Donald Trump’s presidency, and his overt pressuring of the Army Corps of Engineers to ignore the Obama administration’s last-minute commitment to conduct the necessary environmental impact study about the pipeline’s possible long-term effects. With the Army Corps reneging on their agreement and granting the necessary easement rights on Federal property, the doors were reopened for the DAPL to be completed.

So why did the recent march from the Corps of Engineers headquarters in downtown DC to Lafayette Park, across from the White House, feel so empowering? The Washington Post story​ about the march (http://wapo.st/2mt5kOP?tid=ss_mail) conveys some of this spirit, featuring short interviews with native peoples from all over the country who had made the journey to be in the Capital for this historic gathering of “Native Nations Rising”. The long, hard struggles at Standing Rock over many months had served to create a growing consciousness of indigenous rights and a uniquely indigenous world view that had entered the consciousness of many Americans, native and otherwise.

My wife Andrea and I had participated in the historic Women’s March in DC on January 21. We traveled down to this march together on Metro again, exiting at the same station where we had joined the overwhelming throngs just six weeks ago. The Native Nations Rising march was on a much smaller scale – a few thousand or so compared to an estimated half-million on 1/21. But like the Women’s March, it was a lively and inspiring affirmation of people willing to put their boots on the ground to both oppose the Trump agenda and commit to a sustained opposition movement.

I’d been downtown the day before and had visited the Standing Rock encampment on the Washington Monument grounds there. There were half a dozen white teepees and a larger food tent on the wide-open Monument grounds. It was a warm, sunny day and people were gathered in small groups, talking, singing, eating. The permit didn’t allow for overnight camping, but it was clear that a hundred people or so had succeeded in creating a welcoming environment of friendly fellowship. The months-long encampment at the Sanding Rock Reservation had reached up to 15,000 people at some points, and it felt like the sense of community created there had been transplanted to DC.

I made a special trip afterwards to get supplies for a march poster. The teepee encampment had many banners expressing “Water Is Life”, and in Lakota, “Mine Wachoni”. One of the elements of the Standing Rock story that irked me most was that the original route for the DAPL was for a Missouri River crossing near the city of Bismarck, ND. The city officials had responded to popular concern about the safety of the city’s water supply and prevailed on the drilling company to move the pipeline. The site chosen was further south towards the Standing Rock Reservation. My carefully hand-lettered sign would say:

“Water Is Life, in Standing Rock as in Bismarck”

Joining the march at its tail end on 4th Street NW, we were immediately taken in by the high spirits and positive energy. Despite a cold, slushy rain, people were chanting slogans, and proudly displaying their posters. Many native people were dressed in colorful, traditional attire. Friendly marshals kept us on our assigned half of the street as our long line of men, women and children twisted its way through the streets of downtown DC.

The march turned onto Pennsylvania Avenue just before the Old Post Office building, now the Trump International Hotel. It was a sobering moment to stand in front of one of our new business-mogul-president’s recently renovated hotel ventures just blocks from the Oval Office. The march paused in front of the hotel for a good long while. A team of Native Americans assembled a small white teepee under the four large American flags hanging in front of the hotel. They proceeded to enact a mock ritual using a life-sized cardboard effigy of Trump that was placed on the street surface near the teepee. Natives in traditional attire proceeded to jeer and poke ribboned batons at the effigy right there in the very heart of his real estate empire.

By the time the march resumed its trek down Pennsylvania Avenue to its terminus opposite the White House, the sun had begun to peak through the heavy, gray clouds and the drenching sleet stopped entirely. The sense of physical relief from the cold and wet was palpable. A small stage had been erected in the middle of Lafayette Park, surrounded by large trees in spring bud. As the main part of the march filled the park, other smaller contingents remained outside the White House gates chanting their disapproval of the new president, who had almost single-handedly upended a carefully worked out agreement to reconsider the routing of the pipeline.

The speakers at the rally included Standing Rock’s chief David Archimbaud and others who testified to their sense of being disrespected and dismissed by the new administration. But included with these grievances were strong statements of resolve that the spirit of Standing Rock would persist, fortified as it had been over the many long months of the encampment. Many younger native men and women spoke to the re-igniting of their tribal consciousness, and to the fundamental teachings of the Elders regarding the primacy of the Earth, the Air, the Water, and all the creatures of the Earth beyond any attempts to expropriate or marketize them.

The spirit of the march was positive, creative, friendly, and affirming of the unity that had emerged among the Native Nations and their many non-native allies. The prospect of ongoing resistance was evident not only in the street theater in front of Trump’s hotel, but also in the fact that eight people had engaged in a peaceful act of civil disobedience during the march, chaining themselves to the entrance of the Sun Trust bank, an institution that continued to engage in large-scale investments in the DAPL and other fossil fuel ventures.

The DAPL may well be completed, but the spirit of Standing Rock remains strong, nurturing and sustaininng the long-term resistance movement that is now taking root.

John Bayerl,  Washington, DC; March 10, 2017

 

 

Spring Sweat Lodge and Medicine Wheel Ceremony

Sevenoaks Retreat Center

March 21, 2017

My partner, Don Harvey, and I recently conducted a Spring Sweat Lodge at Sevenoaks as an opening ritual for day-long equinox ceremonies and workshops at the Sevenoaks Retreat Center in Madison, VA.  The theme for the day’s gathering was “Ancient Wisdom for Our Time” and featured a Medicine Wheel Ceremony in the late afternoon, led by Susan Thesenga, co-founder of Sevenoaks.

The sweat lodge is an ancient Native American ritual that we have been enacting at Sevenoaks for over three decades.  It allows for deep, intensive physical and emotional purification within a context of prayer, reverence for the Earth, and the formation of a healing community.

