Namaya Vermont Poet: main

Maj. General Smedley Butler’s Open Letter to President Barack Obama » pa

2011-03-31T13:06:00.000-04:00

Maj. General Smedley Butler’s Open Letter to President Barack Obama » pa

USA Madness

2010-09-24T09:05:00.000-04:00

war!
war!
war!
war!

in the quest
for peace?

Final Solution to the Palestinian Problem

2010-09-21T12:05:00.002-04:00

The Palestinian problem has been an enormous thorn in the relations between Israel and the greater world. This has prevented a capable Western style government from bringing the full fruits of its democracy to the Middle East. With the constant niggling and debate of Rights, it is time for Israel to assert its full historic claim to the absolute and final occupation of Greater Israel, from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River, to Lebanon, and south to Sinai. We can stop the illusion and fantasy of a Palestinian state in the West Bank. Historically, this land was Israel, with stretches of time occupied by every power in the region. Though we had a period of Diaspora and left the area for two thousand years, does it matter whether it was two days or two thousand years? Of course not. It is now time to fully reclaim this land and come to a final solution to the Palestinian problem. The moral clarity of this solution will shatter any sentimental notions
Though one can object to some “final solutions” previously set forth, they did have their merits. Ironically, Germany’s final solution allowed for the creation of the state of Israel, and Adolph Hitler may have inadvertently done more for Jews than Herzog. Israel needs to stop depending on the United States for 3 billion dollars annually and stop spending 45% of its GNP on its military. We need to use this money to really bring back the garden of Eden. Before the creation of the state of Israel, the area was made up of farms, fishing enterprises, and minor industries, a society that lived for generations tending the land. It was only when Israel took over the so called Palestinian farms and made them into modern agribusiness, created arms industries and one of the worlds largest armies, and, yes, created a very capable nuclear weapons system, that a true transformation was possible. It’s time to rip off the veil of this illusion. Israel has the most powerful army in the Middle East, and the sooner it addresses the necessary and, albeit politically awkward, public relations problem of the Palestinians, the sooner we can get on with fulfilling the prophecies, that is the prophecies were whispered in the ear of Jews directly from the mouth of God some four thousand years ago.
Gaza can be a beautiful beach-front resort once Israel relocates Hamas to Somalia or Sudan. The Zionist homeland has worked diligently to get the world to see that this so-called home for Palestinians is in reality a terrorist organization and that all of our actions to wipe out this scourge are a blessing for Israel and all peace loving democracies. Not all Gazans need to leave. There are many positions available in the service industry where we will need man-power, but we must maintain absolute fealty to the fatherland -- Israel. Between the genius of Israelis and the labor of loyal Palestinians is a perfect solution.
All Palestinians who choose not to become citizens of Israel, (not full citizenship, of course, since full citizenship requires conversion to Judaism, but a limited citizenship in the way that Black Jews and other Palestinians have been incorporated into Israeli), would be shown the door to Jordan. In the way that the US uses illegal aliens, Israel needs people to work the farms, wait on tables, and perform necessary manual labor. Of course, as with the talented tenth, the extraordinary Palestinians who accept the notion of an Uber Israeli Jewish state can be part of the great Zionist state. After all, most Muslims in the region were Jews forcibly converted to that Mohamed or Christian thing. Those who choose not to participate in this great democracy will be removed to Jordan which is already sixty percent Palestinian. This would also provide a great opportunity for the people who claim displacement in Lebanon to reunite with their families, and that would solve the Right of Return. Our vision of a pure homeland that allows for democracy and security to flourish in the context of a Jewish state is a logical conclusion, wouldn’t you agree?
Though the removal will initially be traumatic, the final solution in greater Israel will allow for unprecedented opportunities for Palestinians in Jordan or other countries in the Middle East. Consider the preposterous notion of Palestinians having their own fully functioning, independent state in the West Bank and Gaza. Do we want the two-state solution of Palestine and Israel, or shall we create an Uber Israeli-Jewish state? The choice is clear.

B 4 Peace 18 September Washington D.C.

2010-09-16T07:50:00.004-04:00

B 4 Peace - Yom Kippur - The day of atonement. I do believe we, the older generation have failed the young generation that has marched off to war. As a 56 year old veteran of the vietnam generation I find it beyond comprehension for any of us who remembers the insanity beyond words of that travesty, that anyone of us would condone this ongoing militarism. Militarism is destroying the United States, it is killing the future of this country, its is robbing the tomorrow of the next generation.

As General Eisenhower said,
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
This world in arms in not spending money alone.
It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.
The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities.
It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population.
It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals.
It is some 50 miles of concrete highway.
We pay for a single fighter with a half million bushels of wheat.
We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.
This, I repeat, is the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking.
This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.

Our 5 star general and he also made another wonderful point, we cannot dictate ideology to another.

But it is not about the grand old USA, these folks, these people who run the General Electrics, and all the other companies are holding the USA as hostages. With their henchmen in the heist, disguised as standard bearers for the flag, they are looting the future of America. The lobbyists are the inglorious pimps for these military corporations as they scream "Fear!" "Kill the terrorists!...and... By the way, also write us a check for a few billion dollars.
The US we guesstimate spends up to 25% of its GNP on combined military, homeland insecurity, NASA, Department of Energy, and a myriad of military appropriations that would take a team of Sherlock Holmes and Scotland Yard a century to uncover.

We start the B 4 Peace we hope that it will inspire others to call out the names of the young men and women killed in these wars. More importantly, every voice, no matter how small and apparently insignificant that speaks against war and for peace, every voice and person who is insistent that the future of the USA is not as a military empire. My vision of the USA is one where we can be both PRO-PEACE and PRO-AMERICA, and PRO-Life for the future of the planet.

It is long past time to invest in the USA, while China is having a grand time making incredible economic gains with a fraction of the money spent for their military, the US is spending itself into bankruptcy. Bring the soldiers home! Invest in a green peaceful USA! If we declare way on anything - Let us declare war on poverty! Let us say it is immoral for an US American not to have a home. Every child who can and is able to go to school or college can afford to.
It is time to really invest in the future of America. The one way to do this, is to be for PEACE. Join us in prayer, spirit, or your presence on September 18 at 12 noon

Art, Internet Technology, and Entrepreneurship

2010-09-14T21:32:00.003-04:00

Internet technology has revolutionized how I work and create as an artist/ writer, peace activist, and entrepreneur. It doesn’t replace the creative process, but enhances it and enables me to reach a broader audience and market.
My internet technology includes my i-phone, computers, recording equipment, and the world of my internet support team. I have always admired the atelier (workshop) model for artists, where a lead artist has a creative team that works with him or her. The internet and the technology has enabled me to create a virtual atelier.
I have a team of part time workers that I only interact with via the internet. I have an administrative assistant and a web admin person in the Philippines, one short term assistant who is editing videos from a recent play, one SEO (Search engine optimization) person in Bangladesh, short term CAD designer in Italy who is from India who is translating my drawings of a Peace Garden Fountain to a CAD and engineering drawings, a telephone transcriptionist from Jamaica who transcribes my voice memos, a writing editor in Texas, and an audio person in Florida who is engineering my new CDs. Depending on my needs and the work flow, I can utilize these people as little or as much as I need. They have the choice to work on multiple assignments around the world and they set their own price. When I need photos edited there is a specialist in the Czech Republic who does this for me quickly. Today, I needed an additional staff person to assist with a Peace project in Washington D.C., I posted the job at 8:30, and at 9:30, a person with a terrific resume and long experience in this applied for the job, at 9:40, I hired the person for a week.
My virtual assistant world is at O Desk, where I can find the employees I need. More importantly, it gives me the time and the privacy to write and create using this group of very talented employees. By using this pool of workers, I can increase my creative time and effectiveness. I live most of the year in southern Vermont where the high-speed internet access is erratic. I wish that the authorities in Vermont recognized that internet access is not just "an interesting new fangled thing,” but an essential tool for work.
This current project "B4 Peace” I have SEO (Search engine optimization) people who are creating a social media, viral and twitter campaign. I use the team to manage and assist with our various community development projects like www.gracecares.com. When I went to Haiti for medical work my "virtual assistant" helped to coordinate many aspects of the trip. However, even for me, the technology can be a bit bizarre. This morning I went on the computer and my assistant in the Philippines was on my computer transferring files. It’s as if she was sitting at my desk instead of 5,000 miles a way. I am also able to reach out more effectively to a broader audience. It is the ultimate democracy of the marketplace. I publish my books directly on the internet at www.namayaproductions.com; E- books can be downloaded directly from my website; combined E-Book with photos, audio, and music Vermont My Home on Blue Heron Pond (pending); and a series of CDs without the hassle and ecological waste of CDS. It is far easier for someone to click a button and download songs, stories and music to the web with an MP3, and if they want the nice pictures and lyrics, we include them. The artwork like the Vermont My Home series we have as “physical copies,” but we’re working on downloading the “virtual art,” however, people can still purchase the pictures.
I plan and continue to use the internet in a variety of ways and see the internet and the social media marketing not solely as a tool to promote my art, but as “art” unto itself. In the project called “Pornography of War,” it is in a virtual museum tour of my artwork against war, videos, and performances. It is enormously difficult to get new and controversial works out, but with a relatively modest budget, the internet provides an opportunity to interact and engage with a very broad audience. More importantly, it provides a way for audiences and galleries around the world to see my work. My play “Beatnik Café,” is very expensive to produce and promote it, and what makes a far more cost effective way is to record it in a video studio, edit it, and then have it for view on the internet on a high quality site for the admission price of say $2. Again, the internet, like any technology can inspire us to think more creatively and to reach a wider audience. Live performances are ideal and will always be the preferred way to see a show, but the internet, wisely used can help us to achieve a broad market.
Some people have complained that I’m using cheap offshore labor, but as one assistant said, "I love working for you, I live away from the capital, and there isn't enough work for me as a programmer, but I can work remotely at home, for an excellent salary.” Though I do have profound concerns about all the cheap manufacturing abroad, as many other things in life, it is the wise and judicious use of resources. When I can, I use and work with my local workers, but the pool of talent is not always available; nevertheless, my Vermont Art Projects are produced and made in Vermont
The key is not to have the technology overwhelm my creative work, but to complement it and magnify it. Skype enables me to talk and have a video conference with employees in the Philippines, talk to my music director for a show and play music in real time during the call, plan a community development project with a colleague in the Dominican Republic, and even taking a guitar lesson from a teacher in England.
My new novel "Jubilation" I recorded the book on my I-phone for about 6 hours a day for two weeks, uploaded it to the computer, and then a program automatically changed it to written text. Unfortunately, the technology is a bit behind the curve on this, and my I-phone only uploaded 75 percent of the files. Nevertheless, I was able to send those files to my transcriptionists in Jamaica and the Philippines, and in a few days, a completed document arrived at my inbox. The creative process is intact and the same, but the means to get the novel written was done in a fraction of the time, and I was able to focus my energy on editing and rewrites.
This whole realm of technology is a phenomenal leap in all the ways that I work and create, it doesn't make my creativity any better, it just makes it far easier, and gives me more time to focus on creativity, and doing what I do best writing/ art.
Despite the technology, I love the care and the craft of what I do as an artist and poet. I love the privacy and joy of writing a poem with pen and ink. I thoroughly delight in working with my pastels and pencils, and working on a drawing or design. In all the technology we have, there is still the powerful necessary instinct for me to create directly, and explore the universe of potential in a blank sheet of paper. If I am creating a sculpture I want my hands to feel all the dimensions of this sculpture. If I am performing as a storyteller or performance artist I want the live audience. The internet helps me to make that connection with as wide of an audience as possible.
The internet technology for this artist and writer has opened a new world of possibilities and audience connection, and used wisely can be a marvelous ally. Nevertheless, while I like and well use the technology, I will always value the intimacy and art of a blank sheet of paper and a pen. As a musician, I want to feel the wood and steel of my classical guitar, and yet I still enjoy my electronic piano. However, it is empowering when I’ve finished a drawing, I can scan it to my website and publish it after I’m done, or having written this blog entry and now anyone can read it.
The internet can be a powerful took, used for immense creativity and social change, it can also be a tool for destructive ends, but I use this tool with great care, and I'm constantly discovering the powerful and creative uses of the internet and technology.

Peace Arts Education Volunteers Needed

2010-09-02T22:16:00.002-04:00

Job & PROJECT Description
Peace Arts Education Volunteers/ Work Study Students
Department: NPI 4 Peace
Number of Positions: up to 4

Job Title: Peace Arts Education Project
Hours per Week: 40 plus

Email: b4peace@namayaproductions.com

B4peace at Namaya Productions is the creative laboratory for Peace Arts and Education Projects.

Project Description and Job Duties/Responsibilities:

Peace Arts Education Volunteers/ Work Study Students

Namaya Productions Inc. (NPI)
booking@thejazzpoet.com
b4peace@namayaproductions.com

Namaya Productions is the home base for the jazz poet, multimedia
artist, and peace activist Namaya www.namayaproductions.com. Revenues from Namaya productions supports www.gracecares.com not-for-profit grass roots community development organization and peace education projects. Grace Cares is a 5013C not-for-profit.

NPI is looking for volunteers/ work study students who have a passion for
peace and social justice, and art/ multimedia work. We are accepting
applications from students and their work study programs, and volunteers.

These projects can be incorporated into your program of studies, and used
for a thesis. For volunteers these are fun projects to engage the community
Peace Education Volunteers/ Work Study Students

Creative, independent, task oriented, passion for peace and social justice issues, well organized. Social Media and computer literacy. Flexible schedule. People from a variety of skills social media marketing, art,
business, videography, music, etc. are encouraged to apply.

Projects
NPI is a multimedia arts, performance, and education organization that focuses on performance and art for Peace and Social transformation.

Current Projects

1. Be All That You Can Be

http://www.bloggersunite.org/event/be-all-that-you-can-be-b-4-peace

18 September 2010 12 noon at the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C. 4800 people, men and women, children dressed in military clothes or fatigues will gather and walk through the streets of Washington DC with helmets, Army ponchos, each with a 6 foot length of rope, and army boots. Each one of the participants will have the name of the soldier killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. They would be walking marching in a single file through the streets of Washington, connected with the rope that is knotted one to another. It moves through the streets of Washington filmed and recorded. They would move towards the Vietnam Memorial and pass in front of the Vietnam Memorial. They would then proceed to an open spot. There is a cauldron or a small vessel placed in the center and the names of each one of the soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan are then called out.

I. Pornography of war: Redemption of Love
The pornography of war is a multimedia, photography, drawings, installation, and sculpture project.

II. Peace Gardens: The creation of gardens using old military equipment.

III. CD Peace in Every Land: Songs and stories of peace

IV. Teach Peace: Community projects around the theme of Peace

V. Videos/ Plays

I. Pornography of War

1. Be All That You Can Be

http://www.bloggersunite.org/event/be-all-that-you-can-be-b-4-peace

18 September 2010 12 noon at the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C. 4800 people, men and women, children dressed in military clothes or
fatigues will gather and walk through the streets of Washington DC with helmets, Army ponchos, each with a 6 foot length of rope, and army boots. Each one of the participants will have the name of the soldier killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. They would be walking marching in a single file through the streets of Washington, connected with the rope that is knotted one to another. It moves through the streets of Washington filmed and recorded. They would move towards the Vietnam Memorial and pass in front of the Vietnam Memorial. They would then proceed to an open spot. There is a cauldron or a small vessel placed in the center and the names of each one of the soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan are then called out.

2. $680 Billion Dollar Penis:
Wall vinyl panels and blow up balloons of penises shaped like ICBMs represent the top 10 to 15 countries around the world and their military expenditure. The USA has the tallest penis at 14 feet tall and represents the approximate 20 to 25% of the US GNP. The US spends app 51% of all global military money – or app 20 -25% of US GNP. The other countries like France, Germany, China, Russia, Israel, Iran, Brazil, etc. are significantly less. Also, the quality of life index i.e. the level of homelessness is in a bar-graph beside it.

3. Make love not war .
a. Make love not war is a series of photos of men, gay and straight, and couples making love. It shows men and women in their uniforms. Taking their uniforms off and making love. Location sites in Washington D.C. and at memorials.

b. Do Ask and Do Tell – For soldiers, airmen, and sailors who are in the service and choose to come out as gay/lesbian. We will photograph and document their coming out.

4. Sculptures and installation

a. Return Home: This is a sculpture about 15 feet long of black sand with impressions of feet and soldiers returning home from war. There are a series of prosthesis marching with boots on, some others without. The bed of black sand is about 2 feet wide

b. Humanite – Life size sculptures using barbed wire. Sketches complete as of 8/10 waiting for studio space.

c. Liberte - Life sized cutouts in colour representing the evolution of the figures in the Humanite series

d. Women of the Veil: Paper Maiche heads 4 feet tall – of 4 Muslim

women with Hjab with eyes shut with barbed wire, mouths taped with duct tape.

5. Drawings and cartoons

a. PENTAGON MAN: Series of cartoons of Pentagon Man the 9 foot tall creature with an ICBM penis.

b. Make Love Not Wall: Drawings and sketches.

6 The Wall:

Recreating the wall of separation in Palestine in a public space like

the Boston Commons.
http://www.vermontpoet.com/thewall/

7 Land Mine Stop

A video had been created http://www.tnamaya.com/landmine/landmine-hop/. The website will have a page dedicated to the Landmine stop. The objective is to have it interactive so that children from around the world

can log on in record the chorus for the song in their own language. The tracks will be mixed down to create a chorus of children from around the world singing "Land Mine Stop." Also, to include photos or videos

of children maimed by Land Mines. The project focuses on the impact of landmines and war on children.

The other component is creating public installation "Land Mine Gardens" in a public space like Boston Commons, etc.

8 Rape the Bitch: Stop Sexual Slavery

Installation project of a brothel to highlight and illustrate the millions of women and children in the international sexual slavery trade. The installation project will consist of creating a “stage set,” of a brothel about

20 x 25 feet with a labyrinth and inside are live model children and their clients. The “bitch” is the indifference and silence of the international community to stop slave traffic.

9 Arms Merchants

Portraits of the leader merchants of war – the largest military contractors,
lobbyists, & US corporations that benefit from the military industry: General
Electric, Lockhead, Boeing, General Motors, Motorola, and the CEO’s of
those corporations.

10 One Hundred Flowers - Translating the poem 100 Flowers of Peace
into 100 languages so far we have ten languages. 90 more to go.

II. Peace Gardens
We have been creating a series of sculptures and designs using old military weapons. For example, the central design is two large cannons surrounded by a spiral helix of helmets. The CAD drawings are complete and the
assistant will help to secure grant support and work with community groups

III. TEACH PEACE:

Though each aspect of “Pornography of War” is a “teachable moment”
the following are specifically as community peace education projects with
children and adults

Cost of War:

Cost of war: Community project with schools, where labels and tags of the
price of war is distributed around a community. For example, the cost of an M 16 is between $10,000 to $15,000.00. What will that cost provide in terms
of education, childcare, healthcare, etc.? An education project for communities and schools.

The War that never was: On the Island of Binga Bonga

Namaya’s children’s story “On the Island of Binga Bonga: The War that never Was,: was made into a children’s play by a colleague Naomi Bennett of Boston who used it as part of her classroom curriculum on conflict resolution
B 4 Peace – Is the proposed children’s curriculum for peace education.

IV. Videos

If there was no more wars, what would the children do
Tommy Got His Gun:
Wake up America:
Amerika Uber Alles: This is on “You tube” currently
How to Make a Child a Suicide Bomber: This is on the website
www.namayaproductions.com

Land Mine Stop: Already on the website.
Women of the veil: An MTV video to be incorporated into
the new play “Four Profits.”

V Plays

Major General Smedley Butler in 2010: War is a Racquet
A one man play of the two time medal of honor winners condemnation of war.

V.Addendum:

Project Profile of Dinner Party at the World Economic Forum

We are creating an installation project "Dinner Party at the World Economic Forum" as the description below details. This is interactive project with students and community members, to explore and understand the issues and disparities between first world and Third World communities. In particular, the resources that are available and sustain first world communities, at the expense and to the detriment of Third World countries. It might also be possible to have a fund raising project for www.gracecares for one of our community development programs or another similar group working on issues of community development and economic disparity.

Namaya is a poet, performance artist, and has worked extensively in Third World countries, as well as holding a Masters degree in International Affairs/ Third World World Development. www.vermontpoet.com. I have also taught graduate classes in Cross Cultural Communications. I will work in tandem and guide the process, as well as helping to facilitate discussions.

If this is of interest, please contact me directly at namaya@vermontpoet.com.

Installation Project:
Dinner Party at the World Economic Forum & Third World Village
Interactive project created by a communities &/or college students as a means to discover and explore the issues between First and Third World communities.

Project

At the center of the gallery, two long dining tables and approximately 15 Meters by 15 meters long. A meter to two meters wide.

Surrounding these tables are heavy velvet ropes like at a reception and barbed wire, and surrounded by armed security guards, Blackwater (despite whatever they call themselves.) There are candelabra's made from old machine guns.

An elegant table setting, elegant china, forks and knives. On the table are many of the elements that feed the first world: energy, books, education, medication, minerals, cell phones, computers, military weapons (which they usually sell to the Third World to make their greatest profit), etc... Served in elegant bowls. For example, one study says, the USA consumes 25% of the world but only has 5% of the worlds population.

Each chair/ place setting will be an oil barrel or a barrel of toxic waste, a barrel of chemicals etc..

The waiters are dressed in rags and white gloves, barefoot. They serve the people at the world economic forum.　

The invited guest to the world economic forum are, ultra wealthy, white, black and brown ones, like the Kuwaitis and Saudis.

The men and women are wearing suits and long Arabic style robes. The brand name of their corporations are on their suits and robes.

For example:
General Electric
Monsanto.
Citi bank.
Microsoft.
Lockhead
Carlyle group
　All the characters who are part of the first world economic forum.　 The enactors will be present during the exhibition.

THIRD WORLD VILLAGE

At the other end of the gallery.
Is another village, third world village.
The Third world village is basically open air shack made of tin, bamboo, and scraps. 　You are invited in and can have a drink of water from an open well. You can have some food, rice beans and some bread. People cooking out in the open, music playing, maybe there is a latrine there as an open pit. You're welcome to come into the Third World.

There is no security, and you are freely welcome to the Third World

Concept
The concept of a Dinner party at the First World Economic Forum and Third World village as a way to bring students and other people into understanding the dynamics of the First World Economic forums, like IMF, Devos, impact on Third World Communities. People are building and creating this project, and keeping a journal video, writing, and other means.
For further information contact:

namaya@vermontpoet.com

Qualifications: Motivated, willing to learn, a passion for peace education and art.

My Letters to Sam Clemens, Oscar Wilde and Friends

2010-09-02T15:41:00.002-04:00

I had always valued my letters from Sam Clemens, Oscar Wilde, Picasso, Octavio Paz, Salvador Dali, and others. I've decided to gather them in a book, "Letters to Sam Clemens, Oscar Wilde and Friends,"
In the introduction to the book, I made it clear my shameless name dropping is not to drop names but draw attention to the conversation with these artists I’ve had over the years. Vincent, tempestuous with friends, but his letters are elegant and brimming with passion. The letters on "Starry Night," the meditations I've had in front of "The Women in White," "the Gates of Hell by Rodin," the visits with Dali at his museum in Spain, these are the conversations and correspondences with the famous, near famous, and the simple noble people whose names will never appear in a newspaper.
Even my conversations with Jack Kerouac have made their way here. I had grown to appreciate the curious place of Jack in the place of American writers. Like many writers and artists, we are exiles in our own time, intimately alive and brimming with curiosity, but in the pursuit of elusive we must often step outside the realm of the expected norm and pursue our own truth.
Joyce in his love affair and despair of Ireland lived in that sanctuary. Picasso with his insistent curiosity danced in realms few of us could imagine. Rimbaud who disappeared after his fame burned brightly, perhaps descending into the realm of the flowers of evil
That is the imperative for artists…to live, dance, breathe, and savor the realm of the extraordinary intimacy with your soul -- your fears, and imaginings so powerful they threaten to drown you with their beauty. This is this quest, this insistent quest, the imperative to be present with you in the most intimate place possible
Vincent had written, ‘It is not just the colors that inspire my imagination, it is the play of sunlight and light in all its moods that enchants me, as discovery light and the darkness of the human soul. When I painted "The Potato Eaters," the feeble light that illuminated their hut, was as precious and divine as the light when God first brought fire to man. The colours in my paintings are a mere imitation of what I see when I see the fire of colours, feel the as it sweeps across the wheat fields of Arles, and the sirocco winds come with their memory of the desert. Cher poet, can I offer you a taste of these colours for your poems? My colours are filled with the kisses of lovers, with the moist taste of sex, and the poignant longing when lovers part. The blues are painted from my memory of the skies of Arles in late summer, the yellows as if the sunflowers offered their most secret pleasures, and the reds are taken from my blood that I offer to each painting. The colors that are most alluring are the ones that don’t appear, the coarse texture are these peasant hands that caress my lover’s face, the light in the window of a starry night that calls me home after a day of working in the field, these futile conversations with god, and the love… yes, the love in all its ways of being, of absence and presence. Poet, are you able to speak of these longings? “ Vincent.
I heard rumors from friends of his tenuous grip on the day to day, the rages and the tears, but I knew the genesis of this. I knew of the intense loneliness drawn from the eidolon of god posing as a muse. He painted me love sonnets like “Sunflowers” drawn on thick postcards. His last letter was brief , “Dream and live that dream of a life as deeply as you dare. These are the colors i want you to hold in your soul.” Vincent .

Be All You Can Be: B 4 Peace

2010-08-28T16:51:00.003-04:00

Finally, this project that has been in my sites for a few years is now ready to launch. This is part of the on-going series of "B 4 PEACE" Social Media/ Peace projects that are part of the long term series "Pornography of War."
The twitter campaign is undertaken in Bangladesh by our twitter campaign coordinator Mr Arif and Ms. JC in the Philippines, and our Vermont crew. The project in DC we hope is straightforward, though rarely is anything so direct, but it is the campaign for 4,800 plus people who have died in Afghanistan and Iraq. Though I would have also preferred to commemorate the several hundred thousand dead civilians who have been killed in these wars.
Come out to Washington D.C. on 18 September 2010 at 12 noon on the north side of the Washington monument. Check out www.namayaproductions.com and the B 4 Peace campaign.
More projects coming.