A medicine wheel is a sacred alignment of large stones in a circle, with the largest “Earth Stone” in the center, with other large stones serving as direction indicators — a kind of sacred compass, with additional aspects of a sacred calendar.  The medicine wheel serves as a ceremonial ground for guided, intuitive unfoldings of wisdom and energy within co-created ritual.

When performed together, the ceremonies can work synergistically to maximize inner awareness and healing.

 

Prolog

             I’d driven down to the Center in central Virginia from my home in the DC area the day before to help out with the preparations.  As I drove, the sun fell behind the clouds around mid-day and I could feel my spirits start to wilt from all the dire news being reported on the radio.  I decided to turn it off, and sing some of the songs and chants that I would be leading in the lodge the next day.  Singing for an hour or so as I drove definitely lifted me and I arrived at the Center inspired to get to work.

As it turned out, the Center grounds manager, Alex Comer, had just completed his last preparatory task for the lodge, splitting a large pile of dried pine, cedar, and locust logs for the lodge fire the next day.  Alex shared the work status with me before leaving for the day.  I unloaded my overnight things into my assigned room in the large Center Building and proceeded outdoors for the short walk down through the pine woods to the ceremonial lodge site, overlooking a pond at the bottom of a wooded hill.  I like to spend some time before conducting a sweat lodge within the subtle but real vibratory presence of the physical space: the woods, the pond, the lodge itself, its earth altar, and fire pit enclosed by three decades of spent rocks from previous lodge ceremonies here.

As I descended towards the pond, I was taken with the clear vistas opened by Alex’s recent landscaping project there.  Removal of many dead trees and bushes had opened the view to the pond.  The impression was like seeing an old friend with a fresh, flattering haircut.

The whole lodge site felt similarly open and fresh.  The sun had re-emerged from the clouds and even the usually murky pond waters seemed to sparkle.  Alex had reinforced some of the cedar poles of the main lodge and covered the whole with clean blankets and a new white canvas.  The freshly cut wood was neatly stacked near the fire pit.  I felt light and happy as I gathered kindling for the lodge fire, raked the lodge interior, and exterior pathways, and hung a new earth flag that my spouse had lent me for the ceremony.  I was able to hang it at eye level from two saplings standing just behind the fire pit to the east of the lodge.  When I finished my tasks, I proceeded to conduct a sacred pipe ceremony within the lodge itself, with its door opening to the lovely blue earth flag.  The tobacco smoke from the pipe helped to open my heart and mind to the beauty of this sacred place.

My partner Don arrived late that evening and we had breakfast together in the Center dining room the next morning before setting out to work around 8am.  We loaded a cart with everything we needed:  gallon water jugs, bag of fruit, towels, lodge-door, hand drums, and our own gear, consisting mostly of sacred objects and herbs used in the ritual.  As we hauled the cart through the parking area to the footpath down to the lodge site, a car pulled in and I checked in with the driver.  He was indeed here for the sweat lodge and eagerly joined us.

 

 Laying the Fire

It was still lightly overcast and the ground was wet from a light rain overnight.  But it looked to be clearing and the temperature was already in the mid-40’s, with a predicted high of 65 for this first day of Spring.  It was good having the new man join us in guiding the heavy cart down the narrow, twisting footpath through the pine woods.  He had just driven over the Blue Ridge from Harrisonburg to be with us for his first sweat lodge and his enthusiasm was palpable.

Conducting a sweat lodge is about a 6-hour affair, starting with about three hours for laying, lighting and tending a bonfire sufficient to bake about two dozen large stones to a red glow.  The ceremony inside the lodge lasts about two hours.  And the dismantling and closing communal meal is another hour.

But the work is all performed within ceremonial time, rather than by the clock.  Our first order of business on arriving at the lodge site was to burn sage and smudge the site, and ourselves, within its purifying smoke.  The new man knew about smudging and entered into a calm, relaxed presence with Don and me as we consciously cleansed ourselves, physically, emotionally, and spiritually, for the work ahead.

We then turned our attention to laying the fire, and carefully placed a platform of six logs to support the stones.  Three new women joined us as we turned to the stone pile.  Don proceeded to smudge the women and we each selected a head-sized stone to lay on the platform within the fire pit.  One of the women placed the Mother stone in the center of the platform, and the rest of us placed stones for the East, South, West and North around the Mother stone.  The Father stone was laid as a capstone for the essential template that grounds the energy of the stones within the fire.

We then placed the remaining eighteen stones on the platform, surrounding and on top of the six template stones.  Each of the additional stones was consciously offered and placed, with the naming of a desired quality or spiritual force.  In the lore of the lodge, each stone represents a “Tunkashila” or Grandfather Spirit, which is activated as it is heated.  The heated stones carry the energy of the fire into the lodge, where that searing heat can be tempered to serve the real needs of human beings for physical healing and spiritual renewal.

As this process continued in a deliberate manner, more people kept arriving at our ceremonial site and Don would go over to greet and smudge them.  The ritual washing in the smoke of burning herbs, like sage, is intended to encourage each entering person to step into an awareness of common commitment to what is sacred and holy on this Earth.  Sage, in particular, has a sharp, cleansing quality that can help penetrate any psychic defenses.

After the 24 stones were laid, we proceeded to place the kindling branches and sticks around the platform in a teepee shape, stuffing newspaper in between the sticks and the stones.  All 10 or so of us, men and women, joined in on this task, and followed it with laying the split logs all around the base, and then in a second vertical layer on top of the first.  Aesthetics matter in all sacred ceremonies, and we worked together to create a satisfyingly symmetrical teepee of stones, wood and paper.

New people continued to arrive as we invited everyone to form a circle around the fire pit.  I sent a pouch of tobacco around the circle and invited everyone to take a pinch of it.  We then proceeded, one at a time, to each offer a prayer of intention with our tobacco, sprinkling it on the wood-and-paper teepee.  Intention is the key to benefiting from any conscious ritual.  As each person spoke from the heart to affirm their reason for being there, I sensed a current of common spirit and purpose forming within our human circle.

With this initial prayer circle completed, Don came forward to begin lighting the fire, using a paper-torch to ignite flames in each of the four directions. The fire began to rise rapidly all around the circumference.  I’d begun a slow drumbeat and others joined in with other drums and rattles.  As the inner kindling and paper quickly ignited, we offered the first of many sacred chants together:

Oh, Great Spirit,

Earth, Sun, Sky and Sea,

You are inside

And all around me.

 

Inner and Outer Preparation

 

It takes about two hours to bake the stones to a glowing red.  It can be a rich time for all participants.  We encourage an ongoing drumbeat throughout, and sometimes a lively drum-and-dance circle is formed, with anyone free to lead chants and songs, or to move around the fire pit with simple dance-steps.

This can also be a good time to walk in the woods, to meditate or pray, or to converse consciously (not just chatting) with other participants.  I’ve learned from doing this work that, after some initial unease, most people enjoy free time outdoors, unplugged from their phones and daily responsibilities.  Learning how to just “be” in the natural world is a worthwhile practice in its own right, helping us to calm our nervous systems, bringing our focus back to simple presence.

As a “water pourer” for the lodge, I have some additional tasks to attend to during this time. These include readying the lodge structure itself, and ensuring the close proximity of water, bucket, ladle, and herbs.  In damp weather like today’s, I prefer to line the earthen floor of the lodge with cardboard, tarps, or some combination of both.  I’m also responsible for attaching a sleeping-bag-door to the only entrance, in the East.  On a good day, like this one, there are many offers to help and we make quick work of it.

The last thing I like to do before we all enter the lodge is to call everyone into a big circle in the wide-open, adjacent beach area of the pond.  Although the announced start time was 8:30, people have been arriving throughout the morning and the group as a whole hasn’t had a chance to congeal.  We start with a round of first names, with the whole group echoing back each person’s name.

I know from experience that it can be a physical challenge for many of us to just sit for two hours within a confined space.  It can really help if we allow ourselves lots of full-range bodily movements beforehand.  All the Pathwork Helpers at Sevenoaks get training to lead movement classes, and I call on that training, and on my fellow Helpers in attendance, to lead the group through some grounding, bending and stretching exercises.

I also lead a simple “trust circle” in which all 18 of us take hands in a circle.  I then invite everyone to take a step back.  This creates a tension within the connecting hands and arms that allows each person to lean slightly backwards, supporting and being supported by the people on either side.  I invite people to experiment with more or less tension, more or less leaning back, paying attention to sensations of both supporting and being supported.  This usually becomes fun and playful.  It also can induce feelings of both active participation and surrendering to the group.

The sun emerged through the clouds and I encourage everyone to turn and face “our star” on this day of Equinox.  I invite an arms-raised posture to really receive the light and warmth from this magnificent celestial furnace, and to express a “sun salutation” in whatever physical form felt right.

             I thank everyone for coming to the sweat lodge this morning and encourage everyone to stay on for the aftternoon Medicine Wheel.  About a third of the participants are here for their first lodge, and I invite the new people to bring their full attention to their experience, with a minimum of pre-conceptions or expectations.

Don and I communicate that there will be four rounds to today’s lodge ceremony, each round with a theme.  At the end of each round, the door would be opened and drinking water would be circulated.  If anyone needed to exit the lodge, it was best to do it between rounds.  T-shirts and shorts were the prescribed attire for this lodge.  Women would enter first, by order of age, to occupy the north side of the lodge.  Men would enter next, by age, and occupy the south hemisphere.  I noted the native practice of honoring the Elders by allowing them first entry into the lodge. We wished everyone a good sweat and prepared to enter.

 

Round One — The Powers of Creation

             As “water pourer”, I enter the lodge first, on hands and knees, putting head to ground at the entrance and offering the prescribed Lakota prayer for entering and leaving: “Mitakuye Oyasin”, translated as “All My Relations” or, “We Are All Related”.  I circle to the left around the central stonepit of the lodge as the women follow, arriving at the other side of the door, where I sit and shake my rattle at a slow, deliberate beat as people continue to enter.

I learned the protocols for the “All Nations Sweat Lodge” during a five-year informal apprenticeship I served some 25 years ago.  My teacher had a connection with a Lakota “Uncle” who had authorized use of the “All Nations” lodge by serious-minded non-native people.  Tradition and lineage are still important to me.  Following the prescribed forms helps me to stay grounded within an awareness of the Native American traditions that sweat lodge comes from.

After everyone has entered, I communicate with the two “firekeepers”, a woman and a man who have volunteered to stay outside, to begin bringing in hot stones, one at a time, on a pitchfork.  One firekeeper digs out a hot stone from the base of the fire and the other uses some lashed-together cedar boughs to brush off any ash residue.  Each stone is greeted with a “Welcome healing stone” as it is brought in and as I guide the pitchfork over the stonepit, depositing the first stone in its center. This is the “Mother Stone”, representing Earth herself, the foundation of the lodge ceremony.

Additional stones are brought in, continuing with the four direction stones, and the Wakan Tanka (“Great Spirit”) capstone.  Each stone is blessed with sacred herbs as it is placed in the pit, sweetgrass first, followed by sage, cedar or other appropriate herbs.  The sweet aroma of the burning sweetgrass and other herbs soon fills the lodge.

With the stones forming a glowing presence in the center now, I request the water bucket and dipper from a firekeeper and ask that the door be closed.  It’s a special moment when the door falls over the opening, enclosing us in a warm, dark, moist environment that is intended to evoke a feeling of our mother’s womb.