Creative Joy the Modern Renaissance

2010-08-12T07:28:00.009-04:00

A sublime and joyful summer of creativity in Vermont. In the beginning of the summer since February I was hip deep in the Beatnik Cafe production for NYC in April and with the Richmond Shepard Theater. The learning curve on creating and making a play is profound, especially someone who learned their craft as a "shade tree mechanic" but in many ways the various productions I had done along the way both of the Jazz Beats, the other plays I had written, and the poetry have all served well for this. Yet, as everyone who works with theater knows, every component of theater is a world unto itself. The world has become so divided into people who only create one kind of theater, one kind of drama, etc.. Or, only a poet of Vermont. Or a jazz poet. Or a photographer of nature. Or a painter. Or a poet of erotica. I am having one of the truly glorious moments where my spirits and sense are alive in my creative journey. Like the Shakespeare sonnet, Summer has too short of a stay. For whatever moment of creativity and joy like this, it does come to an end, it transforms, and like some artists like Picasso, Matisse, O' Keefe and others they were creating until the end of their life. Yes, at 55, though a spry fellow, I am aware of the the vicissitudes of health and life, but as I had said in my other writings and postings on "Obligation" my obligation is to wake up every day and create. My creative pallet is writing (poems, plays, essays), painting/ drawing, photography,design, sculpture, multimedia, and performances.
I do not feel overwhelmed or manic. Though sometimes I do feel a little bewildered -- I start to draw and the power of a poem draws me in. The pastel drawing is a collage and then realize there is a part that is a jazz guitar lick. Curious. I am allowing myself to float on that river of creative instinct,allowing the winds and the changing tide to carry me along. That is freedom! The line from "To Althea from Prison, "Stone walls do not a prison make nor iron bars a cage:minds innocent and quiet take that for an hermitage, if I have freedom in my love, and in my soul I am free, angels alone that soar above enjoy such liberty."
This personifies the power of creativity which is love. The love of life, the affirmation, the connectivity to the power of life. Though the journey is about "my" creativity, it is very much an invitation for other people to engage in their own discovery. A sublime joy is a blank paper and box of pastels or pens. Playing, my classical guitar and listening to what the guitar wants to bring forward. The exquisite phenomenology - the paper- artist- life. That is the dialectic. The essential conversation.
I am sometimes distracted by all the commotion of the world, all the glitz, excitement, and that isn't even including the commotion in my mind.
In this age of instant messaging, instant oatmeal, instant everything...there is such a paucity of genuineness. The creative process brings us right into that moment. The creative process is the bell in the meditation hall, it says, right now. The breeze that comes with the new morning light says, right now. The laughter of an infant says, right now. This conversation I'm having with you now, is right now. Ironically, the "rightnowness" is not instant and it is. It is connecting to your creative soul/ your first breath you took as an infant, the first colors of the world that filled your senses. It is part of the perennial philosophy and it is part of the sublime moment now. The "sublime moment" is when the only moment is here as you breathe and it is as if you had the eternity of time to enjoy it. William Blake said, "To see a world in a grain of sand, and a heaven in a wildflower, hold infinity in the palm of your hand, and Eternity in and hour."
As an artist, when I am at my best, through my poetry, photography, or performance work -- it is about the creative experience right now. With my performance stories I am at my greatest joy when I can create the entire show on stage drawn from the suggestions of the audience. At the same time, there is a profound joy in taking the time to create an elegant and well crafted work. The task is to find the balance, the spontaneity of the moment, and the depth of time to fully develop the work.

I am a Renaissance artist, in a non-renaissance world. Other might say, hyperactive, hypercreative, even more pejorative? I want to so very much share this creative joy, delight, and power in this discovery process. Yet, I use the appellation of Renaissance artist with great care, as a person who is profoundly connected to their creative journey, the constant process of "Rebirth".
Painting and drawing: I have some of my new drawings on the website. Some are abstract. Some are representational such as my series "Pentagon Man" a nine foot tall Pentagon headed creature with a large ICBM penis, serviced by Miss. Liberty, Congress, and the American Lush Bimbo dittoheads.
$680 billion dollar Penis - This project has been on my sight for awhile. Now it is creating the time to finish the earlier drawings and bringing a student on board to help with the execution.
Beatnik Cafe - Figuring out what is the best way to move forward with this will be a large creative task.
Jubilation: I am your mountain - This amazing story of my grandmother who was an indenture servant from Ireland, who works in an old house in New Orleans with an old black former slave by the name of Sally Jubilation. Sally is a wise woman, herbalist, and the housekeeper. She was "bought" by the Mistress of the house Miss. Emma before the Civil War. Miss Emma from the old Southern Aristocracy though only a teenager bought her with her own money and then freed her. Miss Sally has chosen to remain with Miss Emma. Miss Sally when she meets a person of good character and worth says, "You are a person of worth and dignity." Yet, in the sixty hours I have recorded she is always able to find the worth and dignity of most people she has met. I am almost feeling like I am "channeling" the spirit of Miss. Sally, as I am sitting down with my tape recorder and taking notes, as if I am across from the table. My "grandmother" Miss. Rosa is telling the story from her journals and her memory of this incredible women she met when she was young.
Jazz Lullaby: Dulcita - A new jazz guitar piece I wrote and will record soon.

Many other projects going on. No solo performances schedule besides looking at Beatnik Cafe performances this fall. All of my energy and time will go in the foreseeable future will go to finish the recordings I've started and continuing to coordinate and focus on projects for the Pornography of War:
Tio Namaya - Two CDs worth of children stories and songs
Celebrate Life- Stories, poems and music that are a celebration of life.
Vermont My Home - Stories, music, and poems

Jazz Mu- This is the least commercial but artistically the most important in terms of music and performance. This is the best of my avante garde and experimental jaz word improvisations and sound poems
I have a young audio engineer now on board starting in August for 20 hours a week to help with this and the podcasts
"Turn on, tune in, and drop in to your creative soul."

Updates July 2010: Pornography of War

2010-07-11T11:52:00.008-04:00

Namaya update July 11, 2010
Creative Window: I am having a marvelous time waking up in the morning with pencils, pastels, pen and paper, my guitar close by, and a camera on the tripod. My creative tools are at the ready. One morning, I was watching a butterfly dance on an echidnae flower, and the words could capture part of the dance, but the camera was a few meters away from the butterfly, and I caught her dance. For a small window of time, I have created this time to write, draw, design, write music, and most importantly, allow my spirits to soar. In this age where so much is in the public domain, and our history and lives is an open book to the wider world the time to be alone to create from the core of who I am and my connection to life is a gift. I value this privacy of time to create and the time by Blue Heron Pond.
Beatnik Cafe we had a wonderful run in Boston and in New York City with this. The video and the film are on the web at www.beatnikcafemusical.com. Our plans are to take it to various colleges within the New York City area. We are also shopping for promoter or producer to take this project forward. I have been thinking about this and a number of ways. I love the idea of the story of Jack Kerouac, Charlie Parker and the way this musical revue puts the story together. It is a powerful, wonderful story. Though I believe in a Broadway run, producers will try to make it more about the beatniks, which was the least interesting part of the period, humorous at times, but largely not very interesting. The real interesting work was the jazz and this period of tremendous social transformation. Stay tuned for more notes.
I also like how my understanding of the music deepens and greater understanding of this music called bebop and jazz evolved.
I also wanted to capture my growing appreciation for Kerouac and understanding of him, he was very committed to his writing, and some parts of the writing are sublime.
Terrific group of singers, performers, musicians. Finally, with a good director, and a lot of work this production is moving forward. Maggie one of the Beatnik singers is off to Poland and is trying to secure shows there and in Scandinavia. Always it is about following the money
Four Prophets:
This is the other main project in the next year- Jesus, Mohammed, Moses, and Satan meet in a public restroom. Satan calls for Judgment Day. She says, “Humans are not to be trusted.” This will be shot as a 10 minute trailer in a local studio and hopefully interest a theater or production company to take this play forward.
This is a major work and after my extended creative hiatus need to refocus on getting this out. I have a feeling that it will make its debut in Europe not the US, this is a hunch, as the funding climate to put on new works is limited, and this is so controversial.
Video
Women of the Veil
I had a fascinating vision one night. I was deep in the Sahara and the moon was up, there was a woman standing on the dune she was dressed in a long black sharh shaf, the wind was blowing, I heard music an oud and this melody, and the song started this chant, “Women of the veil. Women of the book. Daughters of the prophet. Let you spirits be free. Let your veil fly free. Let your hair flow.” The wind blows, the veils rise, then more and more women appear. The Uuuala sounds out. More women appear. The wind blows the veils back and away, the chadors blow away, the hair now flies in the wind. “Women
of the book let your hair fly free, let your spirit sail in the wind, let true freedom for women begin.” A short 3 minute video
Pornography of war:
This is one of the main directions I am moving in and over the course of the next five years, perhaps even longer. The pornography of war is a multimedia, photography, installation, sculpture project. The one we are starting with now is called make love not war .
The outside of the exhibition space looks like a cheap porno shop, with the entrance blocked, “No one under 18 permitted.” Inside is the PORNOGRAPHY OF WAR.
Artistic Statement: Simply, two people having sex, or people naked is not pornography, but one person killing an another is obscene. In the words of one judge, “Pornography, I know it when I see it.” It is not only raising the voice against war, it is posing the dialectic question: Is War Pornographic? I also see it is vital to offer the alternative – war is Thanatos & life is Eros. We squander our children’s future with militarism
Make love not war is a series of photos of men, gay and straight and couples making love. It shows a man and a woman in their uniforms. Taking their uniforms off and making love.
Be All That You Can Be: this has been in my vision for about four years or more. I think with the social media sites we can now move forward with this. The idea is very simple. 4800 people, men and women, children walking through the streets of Washington DC with helmets, Army ponchos, each with an 8 foot length of rope, and army boots. Each one of the participants have the name of the soldier killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. They would be walking marching in a single file through the streets of Washington, connected with the rope that is knotted. One to another. It moves through the streets of Washington filmed and recorded. They would move towards the Vietnam Memorial and pass in front of the Vietnam Memorial. They would then proceed to an open spot. There is a cauldron or a small vessel placed in the center and the names of each one of the soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan are then called out. There is a gong that rings out with each name called.
Return Home: This is a sculpture about 15 feet long of black sand with impressions of feet and soldiers returning home from war. There are a series of prosthesis marching with boots on, some others without. The bed of black sand is about 2 feet wide
$680 Billion Dollar Penis:
This project is long in the works. We are shooting some samples in the next few weeks. There will be the 14 foot tall penises as the US penis is the largest since the US spends app 51% of all global military money – or app 20 -25% of US GNP. The other countries like France, Germany, China, Russia, Israel, Iran, Brazil,etc
PENTAGON MAN:
Series of cartoons of Pentagon Man the man with the ICBM penis that I’ve been drawing.
The Wall: Recreating the wall of separation in Palestine in a museum
PEACE GARDEN: as I had detailed in previous writings and in the sketch attached.
Audio Book.fm.
Love Tap Message – Daily inspirational messages. We are starting a url called
www.yourlovetap.com
www.wakeupamericans!.com is the other new dimension of our on-going podcass

Luscious Wet Kisses
A friend reminded me I had been talking about this project for five years. It is a series of nudes/ partial nudes in nature at Blue Heron Pond with male and female models. Then combining this with poems from previous books EROS TO GODHEAD and GOD SEX POLITICS. Probably, it will inspire a new series of poems based on the photos. First photo shoot tomorrow 12 July.
Love in an Age of Aids
This is another photo shoot using saran wrap. Two models male/ male or male female nudes. These photos are done on a stage and will be part of a dance/ stage performance
of Love in An Age of Aids. The lovers meet, then the saran wrap surrounds them, it is the attempt to reach and to get close, but the density of fear and AIDS, impedes that journey
“Dinner Party at the World Economic Forum” – The dinner party at Devos

A few of the projects we are working on - Create Loving rEvolutions. This is the imperative.

Enjoy your own creative journey.

Namaya

Namaya Update - Post Beatnik Cafe

2010-06-28T10:29:00.004-04:00

Curious, writing continually, drawing, new design projects, but not a great interest in blogging these days. Not feeling as if I want to draw people into my creative journey except when it comes to the finished work. In the past month, I've been intensely working on Beatnik Cafe and discovering a lot of new dimensions to the work. I've been working with a good cast and a solid director Debra Whitfield. Post the 11 April show i went back and reworked the script based on some suggestions and feedback. A far more solid show in this incarnation with a more fluid time line. The characters not cutout figures but real flesh and blood folks ... Jack Kerouac as a genuine person who was innocent and naive, who loved jazz and life, and then drowned in fame. I was very pleased with my script and the show in Boston.

Creative projects in the next six months

Celebrate Life! Absurd & delightful - CD of stories, music, and poems.
Vermont My Home: Vol 1 Stories, music and poems that celebrate the Green Mountain state.
On the Island of Binga Bonga: Tio Namaya children's stories.This is already on my home co
Jazz Mu - Jazz Avante garde stories - Murder in the Cathedral of Love.
*** Not to sound maniX, but I have about six good CD length work that I've been struggling to figure out how to get the work out. I have so much material and stories

Beatnik Cafe
Shooting a studio quality video of this show. Also, seeing if there is a producer or promoter who wants to take this on. It really has turned into a very solid show.

Love Tap - Available at www.namayaproductions.com - Appearing as an MP3 file for download and as an I-phone application. Positive messages, secular, focusing on celebrating life.

Four Prophets: Jesus, Mohamed, Moses and Satan meet in a public restroom. It is a play and installation project

$680 Billion Dollar Penis Project Wall Art that illustrated how much the US and other countries spend on the military.

Coming back to Vermont, guests at the end of the week, new assistant/ associate for the web and the projects. I need this quiet space to work and dream again.

2010-06-02T13:14:00.003-04:00

minor chords
key of Q

screaming violet

iNdigo…

who was never one to suffer
the indignation

of a Question that
lingered
like
rain in a puddle.

Q
like a key to
a world in side

of the rarely
spoken

laughter of a relative
sixth

V
violent shades
of indigo

whispered like a
siren waiting dockside

for the sailors from
the sixth fleet.

the allurement of
love in the guise of
desire

vermillion cool
v bop – voutee mo’

Bach in a fugue
falling to a simple
gracious

f minor.

curious to wind up
in the room where
the F minor was
lounging in a peignoir

a slatternly
amorous amalgam

of Blues basted with
be bop thrilling
arpeggios and slow
roasted in the savory
stew of an unresolved

32 bar blues… E7
to A then a minor B
in the transcendent key

of desire.

When the Bird and I would
jam, him rifting in the seductive
shadows of heroin,
and I in the garden tending
lilacs and poppies, hearing rooms
imagined with the sweet ascension.

Was he talking to god?
Did he imagine god as a lover,
seen, but never held.

Peonies purple, lilac,
luscious
plump

a juicy ripe C brimming
delightful with the
possibility of redemption.

Cheery, bright without
any of the existential
angst of minor chords - -

fragmented shards of
atonal rifts…
Coltrane make rapturous
l
o
v
e
with the goddess of memory.

Memory

god and the divine

we draw sustenance
from.

Not poppies nor Lethe,
we are not absolved
by bathing in Styxs

memory
desire
love

a blues in
one
four
five

flat the seventh
and open the
soul to the
seventh house

love is the
transcendent
note

alpha
omega

and

key of Q

querulous
little bugger.

to give
to love
to surrender.

Quom.
Q
Kwa

Notes in
the key of Q.

Mi Amor

2010-06-01T17:28:00.000-04:00

we’ve had a tempestuous
relationship over these years…

much love and tenderness,
intimacies unimagined.

our love and love making
voracious and savage…

passionate,
sotto voce,
much kindness.

voyages to the
inner sanctum of memory.

journeys to the
periphery of imagination.

mi amor,
mi poesia,
mi alma.

Peacable Domain

2010-05-25T09:49:00.000-04:00

kings of old would be jealous.
emperor’s fortunes envious.
no standing armies to keep,
no widows mourn and weep.

in my dominion, no need for war.
violence, a tale from days of yore.
so peaceful some would be bored
with the sounds of pleasant snores.

every child loved and well cared
not a whisper of lonely despair.
not an ache or worry to fear,
someone to care for each tear.

in our peaceable dominion of love
we’re graced by the power of love

Grace Cares Update

2010-04-29T07:10:00.001-04:00

“A girl from Chestnut Ridge inspires hope in Dominican Republic”

Grace Goldberg-Springer a twelve-year-old girl from Chestnut Ridge means it when she says she believes in taking action to help other people. Grace began helping children in La Lomita an impoverished community in the Dominican Republic when she was 10. For her 10th birthday, she asked her friends not to bring her presents, but instead school supplies to help the approximately 100 school age children who live there. Her commitment to the community did not stop there. This year Grace is in the process of raising $1,500 by making and selling necklaces and earrings to start an egg business in La Lomita. This will help the community become more economically sustainable. Part of the proceeds will support and feed the poorest people in the community.

Grace learned about La Lomita through GRACE Cares a 5013C not-for profit founded by her aunt Dr. Zoe Kopp, uncle Dr. T. Namaya and cousin Ken Giancola. The acronym for the organization is: Growth, Resources, Action, Community, Empowerment. The not-for-profit helps with small sustainable community development projects that assist poor communities to become self- sufficient.

La Lomita and surrounding communities are some of the poorest on the island with a lack of food, education, clean drinking water, high birthrates, lack of employment, and a host of on-ongoing needs. With the participation of the local community and Dominican project leader Ruben Ottenwald it was decided to start a small enterprise of raising chickens to produce eggs for the children as well as for sale. This project will provide both health and economic benefits to the community.

This past week Grace Springer-Goldberg traveled to the Dominican Republic to meet the people of La Lomita, and help build the chicken coop that will hold 100 chickens. Her experience at the farm at Green Meadow School in Chestnut Ridge prepared her to help not only with the building of the coop, but enabled her to share her knowledge of growing beans and tomatoes.

While in the Dominican Republic, Grace participated in meetings with community leaders to review future projects, which will include the formation of a local community non-governmental organization and an agriculture cooperative. Grace said, “We must continue to focus on helping people help themselves.” The people of La Lomita were inspired and grateful that someone so young from so far away had done so much to assist them.

Community Development in San Jose DR

2010-04-26T18:09:00.008-04:00

Over the past few days in San Jose section about twenty minutes from Santiago. At Ruben and Anna Marie's place with all of their kids and extended family, always someone is around, Viejo, Andres, Pablito, and the girls Roselita and Naomi. Feels like our extended family, food prepared, house open, and of course it is a two way street. But so value their open, gracious hospitality.
Over the weekend with Frederico and Fatima and their kids, with Theresa and her family, so much fun. DR is always about family and friends. Americans would have freaked out, we had shown up with a group of maybe ten people, Frederico and his families opened their arms wide. Thoroughly enjoyed connecting with him as it had been too long. My close friends and buddies scattered around the globe. The visionaries, the rainbow makers, the rEvolutionaries, and dreamers, and the do ers.
Zoe, Grace, and I working with Ruben and Theresa, and others in helping Ruben articulate his vision of development for this community. At first appearance it is an overwhelming task but the question is how to bring this vital discourse forward to an organized development process. Identifying what needs to change, what are the elements for transformation, how to engage people in a genuine conversation. The work of Paulo Freire always stay with my mind, engaging people in the critical dialectic "What is your condition?" "What is your poverty?" Respecting folks, even the poorest of people that they have the possibility of changing their poverty. The challenge as the educated is that we believe we "know" we only know "our" perspective of "their poverty" The hubris is that as change agents we can only initiate that conversation.
I am not a patient person, I am by nature a visionary, a poet, and view the world with the lens of that perspective. The vision of what is possible, not always pragmatic, not defined or limited.
Enjoying the time to get back to community development work, meeting with Ruben and the workers, and exploring and understanding what are the needs of the community. We are trying to help Ruben set up a foundation/ development organization that harnesses his vision and helps to translate it into a long term and sustainable vision. The UGGGH part that I hate to do, the institutional, the formalization of informal relations. The part that I struggle with in my art work, the artist working with the tools of organization, structure, taking the idea and vision and making it real.
I'm missing the daily writing, the daily attention to the new productions, the new plays, and other work, nevertheless,I'm enjoying stepping back to this much slower pace, the pace of late nights under cloudy nights with Ruben and talking. The time to spend with Gracie and getting to know her, watching her open her eyes to the world of the less fortunate, the poor. At times those labels of poor and wretched are ripped away, and the laughter is heard. Most times, for the poorest of the poor, which is the La Lomita community, the poverty is so overwhelming. The poverty that leaves me exhausted, overwhelmed, but ultimately from this we are able to articulate a few programs to assist Ruben and the community.
The other component is a program of art, drawing, music. In development, with the most desperate of circumstance, we forget that music, art, all of this elevates the spirit. This was especially true in Haiti with the art and musical instruments we were able to provide. The kids playing music.
Tomorrow we go back to NY, back to the Beatnik Cafe, and where there is much to do. Also in taking the program to the next level. Much work to do in the world. I also see the balance between this community development work on a pragmatic level, and the art work like Peace Gardens, the Brothel projects, Four Profits, and other art.

Rice and Beans

2010-04-23T12:42:00.004-04:00

Friday at Ruben's farm on the mountains overlooking the fields of Santiago. Meals are some 9 to 12 people, family, workers who are building the new chicken coops. Neighbors stopping by, big plate of rice, beans, and some vegetables. Eating always commences with grace. As we sit out under the "dining room" a big tin and palm leafed open patio. Laughter, chatter in Spanish and English, mostly Spanish. Last night sitting in the living room playing guitar, listening to Naomi and her funny stories. My niece Grace is getting on rather nicely, a too tempting target for mosquitoes as she is is covered in bites, but otherwise she is enjoying herself.

This morning spending time with Ruben teaching him guitar, talking about his plans, and seeing how we can help. Z and I helping to shape his vision, offering feedback. He is a man with the the kindness of a saint, and sometimes that works against him. But most times he does very well. There is so much need in this area. THis morning we went to La Lomita and one of the villages there. There was laughter and children playing, but there were children everywhere, as if the main produce of DR is making babies. This 4% population growth is overwhelming any ability for the country to escape the on-going poverty; unless they make their way to the US, Miami or New York. But uneducated and poor, the only jobs that are available are the brute labor jobs or the most unskilled. In this poorest of area, with no work, and children flooded everywhere. This kind of poverty feels overwhelming. Yet, we had put in a well with electricity that is providing clean drinking water. Another project with Grace Cares provides a new covered community space. But the lack of work, high population growth, and generations of poverty create a desperate poverty of spirit. A few escape to the US and come back, but most flee this verdant prison of paradise.

Our interaction and conversation with Ruben is looking at how do we help to create some kind of sustainable economic activity. We had been researching Rocket Stoves a very simple home made design for stove efficiency. Some years ago I had worked a lot with Appropriate Technology and liked the very simple technology like this. Rocket Stove plans are on the way.
Other suggestions on the table are the chicken and egg project. But as we are vegetarians we will support the egg production but not raising chickens to be eat.
Other projects like growing specialty crops -- perhaps saffron, herbs,and so forth. But these are lengthier conversations

Though I have been a vegetarian for some thirty give years plus I didn't like to impose this perspective on others; however, this is one of my core values, the respect for all life, the belief that all life has Buddha nature, and life is sacred. When we approach life with this perspective that life is sacred, we in turn bring this awareness to all dimensions of our life. The environment, the waters, and this entire world we live in needs to be interacted with as sacred. Not something to be exploited, killed or ravaged. Life is sacred. Our interactions with each other should be filled with love and care. A very simple prescription.

In approaching this work with Ruben, and seeing his sense of care and responsibility in his community is inspiring. He approaches all he meets with great care and kindness. It is wonderful connecting with him again, my brother Domicano. This morning we had a couple of hours to talk, play guitar, and talk about art and politics.

Today looking at a few more community projects

Evening in Santiago

2010-04-22T21:19:00.005-04:00

Leaping into the world of Ruben and,his family on the tiny farm nestled about 20 minutes from the town of Santiago in DR. Email works, after a fashion, but most of the life and pace could easily be centuries ago. Today we went with Ruben to visit many of the poorest families on his route, passing out good words, notebooks, where needed some money for food. But my interest is getting away from the charitable model and more to development. How to help people become self sufficient and independent. Many of the folks who are surviving are dependent on money from relatives in the US. A $30 a month or so contribution goes a long way.
Enjoying the time and opportunity to spend with Ruben, his good nature an humor is a delight, he is unfazed by all the poverty and laziness, unfazed by the hopelessness of the task, and still there is a part that is very optimistic. Today, helping with the chicken coup, a little bit, Grace is a real trooper working with the wheel barrow and helping to lay the floor down. She is a real sweet spirit with the younger girls, drawing and teaching them math, and English. It is good to see her thrive in this environment, though it is a brief moment in a poor country it is important for her to get a taste of this. I wish more affluent children from the USA can see this and immerse themselves.
I am appreciating this stepping back into a very slow pace, a bit hard since I am use to a very intense pace of creativity. One of the things you see is that for many life is reduced to the basic survival, there is little of the creative world, it is reduced to if you eat or not, sometimes the choices are very bleak and limited. The farming is marginal, even in this relatively lush paradise. There is a chronic shortage of water and the land is of a poor quality for farming.
Today Zoe and I spent time with Ruben, exploring possibilities for economic activities, and how to move forward with the proposed chicken and egg project. Which comes first?Also, spent over an hour with Ruben teaching him basic health and herbal medicine care. This will be exciting to get the Appleseed project off the ground and to do a version of this here.
Still keeping my hand into the work of the play production. I am enjoying our all too brief visit to Ruben's family. This evening playing guitar, singing with the girls. Thoroughly enjoying the delicious and simple food, and most of all the company.

life on the farm: Ruben Uber Mensch

2010-04-22T07:17:00.021-04:00

In Dominican Republic this week to work with my friend Ruben who has a little missionary project of sorts in the middle of the island. A couple of hours from Puerto Plata. My niece Grace and Zoe are here too. We have an on-going relationship with Ruben and his community. We have sponsored a number of community development projects through Grace Cares - well water project, feeding of the elderly, and now this new poultry project. my niece grace 12 years old has raised funds for a poultry and egg project as part of her batz mitzvah - mitzvah. good, so very good to have her with us. my other nephew Kenny had started this community development work about a decade a ago. Not a big project this is one of the great joys to work and bring our nieces and nephews into this work. this essential work. there is so much need in the world, and though our efforts may only be a tiny drop of care in a desert of need, every drop counts.
this work of gracecares and other community work is invaluable to me, as it reminds me of the essential work in the world, to care and assist those less fortunate.
ruben is a mensch. he is a tremendous inspiration. he is the "priest" the "caretaker" "the community mensch" a former Cappucian monk, he gave up the monastic life to return here by the small community la lomita. This is the real spirit of Christianity, i imagine.
As I am watching this implosion of the Catholic Church caught up in their defense of the sclerotic Vatican and the symbols of faith, i recall the numerous nuns and priests i had worked with in the past, and their truly noble and selfless spirit. i think of my friend Father Marty Jenco who i worked with in the Middle East, Sister Stella from Yemen, Father Gannon and later Bishop, who were fearless in their faith and committed to the poor.
Ruben without church with this own sweet kind mission --- his mission is Love. In a world of cynicism, my cynicism notwithstanding, it is too easy to mock this sweet beautiful sincerity of charity and love. These are the people who are my heroes in the world. Ruben who could have had an easy life, a big farm, people working for him, or living in the USA -- instead he is the community leader without title. When someone needs help, he works with them, not in charity that robs them of their dignity, but in a spirit of care and love. A family needs some medicines he finds it for them. Others need help with housing or transportation to a hospital he helps them. He organizes a feeding program for the elderly. A program to assist the local school.
Ruben said,"I grew up very poor, I grew up hungry, I had the opporuntiy to go to the Unitied States, I always thinking of all the people who did not have enough to eat. I want to go back and do something, i want to do something, i want to help. A piece of bread to a child who is hunger. A tylenol to a person with pain." He says this without vanity, as a matter of fact, this is life, "There is a need, and I help."

"But I cannot have a long range vision, i have to worry about right now, the next emergency, the next crisis, and it is difficult for me to plan for the future. But by God's grace we are able to help people. I can not choose to do otherwise. I am putting a band"

Things rarely work smoothly, crisis to crisis, but it is all with the sense of grace and that it is in the hands of God.

In this small community in the middle of Santa Domingo is a miracle that is happening every day, it is the miracle of dignity, the miracle of faith, the miracle of community, undaunted by the poverty. In the morning, many workers, local people come out to see Ruben. A powerful spiritual presence without the slightest bit of ego, filled with humility grace and humor.

There is NOTHING noble about poverty, poverty that is hunger, poverty that robs one of dignity and the sense of self worrth, but the good works of Ruben and the people around him elevate the people and the community. He enables them and us. One fellow John from the US made a generous donation to this community, and he said, "Ruben inspired me."

Today, Grace, Zoe, and I will spend time visiting the community. Helping with building the new chicken coop, as much as we can, though the community workers will do most of the work. We had visited some local children with developmental problems, health issues of other kinds. Many of these congenital issues I cannot help, but we are hoping to create the Appleseed project here.

Appleseed is our long term project where we train community lay health workers how to treat the top 20 ailments, injuries, etc. using herbs, homeopathy, and where necessary over the counter medicines. Most of the basic primary care illnesses can be safely treated at home.

Roosters at 3 am and continued for hours, couldn't get back to sleep, life on the farm. Yet, Ruben gave us his best guest bed. A shower with a bit of cold water. All of this is middle class here. Though in the west we might think of this as "poverty" in reality this is pretty luxurious. I am back and forth in 3rd world countries that I would find it difficult to lose this perspective, but i am grateful to come back here with Zoe and Grace. Working with Ruben to see if we can help and create a longer term and sustained program of community development. Community development with the spirit of Ruben, not charity that robs people of their dignity, but community development that empowers people and enables them to make positive choices for them and their families. Community development with love as the center.

A beautiful day on the farm, roosters crawing, workers in the field, birds calling in the trees, children off to school in their blue uniforms and pink backpacks, verdant fields and pastures glistening green after a good rain last night.

More to come, right now I need to go, open my eyes, open my spirit, listen to the conversations. Where I can, I treat the sick and ill, one man came by this morning with an injured back, I stopped writing, and treated him. My open air clinic and office, sitting in Ruben's workshed, workers coming in, a few patients, and then i return to writing. Life at Ruben's farm.

And so what…

2010-04-18T10:27:00.000-04:00

planes will not fly
vacations postponed
business trips canceled

weddings missed
engagements lost
births not witnessed

emergencies unattended

…as if our entire busy
world suddenly

paused

The Final Solution to the Palestinian Problem

2010-04-08T11:15:00.001-04:00

The Palestinian problem has been an enormous thorn in the relations between Israel and the greater world. This has prevented a capable Western styled government from bringing the full fruits of its democracy to the Middle East. With the constant niggling and debate of rights, it is time for Israel to assert its full historic right to the full and final occupation of Greater Israel from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River to Lebanon and south to Sinai. We can stop the illusion and fantasy of a Palestinian state in the West Bank. Historically, this land was Israel, with stretches of time occupied by every power in the region. Though we had a period of Diaspora and left the area for two thousand years does it matter whether it was two days or two thousand years? Of course not. It is now time to fully reclaim this land and come to a final solution to the Palestinian problem. The moral clarity of this solution will shatter any sentimental notions
Though one can object to some “final solutions” previously, there were merits to it. Ironically, Germany’s final solution, allowed for the creation of the state of Israel, and Adolph Hitler may have inadvertently done more for Jews than Herzog. Though it is easy to condemn Hitler, I’m sure there was a grain of clarity to his final solution. Israel needs to stop depending on the United States for $3 billion dollars annually and to stop spending 45% of its GNP on military. We need to use this money to really bring back the garden of Eden. Before the creation of the state of Israel, the area was farms, fishing enterprises, and some minor industries, a backwards society that lived for generations tending the land. It was only when Israel took over that we took the archaic farms and made them into modern agribusiness, created arms industries, one of the worlds largest armies, and yes, a very capable nuclear weapons systems that a true transformation was possible. It’s time to rip off the veil of this illusion. Israel is the most powerful army in the Middle East and the sooner it takes the necessary and, albeit politically awkward public relations problem of the Palestinians, the sooner we can get on with fulfilling the prophecies.
Gaza can be a beautiful beach-front resort once Israel relocates Hamas to Somalia or Sudan. The Zionist homeland has worked diligently to get the world to see that this so called National Liberation Movement is in reality a terrorist organization and that all of our actions to wipe out this scourge are a blessing for Israel and all peace loving democracies. Not all Gazans need to leave there are many positions available in the service industry where we will need manpower, but maintaining absolute fealty to the fatherland -- Israel. Between the genius of Israelis and labor of loyal Palestinians is a perfect solution.
All Palestinians who choose not to become citizens of Israel, of course not full citizens, since full citizenship requires conversion to Judaism, but a limited citizenship in the way that Black Jews and other Palestinians have been incorporated into Israeli, would be shown the door to Jordan. In the way that the US uses illegal aliens, Israel needs people to work the farms, wait on tables, and do the necessary manual labor. Of course, like with the talented tenth, the extraordinary Palestinians who accept the notion of an Uber Israeli Jewish state can be part of the great Zionist state. After all, most Muslims in the region were Jews forcibly converted to that Mohammed or Christian thing. Those who chose not to participate in this great democracy will be removed to Jordan which is already sixty percent Palestinian. This would also provide a great opportunity for the people who claim displacement in Lebanon to reunite with their families and that solves the Right of Return. Our vision of a pure homeland that allows for democracy and security to flourish in the context of a Jewish state is a logical conclusion: Wouldn’t you agree?
Though the removal will initially be traumatic the final solution in greater Israel will allow for unprecedented opportunities for Palestinians in Jordan or other countries in the Middle East. Unless there is the preposterous notion of Palestinians having their own fully functioning independent state in the West Bank and Gaza?

Love is the Imperative

2010-04-02T12:39:00.003-04:00

Sweet ecstasy of morning and robins singing that sweet eternal spring song, nascent dreaming Spring. Opening to that possibility. The glorious sweetness of Spring The freshness of the day with unlimited possibilities. Unlimited creative possibilities as well stay focused as part of the morning meditation on Blue Heron Pond. Tremendously creative spirit right now, centered. Awake! Awake the morning is calling to awaken.
My center grounding to this spot here on Blue Heron Pond. Enjoying the absolute simplicity of the morning by Blue Heron Pond.
Do we have the strength of conviction and courage to sit by the pond with exquisite attention to the sound of robins and to the creative inspiration, the crackling vivacious scintillating energy of life. The glorious rhapsody of spring, the affirmation of continuity. The awe and connection to eons when people first felt the awe and hope of Spring. For millennia, after long hard winter the first shoots of green and flowers. A long winter all the food supplies exhausted. The animals scarce. The old and infirmed died. Children born. The circle of life starting over again. This is the continuity. My imperative as an artist or as a person it is very simple: Look! Listen! Be awed!

This is the imperative that I wrote Vermont my home,

CARE WELL

The last poem is
for this elegy to the pond –

sacred body of water
who has taught me more
of reverence than any church.

wiser in its quiet wisdom,
than any holy book or tome.

care well!
it seems to say.
care well!

swimming in the freezing
waters, ice cold springs
surprise and awaken me!

finches, darts of yellow
race across the fields.
blue jay screech warns!
robins, plump, are ready to nest.

care well!
it seems to say.
care well!

frogs’ night chorus more
joyous and godly than any
Bach chorale; tulips divine
the intersect of mystery,
revelation from the earth
and desire from the sun.

The Blue Heron is
nowhere in sight, sage
of these meadows who
nests high in the hemlocks,
is patiently biding her time.

Care well,
she seems to say.
Care well!

In a few years or less
I will be dead, but I
don’t grieve this passing.

I will grieve if we have
not loved this earth with
sublime tenderness,
reverenced the pond as
dearly as our gods, cherished
the wisdom of a flower,
and held the divinity of
each living creature as a
mirror of god’s love.

I believe that as god
spun the planet earth
on her course and
brought it to life

She set it free with this
single blessing:

“Care well!

How do we live in the world with reverence, not for some god or gods of our imagination, not some external moral authority based on our fears and fantasies and miasms of childish emotions. How are we truly coming close to that spirit of a truly wise and tender spirit?
There is too much violence and destruction, our interactions with such misunderstanding and malice, our phenomenal capacity for greed, and our rapacious interaction with the planet. Our spirits should be joyfully singing and opening the our souls to the ecstasy of life and love, yet we choose the lesser. Do I choose personal vanity of anger over the wisdom of the Earth; we choose greed over generosity of spirit. We have far greater capacity to choose a life-affirming way of being in the world. Yet we choose to often, a world such violence and greed. What is the legacy that we leave the next generation?

Violence in all levels is on my mind this morning in all the guises it wears. The destruction of the planet, global warming, militarism, the insane volume of hatred and violence we see on the television, movies, and all the video games. We are culture it seems that worships violence and war. The USA sacrifices the education of our children, the health of a nation, the safety of the environment, and spend more than all of Europe, Russian, and China combined on military. What is this insanity all about?

The Buddhist principle is the mandate --Do no harm. It then compels us to ask, what does this mean? What is the principle of no harm? By opposing this violence in the world do we become a force a power and energy presence for a greater Love? A profound love needs to hold us close, as close as a suckling child to a mother. We need to fill our spirits with the capacity for genuine love. Love that is transformative. Love that embraces the world as a sacred gift.

My imperative as an artist is to celebrate the magnificent beauty of the planet. To hold dear the water, to savor the sweetness of the air, the clarity of the skies, the preciousness of each breath.
How do we live and act in the Miracle Mind?
I sit in meditation by Blue Heron Pond the sun is making its mark around the stand of pines. Sunlight illuminates white rock sits implacable in the center.
Act wisely and well in the world. Turn off the television. Fold the newspapers. Look at this wisdom of a Spring day. The wisdom of the day is a conversation of love. Love as a celebration. Love as joy. Love is the imperative.

Love is the imperative

tender
loving
spirit

care
love
courage

you

other

the Earth

love
is
the
imperative.

namaya @Blue Heron Pond

Museum of An Extinct Race: A People formerly Known as Palestinians

2010-03-13T13:56:00.006-05:00

"We must expel Arabs and take their places." David Ben Gurion l937

There is a living museum in Israel called the Museum of An Extinct Race. The Israeli government will commemorate the memory of a nearly extinct race, a people formerly known as Palestinians (PFKP), who had been living in the fatherland, Eretz Israel, from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River. These primitive folks lived on farms and cities, before the rightful owners, the Jewish people, returned after a two thousand year absence. The Museum of an Extinct Race is another example of the leadership of Israeli in addressing the so-called Palestinian issue and coming to a final solution.
First, it is necessary to correct some misperceptions of these so-called Palestinians. As Prime Minster Golda Meir said, "There is no such thing as a Palestinian people... It is not as if we came and threw them out and took their country. They didn't exist." The anti-Zionist conspiracy has endeavored to undermine the state of Israel, a state founded on the moral bedrock of the old Jewish testament. Though the Israeli flag has a Star of David, the symbol of Judaism, nevertheless, we do not intentionally exclude Muslims. The sooner Muslim Arabs adhere to our European Jewish values the quicker they can be fully incorporated into the greater Zionist vision of the state of Israel, and finally put to rest this, frankly, silly notion of this so called people – Palestinians. Otherwise, in the words of David Ben Gurion our founding Prime Minister, “We must drive them out.” Or, more vividly by Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, “The Palestinians …crushed like grasshoppers ... heads smashed against the boulders and walls.” How can the world or any reasonable person argue with such moral clarity? Nevertheless, the Museum of Extinct Species takes a more enlightened perspective and wishes to preserve the memory of this culture. In as much as Israel has and continues to eradicate the blight of Muslim communities, we wish to preserve the Oriental je ne sais quoi so endearing to tourists.
The term PFKP, people formerly known as Palestinians, eliminates the tedious pretensions of identity and ownership. By eliminating the confusing Muslim names where virtually everyone is Mohamed or Ali, we assigned numbers to them, PFKP 1, PFKP 2, and so forth, and give each a small tattoo for record keeping. The Museum of an Extinct Race is a sure path to a final solution to the Palestinian issue by eliminating the remotest pretension of a “Palestinian Identity.” As Menachem Begin, the Nobel Peace Prize winner said, “There can be no Jewish state without the eviction of the Arabs and the expropriation of their lands.”
The germ of the project began when our leader Alfred Rosenberg created Hohe Schule or the Academy, a center of education to lay the foundation for this museum and an institution to study the PFKPs. The institution serves as a repository for their books, rugs, and primitive artwork. The PFKPs were mostly agrarian bumpkins and their Muslim ideology of fatalism was a hindrance to their development and failure to adapt to the modern industrial age of capitalism. This underscores some of the arguments of Social Darwinism that some races are inherently more successful than others.
The museum will view how these Arabs came to settle in the greater Levant and for centuries remained in the region, until the return of the Jewish people to their ancestral homes after 2,000 years. Though there was some displacement and readjustment with PFKPs in ancestral villages, and according to the biblical maps these were Jewish settlements or at least had Jewish place names. We acknowledge what David Ben Gurion had said, “There is not a single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population."
In the great liberation of historic Israel in l948, many of these PFKPs fled before the Anschluss to Lebanon and their true homes in Arabic countries. This was a blessing and it gave the rightful Jewish owners a chance to reclaim this land, and after all, as the chosen people, a two thousand year history of absence is a trifle.
The museum will also correct the absurd world-view that the rightful annexation of the land from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River south to the Negev, to the Golan Heights, was wrong. With the final removal of the Arabs from Jerusalem, the full rightful occupation of all of the area to the west Bank, the deportation of unruly and ungrateful Arabs to Jordan or wherever this scourge came from. As Jerusalem is cleared of the last remnants of the PFKPs, they will realize the superior culture and ontogenetic imperative of the Jewish people to achieve an ethnic purity. The Museum of an Extinct Race will be a fitting tribute to the policies of Israel in dealing with PFKPs, or as our scholars have called it “Arabfrage”, the Arab Question. There had been discussions of deporting the remnant people to Madagascar or elsewhere in Africa more accommodating to their Arabic disposition; yet, we wish to preserve the memory of their sejour. For example, the Muslim quarter in old Jaffa, is very charming without the clutter of Muslims, and their old schools and buildings make very chic bistros.
Imagine the possibilities as we contemplate a Final Solution to the thorny Arab Problem. Yes, the ethnic purity of the Israeli homeland will be a profound step forward, and a fitting memorial is this Museum of an Extinct Race.

Old Farmer Joe, the Flying Finn

2010-02-27T08:12:00.006-05:00

Yesterday trudged through the snow, drifts of snow that would swallow a child, huge drifts that captured pickup trucks, mountains of snow so sensuous that a bent and gnarled Vermont dairy farmer by the name of Joe leaped up from his wheelchair by the fire, slapped on a pair of rusty skies from the wall, put on his GI helmet from WW II, and roared, "If I die in this last run, let it be with a fit of glory." With a stiff shot of Wild Turkey, a bellowing roaring hellacious shout that woke up the black bears from their slumbering winter reverie Farmer Joe took off like a greased pinball. Well not that elegant, he looked like marionette on Ritalin and a double dose of espresso, he flew in a whirling pirouette, akimbo, the geometry of space and time defied, one ski to the ground the other at an impossible angle defying the expectations of physics and a withered arthritic body.

His wife Maude looked out the window and said, "Damn!" Get the hell off the mountain you crazy old coot!"
She was so angry and knew that Joe couldn't hear a damn thing since he lost his hearing aid nearly a decade ago. A determined tenth generation Vermont woman, she grabbed her 12 gauge shot gun from over the fire place, popped in a few shells, and turned to the mountain where Joe was coming over the hill so fast and with such acrobatic improbability he could pass for Shaun White or one of those other snowboarding fools.

Joe was ready for the last half mile when Maude let loose with a shotgun blast to get his attention. As she was to tell the police, I didn't want to hurt the SOB, I just wanted to get his attention. Well, the road to salvation and perdition are both lined with the best of intentions, and in equal measures in some cases, most time not. So when she aimed at the mountain ridge, a good 25 yards behind his head, she didn’t fully take into account the wind, barometric pressure, or the fact she didn’t have glasses on. Maude couldn’t find the thick coke bottle glasses, but she could find her way around the house just fine. As to the shot, well, it was a fine and splendid shot, as accurate as one could expect. Amazingly enough, it was exactly 25 yards behind his head, so crisp and powerful, it knocked her half way cross the kitchen, but the real fun was just about to begin, or at least from some people’s point of view.

The ledge of snow, ice, and debris that had been building up on the rock ledge gave a ferocious shudder, and even old farmer Joe who was in the most glorious rapture, envisioning himself as the Flying Finn, as a an Olympian athlete trapped in the rusty vestments of an old coot, that was until the avalanche woke him up. He took a gander behind him, it looked like the jaws of death with jagged white teeth ready to chomp him up. Not just, chomp, chomp, and chew him up. This one was going to chew him up and spit him right out into the Pearly Gates, perhaps delivered in a few dozen pieces.

Even the Flying Finn never flew in such a fleeting ferocious flurry. In the midst of fear that would have killed even the most mortal of men, Old Joe, casual as a professional assassin was unmoved. He moved the wad of Red Chief chew tobacco to his other cheek, gave a long gnarled brown spit, crouched down as much as he could, tucked the poles under his arm, and gave a banshee come hell or high water scream, “Yahooooooo! It’s death or glory!” Some accounts who witnessed old Joe’s race down the mountain some described it as a Baryshnikov on skis, others as the Flying Finn, and those more jaundiced like his friend Josiah said, “Damn fool, put on his hat and jacket, but forgot to put on his pants! The boy gotta’ be careful, something important might fall off.” Yes, folks, a half naked Vermont dairy farmer out of control, skiing on one leg and the other at the most peculiar of right angles, chased by an avalanche down the side of the steepest mountain in all of Southern Vermont.

Death and old Joe were neck and neck, Death nipped at his skis and chewed a chunk or two, a boulder of ice flew by his head and nicked his ear, the avalanche was gaining, but Joe determined to beat the old SOB of Death. “I’ve been here for 90 years and Death I ain’t going with you!” As he took the most monstrous of moguls, a sixty-foot ravine and faster than a Shelby Mustang in fifth gear, he hit that mountain. Up, up, up high he flew! For good measure, or perhaps for dumb, real dumb luck, he did a double back flip and through some miracle no one could quite explain, he fly so high and far that he wound up in a feathery soft snow bank outside his front door. Head peering up from the snow, skis impaled on the wall of the house, and he looked up to see the beet red face of his wife.
Maude said, “What took you so damn long to get off the mountain!”

Returning from Holiday at the US Airport from the Middle East

2010-02-16T09:11:00.001-05:00

Returning to the US after a month in Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon I was of course stopped by the security guards and a rotund TSA officer who looked like he was a life long devotee of McDonalds and KFC. As I can best near recall, this was the conversation

Security
Why were you in all these A rab countries? Were you making bombs?” he started to chuckle at his joke.

Me
No, I am only a student of the process. A student, you know, Talib, to learn.
(The security guard looked at me suspiciously)

Security
What were you learning?

Me
Why in the medina, I am sure you know, in the old city of Damascus they have….Shssshh! Hush hush (and lowered my voice) a nuclear bomb factory.

(His eyes bulged; I could see in his eyes the American flag and hailed on TV as a hero for uncovering a bomb factory in the Middle East. From the pudgy jowls, his eyes squeezed closed)

Security
Tell me more!” he said with stern authority

(I felt I had no other choice but to lay it on thick and fast.)

Me
Well sir, I know I can trust you with this very classified information, as you are the most senior TSA guard, and of course the TSA, is like (I paused and lowered my voice)… the CIA, but better.

(His chest puffed up like a cartoon figure of Pluto in Popeye, and like the cartoon, when he puffed up his chest his pants started to fall down, but my TSA guard at the gate was quick on the draw and grabbed his trousers.)

Me
There in the medina, the old city is a veritable nest of Muslims making nuclear bombs faster than grandma baking cookies. When you go past the bab, that is the gate, past the dress shops and the headscarves is a tiny alley, by Sheik yer Booties Baksheesh shop, and if you knock three times on the ceiling, tick tock tick, not any more, because that will tip them off, they’ll blow themselves up quicker than you can say “Allah Akhbar. By the way do you know what Allah Akhbar means don’t you?”

Security
Sure do, Allah Akhbar means, I got a bomb and I’m going to lay a jihad on you. Right? (He looked at me with this limpid rheumy cholesterol filled eyes.)

Me
Man, you’re one smart TSA guy! No wonder they have the best of the best working here.

Security
(With his chest puffed out and clutching his pants)
He said, “Sure thing! Shssshh don’t say anything, but I am the Top Gun here.

Me
Your secret is safe with me… Top Gun…sshhhh!” As I was telling you, it looks like an ordinary shop where they make tourist trinkets and t-shirts “Grandma went to Mecca and bought me this t-shirt,” but no in the back room (I lowered my voice even softer as he leaned closer) is not only where they make bombs, but… Shssshh nuclear bombs. It is Iran but worse.

Security
What could be worse than an Islamic nuclear bomb?

Me
A picture of a naked American girl wearing a headscarf! Yup, they’re making that bomb in the little backroom, reactors in the rear next to the bathroom, uranium storage facilities by the stove, and I know it is hard to believe but these – pervert Jihadists are making a bomb that will scare thebe Jesus out of any righteous Christian American.

Security
I’ve got to call this in. I’ve been taking notes and

(Suddenly a voice over the speaker said, “Mc Coy, you can let the suspect go.”)

Security
But this man has observed a terrorist plot and they’re making nuclear bombs in the markets of Old Damascus! This is national security stuff!

Voice of the Office through the Speaker
Look, uhm, Top Gun, we get it all on tape (In the background I could hear them laughing through the thin door) and you can let him go. We’ll put a tail on him and make sure everyone knows how you cracked this case wide open.

Security
Really sir? Yes, sir. Yes, sir. No terrorist can get past me! You sure we have to let him go? Right?

Me
Thank you Top Gun I am glad that I was able to share with you this evil cabal in the souq of Old Damascus.