The first round of the All Nation’s Lodge brings our attention to the ongoing creative forces of the universe as expressed in the Lakota “Wakan Tanka”, which can be translated as “Great Spirit”, “Great Mystery”, “Creator”, “Divine Source”.  A translation that resonates most profoundly with me is “Great Spirit-ing”, acknowledging the ongoing activation of the Creator.

As I pour small amounts of water onto the hot stones from my dipper, heat and steam rise in the lodge and I invite everyone to take in “Grandfather’s Breath”, the healing energy of the stone-people.  It’s important to orient oneself to the healing properties of the heat and steam and to welcome its penetrating and softening energy within any stiff, hard places of body or mind.

I’ve learned over the years that the experience within the sweat lodge is often enhanced by deep and regular breathing.  After a period of silence in which we simply take in our new environment, I lead the circle in a deep breathing exercise in which everyone is encouraged to inhale deeply and vocalize an “Ahhh” on the exhale.  This is repeated four times until the “Ahhh” begins to modulate to a more harmonious sounding of voices.  Then I invite an ongoing sounding of the sacred sound “Om”.

“Om” originates in ancient Sanskrit and is the sound of creation in Tibetan Buddhism.  I encourage a visualization of the moment preceding the Big Bang, when all the creative potential of the universe was gathering itself.  I encourage people to allow their voices to express fully and openly with their “Om”, allowing the natural and spontaneous harmonies that inevitably occur.  In that spring equinox lodge, I experienced our Om-ing as a series of energetic waves emerging, growing, climaxing, and subsiding.  The co-creation of this deeply resonant chanting never fails to fill me with awe and wonder.

Physics teaches that three-dimensional Space-Time emerged out of the supreme unitive compression that preceded the Big Bang.  After the Om-ing recedes, I offer an ancient Lakota song of the sacred directions to mirror this primordial movement from One to Many.

The spirit of the Creator, Wakan Tanka, inhabits every nook and cranny of the great unfolding universe, but is seen to manifest as a more focused presence in the four cardinal directions, as the Grandfathers of the West, North, East, South, and in the above and the below.

The Lakota directions song is structured with an invocation to the Grandfather spirit of each direction, inviting its presence within the lodge, followed by a choral singing of love, appreciation, and human longing for the spirit’s presence.  The Lakota words and the melody of this chorus are simple and most participants are able to join in:

Chek-i-aye-o, chek-i-aye-o

A-hit-oo-wan yan-kay-lo.

The Lakota directions song begins by calling in “Wieoh-peyata”, the Grandfather of the West, and all the beings who manifest most strongly in the evening and in the season of autumn. They are the true Elders, the spiritual teachers, the ones who protect and disseminate the ancient ways and teachings of the ancestors.

The song moves to an invocation of “Waziya-takiya”, the Grandfather of the North.  The north is the direction of winter, night-time, old age — the looks-within place of expectant waiting and hibernation required to survive a long, cold winter.  This Grandfather also guards the pathways between material life and the great beyond, allowing the spirits of the ancestors to communicate with us.

The next invocation is to “Wieoh-iyampata”, Grandfather of the East, guardian of the dawn, of birth, of youth, and of the springtime.  Its force is strongest now, on the Spring Equinox, when new ideas, new projects, new relationships, and new beginning of all kinds are most auspicious.

The last of the cardinal directions, South, is called in as the Grandfather “Itokagata”, the guardian spirit of the fullness of summer, noontime, adult maturity.  The South is the time of fullness, power, and vitality, the time when plants grow to their fullness and adult humans tend to their loved ones and their work, building and nurturing what the family and community most need to sustain themselves.

The song then turns to what is above us, the firmament of the heavens, the place of the Creator, the essence of the Divine Masculine.  The Grandfather “Waka-takiya” is called to bring his creativity and energy and light to all the participants in the lodge.

Finally, the song acknowledges “Maka-takiya”, Grandmother Earth, the very ground on which we sit.  The essence of the Divine Feminine is the holding container of love and nurturing that planet Earth offers all her creatures.  The chorus changes here to acknowledge the Mother’s ongoing presence as the bearer and sustainer of all life on Earth.

Water is poured on the hot stones with each of the six directional invocations.  By the end of the song, we are all sweating, and we rest in silence for a while before opening the circle to some personal prayers and a closing song. As the round ends, the firekeepers are called to open the door.  Fresh air flows in to cool the lodge, drinking water is circulated, and people can exit as needed.

 

Round Two — “We Are All Related”

             The essence of Native American spirituality rests in its lived appreciation of the intrinsic inter-relatedness of all creatures. This spirit is expressed in the Lakota mantra “Mitakuye Oyasin”, which is the theme for our second round.

My partner Don pours water for this one.  Don is a retired Forest Ranger who served in the nearby Shenandoah National Park maintaining hiking trails for much of his career.  His knowledge and love of the natural world is readily apparent.  After more stones are brought in and the door comes down, he invites us to settle into our own personal connection with the natural world.

He then invites us to connect in spirit with a wild animal that we feel a connection with; to visualize that creature in its natural environment, moving about, making its sound.  After a bit, he suggests that we mimic the sound of our creature.  Soon a chorus of animal soundings are expressed:  growls, barks, cooing, buzzing, howls, cries.  I remember the owl soundings I heard in the woods the day before and try to mimic those throaty hoots.  In doing so, I come to connect with the raptor fierceness of the owl as it shares important hunting information with its mates.  As the soundings recede, Don leads us in a song of the hawk:

Trailing my long-tail feathers as I fly

Trailing my long-tail feathers as I fly

I circle around, I circle around

The boundaries of the Earth.

Grandmother/Mother Earth is the matriarch of the great family of earthly creatures, holding all of us in acceptance and blessing and love for the essential role each of us plays in the ecology of the planet.  The rest of the round is a paean to the Earth’s love for us and ours for her, expressed in traditional lodge songs.