Haiti, Love, Courage and Lords of the Flies

2010-02-11T08:42:00.004-05:00

Love and Courage in Haiti

My journey to Haiti began improbably in Damascus as I watched Al Jazeera’s broadcast of the earthquake, and then received a message from a friend, “We have a plane going to Haiti can you come for medical work?” On my return from a month in the Middle East, I booked my flight to Florida and hooked up with a homeopathic medical team to Port Au Prince. Words are too anemic to hold the immensity of this tragedy that has shattered the very brittle foundation of Haitian society. The catastrophe is not only the humanitarian crisis, it is the story of a people who overthrew slavery, were oppressed by colonial powers, suffered from decades of dictatorships and misrule, and who remain trapped in poverty and ruled by a tiny elite. Nevertheless, out of the tragedy there is, however bleak, a tomorrow founded on the strength, courage, and dignity of the Haitians as they endeavor to rise above the catastrophe.
I arrived on Wednesday night in early February a few weeks after the major earthquake demolished 90% of Port Au Prince. I expected the worst. I packed water and food for seven days, a back up water filter, kazoos for kids, balloons, flutes and whistles, homeopathic medicines, a sleeping bag, a ground cloth, 165 pounds of medical supplies, my guitar and extra strings, and miscellaneous items. I felt like I was preparing for an Army excursion instead of a humanitarian mission. There was support, money, and help from many friends and neighbors. Haiti has inspired so much love and support from around the world, and my earnest hope is that this love will endure and engender a genuine transformation for all Haitians.
The next day we awoke at 5 a.m. and drove north from Santo Domingo to the Haitian border. Lush mountains and fields pass by in an idyllic reverie. Convoys of supplies creep up to the border and we inadvertently join a Canadian military contingent of jeeps, construction equipment, medical supplies, soldiers, security, and the thousands of other components that make up a relief mission. How does anyone coordinate any of this? How are the myriad of aid agencies, with all their noble intentions, making a cohesive and coordinated plan? Here in this former paradise, now a desert of need, every drop of help and assistance is a blessing.
There are no passport controls at Haiti’s borders; instead, total chaos, brutal survival, no running water, children bathed in buckets of brackish water, an open ditch on the side of the road is the toilet, human life stripped of all dignity except for the dignity to survive. Several thin children with swollen bellies are playing in a puddle of sewage and other kids dressed in worn and soiled shorts. The fetid smell of sewage, sweat, and unwashed bodies permeates the air. It is hot without respite of trees or shade. The roads are the most basic tracks carved into the dirt, whatever was a road has long disappeared, cavernous pot holes every few meters is a reminder that you have now entered a Fifth World country; not a Third world country, but a Fifth World hell of abject poverty, except for the tiny elite who rule. Cars broken down by the side of the road and stripped of anything useful and piles of trash and garbage. It is as if a giant airplane dumped humans and cargo from the sky and left. Even in the best of times, Haiti is the poorest of poor countries, and now it has slipped even further away.
At the border, a vast new salt-water lake is creeping further in land. No one knows where this is coming from. In a country of disasters, this is only one more disaster and it has to take its place in a long queue of problems. Devoured by an earthquake, drowning from the sea, air polluted by burning garbage and human waste, open cooking fires from scraps of wood, a recipe for hell in the midst of what was once an island paradise.
The white chalk and salt hills to the south, fields with weeds and scrub grass, but there are no signs of sugar cane or other cash crops. People dressed in threadbare rags till the fields by hand with wooden hoes, the same tools their grandparents tended these fields. Ninety percent of Haitians work on fields like this or in a similar degree of servitude on some of the larger plantations. However, there is an even lower level of desperation, another lower circle of hell, thousands of children sold to peasant families as slaves, restaveks. Restaveks “one who stays with a family,” is an old Haitian tradition, an irony in this a country who freed themselves from slavery, and then created this new form of slavery. Thousands of children are enslaved and there is an organization working to free those children. (http://www.restavekfreedom.org/).
Driving to the epicenter of the quake in Port Au Prince, the cracked and fallen buildings become more numerous, masses of people wander the streets. The further you drive into Port Au Prince, the more intense the devastation. Though the city had over two million living in abject poverty in shacks like the sprawling slum of Cite Soleil before the earthquake, it is difficult to imagine a situation more tragic and grave. The Presidential Palace looks like a wedding cake tossed to the sky, akimbo, and broken. The pride and culture of Haiti destroyed: Parliament, Museums, government buildings, 90% of the city, and most of the schools and universities are gone. The once elegant park across from the Presidential palace now completely filled with tiny huts built with scraps of wood, plastic, cloth, or anything remotely resembling a home. People wash in buckets, pee in the streets, nurse babies, every aspect of life is jammed into this park. Tens of thousands of people are everywhere, some selling bananas, offering shoeshines, fruit juice sold on top of a crate, anything to make a few cents. Others are building shanties, tending babies, and children play everywhere. Wherever the tiniest space exists, another cluster of tents and shacks appear. Haiti offers us a new lexicon of wretchedness, but also dimensions of faith and courage.
This morning we met our host, a very wealthy Haitian, the Patron. His palatial modern office is sumptuous, adorned with exquisite folk art, and refreshingly cool after the ten-hour journey. He is the epitome of graciousness and offers us coffee, water, and a fine bottle of wine. He is one of the 1/10th of 1% who reigns in lordly splendor. His mother’s magnificent house; she’s left for Miami for one of their town houses to wait out the earthquake, while some of his employees sleep in the street.
Though Haiti was the first slave colony to over-throw the French, under threat of invasion in 1824 they had to pay their slave masters restitution until WW II. Yes, kidnapped from Africa, sold into slavery, worked for the French, overthrew them, and then had to pay them back! Haiti dutifully paid over 50 % of the national budget annually for a hundred and twenty five year period. Former President Aristide calculated, adding interest and adjusting for inflation, France owes Haiti $21 billion dollars.
IF is the operative word here: if there had been some building codes, if people had not skimped on rebar in building, if the concrete had not been of such an inferior quality, and if people had spent a few cents more, much of this destruction would have been spared. The neighborhood we are working in is a working poor neighborhood, but the earthquake took away the thin divide that separated them from the abjectly poor. At the end of the street, a partially destroyed Catholic Church from the late 1800’s still stands, its tin green roof torn off, the broken plaster walls holding crosses, and other walls barely standing. Church services on Sunday will be outdoors. The political dimensions of power and poverty are always apparent. The Catholic Church has staunchly opposed birth control, condoms, and the result has been AIDS, high birthrate, and high infant mortality. The Catholic Church has been part of the power structure and elite since the founding of Haiti and their culpability in this misery cannot be underestimated.
I walk down the alleys past the main streets and the labyrinth of poverty intensifies. The poorest of the poor use a tarp or scrap of wood or plastic to create a rudimentary shelter or home. A long cement channel choked with stagnant raw dark green sewage bakes in the sun, and a man sits by the side and defecates into it. All illusions of privacy ripped away. I’ve traveled around the globe in almost one hundred countries and have never seen poverty this stark that denies all levels of humanity.
One scraggly bearded man in rags sits on the street corner talking to himself. Even before the earthquake, there was no assistance for the mentally ill, unless taken in by a family. How many seriously mentally ill people are walking around without help?
Our medical team was supposed to work in an orphanage, but it had been completely leveled and their orphans are now homeless and wandering the streets. How many more new orphans are there? In a city of disaster and ruin, whom do you attend to first?
One of the few intact buildings is the French Hospital, a private hospital managed by our wealthy Patron. We began treating patients in front of one of the most exclusive HMO’s (Health Maintenance Organization) on the island, and none of those we treated could have afforded treatment here. A few wealthy Haitians come to the HMO, but the elite go to the Dominican Republic or Miami for their health care. Part of the older hospital had collapsed, but the new clinic survived.
Our “clinic” is a large tent in the parking lot of the hospital. We have two long tables and a few homeopaths, and without advertising, a steady clientele appears. We have the simplest of supplies, bandages, remedies, and willingness to spend time with the patients. Truly, the word “patient” was never more accurate; “patient” in Latin means “to suffer.” The patients, mostly poor, their hands thick with calluses from years of hard manual labor, tell similar stories.
“How long the problem? The illness? The insomnia? The fear?”
“Depuis de tremble terre …Since the earthquake.”
I manage mostly in French with a bit of Creole. With eye contact and gestures, it is easy to discern what they’re saying. Most are still in shock. If they have a home, they’re afraid to return, and almost all are living in the street. The health problems are chronic and most have parasites, many appear malnourished from years of poverty, untreated hypertension and diabetes, infant diarrhea, and few have the money to get help.
Our team offered five to ten minutes visits to hundreds of patients per day. In the many patients I saw and served, the miracle was not necessarily the medicine, but the willingness to be here and look into the eyes of the people, to hold their calloused hands and say, “We/ I care about you. Bless you.” Love always is the best medicine. However, it is also invaluable when you have the right homeopathic remedy and supplies, and the allopathic resources. I saw patients for hours, but did not tire as the Haitians’ consistent love and courage revived me.
Frequently they said, “Thank you for coming.” After I treated one adorable six-year old girl, she leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. Her almond eyes bright and filled with life, how can we in the international community not help this next generation? How can we allow a nation to sink further into poverty?
I liked our portable clinic, less then five meters from the road, open gate, so that anyone could come in; first come first serve, no insurance or fee, no paperwork. People queued up as properly as an English bus stop. It would have been grand to have a full clinic with other specialty services, but this shade tree health care was refreshing. The challenge now is can we create based on clean water and sanitation, good nutrition, use of botanical plants, homeopathy, wholistic and allopathic medicine, and, of course, love? Imagine if this model was in the USA, we could have genuine health care reform. I met so many people, international medical, religious, and church groups, and our homeopathic cadre who offer something more than aid -- a precious gram of hope. Perhaps, the tiny homeopathic dose of love can be the seed to create a new Haiti. Where is the future of Haiti? Two hundred thousand are dead, unaccountable wounded; the hospitals and all the important public buildings and institutions destroyed.
Part of the answer and problem lies in the wealthy, who have ruled and lorded over Haiti since independence in 1804. A Haitian friend said, “Our country never escaped slavery, because the wealthiest enslaved the population, kept all the power and land, and allowed the people to slip further and further into poverty.” Now Haiti is the poorest of all the countries of the Western Hemisphere. The wealthy Haitians who have not left for Paris or Miami are unaffected by the earthquake. Invited to a very wealthy man’s house, I was going to refuse. I have a weak stomach, I didn’t want to puke on the fine china, but a perverse voyeurism compelled me to join them for dinner. After a forty-five minute drive through a devastated city, amongst people living in absolute squalor, we arrive at the most exclusive part of town. One minute we are in squalor and ruined roads, and the next moment, we have changed worlds. The cobblestone roads are meticulous, there is not a spot of garbage, and even the gutters swept clean. Stout walls and metal gates surround their estates. Our host was quite agreeable and pleasant; how can you not be agreeable when the worst disaster in recent history happened and you’re immune from the affect? They keep drums of diesel in their homes, and their generators work efficiently, even when the rest of the island is without power. Sitting in their manicured garden and oasis of privilege, my mind reels from this surreal experience. Our hostess wears pearls and a well-pressed décolleté evening dress. The air burns with the smell of burning garbage from Port Au Prince, and despite the walls and the distance from the city center, the smell still wafts over the wall. If the situation becomes “too difficult,” they fly in private helicopters or planes to their townhouses in Miami. While the city festers and burns, they are the lords of the flies, lording over this once paradisiacal island. Like flies dancing on a pile of excrement, their light winged dance soaring above the pile, touching down to feast, to regurgitate, procreate, and ensure that the rotting excrescence remains to feed them.
The rich are a metastatic cancer of avarice that has devoured this country. This cancer is like seeing a beautiful woman devoured by the disease… her face and appearance still has a regal elegance, but when you remove the threadbare worn silk nightgown, the gaunt emaciated ravages of the disease is evident. Her clear eyes that flirted under moonlit nights are limpid sclerotic pools. The vital organs devoured, the liver swollen with bile, the bones brittle as dried straw, and the will to live and even to survive seeps away minim by minim.
Despite all the wretchedness, their subjugation by the ruling class, and this recent catastrophe even the poorest Haitians I met possessed a quiet powerful dignity. Their courage and faith is inspiring. One night after a long day of work at the clinic, I sat on the outside steps of the hospital to rest. A family with mother, father, children, and grandparents were living on the sidewalk. Although I am not a Christian, their prayers at night, singing songs to Jesus, and asking for his blessing, touched my heart. I sat in the shadows, and took out my Spanish guitar and softly played along. We were less than four meters away from each other. They read their bible with a feeble blue flashlight. Around us were the fallen ruins of buildings, churches, homes, and rubble in the street, the stench of burning garbage. In the midst of this chaos, their beautiful voices rose up and asked Jesus for his blessing. At the last “Amen,” I walked over to them in the dark and gave the father money. I said, “Merci.” Strange, why I should say thank you, but I had been blessed by their dignity, courage, and grace.
The following morning across the street from the clinic, Sunday church service at 6 AM, in an open courtyard surround by ruined buildings, as thousands overflowed and filled the streets. Though many had lost homes, loved ones, and most of their worldly possessions, through some miracle, they dressed in clean and pressed clothes, suit and tie, polished shoes, and pressed dresses. They greeted each other with a sincere handshake, a smile, and a hug.
Songs and prayers in the midst of destruction, apartment houses with the doors and windows intact but lying upside down, at improbable angles. One building intact from the front, but the rear of the building is sheered off, furniture still in place, even a picture frame on the wall. A cement building sliced as if a wedding cake cut with a hot knife and the other half almost perfectly preserved. It is the imperfect logic of nature. The voices of the people rose above the rubble. The evangelical Minister screamed out “Jesus, give us mercy! Jesus, give us courage! Jesus, bless us! Jesus, hear our prayers!” It is an inspiring tent revival service, but there is no tent, only the sky above with blue skies and white puffy clouds serenely pass by.
“Amazing Grace,” sung in Creole by thousands filled my spirit as I treated patients. I gave each patient a homeopathic remedy and felt the remedy itself potentized, made more powerful, by the love and prayers next to me.
I had expected a difficult journey, but despite the lack of water, cold showers when the water was on, voracious mosquitoes, and a few other inconveniences, overall, it was so much easier with the good spirit of the Haitians and my Dominican companion Ruben. My small inconveniences don’t even compare to their lives; I can leave this poverty, they can’t. I had seen hundreds of patients during this stay and though they had lost everything, they opened their hearts and told me a bit of their suffering and lives. I didn’t feel overwhelmed with the devastation; their courage strengthened and fed me. It touched me on a more profound level of humanness– dignity. There is little that is noble about poverty; perhaps, only the courage to live in the present moment, unbowed by the circumstance.
I gave the children a few kazoos and flutes, some crayons and paper, and their faces lit up with surprise. A handful of plastic kazoos, flutes, or penny whistles; it’s as if you gave a violinist a Stradivarius. I played on my guitar they followed on flute and kazoos, a rambunctious chaotic blues! It was delightful to see the adults smiling at this funny scene – this white guy playing guitar and trying to create an orchestra from kazoos, flutes, and penny whistles. The following day I received a present. The kids came over to the clinic area, and gave me two small hard candies in wrappers and said, “Thank you!” Their smiles alone would have been a present enough, and I carefully wrapped the candies in a paper to preserve that memory.
A disaster like this earthquake brings out tremendous kindness, charity and love. My Haitian friend Joe said, “The thing Haiti needs is love! This love, is about changing the character of the country, where the rich and powerful can open their hearts and souls to the people. When we embrace our past and the pain, the power of Agape (love) can heal.” From a former US Army Major turned humanitarian these are powerful words to embrace.
As much as Haiti needs economic assistance, it sorely needs justice as well. The pernicious colonialism of France extorted money from Haiti for 125 years. The United States has a long and sordid history in Haiti: occupation from l915 to l935; active support for the brutal and rapacious dictatorships to follow; its endorsement of virtual slave plantations up to the present, and the US government’s profound allergy to any kind of genuine independent democratic leaders like Aristide. Though the US and international communities are ostensibly generous, it needs to engage in a profound change in the way that it supports and aids Haiti to true economic, political, and social independence. False aid, like charity, robs people of the means to transform their lives. For decades, the US government and the EU, inadvertently or not, funneled aid to the wealthy and well connected who perpetuate their fiefdom.
Haiti is a ravaged beauty: the immense forests have all been denuded, watersheds compromised, top soils depleted by generations of plantations and ignorant agriculture practice. Desperate for fuel and wood, people are still cutting down forests, and less than 1% of the national forests are left. It is difficult to fathom how this desperately impoverished country with very few resources, a high birthrate, generations of poverty and malnutrition, pervasive illiteracy, and the largest pool of the best-educated Haitians living abroad, can make a new tomorrow. Tragically, a law in l987 said that if you have another passport, you lose your Haitian citizenship, and so the Haitian Americans who can be bedrock of a transformation, are not even citizens anymore. Is there a viable future for Haiti and if so who will create it, and who will profit?
The real heroes, if one can use this battered and soiled word “hero,” are the Haitians who wake up every day, feed their children, and sweep the sidewalk in front of whatever place they are sleeping. Haiti has barely survived. There is a tomorrow, but the foundation of tomorrow is tenuous, unless stabilized by a sustained international commitment of resources, money, and investment, and a true commitment to a democratic and pluralistic process.
On the way back to the US I spoke to a young Haitian-American woman from the World Bank based in Washington and asked her if her if she would work in Haiti with all the corruption, dysfunctional governance, etc., and she said, “Maybe, if there is the right project.” Her reticence indicated it would be very difficult to entice this extraordinarily talented woman to work in an environment of such monumental problems and chaos. Those who can leave Haiti do. Where is the talent, vision, spirit and money to genuinely lead this country out of the miasma of this pervasive poverty?
The dignity of faith, courage and love must be part of the necessary vision to guide and create a new Haiti.

Spiritual Malaise and Genocide in Palestine Justice First, then Peace

2010-01-27T16:19:00.004-05:00

In Palestine as I walked through the streets and markets, spoke with taxi drivers, shopkeepers, engineers, herbalists, and just about anyone who would talk to me with my odd mix of Yemeni/ Moroccan Arabic. Whether it was Jerusalem, the Palestinian cities of Nabblus, Bethlehem, and or other towns I could feel this spiritual malaise and despair. I can only imagine how this despair is in Gaza now, under lock and key by the Israeli government, and barely a word of protest from the international community. This spiritual malaise is something not always in words, it is the feel of a people who are asked to leave their homeland, who have witnessed the destruction of their homes, have the stories of their families driven from their homes, and have seen the Diaspora of the Jews now visited on the Palestinians. The more time I spent in Palestine and Israel, the more profoundly I felt my own sense of despair. The lush valleys from Galilee, the farms near Tel Aviv, the best pastures and the best land seized by Israel, while people in the Occupied Territories like Bethlehem are consigned to the poorest most arid land, and the water that is used to fertilized these fields are all owned by Israel. Then there is this 30 foot (8 Meter) high wall of Separation, I call the Wall of Shame, brutal ugly monstrous wall that separates Palestine: family from family and neighbor from neighbor. It is almost impossible to imagine a more insidious, cruel, Kafkaesque kind of prison. Palestinians imprisoned in their own land and four million plus Palestinians outside of Israel and West bank who cannot return driven from their home during one of the wars in Israel, civilians who were forced from their homes.
In Israel and Palestine, both in the expressed and the implied conversations, I heard and witnessed a culture and people that is being annihilated. Though there are success stories of people who have survived this Nakbah, the catastrophe since the l948 War of Occupation, overall it is a culture under siege, in as much as the children in the concentration camps of Treblinka drew pictures of a barbed wire future with butterflies and trees, this is also the vision I am getting of Palestine. Prisoners in their own land, free as long as they remain within the boundaries of their town, and if the Israeli government wants to reclaim more Palestinian land, as long as they meekly comply then there is no problem. When they speak up for their basic human rights, they’re branded as terrorists and imprisoned.
This physical destruction of a contiguous community and land has been variously described as Bantuization, Apartheid, Ethnic Cleansing, and even Genocide, and which can all can be effectively argued as true. Palestinians in the West Bank are locked into some thirteen ghettos, all roads are controlled by the Israeli army, checkpoints are frequent, and though as a Palestinian you are native to the land, you are now held prisoner, without passport, and even if you do get the chance to leave for study or medical help, there is no guarantee you can return.
Repeatedly as I traveled through the West Bank I saw more Israeli settlements expanding, however, they’re not really settlements, they’re cities. Settlement implies a newly colonized place with a quality of temporality. These are not temporary places they’re made of concrete and steel, with swimming pools, recreational facilities, schools, and taking over as much of their neighbor’s land as possible. These neighbor lands belong to Palestinians, but the Israel government and military have the prerogative to seize land at whim without judicial recourse. Consider this, you own a home with a bit of land, someone moves in and builds a house, drills for water, and when you complain they call the police. This is the maddening insane part of the Occupation. You have no rights, your land and home can be seized at any time, and you can be arrested without any civil rights. Routine reports of Palestinians youngsters arrested, kept in detention, without notification of their parents, and without a need to file charges. I saw and heard Israeli soldiers standing at the gates in Jerusalem, yelling and humiliating Palestinians youths, while other police around were smirking and laughing. A young Israeli soldier all of nineteen yelled at the young man, “What’s wrong with you? You don’t have your papers, they’re all wrong!” The young man said, “I live here, this is my street.” But to no avail, the police took him away. Five armed Israeli IDF soldiers with semi automatic rifles marched this young man to a police station. This is only the tip of the nightmare; the nightmare of the Occupation continues every moment and every day for Palestinians living in the West Bank.
As a child, I lived in Spain during the Franco era. I remember vividly the Guardia Civil on each street corner, armed with rifles, pistols, and sword: This was the world I had stepped into again. Most vividly was coming from Ramallah, the administrative capital of Palestine, to Jerusalem. All people, regardless of nationality had to get off the bus, proceed to a transit point, where there was a concrete and metal `bunker by a series of metal cages. The metal cages were about 6’ tall x 2 wide (2m x ½ m), they were about 15’ (5 m) feet long. There were two lines and once in the gate you could neither move forwards or backwards, the IDF soldiers were standing idle, they were not processing people. This was a cat and mouse game. They looked bored with their game. Periodically, they would allow a few to pass, but mostly you stood in the cage in a concrete room. The Palestinians next to me said nothing, their eyes downcast, they knew there was nothing they could do, their only hope was to say nothing, and hope to reach the other side. Bizarrely, a group of young soldiers was in the concrete bunker a few meters away behind a bulletproof glass, and one remained inside; when his friends left, he plugged in his earphones and began to play air-guitar through the window. It would almost be funny, but I had the eerie feeling of walking into a gas chamber while a guard was whistling a merry “Deutsch Land Uber Alles.” This is the daily humiliation of Palestinians. If you work in Israel and need to get in for work at 8 Am, people begin to line up as early as 2 AM, in order to make work on time. If you are ill and need to go to a hospital you still need to wait on line.
I was hoping before I left, that I would find that much of this was exaggeration, that perhaps this was a misunderstanding, that the Occupation was not as brutal as it seemed, and that Israel was a relatively benign and just state. After all that we have been through for thousands of years, we could only be just. No! This Occupation both of Gaza, the West Bank with its 30 foot (8 meter) high wall, institutionalized Apartheid, is a savage affront to humanity. It robs the dignity of both the Palestinians and Israelis.
I was always proud of my Jewish ancestry, our history, and our rising above adversity. We had a deep sense of righteousness and justice. We knew suffering and exile, and this history would be shinning moral example in the new land of Israel. But it hasn’t been. Israel and its policy of apartheid is shameful. Both people are imprisoned in this tragedy, the Israelis by the opprobrium of the international community, and the ultimate realization that with spending and investing up to 45% of its GNP on the military, it is in a no win situation. It can win the skirmish, but it cannot win the peace, no matter how much money they spend.
In the meantime, the despair is prominent, as Palestinians see their homes destroyed, their olive trees and fields uprooted by Israeli settlers and no legal recourse, more lands seized, and the basic human rights of liberty, due process, and a right to a future is denied. Justice for the Palestinians is the first step with a viable two state solution where a free and independent Palestine can exist, one that includes all of the area of the west bank from the time of the l967 war, a free Gaza, and ultimately the right to return for Palestinians. The quid pro quo is that the Palestinians have full control of their security and future, and Israel is able to live in peace.

NB: Several informative books on this subject are: Israel: Apartheid: A Beginner’s Guide by Ben White; Disappearing Palestine by Jonathan Cook; Peace Not Apartheid by Jimmy Carter.

Ramallah to Jerusalem - Jordan

2010-01-16T14:59:00.005-05:00

Coming Back from Rammallah in the Palestinian Territory
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STANDING IN A CATTLEGATE:
Off the bus from Ramallah to Jerusalem. The bus drivers, Israelis grunt, they don’t speak, they grunt “No English.” An international tourist destination and the speak only Hebrew? I turn to the Palestinian woman, and ask her what is going on and she leads me through the drill. Take your bags out of the bus, take them through the checkpoint, have your bags cleared, we have to go through the checkpoint. You line up in a cattle pen about a meter wide, just about 2 meters high, and you wait in these pens. We waited on line behind prison bars for a half hour or more, nothing compared to the daily humiliation of the Palestinians. This felt like a total denial of humanity. Like cattle in a shute waiting to go into the slaughter house. Young Israeli soldiers in a guard house leave a few meters from us, they are wearing flack jackets and M 16s. Another soldiers is in there, he has an I pod, and behind bullet proof glass he is playing air guitar, while there are about 100 people on line in metal cages waiting to get through customs. He is in his bullett proof bunker playing air guitar while we wait No reason for us to wait. It is part of the daily harassment that all Palestinians go through. It simply says, We are the ones in charge, we control your life, we control everything.
Palestinian youth. Palestinian youth in Ramallah by the borders, dressed in designer jeans
angry looking like they are ready to explode, the prickliness of teenager boys living in a society that tells them there is no future.
In my installation project called: Life In Palestine: Genocide? Holocaust? Ethnic Cleansing? this will be one of the pieces that will be featured.

Jerusalem
Coming back into Jerusalem I thought, for a change of pace I would stay in the Armenian quarter, and get a different perspective. Walking in this area by Jaffa Gate, Bab Al Khaleel, flooded with orthodox Jews, brushing past and thinking they are NFL line backers. Excuse me, I am to step aside for you after you walk into me? No way, I stop and they stop, they walk around me. There is this feeling they have all these soldiers around them and they can do what they want. This has nothing to do with the Judaism I know, admire, and appreciate.
A young Palestinian teenager escorted by five, yes five armed Israeli soldiers with M-16s, they were marching in step. I wanted to give the young man my attorney’s card. But there is none, no judicial process for these kinds of young men. No civil rights. They can and are stopped, harassed, picked up by the police, detained for days or weeks at a time, their families do not know where they are, and they could be detained indefinitely. This is the word on the ground from Palestinian after Palestinian.
One Israeli Palestinian said, “Ïf you don’t say ANYTHING or ask any questions, and do exactly as they tell you to, then you might be okay. We are always part citizens of Israel, we are never full citizens. The flag is for the Jewish people not for the Christian or Muslims.”
One Israeli Man said, “We are actually more like Australia, there are lot of ostriches that are keeping their head in the sands.”
In Jerusalem, Hotel Imperial is generally the kind of funky one star hotel I like to stay at. From the l800’s an aging whore who has managed to keep enough of her self together that you can easily imagine what she was like in her prime. Old carpets, walls that are covered with photos of the city, and you can easily imagine this as one of the grand hotels. However, about 10 PM the bulldozers started to work out front from about 10 to the morning, finally I called the front desk. I tossed and turned as to what I should do. I called the front desk and the clerk put me in the furthest back room at 3 Am and I kind of dozed off till woken by church bells at 7 am.
Neve A Shalom:
Last night, Wednesday, after a difficult journey into Neva Shalom met with Howard who gave me the run down of their program at Neva Shalom. A lovely looking little village on a mountain top. Strange in the back of my head I am thinking, hmmm, settlement houses are built on tops of hills. I had a horrific time getting into Neva Shalom using public transport, also half asleep didn’t help. I found myself relying on local Palestinians since the Israelis I spoke to either spoke Russian or only Hebrew. My Russian is a thin soup and my Hebrew are the basics like “Makova – What’s going on? And my favorite “La ira Ga. Chill out!” I’ve used bus stations around the world even in countries where I am clueless of the language, and I get around fine. Someone will always hold you by the hand and get you on the bus. This is one of the many vital lessons of travel, the kindness of strangers, and their willingness to help. However, I did people some people who were quite kind and gracious, Naama, and others… but I am afraid that for too many Israelis, the native borns known as Sabras -- it is no longer a fruit that is very tough on the outside and sweet on the inside: The new Sabra is impermeable on the outside and the fruit is bitter and rotting on the inside.