The Earth is our Mother

Let us learn how to love Her

 

And all of Her creatures

Are our sisters and brothers

 

I love you, Mother Earth

Mother Earth, I love you

 

The Earth is our Mother

We must take care of her

 

This sacred ground we walk upon

With every step we take

Don’s own love and appreciation for Mother Earth is freely and openly expressed throughout this round.  I am personally moved by his sincere expressions of devotion and love, to the point of his unabashed tears and sobs as the door is opened to end the round.

Roun Three — Personal Prayer

 

In the “All Nations” lodge, the third round is a prayer circle.  Every spiritual path teaches that a true servant of God must find an inner channel to communicate directly with his or her Higher Power.  This inner channel must be given regular time and space to manifest.  I offer an opening prayer/song that helps to open this channel for me:

Oh Father I pray for tenderness

Oh, Father I pray for the love.

I pray for the awareness

Of my inner worth.

I open up my heart

To receive you, Father,

To know the holy Light

So I can see.

We go around our lodge circle sun-wise (clockwise), each person beginning with:

Grandfather, Grandmother,

This is _______.

 

The person then offers a prayer, silently or aloud, concluding it with “We are all related”, with the rest of the circle repeating it.  Water is offered to the stones and the resulting steam carries the spirit of the prayer to its intended Source.

The prayers are sincere and deep that morning, eliciting support and tears from many of us.  To close the round, we sing some verses from a traditional hymn:

 

Amazing Grace

How sweet the sound

That saved a wretch

Like me.

I once was lost

But now am found,

Was blind

But now I see.

 

When we’ve been here

Ten thousand years

Bright shining

As the sun.

We’ve no less days

To sing God’s praise

Then when

We first begun.

 

 

Round Four — The Way

The fourth and last round is meant to be an affirmation of the Way, the sacred path.  The intention is to encourage participants to engrave their spiritual experience into memory and to develop some daily practice to help keep that memory alive and active.

My sweat lodge teacher was also a student of the Tao.  He incorporated some teachings from the classic Chinese text by Lao Tze, the “Tao Te Ching” (“The Way of Things”), into the last round of the All Nations lodge.  One of those teachings is:

“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.”

This round is usually hot and short.  All the remaining stones from the fire are brought in.  At our spring lodge, almost everyone had stayed inside for the duration.  I was especially impressed with the stamina and commitment of the 6 neophytes.

In this round I invite people to share from their own spiritual path or practice.  My friend Keith shared a Sufi chant designed to open the heart to the reality of Allah. Someone on a yoga path shares a sacred Hindu chant, in the tradition of Kirtan.  Some people go deeper with the prayer they started in the previous round.

As we approach the end of the ceremony, we thank each other for our presence and participation, thank the firekeepers and water pourers, thank the spirits of the directions, the Creator, and Mother Earth, thank the founders and the current leaders of Sevenoaks, thank the custodian of the lodge and medicine wheel.  In gratitude we affirm our work together as we exit the lodge, clockwise again, and climb out the opening into the warm rays of the full, mid-day sun.

 

 Breaking Bread Together

It’s traditional for participants to share in a potluck meal after a sweat lodge.  Don and I had prepared a large pot of chili con carne and a big salad.  Other participants brought hearty sandwiches, cheeses, fruit and snacks.  Food always tastes wonderful after a lodge, and the familiar faces from the ceremony can evoke a real feeling of family.

On this day, other people were arriving at the Center for the 3:30 Medicine Wheel ceremony.  Registration was in the dining hall, and there was much mixing of friends, old and new.  Many of the lodge participants were staying on, and I was looking forward to a shower and a brief rest before the ceremony.

 

Spring Medicine Wheel Ceremony

Susan Thesenga, a founder and matriarch of Sevenoaks, spoke to the 25 or so of us assembled in the parking area.  She welcomed and thanked us for joining her in her ongoing meditative and ceremonial work with the Sevenoaks Medicine Wheel, located at the top of a rise in the woods, beyond the pond and above the sweat lodges.  The sun was still shining, full and warm, and people were removing jackets and sweaters.  Our group consisted of women and men of all ages, including two children, and a service dog.  Susan invited us to walk in silence, single-file through the quarter-mile of woods to the ceremonial site, with a slow drumbeat sounding throughout.

At an open area near the pond, Susan had us stop and circle up again.  She said that part of the ceremony today involved each person finding a stick or twig that would represent some aspect of themselves that they were ready to let go of.  She urged us to take some time to identify a negative aspect of our thinking or behavior that we were already moving towards letting go of.  There were many sticks and twigs in the place we were standing and most of us found our object right there.

At the entrance to the Wheel, we stopped for a ritual smudging ceremony, similar to what we had conducted as people arrived at the sweat lodge early that morning.  Susan had enlisted other Sevenoaks leaders to assist her and they performed the smudging.  In addition, other helpers had prepared an outdoor firepot where we were invited to surrender the twig representing our imperfection.  A slow, steady drumbeat was held throughout, grounding the ceremony in sacred time.

 

Spring Equinox and the Direction East

The Sevenoaks Medicine Wheel is set in an open, partially shaded area of woodland above the pond.  It was a lovely sight to behold on that first afternoon of Spring, the grass closely mowed and raked and the pathways clearly delineated around the circle, and connecting the direction stones with the center.   Wooden benches occupied the southern and northern ends, but our ceremony was conducted mostly with everyone standing, and often moving slowly around the circle.  The sun was dropping lower towards the west, but its rays still warmed us, and a slight breeze carried fresh smells and coolness from the surrounding woods.

Susan suggested that we walk meditatively around the circle a number of times.  The metal firepot was ablaze with the burning wood at that point, placed on the Earth stone in the center.  Walking in silence, I was able to reflect more deeply on my personal “give-away” to that fire — a tendency towards impatience and unconscious hurrying.  The quiet repose of this place, coming after the emotional release of the lodge experience, was opening an internal sense of peace and ease and genuine bliss.

Susan stopped at the East stone and spoke some about the Wheel and how it can be used to re-orient ourselves to the ever-changing currents of life, external and internal.  She pointed out the cardinal direction stones and linked them to phases in the movement of a day, a month, a year, and to entire stages of life: birth, childhood, youth, young adulthood, middle age, old age, decline and death.  I thought back to the Lakota directions song we had sung in the lodge, and dropped to a deeper level of appreciation of these teachings that Susan expounded on so eloquently.

Susan ended her talk with a reflection on the meaning of Spring as a time of rebirth, renewal, and resurrection.  As the natural world came to life all around us, with the first flowering of crocus, daffodil, forsythia, and with the budding and first flowering of trees, cherry, redbud, crabapple, the sap of the life-force was rising again.  She encouraged us to consciously allow our own sap to rise again, to shake off the hibernation of winter, and allow the newness and freshness of the green life all around us to inspire our souls to venture forth into the world once more with hope and possibility.

 

Postscript

Driving home that evening through a magnificent dusk, I was filled with a sense of gratitude and peace and of new possibilities.  The “Ancient Wisdom” of spring advertised in the event’s flyer had truly infiltrated my psyche.  I felt the great privilege of being an Elder now in my own right, serving the ancestors and all the sacred teachers and teachings of our rich, eclectic heritage to re-consecrate ourselves to what is most holy and most precious on this our earth-walk.

 

Aho Mitakuye Oyasin!

 

John Bayerl

Rockville, MD

[I wrote this while in Isabela, Puerto Rico on Valentine’s Day, 2017.  I recommend watching the youtube clip before reading this piece.]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=td7lCCO9aaQ

A Love Song for Mom and Dad

Vacationing with my wife Andrea here on the tropical Atlantic in Isabela PR, I’ve had some time to count my blessings.  This is our 11th annual winter sojourn in Isabela.  We first came in 2007 after Andrea received good news regarding her likely longevity after her fourth cancer occurrence in 1999.  We’ve been celebrating our life together here every winter since.

Our stay often coincides with St. Valentine’s Day, and we’ve had some memorable celebrations of love here in Isabela over the years with our good friends Joyce and Freeman, who had bought a wonderful seaside condo and generously hosted us.  We’ve also celebrated here with my sister Marian and her husband Bob, and our friends Cindy and Ken.  We’ve also met many lovely Puerto Ricans over the years through our spiritual community, and some of these have also become lifelong friends.

For the last three visits, we’ve been renting a comfortable, open house on a cliff hundreds of feet above the beach. There’s a large balcony overlooking the ocean and we spend hours there each day, taking in the dramatic vistas of sea, sky, seabirds, rainbows, rainstorms, and the occasional whale sighting.

This weekend there was a lovely full moon rising from the ocean in the northeast.  Before going to bed on Friday night, I stepped out onto the balcony and was completely mesmerized by the beauty of the silvery moonlight reflecting off the sea.  Out of nowhere there came to me the melody of a popular song that my parents liked, and often sang or hummed around the house, “By the Light of the Silvery Moon”.

I found myself humming and whistling the tune to that song in the ensuing days, finally taking some time to google it, write down all the words, and listen to a number of classic recordings (you can actually take the time to do things like that on vacation!).  The song dates from the early 1900’s and has been revived almost every decade since by each era’s most popular crooners.  The version my parents were most likely to have encountered was that performed by Doris Day and Gordon MacRae in the 1953 movie named “By the Light of the Silvery Moon”.

My Mom, Irene Ciezak Bayerl (1923-2011) was a smart, pretty, good-natured woman who gave her life to the bearing and raising of ten post-WW2 children.  This act still staggers my imagination.  Her father was a Polish immigrant, her mother 2nd-generation Polish/Russian.  Irene had aspirations for college but that was not the accepted scenario for the daughters of immigrants back then.  Her love of reading, however, infected many of her children.  Five of us siblings have formed an ongoing book group and all of us testify to our debt to Mom’s love of good books.

My Dad, Joseph John Bayerl (1914-1989) was from a large family of 12 children himself.  His parents had immigrated to Buffalo, NY around the turn of the century, from Bavaria.  Both Mom and Dad’s families were devout Roman Catholics.  Dad joined the U.S. army in 1940, sensing that war was likely.  He was among the first American GI’s to face combat against Rommel’s formidable German army in North Africa, and then participated in the invasions of Sicily and Italy.  He returned home in early 1945 and spent some time in Lake Placid, NY in a facility for shell-shocked veterans prior to being shipped out to San Francisco for a planned assault on the Japanese mainland.  He returned to Buffalo after VJ Day, took up his old job in a rubber factory, and became an active member of the American Legion organization.

Joe met Irene at an American Legion social event in the Lovejoy area of east Buffalo, where both their families resided.  They married in 1946 and enjoyed a brief honeymoon in Quebec, visiting the shrine of St. Anne de Beau Pre.  My older brother Marty was born in 1947, me in 1949, Kathy in 1951, and the seven remaining children, Larry, Marian, Tom, Joan, Bob, Anna, Meg in similar succession (sorry, sibs, for not remembering the exact years).

Looking back on it, life for our large working-class family in the 1950’s and ’60’s was challenging and hard-scrabble.  We never thought of ourselves as “poor” though, and Dad’s working two full-time jobs for much of his adult life certainly helped. With both Mom’s and Dad’s extended families living within our immediate neighborhood, there were always aunts and uncles and cousins around.