I met David fire an Israeli artist/ performance artist who was half drunk. He was on a retreat at the Latourne Monastery and old Christian monastery that has been here since the middle ages. I couldn’t quite figure out his relationship to the monastic experience since he was swigging back shots of something like Uzzo while I had dinner and kept focusing on his need to meet a woman. What was that line from the Fellini movie? Give me a woman? A month at a monastery even for the most secular of folks probably could push you over the top. After dinner, exhausted from traveling in from Remli, and not sleeping the night before I was ready to sleep well. David came by with a bottle of fine wine from the monastery and we had a splendid evening. We took out the guitar, played songs, made up poems, talked of the madness of Israeli society,
David said, ”I’m a Jew, I’m an Israeli, these people are fucking racists. These religious people are killing us. I hate them!” He spoke with such conviction and clarity, and the wine seemed to soften the edge of his anger. Hanging out with peace activists and singing “Salam/ Shalom,” or hanging with David? David was a blessing, an Israeli screaming at the madness and feeling lost. Loving the land, but detesting what his people had become.
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At midnight there was a group of 200 highschool teenagers were screaming, climbing on roof tops, and other neighbors asked them to be quiet. There were three teachers and the teenagers were totally out of control, singing, laughing, and having a grand time. But it was hell. I couldn’t sleep.
When I saw some of the kids at breakfast, I spoke to a few, and said I was awake. One said, sheepishly, it was there last night there. No apology, no remorse, he just turned his head away. These young men and women will be in the army in a year or two. In addition, I am sure that there are some who are of good heart and spirit, at least I hope, but there is this profound sense of arrogance amongst these kids that I have seen also in my journey in Israeli. It is the oddest thing. I've known Israelis around the world and had some good friendships, but hadn't seen this kind of in your face "fuck you kind of pervasive arrogance."
In the evening, a young man walks into the dining room with a semi automatic rifle. I asked the folks at Neve A Shalom and they said, Its normal.” Call me naïve but if you have a place of peace, how can you allow folks with guns? A settler also with an M-16 accosted David my Israeli artist friend.
I wanted to have a warm and fuzzy feeling about Neve a Shalom, and I am sure they are doing wonderful work. The director was very sincere, but I felt like I was in a Jewish town, with an Israeli perspective on peace, and the same sense of the feeling of being in Israel. Neve A Shalom. Staffed by Palestinians and a mix of volunteers. My time was too brief to get a full grasp, but I salute them and all who work for peace, no matter what side of the fence they are on.
One of my insights is that I do need to get back to my meditation and yoga practice. I need to deepen my own grounding in the peace processes. Not just in the actions of a peace maker, but in all the dimensions of peace, and most essentially the spiritual journey. My life is a secular and a spiritual journey. Perhaps that is the divide, wanting to have a life as an artist that is successful, a life as a Peace activist, and a rich spiritual life. I view the journey as spiritual, fused with the perspective that all life is god, all life is precious, the land and water is alive, and we are caretakers for this paradise.

This has been a very difficult journey in Israel. Culturally, in part, I am a Jew, we left this land two thousand years ago. But it gives us NO right at all to call it ours. We left. Whoever came after and who farmed and lived here, this belongs to them. If they want to sell me land, then I am grateful. But there is no exclusive right to land you left thousands of years ago.

My spirit is crying for the children of Israel and Palestine. You can feel the oppression when you are in the West Bank and there is a miasm of this Shettle Jew who never escaped from the Shettle. It is like a poor boy that grew up to be rich, but he is still poor in his heart and the way he behaves. The Israelis never escaped the Shettle, she/ he built a new one, with the Wall of Shame, the Separation Wall as a reminder. Nevertheless, most times for Israelis it is out of sight and out of mind. For the folks in Tel Aviv or further, it is there, but a very distant reality.
What is this Holocaust ghetto mentality? Why is this suffering foisted upon the world sixty years later? Shouldn’t the conversations also include all the other holocausts around the world? One more holocaust museum and I am going to stand out naked wearing a kuffeyah and a Palestinian flag. Does the world need one more Jewish museum? One more Holocaust of Jews? What about one for the 35 million killed by Stalin. Or the 90% of American Indians killed by the genocide of settlers? Or a museum to the 10,000 children who die from hunger?
This is a personal performance project I would like to do, a loincloth, with a kuffeyah and a Palestinian flag wrapped in barbed wire. A large sign, "As you remember the Jewish Holocaust, please remember the Palestinian holocaust that is now conducted by the Israel Government with the blessing of the US government." I can’t think of a better way to show this feeling of disgust and moral outrage.

Walking through the old Muslim quarter, Palestinians, prisoner in their own land, those without Israeli passports, they are selling menorahs, yarmulkes, and other items and this sense of hanging on. Shuffling and playing with the “man” trying to make a living, not making waves, and hoping to hell the Israelis disappear.
"Museum of Extinct Species"
There is a museum in East Jerusalem that is off the beaten path, “The Museum of An Extinct Species,” it represents the Palestinians, or actually as they say in Israel "The Arabs," and like the Nazi museum of Extinct Races, this new one will house the remnants of the Palestinian culture. An article I am now writing.
Spoke with a Hasidim at the bus station – He asked me in English how I was. I asked him, do you really want to know or should I give you a polite answer? I told him that the situation with the Palestinians with their brutal treatment by the Israeli government was very sad and unnecessary. He walked away and shook his head without saying anything.

Coming into Jerusalem in the morning, I hitchhiked from Neva Shalom and was picked up by a beautiful art gallery owner Natalie, I could have hitched a ride with her to Tel Aviv, she owned a contemporary art gallery, and our conversation never once touched on politics, but on another form of art – politics. Picked up by a beautiful woman in the morning talking of art and Islamic art what a great way to start the day. Every hobos dream.
JORDAN:
At the Border crossing.Hate borders. I never do well with them. The noise the militarism, the suspicions, the uncertainly, and all

The Major and the Sinuses: One guard said, you have to go back to Jerusalem, get an entrance visa from the Jordanian Embassy, then go north to Sheik Al Hussein. Though I am a big boy, I could have cried on hearing this. I told him that I do NOT want to go to Israel, it is engaged in horrible behavior to Palestinians. Finally, I was making no progress with that eloquent plea, so wound up at the directors office. He had a wicked sinus headache. He was in no mood to talk to me. However, oddly, I realized that they thought I was sick because I was carrying 50 homeopathic remedies and might let me through.
So the Major spoke fairly good English and I said, “Sir, you look quite ill can I help you with your sinus headache?” There I am in a grubby transit office, with a dyspeptic military officer, and his eyes looked like a beaten puppy dog, “Yes, please, what can you do?” I showed him acupressure points for the eyes and the face. Then gave him a dose of Kali Bich 30 C. Told him about salt water rinses, ginger tea with cinnamon, and about his allergies. A good fifteen minute wholistic homeopathic workup at the border. His assistant tried to argue with him that he was not permitted to let me into Jordan and like the great Pasha, he raised his left hand up a bit, and there was silence. He took out the transit paper that gave me residence in Amman for thirty day. We shook hands and he said “Thank you.” I said, “Shukran, ya saaid. (Than you, sir.) I felt a sense of peace and ease. My only other task was to figure out if I could get into Syria by nightfall.
I walk through the taxi drivers who all want to take me by private taxi to Abbaddi station in Amman, prices from 20 to 40 Dinars about 50 pounds. No, no no. I appreciate it all. Where do the Arabs get the bus? The security guard pointed to a door in the back of transit and said, “This is where the Arab buses are.” I felt like Harry Potter going through the magic platform and arriving in the Wizards Land, though this was grubbier and people poor, but as soon as I walked in and I asked about the transit to Jordan several people came over, big smiles and laughed, and made me so relaxed to be back in an Arabic country. With a big “Ählan Wa Sahhalan” Welcome," pleased that a westerner is chatting with them in Arabic, and then an autobus with about fifteen people are loaded up to Amman. Mothers in headscarves, the Palestinian and Jordanian style, with traditional robes. Babies sleeping in mothers arms, the bus is madly spinning around corners and I am the only one who seems concerned that we might wind up at Allah's gate, but this sense of fatalism and it is in "god's hands"really does give a sense of peace and hope in a world that often denies it.
Then into Jordan where I grab a "serveeece taxi" 4 persons to Damascus for about 14 Dinars. I am not sure I can get into Syria, even though I have been meticulous about emptying everying with Hebrew out of my posssession. Dr. Amjed is an orthopedic surgeon who trained in the US, he is the leading Syrian Kneee surgeon. It is marvelous to have this perspective of life in Syria and on the ground, both from this prominent doctor and my other traveling companions, a traditional couple, an older man in traditional robes and his wife in full black dress.
Yes, to the border, and I am prepared to have to turn around, and face the long journey back to Amman, but I get into Syria. Hey, they let the guitar playing hobo poet into Syria! Amazing! Long journey int. Bleak as hell. The great time worn poverty of outer Damascus, not even the darkness can hide the decrepitude, it is Third World housing, crowded together, cement make shift blocks. Dr. A says, "But there are no homeless. Families look out for each other." Finally, to the Hajazz Rail station that I know from the early readings of Lawrence of Arabia who with his Arabic warriors loved to blow up these trains. Now partying with Dr. A I step into downtown Damascus with no hotel reservations, but I find myself a cafe, a bathroom break, a glass of water, a hot meal, and the staff helps me place a call to a local cheap hotel. Thirty dollars and breakfast. Suddenly life is looking wonderful. I find the hotel and scoot down to the Damascus gate, as exhausted as I am from a day of traveling, I am as enchanted as if I had been on a long caravan ride through the desert, and encountered this fabled city. I loved walking through the old suqs of the city late at night, without a gram of fear, no police in sight, but I was at home. At last back in Damascus after so many years away.
More notes on Damascus to come
Slowly sifting and drifting back to Arabic.

Palestinians offer great hospitality!

2010-01-12T13:23:00.001-05:00

Tel Aviv: The Place of the Spring: In the Belly of the Beast
There is a voyeurism in wanting to go to Tel Aviv and reluctance, but I am interested in understanding this enigma of the occupation.

Yesterday spent the day at Caesera with Sam Lee C a 36-year-old Israeli taxi driver and former IDF soldier of Turkish immigrants. His parents were Landino from Spain. The Landino Spanish Jews were forced to leave Spain in l492 and one of the places they were welcomed to was the Ottoman Empire. Sam C said, “We need to have a new conversation with the Palestinians. We need to imagine we landed on the moon with no history of the past. Both starting fresh and new.” Though I am not sure it is possible at this point to start anew. We drove to Caesera the Roman port city made by Herod the Great.
Sun is up and bright, a day almost 30 C. Feels especially wonderful when I think of Vermont and Northern Europe covered in snow and freezing weather. I like this kind of climate for the winter, but a climate with culture, history, and opportunities to learn more about Islamic art and architecture. Also, the incredibly diverse culture of Palestine, the Levant, and the dynamics that shaped this region. History, like jazz, is a conversation, and it is an accumulation of these conversation that makes for the history of an area.

Old Jaffa is a sterile memory, there are no smells of the markets, no fragrances of cumin and coriander, none of the smells of people, none of the feeling of a vibrant town, it is starting to feel like Disneyland’s version of the Middle East. Sanitized, sterile, and conforming to a European aesthetic. Though I like cleanliness and order, I miss the organic feel and nature of the old Muslim Quarter in Old Jerusalem. Yet, this is the challenge I’ve been thinking about recently, I am too enamored with Islamic architecture and art, and don’t always focus on the question of modernity. This dynamic of modern culture versus traditional seems like the major theme running through this discussion of Israel versus Palestine. Is there a perception by Muslims that the modern world has failed them? What is the nature of this “sleep” of technology? Why didn’t Islamic cultures continue this path of innovation that opened new paths in medicine, astronomy, cartography, geography, science, and math? Why did so many cultures, with the exception to some degree of the Ottomans, not continue on this path? It is strange that when Iran starts to pursue nuclear research the world takes a negative reaction. They should celebrate this and encourage this kind of research. The question of nuclear bombs is also interesting – Strange the US and international community ignores Israel’s nuclear arsenal. However, everyone bitches about Iran what about the ongoing human rights violations in Israel? How are their reactors and weapons monitored?

Off to Jerusalem today and to Aiwda camp, a direction I started to go in 5 years ago and got a bit distracted, but have remained active and interested in this work of Palestine.
AIWDA CAMP: A Beautiful Resistant Sunday, January 10, 2010
Saturday and Sunday at Al Aida Refugee Camp that was established after the 1948 war and added to over the years. It is 5,000 people living on less than six acres, in tightly packed houses, no parks or green spaces, and unable to expand. This land was leased from a local Christian family for a 99 year lease by the UN. There are still some several million people living in Refugee camps from as long ago as l948. Their homes had either been destroyed or taken over the Israeli. My host and director of Arrwade Cultural center Dr. Abdoulfattah Abousour grew up in this refugee camp. Though he was living in France, educated as a Medical Engineer, his passion was to return to Palestine. He said, “Though I was in France for nine years and could have had my citizenship there, I chose and wanted to only have my citizenship from Palestine.” He is also an accomplished playwright, poet, and theater director for Arrawad Cultural Center.
More notes to follow on my conversation with Abdou. He is a real inspiration and he is creating this center for Theater as a means to create a Beautiful Resistance, resisting the ugliness of occupation with something beautiful and inspiring like Theater or Art or the Mobile Theater program.

Ramallah to Nabulus

Ramallah the administrative capital of the Palestinian Territories. Entrances to all these cities are staffed by Israeli soldiers. There is no real contiguous Palestine; it is broken up into these thirteen ghettos. See the attached map. Again, the Apartheid analogy is not far off. This is apartheid. Separate but NOT equal. A system that is so insidious. The Palestinians are locked in these towns Nablus, Ramallah, etc and in order to pass from one to another they need to pass Israeli checkpoints. From Jerusalem to Bethlehem, you cannot pass without special permits if you are a Palestinian. The movie from Arawad talks of this of the hours spent at checkpoints to go into Israel to work. It is demeaning and degrading; hours are spent in metal cattle shuttles waiting to cross to the other side.

In Ramallah, crowded, noisy, life is crammed in, cars and traffic galore, Palestinian girl in their headscarves and jeans. Young Palestinian men, too many seem unemployed. No wonder when I was sitting in the taxi the two young men were talking about the Intifada in Arabic and the consequence. In addition, “when” it would happen again. Though not fluent, I caught most of the conversation. There still is a fierce determination from the young people to resist the occupation. They see their lives continually boxed in. The future is the particular towns they are from, the educational and vocation choices are few, and the resentment of being searched and questioned in a belligerent and degrading manner on the streets by Israeli soldiers is a daily humiliation. Morning in Nablus, this ancient city, and the old quarter

Lights on the Hills – The signs of the settlements, SPONSORED and ENDORSED BY THE ISRAEIL GOVERNMENT. Settlements have not stopped. Settlements continue to be built and expand. The government of Israel is lying a brazen lie that contradicts the pictures. The existing communities with building cranes, new settlements with trailers and neon lights blazing throughout the night, and Jerusalem with its significant Palestinian Arabic community is being cut off from the larger future Palestinian state. Jerusalem is ringed with settlements, but the word settlement is a misnomer. They are not really “settlements” this implies a temporary primitive housing, like the early American settlements at Jamestown. These are cities with all the modern conveniences of Europe, hot and cold running water, solid well built cement homes, and meant to last at least until the coming the of the next Messiah. I hope the Messiah comes and takes all the “settlement folks with him.” More room for the rest of us.
In my initial assessment this dry, arid land, with the most brittle of soil, marginal water reserves seems like a disastrous place to build. The Palestinians don’t have much latitude, but if I was an Israeli government I would want to build in a place like Galilee with plenty of fresh water, a pleasant climate, or in the rich green Galilee hills. My gut feeling is that all of this argument of state and land is a moot point, though highly critical now, in another 50-100 years this land will be barren, exhausted, and uninhabitable unless some miracle of technology happens. Both the Israeli and Palestinians are having a “Fucking War” yes as an adjective and noun. The Zionist and Palestinians are competing who will have the most babies, families with seven children or more seems the norm for both. Who can fuck harder and faster, and pop out the most babies. The expression for a Palestinian pregnant baby is the Palestinian bomb. This bomb is most destructive for both sides. However, the official statistics say that the Israeli birthrate is only 1.2% versus the Palestinians as 4% birthrate. There seems to be many pregnant orthodox women with children running around them.

I was going to go on one of those political tours in Palestine but I wanted to keep an open mind and perspective. Though I am decidedly bias on the Palestinians side, I do see and have a perspective that appreciates both sides. The obvious conclusion is that Palestinian territories are being strangled. Israelis control all the checkpoints and there is no contiguous connection with another Arabic country, no connection to an airport, water rights are controlled, and borders are controlled by the Israelis. In Tel Aviv life looks peaceful and calm, but in the West Bank, the 8 Meter high wall of shame snakes around, with ominous guard towers with their metal windows and their surveillance cameras. Soldiers with German shepherds and automatic rifles strut down the street, while settlers also walk down the street with automatic weapons slung over the shoulders. The hillsides across from Bethlehem are now covered with illegal Israeli housing complexes paid for by the Israeli government. Imagine you have a house with an acre of land and someone decides to build their house on your land without your permission. This is the same exact situation. Then they decide to make a road right by your house and put up a fence across your living room window to make them feel safe, and then on the outside add a road so that it makes easier for them to call the police if you should complain. It is that black and white. If God made the Jews the chosen people, then he should be able to produce a title or deed to the land, I don’t trust the Old Testament to fulfill that. If I believed in the old Testament it also says I have a right to keep slaves and to kill my enemies.

Cultural Amnesia in the Holy Land

2010-01-08T15:53:00.004-05:00

Cultural Amnesia: Tel Aviv
Never much thought of the process of anthropology as a political process. However, in Israel like most places it is all political. Lovely afternoon traveling through Old Jaffa. The city port that has been home to prehistoric events, biblical Jaffa one of the sons 0f the bible
Strange the quote, these who forget history or doomed to repeat it. This seems to be the case with Israel. All these marvelous lessons of war, conquest, loss, and destruction. All empires repeat the same cycle, going from inception, conquest, and ultimately destruction. In the old city of Jaffa, the first building by the harbor appeared like a mosque, a customs house. The sign-out side said it was a police station. Strange, it did not look like a police station. Perhaps customs house from its location. However, it looked like the interior of a mosque. Around the corner on the same block was the Sabel, a water fountain. I met a Mr. Pinto a barber born in Jaffa in 1947 and he grew up in this neighborhood.
Mr. Pinto corrected many of my historical conjectures, The Sabel or water fountain we were standing in front of he said it was from the Ottoman Ruler Abou Saidd, I have to check the names. To me, the inscription looked like Suleiman or perhaps I misunderstood. That classic scripture from the Suleiman dynasty or was it one of his children? The Sahel looks much older. Mr. Pinto said that part of this Sahel; the marble column is from Caesarea. Strange. I am having memories of having been in this area in a previous life or did I overdose on falafel. He said the gate by his barbershop is the Jerusalem gate from the 1800s but the gate its looks much older. The arches appear as if they original part is at least from the 15oos. Nevertheless, he was sure of his knowledge and as he has lived in this same neighborhood for the past 50 years, I am sure he has more of an answer than I do. This Sabel is very similar in some ways to the one on Sugar Street in Old Cairo, but that one is clearly from the 1800s.
Old Jaffa is an amazing accretion of architecture that is quickly being lost. This Islamic town erased clean of its cultural past. The new Mosque is a sterile, contemporary structure with a tiny interior space for prayer. Today, the men are on the porticos praying and lounging. I find it curious and refreshing that some men after they pray they stretch out and take a nap. All the previous history of the old mosque is locked inside. There is a real estate development sign on that and several historic areas. A group of square grey Soviet style apartment building is near the sea. This principle port area is underdevelopment, with no apparent regard for the history of the area. Strange. Though old Jaffa is a tourist area because of the funky oldness, with coffee shop in old Ottoman shops, unless it is boutique or café, it is surely under the wrecking ball. The area seems to have the predilection for taking over the old historical sites. The Hammam or Turkish baths that were central to the community, as this is where men and women went to bathe, has bee turned into a wedding hall. The old buildings dating back to the 1400s. The Mosque some 4oo meters from the Ocean, looks to my eyes to date from the 15the century the locals tell me it only goes back 15o years. Sorry, my eyes tell me something very different. In addition, in that a number of the buildings in this area have a lot of similar correspondence to buildings in Old Cairo. I can see the dates and knows the dates of the various mosques and public buildings, both by the architecture and the inscriptions and style of writing.

In a city like Jaffa, that has had a lot of historical turbulence and change in the last fifty years, much of the history has made way for development. My question is – Is this removal of history and especially the Islamic history a way to wipe clean the slate the presence of Muslims? If we remove the buildings, change the historical accuracy we then can shape history from our perspective. Is this a conscious process? On the other hand, is it that there is so much historical work that needs to be saved that this relatively recent period is overlooked? I think it is more that there is a desire for a historical amnesia. Old Jaffa from the time of the Mamluk to the Ottoman a period of some 6oo years and the museum information had one sentence about the presence of the Islamic presence. Nevertheless, I had a wonderful conversation with the director Dr.Naama from Yemen about the museum and she was gracious enough to show me the upper rooms, with its pottery from the Iron Age period, other samples of pottery lined up in the storage rooms above. There is a lack of students and interns to assist in the catalogue. This vast treasure trove of materials about the history of the area is locked up in boxes. But the greater tragedy is all these old buildings from the port on up that area falling apart and half in ruin. Generally from other areas I know there had been a question of ownership with buildings, who has title and who doesn’t and is the deed lying in a basement in an old government building in Istanbul> I did pose that question to Dr.Naama and wasn’t sure if I got the answer I needed or wanted, but she was most gracious with my questions, and if you know of a bright young student interested cataloguing pottery and historical artifacts, then contact Dr.Naama. I know as a kid I would have loved the opportunity to do something like this.
Her story as a Yemeni Jew, with her father from Prague and mom from Yemen, was engaging because of my history in Yemen, living in the Jewish Quarter of Saana. I told her of the metalworkers and jewelers, she said her grandfather was a metalworker. and I spoke of even today Yemenis marvel of the Jewish metalworkers and still talk of a piece of metal, sword, etc. made from these artisans. She also spoke of her doctoral work on the families and the women of the Yemeni quarter in Tel Aviv. Though when I went there I didn’t see any overt signs of Yemen. I would imagine the real Yemeni quarter would have those marvelous mud houses, and coloured windows that you find in Sanaa.
The streets of Old Jaffa for this Islamic archeology buff were a feast. I love seeing and imagining how streets were put together. What the streets were of say the Crusaders and then what were streets, the fountains, mosques of the Muslim rulers. I walk through the streets, I step back and look at this one building, on its walls, one section is from the 16oos, another section a bit older, another repaid made in the l800s, a section of brick and mortar from another building, a bit of stucco, and then this mosaic appears. What century could you say this building was from? When the first stone was laid? I love how even in looking at the side of this one building with its hundreds of years of history you can read the entire story of a neighborhood, through war, poverty, and the hundreds of changes in between.
I fear that the desire to erase the history of the long and often positive Arab/ Muslim/ Palestinian heritage will rob Israel of its richest treasures, its true cultural legacy. It is country made up of hundreds perhaps thousands of cultures and each has contributed. I fear that it is an attempt to mimic "The Museum of Extinct Races" in Vienna.

I don't have the luxury of Despair: Ghetto Wall of Shame

2010-01-06T01:33:00.004-05:00

6 Jan 2010: The Ghetto Wall of Shame

Jerusalem and then yesterday to Bethlehem and Refugee Camps. That is the thing that is most difficult, hundreds of images in my brain.

The thing that is most horrifying is the Separation Wall - which I will call the Ghetto Wall of Shame. GWS.
Brutal, Stalinist, 30 feet high, 8 Meters tall. Thick slab of grey concrete with guard towers at each turn. A cyclone fence with barbed wire stands a few meters away from the wall. Rusting. Brutal. Who is secure with this wall? Are the Israelis also putting themselves behind the Ghetto Walls again? Separated from the world? Believing the myth of “The Chosen People.”Can I get a tape recording of God saying that the Hebrews are “The chosen ones.”?

The wall fills me with revulsion. As a Jew how could we who have suffered so much allow this to happen. Thick grey cement wall separating farmers from their fields. Separating families one from another. Separating a country. Why couldn’t the Israelis have built a wall around the pre-l967 boarders? That should shame every human to the core of his or her being. It should cause profound remorse for every Israeli. However, a few have spoken out. Some who are survivors of the holocaust
Racism and cultural genocide in Palestine. Trying to kill the culture, the people, and life of Palestine. Someone corrected me and said it was more of an Ethnic Cleansing. Ethnic Cleansing? Is that where you take some Ethnics and give them a good bath. Clean out all of their ethnic tendencies? In the case of Israel, washing out all that nasty Arab and Muslim "Salaam Wa Alakom" and make it into a proper "Shalom Wa Alakom." Ethnic cleansing giving the "filthy” Arabs a good bath and making them into proper Israelis where they can get up and sing the Hava Negela? No, it is not ethnic cleansing, it is genocide. Perhaps not as efficient as the Nazi’s, but if Genocide was an Olympic Sport I imagine the Israelis would at least medal in the event. Somewhere behind Stalin, Adolf, but there might be fierce competition for the Bronze – Pol Pot and Ariel Sharon duking it out for third. In this world of madness, I could also see this as an Unreality Show: Genocide in Palestine Served with good Public Relations.
Last night in an art gallery in West Jerusalem, and had an eye opening conversation with an ex pat Jewish woman from Montreal and a Jewish artist from Tunisia. They litany of racism was astonishing. At least in the US, many people have the rudimentary skills to mask it... but this was frank, with no apologies, the only thing that was missing was the word “nigger.”..."The Arabs are such children...No they're not Palestinians...there is no such things... they made this up. They saw that we were creating a nation and then the cry babies decided THEY wanted a country… they aren’t even native to this area…they were imported… when the Israelis came they thanked us from saving them from the Jordanians….the Jordanians were slaughtering them…. they had no water or life until the Israelis came…The Israeli Defense Force is the most ethical army in the world. All the Arabs have full rights as citizens in Israel….”
Full rights as citizens? Excuse me, what about the 1,800 dead in Gaza? The blockade and imprisonment of Gaza? The separation wall? The actions of Irgun and the slaughter of civilians in the l948 by Jewish terrorists?
I tried to speak to this woman, to get past this litany of hatred and bias, to listen, to draw her out. I invited her and her friend to come to Bethlehem with me, lunch on me, let us visit the refugee camps, let us visiting the new Wailing Wall, the Ghetto Wall of Shame. She declined. I would have paid for the taxi and meal for her to talk to this gentleman Dr. Abdelfattah.

Last night walking in West Jerusalem there was the feeling that we, Jews do not have to apologize for being Jews, we can have our language written boldly, the shetel Jews do not have to sulk through the streets. We do not have to worry about the next change of mind and heart of a King and suddenly thrown out of our country. Yes, I did get that sense of pride, of place, and safety for us as Jews. But it is an illusion. There can be no true sense of safety, peace, and belonging with this occupation. Racism is a beast that will devour itself. Hatred always consumes itself and others.

This occupation of the West Bank, with this Ghetto Wall snaking through land seized from Palestinians, with no legal recourse, with an Israeli Secretary of State who said last week, ‘There is a freeze on all new settlements, but the area of Jerusalem does not apply.’ However, the facts on the ground are different. He is a liar or blind, or worse. Settlements are started in Gelal. Settlements are expanding in Bethlehem. Perhaps, they are expanding elsewhere, but I can only speak of what I have seen.

The Israeli government is 100% lock, stock, and barrel behind all the settlements. They are not some isolated group of fanatics the government can’t do anything about, the government wants to increase all the housing, not just a group of small condominiums or a nice chalet, these are small cities of anywhere from 10,000 to 20,000 people. Ultra orthodox Jews or some variation, who are given stipends, their housing is paid for, so that they can live in these apartment cities on the hillside of Bethlehem on land that is taken from Palestinians.

The government of Israeli is engaged in a program to build as many settlements as possible. As an Israeli friend said, “These are the facts on the ground, as the maps are drawn, we now see Israeli settlements all throughout the West Bank, and surrounding Jerusalem the government is building more and more apartment complexes solely for Jews to stake their clam to the land. Then more land is taken, without any kind of judicial process or claim of eminent domain.”

In Bethlehem, one Palestinian businessman invested in his property and built a small hotel and resort. He spent approximately $7,000 to build the necessary parking lot, and had all the permits. Then as the Israeli government sponsored settlers were expanding, they expropriated part of his land, and told him he could no longer have the lot.

In this one tiny area, there are hundreds of small and prominent injustices that make a daily life not only arduous, but also brutal and inhumane. I see one young Israeli female soldier with a German shepherd, the dog is playing on a leash, and it reminds me of the Nazis with their dogs. It reminds me also of the dogs at Birmingham Alabama when Bull Connor and his cowards would beat back the civil rights marchers. I cannot believe that a young Israeli would be using a German shepherd as the Nazi guards used them.

I feel like I am in a weird backwards world. Coming out of the Holocaust, the survivors took every grain of bitterness, gut level determination not to let this happen again, every lesson of brutality and humiliation, and savagery and brought it here to Palestine. Of course, with the technological prowess and innovation of modern European, and brought it here. For the most part a European modern culture squaring off against an agrarian people who had been under the occupation of the Ottoman and the British Empire.

I like the playful humor of Palestinians. In spite of a human rights situation that would break the spirit of most people, there is laughter and delight, children play, girls and boys flirt, and there is a fatalism that there will be a transformation. Yet, there is a weariness of spirit, an on-going frustration with making it through the day.

One film Checkpoint at 4 AM shows people lining up to go to work at checkpoint. Waking up so they can walk through the metal gates that look like the cattle gates at slaughterhouses. It can take them up to several hours to get through and then they have to return at night.

Israelis say ‘It is the only way that we can prevent them from killing us with bombs.” But the Palestinians point out to the hillside and say, “The people who are throwing the bombs come from over the hillside and don’t go through checkpoints.”
It is a page from life in the Warsaw ghetto.

In terms of this stark barren land, with a few hardy scrubs of cactus, I do not find a beauty in this arid hot land. In reality, the water will giver out, and despite the best technology, the Israelis will not be able to fill their swimming peoples in their villa settlements overlooking the villages of Palestinians.

PALESTINE, JORDAN TRAVELS

2010-01-04T05:54:00.008-05:00

Amman
Back to the tour guide -- the hills of Amman which if it were a verdant country there might be some charm, but even in the winter months it is unrelentingly bleak in the capital. However, south in the forest preserves there is vegetation and flora. The thought in my mind is that this is the future of so much of this beautiful planet, hot, dry and arid. Hopefully, a massive plague or some similar event will take hold before too long, or otherwise think of this rapacious global development as a form of planetary Euthanasia. Stand in the middle of Delhi at rush hour for 15 minutes and tell me you don’t believe in global warming. Or ride a bike through rush hour in Shanghai or NYC. Who needs climatologists? It is like standing on a street corner with a gale force wind and sticking your finger in the air to see which way the wind is blowing.

I look at this hot arid capital or Melbourne last January, and can’t we all see this very apparent blend of climate change, increased population, and increased industrial output = our children and grandchildren will be heirs to an ecological suicide, no matter how much environmentally friendly toilet paper I use.

Philadelphia:
Another city of Brotherly Love so called because of Greek rule and the reign of one of Alexander’s general.

Today we are walking up to the citadel. My brain fogged head slowly grasping this strategic hillside. Trying to focus on Philadelphia the original Greek name for Amman.
Amman has served as the modern and ancient capital of Jordan. It is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, with a 1994 excavation uncovering homes and towers believed to have been built during the Stone Age, circa 7000 BCE. There are many Biblical references to the city, which by about 1200 BCE had become the Ammonite capital of Rabbath-Ammon. The Ammonites fought numerous wars with Saul, David and others.
The history of Amman between the end of its Biblical references (around 585 BCE)¬¬¬¬ and the time of the Ptolemies is unclear. We do know that the city was renamed Philadelphia after the Ptolemaic ruler Philadelphus in the third century BCE. After coming under Seleucid and Nabatean rule, Philadelphia was taken by the Roman vassal King Herod in 30 BCE. The city became part of the Decapolis League, a loose alliance of ten Roman-ruled cities including Jerash, Gadara (present-day Umm Qais), Pella, Arbila (Irbid) and others. Under Roman rule, Philadelphia was replanned and reconstructed in typically grand Roman style with a colonnaded street, baths, an amphitheater and impressive public buildings.
During the Byzantine period, Philadelphia was the seat of a Christian bishop, and several expansive churches were built. The city declined somewhat during the late Byzantine years, and was overrun by the Persian Sassanians in 614 CE. Their rule was short-lived, however, collapsing before the Arabian armies of Islam around the year 635. The name of the city then returned to its Semitic origin of Ammon, or "Amman." It remained an important stop on the caravan routes for many years, but eventually trade patterns shifted and dried up the lifeblood of Amman. The city declined to little more than a provincial village for many centuries.
Amman’s "modern" history began in the late 19th century, when the Ottomans resettled a colony of Circassian emigrants there in 1878. Many of their descendants still reside in Amman. During that time and the early decades of the 20th century, the neighboring city of Salt was more important as a regional administrative and political center. However, after the Great Arab Revolt secured the state of Transjordan, Emir Abdullah bin al-Hussein made Amman his capital in 1921.

Sights of Interest
"Most of Amman’s noteworthy historical sites are clustered in the downtown area, which sits at the bottom of four of Amman’s seven hills, or jabals. The ancient Citadel, which towers above the city from atop Jabal al-Qala’a, is a good place to begin a tour of the city. The Citadel is the site of ancient Rabbath-Ammon, and excavations here have revealed numerous Roman, Byzantine and early Islamic remains. The most impressive building of the Citadel, known simply as al-Qasr ("the Palace"), dates back to the Islamic Umayyad period. Its exact function is unclear, but it includes a monumental gateway, an audience hall and four vaulted chambers. A colonnaded street also runs through the complex. To the north and northeast are the ruins of Umayyad palace grounds.
Close to al-Qasr lie the remains of a small Byzantine basilica. Corinthian columns mark the site of the church, which is thought to date from the sixth or seventh century CE. About 100 meters south of the church is what is thought to have been a temple of Hercules, today also known as the Great Temple of Amman. The temple was built in the reign of the emperor Marcus Aurelius (161-180 CE), and is currently under restoration.
Also on Citadel Hill, just northwest of the Temple of Hercules, is the Jordan Archeological Museum. This small museum houses an excellent collection of antiquities ranging from prehistoric times to the 15th century. There is an exhibit of the Dead Sea Scrolls, a copy of the Mesha Stele (see Madaba section for explanation) and four rare Iron Age sarcophagi."

Downhill from the Citadel and five minutes walk east from downtown, the Roman Theater is the most obvious and impressive relic of ancient Philadelphia. The theater, which was built during the reign of Antonius Pius (138-161 CE), is cut into the northern side of a hill that once served as a necropolis—or graveyard. It is very similar in design to the amphitheater at Jerash, and can accommodate 6000 spectators. The theater is still used periodically for sporting and cultural events

To the northeast stands the small theater, or Odeon, which is still being restored. Built at about the same time as the Roman theater, this intimate 500-seat theater is used now as it was in Roman times, for musical concerts."
http://www.virtualtourist.com/travel/Middle_East/Jordan/Amman-1800107/Things_To_Do-Amman-citadel-BR-2.html

"The Citadel's best preserved structure, the square - now domed - served as the entrance hall to the Omayyad Palace Complex. It was completed with the rest of the Omayyad buildings in the Citadel, in 720 AD, on the foundation of a Byzantine church, which gave the structure its cruciform plan. The entrance to the hall faces the Omayyad Mosque further south, though the two have different orientations as the mosque had to face the direction of Mecca. While the Palace could just as well have faced Mecca, the fact that it utilised existing foundation made it difficult. The interior of the Entrance Hall has beautifully carved stone walls and a lofty courtyard with four iwans giving it the cruciform plan.
Built by the Omayyad dynasty in 720 AD, the Palace Complex housed the governor of Amman and his entourage. The Complex included a mosque, an Entrance Hall, residential and administrative buildings and a water cistern. The mosque was located just outside the complex, and the non-religious section was accessed through the entrance hall where visitors were received. The Entrance Hall (see separate tip) is the best preserved structure in the complex. The rest lies mostly in ruins, but whose foundations are clearly visible. The entire complex lasted only a short period as destruction befell it in the 749 AD earthquake."

Political News
The news and the conversation about Palestine is in the air. The evening news from the BBC brings the brazen new of the Israeli's continued occupation and 700 new settlements in Jerusalem they declare a "special case." The special case is that the houses are on Palestinian land and it has been seized to make way for Israeli homes.

The moral outrage is seen in my new artwork that this genocide is inspiring. As Picasso spoke in Guernica, I in my way will speak. I will tell you more of the museum of Extinct Races: Special Exhibit The people who lived in the area West of the Jordan River before the Rightful Owners Returned After a two Thousand Year Absence.

The Saudis are indifferent at best and are caught between the fear that their paper lion kingdom, the so called guardianship of Mecca is only sustained by oil and patronizing the Wahhabi zealots, and that it is unwilling to do anything truly substantial to help their Palestinian "brothers." Saudis are the ultimate whores. The guardian ship of the holy sites were wasted on them. While we are there – King Hussein that dwarf of a king who so readily sold out Jerusalem to sign a peace with Israel. In this brothel of the Middle East there are no shortages of whores and pimps.

Friday, January 01, 2010

First of the new year. Drinking a bottle of champagne with an Italian couple in Petra. Celebrating – the uncertainty?

Petra:
There are hundreds of photos on my camera of Petra. The camera is bursting with Images about this astonishing jewel. I have notes on my Blackberry, while sitting against a rock, undisturbed, one grain of sand observing another. In that moment, experiencing the profound humility of a life form that will be here at the most of 80 years or so and vanish.

Petra – Trying to capture the beauty of Petra from my imagination and photographs. In the town of Wadi Mousa, Moses River, a non descript Jordanian village that depends on the hoards of tourist that descend from all over the world to capture photos of this place. Spend one day taking photos and then 1,000 days astonished.

In the unfamiliar journey, we walked through the streets of Wadi Mousa, a coffee here and there, a sweet, and a bit of conversation. My rusty Arabic getting the kinks out, finding the local words, tossing out the fragments of Egyptian, Moroccan and Yemeni colloquial phrases. They always make for good color and a smile. I told the man I learned a bit of Arabic in Yemen, he then asked, “Why do you speak Arabic with a Moroccan accent?” Hmmm, my language skills are more of a source of amusement than scholarly appreciation. I thought I had a career as an international comedian, since my linguistic skills most often seemed to make people laugh. And that is even when I am trying to communicate seriously. Fully evident last night, chatted with Danielle in Italian, a bit of French, and as we were getting drunker on some very fine champagne, I slipped back into Spanish.

On the second day driving into Petra on the Donkey Wagon and called out “My people. The revolution is near!” “Greetings my people. Your king loves you!” “L’etat cés moi!” Zoe nearly beat me! My "people"loved it.

Enjoing the jari hasan, in this broken down cart for 15 dollars. The walking was getting to us. But I always want to walk as slow as possible. in The first part of the walk into Petra must be savored very slowly. I need to get to my hand written notes

Saturday, January 02, 2010

Genocide machine
FINAL SOLUTION: Essay
MUSEUM OF EXTINCT RACES in Jerusalem:
It is extraordinary and not generally available to the public at large, but I was able to gain access to a new museum in Israel it is called the museum of Extinct Races. Though it is called a museum of Palestine, since it is sponsored by the Israel government and their policy to remove all traces of the Palestinians.

The museum of Extinct Races is actually built here on this empty lot. It is a Palestinian home that has been razed. The reason is, there was no permit to build, though the house was built around the 1920s, 25 years before the found of Israel, the Israeli official said, Ä rule is a rule, who am to argue.

Monday, January 04, 2010
Intro
The thing about travel is that it "slaps you upside your head" It gets you out of your complacency. Traveling is the "travail" cést le vive petite dur, mais pour les gent qui sont blanc y riche, vraiment cést facile. At 55 I need to compel myself to get out of this easy rut in Hillbillyboro HBB, out of the sweet order of life. I spoke earlier I had spoken of the "fear," certainly with all the crazy stuff here, and guns I do get "concerned.

When I was a child I had lived in Spain during the Franco era. When I returned after a forty year absence to Seville, I said to a man who was about a decade older, the difference is that the "fear" is absent. That was a word I didn't understand as a child or able to articulate. This is the element as I am in an unfamiliar environment trying to navigate, with my Arabic rusty, my command of local culture a bit obscure. I am thrown into Terra Incognita. I hate the loss of control and yet it is what keeps me fresh and vibrant. Don't we all? But this is the teaching of traveling, surrender your expectations, surrender your knowing, keep your wits about you, keep your powder dry, and wet your finger to find out which way the wind is blowing.

Good to travel with Zoe, easy going, rolls with the punches, good traveling common sense, we complement each other well in this regard. And, fun to be with, her 5 or so languages, and mine, with a good sense of joie de vivre and roll with the punches.
Then somewhere along the way, I get out of my strange and needed desire for control, and open up to the day.

Once I surrender the past, of home, (Hillybillyborough HBB) and Blue Heron Pond, I feel such a sense of freedom and peace. The uncertainty of the road, the sudden hidden dangers, the necessity for survival and negotiation are part of the allure of travel. Though I readily admit I am not much for exotic travels, though I have traveled on five continents, I don’t have the desire to run with wolves or trek naked across the Kalihari… but then again, negotiating with Israeli soldiers might be a challenge.

PETRA MORNING

Morning in Petra and a longing to continue in this magnificent city. As always, I am too rushed in my understanding and experience of a place. In my fantasy I imagine I can travel down here from Turkey, through Lebanon, down into Jerusalem, and into Jordan. The world undivided, open, and available to travel fluidly.

This is the sadness in 2010, the world is divided into bitter camps, nations armed to the teeth, and ready to kill each other. A short time ago it was possible to travel from West to East overland, from Europe to Turkey, Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, but there was the barrier of southeast Asia.

New Years eve, sitting in the lobby of Hotel Semah, playing guitar, sedately without trying to draw attention while waiting for my equipment to charge up, and the hotel fellows wanted a song. Their knowledge of English songs was limited -- Beatles, Elvis, and finally I taught them a verse or two of "Wild Thing." A universal favorite and easy to sing. Then an Italian couple sauntered by, we chatted them up, and before too long they said, "We have a bottle of champagne." My Italian feels a bit tenuous, but I managed to make my way through with a bit of French and Spanish, surprisingly very comfortable with the Italian, and the drunker I got, the better the Italian sounded too, or at least to my ear. Good champagne in south Jordan with Italians toasting in the New Year and singing “Wild Thing” with the Egyptian hotel keepers. Wild Thing indeed.

The real challenge later in the day to come. For 70JD a ride to the King Abdullah Bridge. Jzr Malak Hussein. We get there and the taxi driver is told that only the taxis in that town can take us to the bridge. Another JD to the boarder crossing. Ooops, we didn't read the guidebook clearly, or misunderstood. Despite my best effort, we could not get across until the next day at 8: 30 am. An overnight in this little one mule town? My stubbornness is growing. Arrrgh~! This is great stuff to observe. This is the lesson of travel. In my little town, I like the control, the ease, I know the ropes, there are no surprises, a few bumps, but it is on such automatic pilot, and for the most part it works. I can concentrate on writing and creating, all the bullshit that often gets in the way of writing/ creating/ thinking is mitigated.
So we get hustled a little bit, another 30 JD which is equal to 30 pounds, damn! Then the driver tells us now it is 40 JD. We negotiate to 35JD. Then we go to Sheik Hussein Bridge.
On the way we go to the site were Jesus was Baptized by John the Baptist. We walk by the Jordan river and I don't feel an overwhelming sense of awe or praying like a Christian,"Where he walked." A dusty, hot region with lush vegetation by the river.
How much of this is the "true"location or a mere reference? Most of the New Testament was written down some 80 years and more after Christ died, and the gnostic tradition of direct knowing and faith was deemed as heresy.
We then get to another taxi spot and the taxi drivers are paid another one JD to take us to the boarder crossing two kilometers further. We get out of the taxi, process our suitcases and what not, then jump back in the taxi, another 500 meters further to the visa office. Then we purchase an exit visa. Careful to get this stamp on a separate paper, to avoid rejection in Syria at the end of the month. Then on to another bus for about a kilometer at most. Finally, we arrive in Israel.
Israel: The ogre. My ancestor’s home. The center of a lot of my attention for a long period of time. Israel with its square block letters, Israel with all of its contradictions. Ah, to be back in Israel, the homeland after all this time. What must it have been like for my ancestors? Who were my ancestors? The fact that I can locate some historical past going back two thousand years, it gives me the sense that I can knock on the door of the nearest Palestinian and say, "My ancestors were here two thousand years ago, please leave. I am sure I have some rights to your home. Yes?" Hmmm, that is the way I feel about all the expropriation of land in Palestine.
The place of immense pride with the reclaiming of this desert land? No, much of this is bullshit. The Zionist, bought, bullied, and stole some of the most prime and fertile land in the Middle East. When you read the early Zionist propaganda it makes it seems like they saved the Arabs from themselves.
Surely there were massacres and killings on both sides, but from the historical accounts it seemed like the majority of the killings from the Irgun and Stern gang, and other Zionists was pure brutal savagery. The longer story of the Palestinians betrayal by their neighbors and their leaders is better left for other books like "the Lemon Tree.
My new articles to come out of this trip are: The Genocide Project: The Museum of Extinct Races - This museum is in Jerusalem and dedicated to the memory of Palestinians: and The Final Solution.
The Sea of Galilea is absolutely lovely and serene. No sign of Jesus and the storms. Maybe his 12 homeboys had been nipping the wine? They woke up and Jesus merely said, chill out boys. I could easily see living in a place like this, but I could not live, participate in an apartheid society. Even on the most superficial level of traveling you see this as an occupied country, kept in place by the Israeli Offensive Army, an offense to humanity, an offense to any semblance of the historical humanistic Jewish tradition. and now mainly to defend Israeli settlers as they continue to settle on Palestinian land. It is impossible to separate the land, history, and present politics from the discussions.
The struggle is Hebrew, I feel as if I "älmost" understand it, it feels like a first cousin of Arabic, though the letters mystify me. I do not feel comfortable with it.
Galilea: The surrounding area with huge fields of agriculture, and of course, the irony the day laborers are Palestinians. The same Palestinians who are compelled to build the large settlement houses. Why do I get the feeling of Jews in concentration camps working to support the Nazi war effort? I can't escape the parallels between Germany and Israel.

Palestine: The Bitter Harvest
It is a hard bitter harvest like the olive trees. It grows in stony soil, dry arid conditions, produces a harvest of bitter inedible fruit, and it is only edible by soaking in a salty brine. From the stony soil this harvest grows. The Olive trees like today in Gethsemany, massive twisted olive trees, some that are hundreds to some say a thousand years old, but regardless, the trees thick with character, shaped by the wind, heat, and arid climate. Almost as if it had eyes and witnessed the hundreds of wars, the thousands of killings in the name of religion, and it soaked all that pain into its pores. The gray sinewy bark, calloused, and dead; yet, beneath it new shoots of tender life grow.

Today, in Jerusalem, we were in Gethsemany, the garden where Jesus prayed before he was betrayed. Though I am not a Christian I am moved by the story of him praying in the garden, the simplicity of offering himself to, "thine Will, will be done."

I was moved by the gardens, by the witness of the faithful, who have created and have spoken this story of Jesus. True or not true, here or at another place, it is somewhat irrelevant. This space of convocation and witness.

Integuments of Faith: Garden of Gesthemane

Vile beaty of fatih
Garnished with heresy and love.
Wicked with desire for
baraka and benediction

The whores of the Apocolpse
dance the Hava Negila
in the desert of love
a lion awaits to devour

I too have wept in Gesthemane

Not for god's love
But for the faithless lies
in the city of peace

Harlots of war
March to Armageddon

Whores of hate dressed
in prayer and praises to god

Incense of frankincense
to staunch the bleeding

Driving down from Tiberius on the sea of Galilee where Jesus "walked" on the water. I think the Apostles really needed to get a handle on their drinking, but that aside, it is a marvelous town on the edge of the sea. Beautiful climate, but no tennis. Surrounded by all the historical elements of biblical times, including ruins of the Roman city.

The journey into Hebrew is familiar because of my Arabic, but it is like listening to one of the first cousins of a romance language I don't know, but I can almost understand. I was talking to one bus driver and i felt I understood, even though I don't speak Hebrew.

JERUSALEM
Getting a taxi from Galilee and arriving at Jerusalem at 9 PM ish. Wonderful to see Quds. Quds. Uunder the stem Quds means glorification of Allah. He is Al-Mutaqaddis (The one
attaining sancity); Al-Quddus (The Most glorified) and Al-Muqaddas (The sanctified). In
Quran angles adress Allah saying (While we glorify three and sanctify three).

Consequently the word Al-Quds the purified township elevated
over defects and shortcomings.

Al-Quds is an inseparable part of the Islamic faith. In the opening of the Sura (chapter) of
Isra'a Allah says: -

"Glory to (Allah)
"Who did take the servant.
For a Journey by night.
From the sacred Mosque (of Mecca).
To the Farthest Mosque.
Whose Precincts* we did.
Bless, in order that we
Might shoro him some
Of Gur Signs. For he (Allah)
Is the one who hearth
And sees (All things)

Jaffa Gate: Bab al Khalel:
The city is one of the few intact cities from the Medieval period. The walls built in the `15th century by Sulemain the Magnificent. Of course, the walls were attacked, rebuilt, and destroyed throughout the centuries. More history in a few meters of walls than most places around the world. We arrive at the New Imperil Hotel and drag our luggage up a 25 meter stair. Then he says, “We gave your room away.”Tired and bedraggled by the day, this was the last thing I needed. But the hotel clerk arranged for another room across town, paid for the taxi and apologized profusely. Arrrgh. I was not pleased.
This is the teaching: There are 1.5 million Palestinians under lock and key in Gaza by the brutual jackboot of the Israeli Army. And I am bitching about going a few hundred meters to another hotel?
Hussein at the Rivoli Hotel was a gracious host in this run down hotel. This is in the East Jerusalem Arabic quarter outside of the old city gates.

Palestinians: East Jerusalem: Under the jackboot, but not defeated

Though I am “the Tourist” and get a lot of freebies, and people defer to me. I get by with my sometimes dodgy Arabic which is kicking off the rust. I am a white European/ US guy. I get a pass. I can speak Arabic and not consigned to the living daily hassle of a Palestinian. To live as a Palestinian in January 2010 is to be a Negro in Alabama in l945. Free but not quite free. The petty brutality and disregard for treating Palestinians as humans is apparent at every turn. 36% of the population, paying 40% of the taxes and receiving 7% of the services.
Palestine is the ghetto of our ancestors. It is Prague where Jews lived behind the walls of the old city, fearing to venture out, and tightly controlled in all phases of their lives.
Despite this. This is what I want people to see and hear.
The Palestinians I’ve met, have been unfailingly courteous, kind, thoughtful. I am sure that in time I will see more of the hard and tough side, the side that has been brutalized by the occupation that consciously and otherwise endeavors to strip away the dignity and worth of Palestinians. It is a prison defined and controlled by Israelis. Though Palestinians make walk the streets, smile, laugh, their destiny in the Israeli eyes is to be only partially human. Like the old documents of slaves who were seen as 2/3rds human.

In the old Muslim Quarter, electricity is a slipshod affair, wires and internet connections run like a madly woven spider web from outlets, jerry rigged connections, things seem worn and needing maintenance. But the maintenance is on survival. Trying to survive each day. Schools are vastly inferior, students are denied exit visas to study abroad, school supplies limited and classes are overcrowded. Yet, the Palestinians despite the obvious repression, continue to learn and thrive.
However, for the Jewish Israelis, it is education as if this was modern Europe. They have the freedom to come and go. Access to health care and state welfare.

I asked earlier, how can we, Jews who came from 2,000 years of Diaspora even imagine treating others cruelly or revisiting the horrors of Germany in the l930’s and l940’s on others. What is this mad thirsting hatred or fear the Israeli Jewish state has? There is more than enough room in the north and around the country without having to destry homes in the West Bank, without having to tear down homes, or engage in the jackboot behavior that has so come to define this phase of Israeli history.

I wish I could write about the glories of Islam, the wonders of this fabled city with a thousand stories tucked into each nook and corner of the city, the way that sunlight dashes through the narrow souks, the way that buildings have been shaped by the shifting of time, the façade of buildings colored by centuries of wear, or the magnificence of the Al Aksa or the Dome of the Rock…. I wish my entire attention could be lavished on this journey of imagination and celebration of the holy land but it can’t be. This land fought and contested, argued, and suffered for thousands of year, and now with this savage occupation this lack of humanity draws my attention.

Yet, I will write about the children playing soccer/ football in the streets, their ball bouncing off the walls of narrow streets, the pitch a cobblestone street from Roman times, and a few meters wide. The laughter of children playing something like hopscotch on cobbled streets. This is the timelessness of children. Yet, how do allow for the future?
How do we fulfill the promise that one generation gives to another?