Our family lived its first few years (till 1954) in a small flat in Mom’s parents’ house, right next door to Visitation RC Church.   Then we got our own little house, two blocks away.  Life on Longnecker Street was lively and rambunctious, and I’m just beginning to plumb those memories for a series of short stories I’ve begun writing.

“By the Light of the Silvery Moon” has opened a treasure trove of memories and feelings that have long been dormant.  On this Valentine’s Day, 2017, I’m sharing it with my Facebook family and friends in celebration of the life and love of Irene and Joe, who together launched a sprawling clan, and allowed the great, mysterious unfolding of love to survive and thrive into the 21st century.

From this time forward, their love for one another will live on within me in the sweet mystery of moonlight.  Happy Valentine’s Day Mom and Dad!

[This piece is my translation of an essay by the prolific Brazilian writer and spiritual warrior, Paulo Coelho.  It’s one of the most balanced and honest statements about bragging that I’ve encountered.]

Regarding your campfire stories, by Paulo Coelho

A warrior of the light shares his world with those he loves, and animates them to do what they most enjoy.

At that moment the adversary appears with two tablets in hand.  One of the tablets says:  “Think more about yourself.  Conserve your blessings for yourself or you’ll end up losing everything.”

On the other tablet is written:  “Who are you to think you can help?”

A warrior knows that he has faults, but he also knows that he can’t grow alone, can’t just distance himself from his companions.  Even knowing that the adversary is partly right, the warrior doesn’t give too much importance to the tablets, and keeps spreading enthusiasm to his surroundings.

Sit down with your companions around the bonfire and let everyone talk about his conquests.  Then make a special welcome to the strangers so that they can sit together as part of your whole group. Being witnessed in this way, everyone can be proud of his life and of his own successful battles.

The warrior knows how important it is to share his experience with others; he speaks with enthusiasm about the path; he talks about how he resisted giving into a certain temptation, and how he found a solution in a difficult moment.  But when you speak about your inner adventures, you should carefully review any words of excessive passion or romanticism.

Sometimes it’s permitted to exaggerate a little, knowing that your predecessors also exaggerated some.  But when you find yourself acting boastful, try not to confuse your genuine pride with mere vanity, and resist believing your own exaggerations.

A warrior of the light inspires confidence.  He makes mistakes whenever he exaggerates his stories, even a little, and ends up making himself more important than he really is.  As a warrior of the light, he is ultimately prohibited from lying.

So when you sit down at the fire and talk with your companions, know that your words permeate into the memory of the Universe and are a testimony of what you are thinking.

The warrior might reflect:  “Why am I talking so much when much of the time I’m not able to do what I say.”

This is an important reflection.

The heart responds: “If you publicly defend your ideas, you will have to act on them if you want to live in accordance with them.”

Precisely because he considers what he says, the warrior succeeds in transforming himself into what he says.

[I wrote this little piece as an assignment for a “Writing with Mindfulness” workshop I participated in last summer.]

I awake in our comfortable, queen-sized marriage bed after a good night’s sleep.  A crow squawks from the yard outside the two wide adjoining windows to my right, and cicadas hum in the trees on this fresh first morning of August.  Andrea is already up, the smell of brewing coffee wafting up the stairs.

Sitting up on my side of the bed, grateful for the luxury of retirement, taking in the organic order of our communal space.  Rushing cars sound faintly from the nearby highway, reminding me of many years of commuter angst.  But one year into this new phase of life, I pause contentedly before rising, mindfully appreciating the luxury of my personal freedom.

I take in the light and air from the two open windows overlooking the trees, garden and patio of the backyard.  A ceiling fan silently propels cooling air down.  The door to the adjoining bathroom in the right far corner is slightly ajar.

On either side of our bed rest side-tables with reading lights, and against the walls on either side, our respective bookcases.  A pink upholstered arm-chair sits on my side as well.  A wicker clothes hamper rests next to the bathroom door, its sides slightly tattered from our old cat Honey’s frequent clawings.   Honey’s little oval bed rests atop ours at the foot, empty now.

To the left of the hamper is Andrea’s closet with its wood-slatted, folding door now closed.  My closet is further left – about four feet wide, same as hers, with the same slatted, folding wooden door.  Between the closets on the far wall is a small altar-table holding a carved wooden cross, with small renditions of Jesus on either side – Christ the King on one side, a Jesus in seated, yoga-meditation pose on the other.   Above the altar hangs a framed lithograph titled “Materia” that we purchased in the early years of our marriage almost thirty years ago from a young local artist.  It’s a stylized depiction of two lovers sitting across from one another with a smaller feminine figure between them, joining them at the waist.

Along Andrea’s side of the bed, against the far wall, is a long, squat chest-of-drawers, with three teak drawers for her, three for me.  Resting along the top of the chest are small framed pictures of us and our two adopted children and our deceased parents.

The door to the hallway and stairs is just beyond the chest of drawers.  A small mirror hanging on the wall above the hamper, next to the bathroom, is the only other wall adornment.  It has a filigree silver frame and little doors that open to reveal the enclosed mirror.  Its fine crafting evokes memories of the market in San Miguel de Allende where we bought it a decade ago.

An oblong oriental throw-rug traverses the hardwood floor at the foot of the bed, our shared area for morning stretches and yoga.  Before I rise to do my stretches there, I notice the quiet peace and satisfaction that comes with this heightened perception of a space that I usually take for granted.  I pause in appreciation, making a little prayer of gratitude for another day to live and breathe, in harmony with the one I love.

John Bayerl, August 1, 2016

 

A visit with Georgia O’Keefe’s Jack-in-the Pulpit paintings #2, 4, 5, 6                                                   East Building, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

I’ve made a special trip here today to see O’Keefe’s Jack-in-the-Pulpit #4 painting.  I’m here to complete my “Echphrastic” poetry assignment from a compelling writing workshop the night before.  I’d chosen a print of that painting from the rich selection that our poet-teacher, Adele Steiner Brown, had provided as possible inspiration for creating a poem.  I was immediately drawn in by the print’s vibrant colors and organic luminosity.

I’d compiled an extensive litany of descriptions and inner evocations in the time we had.  Unlike my eight fellow students in the workshop, I didn’t leave with a finished poem in hand.  Other participants had chosen other prints, and one had even created a masterful, bluesy poem to the memory of a Duke Ellington – Ella Fitzgerald jazz classic.  I was amazed and impressed by the creatively unselfconscious poems that each of my mates had written and shared aloud with our group.  At my turn, I read part of my litany and promised to keep working with it.

So here I stand in a well-lit gallery of 20th century American masters and gaze to my heart’s content at four of O’Keefe’s “Jack-in-the-Pulpit” flower portraits, adjacently hung, and occupying an entire wall.  I’ve had to wait a while for a grade-school class, plopped on the floor in front of the four paintings, as a teacher excitedly explained:  “She started with the whole flower and then got closer and closer to paint its most intimate insides.”

I’m grateful for the teacher’s enthusiasm and I approach the paintings now with her observation in mind.

 

Jack-in-the-Pulpit #2

The first of the displayed paintings is actually #2 it turns out.  I’ve already studied this painting on the back of the reopened East Building’s new brochure.  Gazing at the full scale original quickly elicits a deeper appreciation.

The dark purple and reddish interior is met by white stalks climbing up the central petal.  “Jack” himself stands grounded and secure, ensconced within a deeply feminine rootedness.

Transcendent whitish-blue light illuminates the whole vibrant flow of the painting.  This is certainly a flower with great vitality and beauty and mystery and…the stalkiness of cabbage.

Multifarious shades of green leaves surround the flower above and below, implying its rootedness within a greater sea of Green.

The muted scarlet surrounding Jack contributes to his realm of mysterious vitality.

 

Jack-in-the-Pulpit #4

Entry into the flower at this level is a manifest mystery of beauty and holy enshrinement.

Luminescent white light streams from Jack’s head, illuminating a black leaf with green leaves above it.

Stepping even closer, one detects a fine glowing violet light surrounding Jack’s dark blue, rounded stalk.  His core of lighter blue arises from his base at the bottom.

The white filament of light emanating from Jack’s head is potently penetrating, an expression of phallic, ejaculatory generativity.  It is the Life Force at its most refined AND its most vigorous.

Bluish white in the four corners encase the whole image in mystery and otherness.

 

Jack-in-the Pulpit #5

 I am perplexed by #5 for a long time.  Finally, I release my need to figure it out and let myself be drawn in by the vibrancy of its swirling scarlet-purple leaves, its white stalks, and its luminescent greens.  Part of it looks like a candy cane maypole.  I’m captured by the exquisite violets and purples against the bright green and white.

Inside the plant, but emanating out, the central deep purple stalk spirals up to the light.

 

Jack-in-the Pulpit #6

The last in the series is Jack up closest. He’s more elongated than in the previous versions, white at his base, turning grey, and then black at his rounded tip.

Purple drapes on either side appear to open to a long deep cavern.  The white streaming now almost surrounds Jack entirely.  The feeling is that of the highly sacred and the reverential.

This Jack is standing within a cavern that leads to infinite spaciousness and fullness of light.  Musical strands from Kubrick’s film “2001, A Space Odyssey” play through my head, the point of full creation and the rise to awareness of that creation.

 

My Echphrastic Poem

With my viewing “homework” completed, I returned to the task of composing a poem based on Jack #4.  Here’s what I came up with.

 

Out of the Heart of a Flower

From deep, dark inside

Streams a filament of white light

Emanating from a glowing blue bulb.

Soft purple hues surround

The effusion, becoming pinkish toward the center.

The sacred dark enclosure

Is the flower’s womb.

Jack streams forth his pure, pulsating illumination,

Propelling an act of creation,

The primordial seeding of

Feminine by Masculine.

Spewing a white beacon of pure light

That irrigates and nourishes

Verdant growth, rivers, landscape.

 

John Bayerl, Isabela, PR; 2/23/2017

 

[I posted this in our neighborhood’s online list-serve site last Sunday night.]

April 9, 2017

Dear Neighbors of Lake Needwood,

I’d like to report the arrival of some avian visitors to the lake this spring.

My wife and I spotted a fledgling eagle before dusk on Sunday, just north of the Needwood Road bridge over the lake.  It was resting in the top branches of a tall beech tree along the shore, basking for a good long while in the beaming, warm rays of the sun still shining above the tree line. As the sun dipped further, the fledgling launched itself into flight, soaring tentatively around the shores of the lake until heading north, over Rock Creek.

Some of you may know of the eagle nest at Lake Frank which has housed returning eagle pairs for some years now.  This fledgling likely originated there.  To learn more about the behavior of newly fledged eagles, I learned a lot from:

https://www.learner.org/jnorth/tm/eagle/annual/facts_fledglings.html

A half hour later, a great blue heron soared above us at the same spot.  Its course was a straight line across the lake, barely twitching a feather to adjust his route.  Its magnificent wingspan took our breath away.

The main attraction, though, was a pair of resident geese swimming in harmony together around the perimeter of the lake calmly seeking a nesting site for the night.  Their graceful gliding together in complex inter-weavings through the waters at dusk was poetry in motion.  They provided quite an inspiration for those among us trying to live together in harmony.

John Bayerl, Kipling Road

Welcome to my new blog site.  Since I retired from my day-job in July 2015, I’ve embarked on a creative writing venture that has taken me into some interesting waters.  I realized this year that long posts on Facebook don’t do justice to what I’m trying to express these days.  Hence this new, online blog.  I hope my friends, old and new, will join me here for at least an occasional perusal.