In this sacred time, in the days and weeks to come, I will observe, listen, sit on the narrow steps, with pen and paper. Watch the green bereted army soldiers in patrols of three and six, nervously playing with the triggers, one young soldier barely eighteen with a nervous tick is tapping the trigger. Was the safety off? Other soldiers looking bored. In their boredom it seems that their favorite game is to hassle the young men. They don’t even have the formality to look them in their eyes. It seems the whole vibe I get from the scene is, “Nigger, show me your papers….Worthless nigger your papers aren’t right.” Hassle the nigger? Hassle the Palestinians?

I like the young Palestinian women, with their colorful gypsy kind of style. Unlike anything I’ve seen in other Arabic countries. Despite the presence of the Occupation they smile brightly like young women, probably gossiping about boys. There is still a brightness in their dark eyes. I like how they can dress conservatively and yet still be sexy. A demure smile with lowered eyes or a laugh as girls are walking down the street.

My Palestinian friends… the history of dictatorships is that they end. This was the story of jews in Egypt, and after years of slavery there was deliverance. Stay steadfast, don’t sell, don’t move. The world is watching and though it seems like you are alone, there are true friends who see the suffering of Palestinians and stand with you.

There needs to be true Justice in Palestine in order to have a future for Muslim, Christian and Jew.

3rd Day in Jordan.

2009-12-28T16:21:00.003-05:00

Trip News:

Yesterday at the citadel in Amman, a short taxi ride from the hotel. Amman last night with the three quarter moon rising over the hills of the city. From this angle, Amman holds very little charm, square blocks of concrete and a grey stucco finish. Bleak almost Soviet style architect. None of the grace of the Ottoman period It was a backwaters city until the founding of modern Jordan in one of those post WWI rwanglings that was to give the Arab states full independence.

The Roman ampitheater on the hillside. The seven hills of Jordan, bleak and arid, looking more like a provincial capital. Too short of a time to make any assessment and real connection with Jordanians, as a tourist, there is a formality, I am the tourist and they are the local. Even with a modicum of Arabic I can leap over that threshold more easily than most, but my accent is Yemen with a weird inflection of Moroccan. When I told a guy I learned Arabic in Yemen he said, "Then why do you speak with a Moroccan accent?"

I was almost offended, but not. Like my French some years ago was a heavy Moroccan accent and such that when I spoke to Moroccans in France some thought I was trying to "rap like a home boy.

Anyway, the real juice of Jordan, is the Dead Sea, Jaresh the Old Roman city, and the stunning Petra. Part of me is feeling guilty that I am not in Egypt with the Gaza marches, but even as a leftist, I am a leftist to my own drummer. Yes, I do want to spend time and help draw attention to Gaza, but I want to do it on my own terms and what feels comfortable to me. Even though I like the politics of the left more, I hold the right and left with equal wariness. A healthy skepticism is my most sincere form of religion.

Political News
The news and the conversation about Palestine is in the air. The evening news from the BBC brings the brazen new of the Israeli's continued occupation and 700 new settlements in Jerusalem they declare a "special case." The special case is that the houses are on Palestinian land and it has been seized to make way for Israeli homes.

The moral outrage is seen in my new artwork that this genocide is inspiring. As Picasso spoke in Guernica, I in my way will speak. I will tell you more of the museum of Extinct Races: Special Exhibit The people who lived in the area West of the Jordan River before the Rightful Owners Returned After a two Thousand Year Absence.

After all, who doesn't hate the Palestinians? The Saudis are indifferent at best and are caught between the fear that their paper lion kingdom, the so called guardianship of Mecca is only sustained by oil and patronizing the Wahhabi zealots, and that it is unwilling to do anything truly substantial to help their Palestinian "brothers."

More to come. Listening, talking to people about life politics, love the area, like the language, even my stumbling attempts.

More to come

27 December 2nd day on the road

2009-12-27T18:55:00.005-05:00

I am always the reluctant travel who is at the same time a total travel junkie. I am the one who loves sitting by his fireside in rural vermont watching snow and plotting revolutions. Though i am content in spirit to write at Blue Heron Pond, my sou is starving for the open road, new languages, new faces, I am dreadfully bored by the narrow aesthetic and the pablum served for Art.

Today I'm in Amman Jordan and meeting folks from the Gaza March. Thousands of folks will converge on the boarder of Gaza and Israel, thousands of folks from around the world asking that Palestinians have some basic human rights. Right now, the 1.5 Gaza people in a state of lockdown. Like an prison around the world. They cannot visit the West Best for work or congress, no work or food supplies come in. Kind of like the Ghettos of Warsaw. For years Ive been writing about Palestine, the pain of Palestine, and now... tasting it and seeing the suffering here in a way that I did somewhat remoetly.

We can all feel the pain of our brothers and sistens worldwide. The oppression of our muslim brothers and sisters, the opression in Egypt: the small fascist state of Israel with its wonderful political freedoms for white jews, but a gradual diminishment if you're a brown jew or god forbid ... a Muslim Israeli. It makes the apartheid system seem somehow rationale. Yet, the US gives 3 to 4 billion dollars a year to enable the occupation of all the people of Palestine. And of course the various other jewish charities and russian mafia that keeps this state afloat. Is this state really held afloat by the Russian gangsters, who may be jew in name, but makes his living as a gangster, or is Israel the gangsert state, stealing land and giving it to the settlers.

Why not find the setters a nice apartment in Tel Aviv or Haifa? Why take over a Palestinians home and move in an Israeli family? How would you, Western reader, to have a family that never lived there, suddenly moved in by the fiat of the state? Or, that you had been kicked out of the area for 2,ooo years, without title or papers, without even a clear idea of a village, and decided it was time to take over again.

If Israeli truly wants freedom...end the occupation of Gaza, end the occupation of Palestine, give Golan back, resettle Lebanese Palestinians in Golan, and make Jerusalem an international city for Jews, Muslim, and Christian. But I don;think that is the case.
Or I should refer to it as Al Quds ... the Land in Arabic... where the prophet Mohammed ascended to heaven.

But Israel is interested in maintaining the illusion of the victim. Playing on the anti semite card. "Oh, you don't agree with us? You must be an antisemite?" The vulgar truth of racism is the trump card here. Zionism, that proclaims all of the Palestinians areas as rightfully Jewish, is a racist proposition.

For example, Birmingham Ala in the early l950s Blacks were relegated to the back of the bus, not allowed to vote, had to step off the sidewalk when a white person walked by, or god help the young black man who smiled at a pretty white girl. The same exact racism pervades.

The racism after Crystallnacht that took away German Jews businesess, expelled them from the universities, the same barbarity that lead to the Holocaust, is being played out every day in the West Bank.

There are no Palestinians taking over Israeli homes. There is no massive imprisonments of Israelis by Palstinians. There is no destruction of Israeli culture.

Yes, the rockets of Gaza fired on to Israel, against the 4th largest Army in the world is a situation that should be pitied. FIghting Goliath with stones.

This writing does not serve Jew, Muslim, Christian, or any religion well. Religion is the refuge for the spiritually lazy cowards. Hiding behind theology, nostroms, prayers, and history versus standing naked -- physicially, emotionally, and yes spiritiaully... confronting god...declaring your own spirit and faith. Yes, I Namaya, worship trees and life, I worship the spirit of all life that sustains this planet. I pray in any church or meadow where the fundamental rights and dignity of each person can be preserved and nurtured. I want not part of a faith that denies the dignity, joy, and revelation of each person. I abhor war and hatred to mend and heal human differences. It is wrong to kill. Wrong to kill animals, and humans. It is wrong to harm or hit another person. It is a philosophy that brings me back to my Zen roots.

Zen such a profound part of my spirit, I rarely talk about it. MY ZEN, MY ZEN, with all of my hubris, ignorance, etc.is about LOVE. This is paradise. This place some of us call HELL is paradise. My zen spirit is alivened by the possibilities of what it is to be human. To have the capacity to love. The capacity to be FULLY HUMAN. Alive in the world. Compassionate and filled with reverence for each living creature. Filled with care in how we treat and treasure the earth.

Today in Amman, I worship the moon. Moon light three quarters full, though seen for millions of years, from the most barbaric neanderthal who also would sit in wonder...

Moon over Jordan

brown city with scarcely
a grain of green or serenity.

Two thirds moon hangs over
the city.

Moon is pregnant with possibility

Moon marks the same spot in Gaza

Where the future and each day,
grows bleaker

There is no pretty poem for
Gaza.

It is a moon painted red

Getting my bearings, brushing off the rusty arabic, getting ready for the trip into Westbank and Gaza.

Moreover, making my self ready to make the transition to living in Israel, As a jew by culture every fiber of my being is repulsed by the occuption and I know that given half a chance the Palestinians would have driven them to the sea. But now, in 2010 the SS component of the Israeli army is in a new process of Genocide. Not the obvious killings, but the genocide that destroys a culture and future. Life is so miserable that Pakestinian Arabs have to leave. This is the policy of genocide.

As a jew, a student of Jewish history and the diaspora, all the sins and evil of the occupiers in aeons past has now burned into the soul of Israel. Israel committed to a new collective genocide of jews. This kind of barbaric, hateful treatment by a government, sancitioned by the US, virtually ignored by the world, and suffered by Israelis will eventually be destroyed. As one visits evil on their perceived enemies, the blowback will be profound.

Wanting to meet some extended family in Israeli. There is a revulvsion to the Zionists who believe that this whole area from the Mediterannan to The Jordan north to Lebannon and down through Gaza was their empire. Hardly, Jews have had a very tenuous hold on the land, thrived, and then displaces. The same as hundreds of other cultures. Yet, remarkably Hebrews we have seemed to hold on to an identity through this exile.

Simply my sould screams this is not just. Faults, hatred from Muslims as well, atrocities in the past, but the jews are redefining barbarity and hatred. I, a jew by culture, a jew who values our history and culture, yet is repulsed by the barbarity of Zionism. An SS should be painting on each Mogen David. We have learned well from the Nazis. It is not enough to destroy the enemy, you must first break their spirit, you must break their will to live\\

Writing the pain at 3 in the morning. Half asleep, inspired by the moon. Trying to find the humanness in all this. Zoe and I have started in our tiny first steps. Meeting people, talking, and listening. Half English. Half arabic when I can. Good to be back in an Arabic speaking country, though I could have gone to Paterson.

Good to connect with Zoe. Enjoying our traveling time together, Great traveling buddy. I am a bit concerned, difficult for me to make schedules and appointments.

Tomorrow, the mooon rises, and the possibilities of tomorrow shed a bright light on us.

26 December 2009 Fears and Hopes

2009-12-26T11:44:00.003-05:00

Initial notes, spirit and heart opening wide. Though I had thought that I would do a lot of planning, having a complete program of activities, instead i have the basic outline of what I want to do and accomplish. First to observe, listen, absorb, breathe, and savor the complex pathos of Palestine.

For several years I had been writing a series of travel articles under the broad title of Geometry of Time. I had been in Venice, old Cairo, Prague, Taj Mahal, and other buildings and cities shaped by the slow conversation of time, from aeon to aeon, buildings and city created with an intention in the best plans, but a city that has soul, character, and life is one that is shaped by the passage of time and people.

Some cities are easier to see this, like Venice, where the hundreds of years have

Today, and for the past few days, the predominant emotion is a fear, not of travel or even death, but leaving before I've finished what I need to do and say. Some regrets over the vast amounts of time squandered in making a living, away from writing. Now at 55 a fairly good body of work, but not the complete scope of what I want to leave.

Yesterday with nieces and nephews, appreciating their growth as people, conner, annique, kenny, and jg. A poignant and whistful sense as I saw Annique in the years to come. As a mother and her transformation. Wanting to be witness first hand this change.

As with all travels, time to go to the train, on to NYC. Web in NYC on Park Avenue.

More of the whistfulness. A full month of travel. Yes initially, I hate to travel and then when I put my feet on the ground I am ready to roll.

Hopefully, time to chat tomorrow. Plane flight tonight to Paris, but not 2 0r 3 day layover. A perfect treat of Paris.

Updates December 2009

2009-12-09T08:07:00.000-05:00

Happy and Safe Holiday to all.

I'm pleased to share with you two books: On the Island of Binga Bonga The War that Never Was
that is at - http://www.vermontpoet.com/books.html
It is a free download of a book and story for children. My friend and colleague Naomi Bennett has
made this into a play that she is performing with children in Cambridge. I saw the preliminary play
it was fun.

Also, Journal of the Plague: Living and Working with AIDS. The first chapter is on line. It is the story
of the patients and my work as a nurse working on end-stage AIDS ward at a Veterans Hospital.

Also, the new video, How to Make a Child a Suicide Bomber.

BEATNIK CAFE:http://www.vermontpoet.com/beatnikcafe.html. Will debut in NYC on 11 April 2010
Sunday 7 PM. At the Richmond Shepard Theater. Directed by Naomi Bennett. Buy tickets early!!!

Kulandia: Our space- sci fi ecological performance is on YOU TUBE at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VG0swEwNQf0
This has now been turned into a full length play that we are hoping to debut in 2010 it
is called LOVE FIRE REDEMPTION. Naomi directing this circus, sci fi eco story!

New Play FOUR PROPHETS is in the final stages. Part installation project, part play. Jesus, Mohammed, Moses,
and Satan meet in a public restroom to discuss what has failed - religion, the disciples, or humans.

Peace Garden/ Land Mine Project: Peace Garden installation fountain for Sarasota made of old military weapons
is in the early stages in Florida. Possible installation of Land Mine Garden in Cambridge.

$680 Billion Dollar Projects: Series of projects on the outrageous military US budget of $680 billion dollars. We actually
spend far more. Stay tuned. Looking for volunteers to help. We need to invest and rebuild America

Grace Cares: New projects at our not for profit http://www.gracecares.com/ new projects scheduled
for Morocco a reforestation project, on-going projects in India.

GREAT HOLIDAY PRESENTS: You can support Grace cares directly or purchase VERMONT ART POETRY http://www.vermontartpoetry.com/
posters, poems, books VERMONT MY HOME and GOD SEX POLITICS. GREAT CHRISTMAS/ Holiday presents. For every donation
to Grace Cares we will send you a book or poster!

On going updates at www.vermontpoet.blogspot.com

APPLE SEED HEALTH in 2010: Grass roots patient education for holistic health care modules. 20 top ailments
with common sense treatment, herbal, homeopathic. Cost of the course, each participant has to train 10 others.
Need volunteers to help. Please. Fun project.

Off to Jordan, Israel, Palestine December 26 to Jan 23.

Our Annual Holiday Letter
http://vermontpoet.blogspot.com/2009/11/2009-letter.html

A few updates and hope everyone is well, safe, and joyful in the new year

Namaya

Real Joy

Give me a *Christmas of joy

and keep all those useless toys.

Tinsel and wrap, just more trash,

now listen to my rap and stash

Forget Donner, Comet, Blitzen

and those other fancy kibitzens.

The elves are underpaid midgets

for sweatshops to make widgets!

Scrooge or curmudgeon my name?

Humbug!

Dig my crazy Christmas dream.

Every child who hungers would be fed,

loved and each night sleep well in their bed.

The homeless would wake safe and snug

with a sleepy contented smiled on their mug.

Every prayer of peace would be answered

and every single aspiration for hope heard

truly at last, through the land

we can call out

A merry Christmas to you all.

Ho! Ho!Ho!

++++++

***Happy Christmas, Pagan Solstice, Hanukkah,etc.

namaya

www.vermontpoet.com

www.thejazzpoet.com

Final Solution to the Palestinian Problem?

2009-12-02T12:41:00.001-05:00

The Palestinian problem has been an enormous thorn in the relations between Israel and the greater world. This has prevented a capable Western styled government from bringing the full fruits of its democracy to the Middle East. With the constant niggling and debate of rights, it is time for Israel to assert its full historic right to the full and final occupation of Greater Israel from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River to Lebanon and south to Sinai. We can stop the illusion and fantasy of a Palestinian state in the West Bank. Historically, this land was Israel, with stretches of time occupied by every power in the region. Though we had left the area for two thousand years, does it matter whether it was two days or two thousand years? Of course not. It is now time to fully reclaim this land and come to a final solution to the Palestinian problem. The moral clarity of my argument and this solution will shatter any sentimental notions. How absurd the notion of Palestinians with any rights to their “ancestral homeland.”
Though one can object to some “final solutions” previously, there were merits to it. Ironically, Germany’s final solution, allowed for the creation of the state of Israel, and Adolph Hitler may have inadvertently done more for Jews than Herzog. Though it is easy to condemn Hitler, there was a grain of clarity to his final solution, and Netanyahu has copied Hitler’s unflinching moral clarity. Israel needs to stop depending on the United States for $3 billion dollars annually and to stop spending 45% of its GNP on military. This money can really bring back the Garden of Eden in the greater Levant. Before the creation of the state of Israel, the area was farms, fishing enterprises, and some minor industries, a backwards society that lived for generations tending the land. It was only when Israel took over the archaic farms and made them into modern agribusiness, created arms industries, one of the world’s largest armies, and yes, a very capable nuclear weapons system. It is time to rip off the veil of this illusion. Israel is the most powerful army in the Middle East and the sooner we take this necessary and, albeit politically awkward public relations problem of the Palestinians, the sooner we can get on with fulfilling the prophecies.
Gaza can be a beautiful beachfront resort once we relocate Hamas to Somalia or Sudan. We have worked diligently to get the world to see that this so-called National Liberation Movement is in truth a terrorist organization and that all of our actions to wipe out this scourge are a blessing for Israel and all peace loving democracies. Not all Gazans need to leave; there are many positions available in the service industry where we will need labor, but maintaining absolute fealty to the fatherland -- Israel. The genius of Israelis and labor of loyal Palestinians is a perfect answer to a previously backwards hot bed of terrorism.
All Palestinians who choose not to become citizens of Israel (of course not full citizens, since full citizenship requires conversion to Judaism, but a limited citizenship in the way that Black Jews and other Palestinians have been incorporated into our society) would be shown the bridge to Jordan. In the way that the US uses illegal aliens, we too need people to work our farms, wait on tables, and do the necessary manual labor. Of course, with the talented tenth, the extraordinary Palestinians who accept the notion of an Uber Israeli Jewish state we can accommodate them and integrate them into our society. After all, most Muslims in the region were Jews forcibly converted to that Mohammed or the Christian ideology. Those who chose not to participate in this great democracy will be removed to Jordan, which is already sixty percent Palestinian. This would also provide a great opportunity for the people who claim displacement in Lebanon to reunite with their families. Our vision of a pure homeland that allows for democracy and security to flourish in the context of a Jewish state is a logical conclusion: Wouldn’t you agree?
Though the removal will initially be traumatic the final solution in greater Israel will allow for unprecedented opportunities for Palestinians in Jordan or other countries in the Middle East. Unless there is the preposterous notion of Palestinians having their own fully functioning independent state in the West Bank and Gaza, which can peacefully, co-exist with Israel? Two state solution of Palestine and Israel, or choice of an Uber Israeli Jewish state? The choice is clear.

13 dead soldiers in Fort Hood -- Does it Matter?

2009-11-11T09:34:00.000-05:00

Does it matter one more life is lost?

4,500 dead soldiers in Iraq
and Afghanistan?
Maimed?
Is it the price of Freedom?

Several hundred thousand
dead civilians.
Wounded?
Is it the price of liberation?

18,000 Americans dead because
of the lack of health care?
Is it the cost of democracy?

2 million homeless in American.
Is it the price of capitalism?

30 million without health insurance.
Is it the price of a global empire?

16,000 die every day due to
hunger?
Every 5 second another child dies?

Does it matter?

2009 Letter

2009-11-09T14:16:00.010-05:00

Zoe and T -Creating Loving rEvolutions.

Holidays 2009

Dear friends;
2009 stared joyously for us knowing that a Democrat Obama was in the White House and therefore our 3 week trip to Australia would be pure fun and not relocation and job hunting. And “us kids’ did have fun exploring the spectacular natural and city wonders of the island continent. T made his Australian premiere in Sydney. Our good friends Vinay, Rachel, Maya and Ella deliciously hosted us in Melbourne which we used as a base to explore Victoria Coast (spectacular views as you can see from the postcard). Nature and wildlife was Z’s personal highlights. This included kayaking over 30ft surf to bond with the seals off the coast of Apollo Bay. T was singing “Yo soy marinero?” the whole way. We ventured to the northeast corner to oldest rainforest on earth dating back to original 1 continent 415 m years ago Pangaea. We luxuriated in a cabin at www.daintree-ecolodge.com.au (best ever spa experience, small, homey) the cabins have screened in front porches with hot tubs that let you camp “simply” in the rainforest. We moved on to simpler accommodations at http://www.capetribbeach.com.au/ located at the end of the dirt road in the Daintree at Cape Tribulation where the rainforest meets the great barrier reef.

We made lots of friends especially the night critters at X’s walk. Read T’s amazing description on X’s website.http://vermontpoet.blogspot.com/2009/02/night-walking-in-cooper-creek-in.html T also got to see the Cassowary one of Australia’s biggest birds at 75 inches tall and 120 pounds. Just walking across the road

Though despite the drought, the incredible cities, nature and people of Australia we did decide to come back home and cheer on the Obama administration and experience the biggest economic recession in US history in person. After all our beloved Tegan (featured on our postcard) would miss us. Maybe some of you would too though you would likely come visit. But maybe you will visit us in Vermont at our home on Blue Heron pond (pic here of Blue of pond). We continue to think there is no better place on earth than our pond and its surrounding 75 year old hardwood and pine forest. We recently found out we have an elm tree one of the few to have survived the blight. And our Heron or is it the son or daughter of our original Heron keeps visiting us and now even lets Zoe swim in the pond while s/he remains there.

Z continues to focus on improving life for the 455 million men and women around the globe with OAB. This year she helped launch a new product for the condition Toviaz which comes with a behavioral change program offered as part of the treatment www.toviaz.com/yourway . We both have worked most of our lives in health care with a focus on trying to increase individuals’ self-responsibility for wholistic care as a focus so it is great to see these types of programs happening. Remember you are own best doctor- take care of yourself! Because who knows if health care reform will ever really happen. Amazing how every developed country, except the US, considers healthcare to be a basic right. If only Roosevelt had lived longer Americans too would have universal access to health care (link to FDR’s 2nd Bill of Rights).

Us gypsies also traveled this summer to Italy and Greece with nephew Conner and good friend Dean to explore ancient wonders, modern gelato and to search unsuccessfully for fresh Greek dolmades (unbelievably and disappointingly to Conner dolmades are not even on the menu). (NEED PHOTO OF FAB 4 HERE) Obviously we will have to return to Greece and continue the search. Maybe the islands next time? Too many exciting things happened in 2 weeks to go into here but do visit T’s blogspot XXXX for details. How can one be anything but delighted when sitting in Trevi fountain, splashing about in Piazza Navona, eating gelato in front of the Pantheon, walking the streets of Pompeii and Herculaneum, holding your breath (in wonder and fear) for an hour while traveling from Sorrento to Positano, swimming illegally in the blue grotto, watching the full moon over Delphi, climbing on My Olympus and Mt Parnassus (looking for Centaurs) swimming in the Mediterranean….ah yes. Our last day of the trip was magical we got to visit the newly opened amazing Acropolis museum where the glass floor lets you see the excavation below you and the windows have great views of the acropolis. We then had lunch at the canal cut through the isthmus of Corinth followed by a refreshing swim on the way to the ancient Epidaurus theatre to see Lady Helen Mirren in Racine’s Phedre. http://vermontpoet.blogspot.com/2009/08/mid-summers-night-dream-with-phedra-at.html#comments
The autumn has been long and spectacular in the northeast (enjoying global warming while we can) we were able to enjoy the colors on visits to Boston to see friends while T partners with a Director there who is putting on a stage version of his children’s story Binga Bonga. Z dances through her time there learning to be a www.nianow.com instructor. This fall T celebrated his birthday with a weekend long house party with new and old friends (some of who came all the way from the Congo) to sing in his new year.

We continue to support work in international health and community development. Z is on the board of directors of Behrhorst Partners for Development which helps rural communities in the Mayan Highlands with clean drinking water, safe water for crops and latrines. You can see celebrations at our most recent project by going to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZWmV81IcvM For only $80 you can help a villager get this package of services. Each villager will donate in-kind labor valued at approximately $40 to match your gift and improve the life and health of their village. If you donate at www.behrhorst.com a holiday gift card will be sent to your giftee.

Both of us remain on the Board of GRACE Cares a non-profit we started to help local heroes. Go to www.gracecaresvt.com to make a donation to education projects in India, food projects in the Dominican Republic or reforestation in Morocco. If you wish to give in honor of a friend this holiday season a gift card will be sent to them in your name.

2009 & 2010 FUN PLANNING

If you would like to mix fun with volunteer work the very experienced tour guide Ms. Z will be leading a tour to Guatemala.

May 28 (arrive for dinner) through June 2nd (departures) we will see the beautiful colonial sights of Antigua, market in Chichicastenango, Lake Atilan (Z’s plans on some kayaking), visits to villages in the Mayan Highlands where we will help with a project. You can do optional add on of visits to Tikal or fishing or sailing on the Rio Dulce. For more info go to http://www.behrhorst.org/tours and see a recent tour itinerary. Approximate cost is $900 excluding airfare. Please email me at: koppzoe@yahoo.com if I get 10 people to sign up I will start planning.

PARTY!!!
This year we will be having our 20th (Z’s 32nd ) annual tree trimming party on December 13th 2009 3:00pm. So come on up for the party or night.

February 14th at 3:00pm the 33rd annual Chocolate Lover’s Party will once again provide legal intoxication with some of the world’s finest chocolates.

As always wishing you joy and peace in the new year!

Namaya Shows Music/ Performance and Creative Space:

T had shows at the Jazz Mind in Honolulu, I enjoyed performing. Then on to Sydney at El Rocco cafe - Harry and Deb backed me -- good show there. Then down to Melbourne with wonderful hosting at Cafe Voltaire. Great environment for the arts in Australia. Though it is hot. The last day were there it was 45 C. Yes, 45C. Over 115 F!

T had shows at Magnet Theater, at 5 C Cultural Center in NYC, shows in Vermont, performances in Hartford, and making terrific connections with his new creative music colleague/friend Chris Bakriges. Also, he did a new short play this year called "Kulandia" about Ku Z monaughts that travel through space on the power of an orgiastic collective moan and arrive at the planet Earth devastated by nuclear waste. My friend Naomi Bennett directed this and it should be on the internet soon.

The new play "Four Prophets" where it is part installation project with Jesus, Mohammed, Moses on 3 toilets as Satan comes wheeling in on a pimp mobile rickshaw pulled by the head of Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, and Citibank. They then have a conversation who is to blame for the insanity of mankind?

Vietnam: Past and Present
I was down in Sydney Harbor with a a Vietnamese Man mid 50's, and as we shook hands I felt an amazing sweep of history. I as a young sailor at the end of Vietnam War and where was he? Vietnam was a defining period in my life and many in my generation. Friends and acquaintances we knew killed and maimed in the war. During my service in the Navy I met several Quakers and came to readily see the merits of pacifism. As I said at a recent Quaker Meeting, I have been a Quaker in training for the past 35 years, but even for a Friend I am quite cantankerous.

Now in Sydney Harbor, this Vietnamese man and I casually chatting... all this hatred and killing by both sides. Vietnam suffered upwards to 2 million dead, the US 60,000, plus all the wounded. Yet, we were here on holiday in Australia. Could we have imagined this 35 years ago?

$680 Billion dollars and counting:
My thoughts, then and now turn to the subject of war. I find now at 55 with the INSANE MILITARY POLICY of the US, $680 billion dollars by Congress, plus perhaps another several hundred billion dollars, I feel a profound shame and loss. How can this nation with so much greatness and potential continue to squander it on the military? How can we rob all of the future generations of America? I find it beyond belief that anyone in my generation that went through the Vietnam era can not be outraged by this on-going madness.

Then in Australia I am looking through this same lens... here is a country that spends a relatively tiny amount of money on the military and it has the money for education, housing, and health.

The book "War is a Hoax" by Smedley Butler Major General in the Marines and two time medal of honor winner spoke eloquently that the only people who war benefits is the rich capitalists.

Palestine -We will be in Jordan, then over to Israel and Palestine from 26 December on. The situation on the ground in Palestine has been getting worse. Israel continues to build housing and settlements on Palestinian land. Taking land away from Palestinians and building on it. I went to a conference in September and the group was called "End the Occupation." We continue to support this and other groups that are looking to a two state solution where there can be a viable future for the people of Palestine and Israel.

Other travels: This summer with nephew Conner and our friend Dean we traveled to Italy and Greece for two weeks. Entries on the travel section on ORACLE OF DELPHI. There is a long section in the Travel blogs about this and seeing the English national Theater performing Phaedra at Epidorous. Loved traveling with Conner, we think he will be a traveling sort.

Books:
Infidel and Cage Virgin Aaayan Hirsi Ali.

Music
Chris Bakriges: With this wonderful jazz compositions based on a Meditation of Matisse.
Donna Creighton: Singer song writer from Canada. Love her work

Poets:
Marc Zegan in Cambridge

Namaya at 55: I am getting ready for the next part of my life. In the past year, I've been decluttering my life, physically, emotionally, financially, creatively, and spiritually. That is a tall order. But in essence it is looking at what has worked for me and what hasn't. What is demanding the most attention, what projects matter the most to me, and where do I need to focus on.

Though I really enjoy Homeopathy, I have been putting this aside for now to concentrate on the creative projects and writing. I will return to homeopathy in 2010 but in a different way with our program to educate people about health entitled "Apple Seed Health."

GRACE CARES supports small scale community development projects around the world. We have one project in India that teaches health care and English and based on that the project holders are slowly moving to a broader community health project.

Please check out some of my new art projects at www.vermontpoet.com/gallery and in the music and book section, as well as the section on Landmines. One project I’ve been designing is a Peace/ Meditation Garden using old military weapons and building fountains and art projects. It combines alternative energy, community development, and design.

Hope everyone is off to a safe and healthy new year.

Love

Zoe and T and Tegan who sends "meows"

The Blissful Moment of Creativity:

2009-10-02T14:25:00.003-04:00

It is somewhat surprising that I haven't posted since the beginning of August 08 and this is one of the most creative and productive periods of my life for art/creativity as I'm making a significant transformation that has been a long time in coming.
Personally, it has been a delightful, and transformative experience. My sense of who I am is altered. Who am I? Poet? Artist? Installation Artist? Playwright? I’ve set aside all other business activities for the near term to focus on this process of emergence. The creative flood is unsettling, nevertheless, I am in the “river” of this flow and learning to relax, enjoy the ride, and sail with the current. The shores look appealing with their certainty, but as I am letting go of my expectations, the voyage is taking my in places I never knew existed.
For the past few months, I've been drawing and designing on average of a few hours a day, some days more than 4 hours. In terms of the fine artistry skills, Michelangelo should rest comfortably in his grave that he doesn't have to rise up and challenge me. I'm more than a bit mystified as to this direction of these large installation/ multimedia projects. For years, I've often been fascinated by modern installation art, and have often been more dismissive than admiring of it ie., a stack of Fluorescent light bulbs as one of the prize finalists for the Venice biennale; a chunk of oak on the floor of the MOMA; an iron bed with a strand of barbed wire hanging from the wall of the Barcelona Modern; the Madonna painted with Elephant shit, etc. and the list of specious projects goes on. Perhaps my plebian roots are showing?
However, in the midst of a plethora of art projects that are complete bullshit, I take my own foolish plunge into that world. I am very inspired, emboldened by so many artists, who are willing to put their fools cap on and dance a merry jig.
The core of my strength is when I can fuse my vision as a poet/ artist and social change activist. I was very inspired by Shepard Fairey’s show in Boston and how this artist very successfully blended his social political vision and his art.

The greatest gift to give yourself is the gift of time. The permission to create, to sit quietly, play guitar, take off in the middle of the day to play tennis, to lie back in a pile of leaves and watch autumn unfold, or a myriad of idle pleasures. Creativity happens in these unstructured moments, I’ve wasted too much of my life being busy and trying to make money. Now with 55 approaching in a few weeks, I am totally at peace by Blue Heron Pond, and cherish the time to write and create.

Also in the past few months, I’ve had the pleasure with working and exchanging ideas with the terrific jazz pianist Chris Bakriges. Chris and I are performing in NYC and planning on some tentative long-range projects. Also, Naomi Bennett, the director worked with me on a local 24-hour play festival that was a lot of fun. It was adventures on the planet Ku-Landia where "Kus monaughts" travel through the Universe powered by a collective orgiastic moan. It is a wee bit faster than Domino’s Delivery and twice as delicious. Naomi is also working on creating “On the Island of Binga Bonga” as a children’s play.
In preparing and thinking about the project “4 Prophets” I’ve been devouring books on Islam and Modernity, the Koran, the Bible, and pushing myself on this question: What is more pernicious: The religion? The Holy Books? Humanity?

New Projects in the works:

30 October 2009 8 PM: 5 C Café in NYC on Avenue C by Tompkins Square Park with Chris Bakriges, Ken Foliano, and myself. We will record the event and the following day spend time recording in Brooklyn. The show is Jaz Mu Experience.

On the Island of Binga Bonga: I’ve had the delight of working with Naomi Bennett on the children’s book that I have on line at www.vermontpoet.com. and she is translating that into a children’s play with her students in Boston.

Spring 2009: Jaz Mu Experience: ir Reveren’ jAz: Naomi is directing and designing a troupe of about 6 actors/ dancers to perform 5 new multimedia pieces: Schizophrenetica/ Jhesus Vivaldi; Love in a Minor Key of Ku; Colors of Imagination: Jazz is a Conversation.

Haiti: In the initial steps of working with a group called RE-THINK HAITI a community development project there

In my new creative projects I found some creative mojo:

Four Prophets: I’ve detailed this before of Mohammed (mo mo), Moses (Moishe), and Jesus (J-Man) and Satan as a blues singer meet in a public restroom to discuss the arc of faith, religion, spiritually, and the fate of Man.

Be All that You Can Be: The project of some 450 – plus marching through the streets of Washington to represent the some 4,800 US lives lost in the insanity known as Iraq Afghanistan: The 5th Crusade.

Land Mine: A 15 by 15 meter barbed wire area in a public space with sand. In it are buried de-activated landmines. The landmine area is barbed wired with pictures of children maimed and killed by landmines.

Rape the Bitch: Sexual Slavery in the 21st Century

Installation/ Multimedia/ Performance Project
There are according to some estimates a million to ten million women, girls, and boys trafficked annually for sex and slavery. Bought and sold like cattle for sex.
The project is the creation of a brothel in a public space/ museum. It will be roughly 25 meters by 25 meters depending on the space. It has the lairs and labyrinth
of a brothel, where you have live models of young men and women lying on small beds in tiny cubicles. Some are chained to the bed and others not. There are also clients in the room with the young men and women. The smells of cheap perfume, sex, unwashed bodies will permeate the rooms.
Clients, viewers are invited to walk through the rooms. Observe the prostitutes and customers. Some of the women will invite the customers back to the room and draw them into the lair.
Outside Structure: the structure looks like a stage set but at the entrance it looks like one of the main thoroughfares for the red light district of Bangkok. On the outside wall of the brothel called Rape the Bitch are posters promoting sexual tourism around the world, pictures of girls and boys in the sexual slavery business, customers coming into brothels.
Other Aspect:
Video Stream of all the pornographic websites on two large screens.

ALTERNATIVES:
Alternatives like Amsterdam were the sex trade is regulated.
Workers owned brothels and cooperatives.

Dinner Party at the World Economic Forum:
Installation and Performance Project:
This is a table setting for fifty place settings of the 50 largest corporations. On the table are beautiful servings of the world’s most precious resources: water, air, oil, natural gas, gold, medicine, education/ books, etc. The candelabras are made from machine guns. The chairs are oil barrels, toxic waste barrels, chemicals etc that fuel the first world economy. Dinner is served by men and women wearing rags, and they are white gloved (of course). The plates are gold and silver.
Surrounding the dinner table is a heavy velvet rope and barbed wire. Armed security, Blackwater, is posted every few meters. You can only come in if you are on the list of the VVVIP, are ultra wealthy white, one of the 1/10 of 1% who rule the world, or you’re a servant.
Music is baroque – Mozart – a bit of night music.

Some 15 meters away or more depending on the space is the 3rd World Village.

3rd World Village
You are invited to join the people for rice and beans and a glass of water from an open well. Music is a reggae steel drum. People are gathered at tables talking and playing. People on the outside are weaving, making pottery, tending babies, forging tools.

Project
It is designed as a teaching and learning project. The project will be created by students with a focus on international Human Rights/ International Development guided by the artist. As students are assembling the project they are learning of the inequities between First and Third World Countries. They are also learning about the positive elements of Third World cultures – community, affiliation, strong sense of family, less resource dependent, and more efficiently use materials. For example, the United States has about 5% of the world’s population but uses about 25% of the resources.

A Mid-summer’s Night Dream with Phedra at Epidorous

2009-08-18T14:09:00.002-04:00

It was a mid-summer’s night dream with the full moon overhead as we saw the ancient play Phedra at Epidorous in Greece on the 10th of July 2009 with Helene Mirrin and the National Theater of England performing. Epidorous a 5th century BC amphitheater has hosted plays and performances for the past 2,500 years and this night was one of the most glorious places to be on the planet.

We had traveled through northern Greece visiting the sites of Mount Olympus, Delphi, the Corinth Canal, and the dozens of places that are hallmarks of the ancient Greek civilization. Earlier in the day we were at the Parthenon, the Acropolis and the new National Archaeology Museum specifically designed to host the returned Parthenon friezes that have been ensconced in the British Museum. The English Ambassador, Lord Elgin, in the early 1800’s absconded with the beautiful marbles and friezes from the Parthenon for “safe keeping,” and the Greek government has been trying to reclaim them since. There was a bit of irony the English were coming back here to offer their version of Euripides’s classic Hippolytus written in 429 BC; perhaps, the National Theater’s production is an overture in the return of this Greek National treasure.

Phedra, originally entitled Hippolytus by Euripides is a classic Greek tragedy. Racine, the French playwright created his version of the play with the name of Phaedra. This current incarnation of Phaedra adapted into English by the poet Ted Hughes is a tale that embodies the Greek tragedy, the human foibles of Racine, and with a modern staging by the National Theater of England makes for superb theater

In the play, Hippolytus, the son of King Theseus and stepson of Phaedra, in Theseus’ absence Phaedra falls in love with Hippolytus, but he rejects her as he is in love with Aricia. Phedra accuses Hippolytus of seducing her. Upon learning this, Theseus banishes his son and asks the god Poseidon to punish him. A colossal bull rises from the sea and frightens Hippolytus’ horses, which drag him to his death. Phaedra in remorse poisons herself.

The ancient amphitheater with its perfect acoustics enables the actors to perform without amplification to a theater that holds 17,000 people. This is one of the enchantments of the production, bare-bone theatre without a sound system, a minimum of lighting, five chairs placed in the fore of the stage and one simple table with a bowl of water as the only fixed props. The actors wore an odd amalgam of clothes, as if each actor had gone to a Thrift store and purchased their own costume. The soldiers and advisers dressed like fascist black-shirts, the nurse maid attired like an old crone, Phaedra in a contemporary simple purple gown, Aricia in a white short toga, Theseus in shirt and trousers, and despite the lack of overt coherency – it came off splendidly. The costumes were simple suggestions and didn’t overwhelm the performance or distract the audience.

The power of the play was the language -- glorious, rich, and well spoken. This is the soul of the National Theater where actors genuinely love the word and without artifice bring it to life. In a screen above the backstage, the English translated to Modern Greek.

Helen Mirrin gave a beautifully crafted performance -- emotions brought to life with a gesture or a rise in the voice, a mood evoked with a turn of the head, as she seamlessly worked with the other actors. Dominic Cooper, an accomplished actor played Hippolytus though sometimes not fully embodying the essence of Hippolotous’s profound contradictions. Theseus, played by the imposing Stanley Townsend, was superb, the voice and clarity of character filled the stage: He was every inch the king, the father, and Zeus. The sum of the performance by this stellar cast, with outstanding direction by Nicholas Hynter and set design by Bob Crowley, created a memorable theater experience measured by the hush and the awe of the crowd. At the end when Aricia, her white robes covered in blood, dragged the bloody corpse of Hippolytus on stage the audience was on the edge of their seats, lust and the tragic consequence of betrayal was there for us to see.

The applause was a slow rising tide that built to a crescendo, with three curtain calls, and a standing ovation as the audience was stunned realizing they had seen one of the finest theater performances of their life. The moon overhead, the Goddess Selene, twin sister of Apollo, illuminated the amphitheater of Epidorous. On leaving I heard at least a dozen languages spoken, excitedly talking about the play, slowly walking through the dark to the waiting cars. Perhaps like in the ancient days – during the times of festivals, wars were suspended. In a golden age yet to come, when the imagination is inspired and the magic of theater touches our soul, perhaps that enchantment will lead to an age of lasting peace.

I want a Wise Latina on the Court

2009-07-16T10:55:00.002-04:00

I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life,” said Judge Sotomayor,

I want a Wise Latina on the Court

Justice is not blind, but it does see through a set of lens in the USA. If you are poor, disadvantaged, poor black or poor Latino, a shanty-town white Appalachian your experience with the law will be very different than if you are a rich white person and in the rare case a wealth black football player. The evidence is in the prisons overwhelmingly filled with Black, Latino, and poor whites. Occasionally, a wealth white guy will serve hard time… at one of those golf club prisons, but except in cases of extreme stupidity or greed, white rich guys get a free pass. As a white working class man I want a justice system that represents the diversity of Americans. Nevertheless, I don’t believe ethnicity or class gives you the sole advantage of perspective, but in the case of Judge Sotomayor, who through dint of integrity, intelligence, and hard work brought herself up from the hardscrabble childhood of the Bronx. This vantage point of a highly qualified wise Latina jurist is sorely needed on our Supreme court.
White wealthy Republican senators on the judicial committee are apoplectic that the subject of race is mentioned. From their ill informed perspective -- justice is blind, everyone is treated equally under the law, and though we wish that were true, the reality is to the contrary. White people, myself included, do not like being confronted on their racism, collectively or personally, and when the subject comes up we want to say, “But my best friends are…” or retreat into clichés of fictitious fraternity. Despite an African American president, the US is still a racist/ classist society, both by history and present reality. Though there’s been great strides, we are a society defined by this racism, and to not recognize it – is myopic at best, at worst it perpetuates the racism.
Though the selection of Justice Sotomayor will not instantly mitigate the racism or bias, the unique perspective of a jurist with the depth of her experience, knowledge, and the wisdom of a well qualified Latina jurist will well serve the Supreme court.

Farewell to Blue Heron Pond

2009-06-25T07:09:00.006-04:00

Though on the surface I'm going away for only a two week period to Italy and Greece, there is a part of me that feels like I will never return. The poignancy of love, even new love where the departure is painful, and leaving BHP in the middle of summer is a mixed blessing. I have reached the point in life where I don't want to travel anywhere else, I don't want to voyage further, the only place I want to be is here at the pond. Though I will always wander in my soul and imagination, my spirit ever restless, it is by being rooted here that I find my greater clarity and purpose. I don't need to be the vagabond, wandering minstrel, I am satisfied with my voice and spirit as one part of the conversation of life on the pond. There are far more eloquent singers and poets here, the dozens of birds by the pond, with their chorale of life and birth. Conversations across the airwaves -- "Good morning, lovely day here at the pond." "Good eats down by the rock." "My hormones are ready today, let's mate" "Here my sexy song!" The voices of all of god's glorious creatures by the waters. Each song is enchantment and the crow's boisterous bellowing interruptions are quiet today, blue jay's screech gone, and the sweetness of the early morning birds are glorious. Even though I was awakened by them at about 5 this morning. I can still appreciate them.

Talking with Joe these past few days about life in Hati and the tremendous loss of nature and life, the depredation, and poverty. Yet, I am here by these waters, enjoying and savoring paradise.

I write to hold this prayer of Blue Heron Pond. To hold the songs in my spirits, to cherish each moment of this paradise. I send this blessing out across the airways, a private reverie and blessing from the birds and creatures by this pond. Is their song -- savor this paradise? Enjoy this corner of heaven?

Wherever you are today, in whatever part of the globe, find your small corner of paradise. A flower growing in a city sidewalk crack, let it be your garden, let the dreaming roots speak to your soul and the flowers inspire your imagination. Hug a tree, no matter how slender or modest, and feel its presence. Smell the air and find the sweetness of breath. Appreciate and savor for even an instant the miracle of life.

At Blue Heron Pond, this insistent quiet presence of the miracle of life is spoken in each tree, blade of grass, flower, bird song, and held in the wind - here in this sacred crucible.

I will miss this corner of heaven,as I travel, but as always to these that are dearest to our being, we keep them close in our soul. I cherish Blue Heron Pond this morning.

Creative Journey

2009-06-17T09:22:00.004-04:00

CREATIVE JOURNEY: Peace Art Work and Installation Projects:

Yesterday I spent about 5 hours working on new drawings and designs for installation and gallery projects. Though I do not have a "formal" background in arts and drawing, I have always drawn and designed, though very little I've shared with the broader public. I feel like the drag queen who's been in the closet too long and has been taking the tiniest steps forward to bring her true nature out to the world. Is that almost a mixed metaphor?
I was at Yorba Center for the Arts and SF Modern over the past week, and was very inspired by the space and a few artists. I liked Shepherd Fairy’s work famous for his Obama poster, his work on peace and graphics of a Muslim woman was excellent. Nevertheless, I am equally inspired by the vast space of the museum. At the MOMA in NY I saw a show that I didn’t care for, but was amazed at the football field size space devoted to this installation. I started to draw on the spot and created an installation project inspired by the space. Last year, I also saw a terrific museum of contemporary art in San Juan Puerto Rico and the show with the focus on street life and art of the ordinary life was so inspirational. These shows give me confidence that my talent as a conceptualizer with an excellent sense of composition is sufficient for what I want to present. Interestingly, I have not been drawing much by hand, and now find that as I am sketching more of that memory is coming back.

I've seen museum exhibitions around the world: Barcelona Modern where there was an iron bed on the wall with barbed wire, St.Francis with splotches of red and black, or the Venice Biennale where I felt like such a hillbilly. At the Venice show, which I've been to twice, through sheer accident, I saw the work and said, "Fuck sake! I can do better than that." JFC, a stack of fluorescent tubes on the floor? Did I miss something? I said to the curator, "You should really clean up the rest of the floor for the show?" Pointing to the stack of bulbs. He informed me with an air of certainty that "This installation is one of our finalists!" JFC! No, shit? My plebian sensibilities never felt more exposed.

On a positive note, I am drawn to creating works for public spaces. Public spaces are rooms for arguments, discussion, ideas, exchange of ideas, vigorous debates, confrontations of aesthetic, challenging our perceptions, challenging our sensibilities. In addition, yes, it is permissible and encouraged, when art appears as bullshit to call it that. You may not be right, but too much of modern art or conceptual work sets off my crap detector. The Venice Biennale with the first prize of two chairs on a track, I thought, JFC, “I am in the wrong profession.”

However, I’ve seen the museum of Dali in Northern Spain, and that should humble any one of us. I’m more than astonished when some don’t include him in the top ranks of artists. I’ve seen his work in Europe and the US, the boldness and the humor of his work is refreshing. In addition, I’ve been very inspired by artists like Michael Singer who is able to combine his sculpture and design and integrate it into public space projects. Bob Rauschenberg’s atelier and his design work have often inspired me and though I was with some of his friends, I never had the chance to meet with him or visit his studio on upper Captiva. Perhaps, on the next visit I can again meet with Darryl, his partner and creative partner, whom I had met once before.

These past 35 years of wandering around the world, seeing art from the Ladak Museum in the Tibetan plateau to the “great” museums of Europe, to the private museums of Prague in the old Jewish Quarter, and all the points in between…I feel like I’ve had an amazing on-going education. I don’t view art as a casual observer, I absorb and digest it, and the works that have been meaningful are ingrained in my memory.

I have gone through such a long journey of exploration in arts and in this period reflecting how much I’ve absorbed over the years from the hundreds of shows and exhibitions both of modern and traditional painting and design.

This past week in San Francisco with my friend and wonderful!! performance artist and musician Idriss Ackmoor. He is writing and developing this amazing new work called "Breach." What an inspiration and I so savored the opportunity to catch up with this artist. His theater group is Cultural Odyssey.

The Art of Peace: PEACE ART:

I am attracted to the art of peace as an artist and as a Quaker. How is the theme of Peace an art form? In the last few months I’ve been sketching and designing a peace garden. I remember Mai Lin’s work when I first saw it. I was struck by its elegant power and beauty. Her design was drawn from the heart, it was a simple primal expression, as painful as the cry of a mother holding a dead child. As a nurse, I’ve heard that cry, and nothing is more painful than the loss of a child.

I wish to capture that savage brutal scream. I recall Yoko Ono’s wails that people found unfathomable, I think it was some of that pain of grieving. I like her work now with the imagine peace campaign. Also, the Peace of Wild Things with Jay Clayton is superb.

Peace is not simply the absence of conflict, it is a state of synthesis, drawing together the disparate parts. It is a time where the overt and active violence may cease, but it is a caesura, the time of reflecting and synthesis. Eros and Thanatos are the twin forces of nature. Human nature is conflict. Life is conflict. Conflict and the dynamic of change is imperative to growth. Otherwise, there is stasis.

It is unmanaged conflict that is the problem, the inability to engage constructively in conflict, and work with conflicting viewpoints there is a problem and ultimately war. I do not have a great deal of faith in humanity, the concept is wonderful, but the practicality and the embodiment of it leaves much to be desire. As Gandhi so archly said when he was asked what he thought of Christianity he said, “It would be a good idea.”

As a feisty Irish Quaker, I am always interested in the issues of peace and conflict. At one time I, though I was going to get my PhD in Peace and Conflict studies. After all, wouldn’t you have a person who intimately knows conflict to teach it? Well, maybe…

I am also witnessing the destruction of the USA from the ravenous desire to feed the military. I use a figure widely quoted of 22 to 25% of our GNP on military and related expenditures. Though I’m not sure I can help to mitigate it, I am called to respond to it through my art.

One of the large projects that has the most power for me is:

BE ALL THAT YOU CAN BE: A PRAYER

Organizing 4,440 people, men, women, & children in ponchos, helmets, boots, painted in grey face, marching in front of the White House and to the Vietnam Memorial spot. Each cloth poncho has the name of a soldier US killed in Afghanistan and Iraq. The soldiers are joined together by a thick rope they’re carrying. A “sergeant” at the front of the parade is calling out cadence. I also envision a Buddhist Monk at the front or the beginning with a wooden block keeping the rhythm of cadence. The procession goes through the streets of Washington to Vietnam Memorial. In a circle the names of the soldiers are called out. Each poncho is removed and placed in front of the participants. The name of each soldier in a piece of paper is placed in a cauldron at the center of the circle. Then it is lit.

A simple prayer. Recorded. Held and cherished.

If I do this project it will take up to six months to a year. I do not know if it can happen quicker with all the twitter and blog work. I would do it as a movie versus a protest march. It is a prayer.

On the Island of Binga Bonga: The War that never was.

This children’s story is www.vermontpoet.com in the gallery

If there were no more wars what would the children do?

This is a long simmering project that I wrote years ago as a play and now it is a movie installation and performance piece. It is about twenty minutes in length. It opens with a soldier’s boots, the martial music is thumping, and gradually when you look into the faceit is that of an eight year old boy. Then you see a group of children on the side of the stage playing. A drill sergeant calls out for the soldier to assume “Ready! Aim! Fire!” as he raises his gun at the children. And next?

Ironically, as I am writing this, a gun range about 2 kilometers from my house and someone is firing a shot gun.

COST OF MILITARY:

Community project where people in the community put a price ticket on the cost of war around town. A simple price tag on paper.

One M-16 = $

One bullet=

The lifetime care of a wounded soldier

The cost of a dream lost:

The cost of a burial:

Hunting: A Vermont Tradition?

A photo exhibition inspired by a 12 year old girl smiling after she killed a deer. I was stunned. How could anyone smile after they killed something? How could you see an animal close enough to kill it and feel its spirit, and view it as a sport. There is a profound disconnect for me to see this.

The photography project is to shoot, every pun intended, a child on the hunt, the moment of her killing an animal, gutting it, and sitting down with the family to eat it.

Let the viewers decide.

Tommy Got His GUN:

A video that I've been sketching on a boy inspired by his video game and Columbine goes on a killing spree.

Summary

I’ve been having this incredible productive period where my attention is drawn inward and less and less inclined towards performance. Though I LOVE performing, and as I am given to say, if I was any more of ham the pigs would go on strike!, I am stepping back from it ever so slightly. The delight in performance is to the stage, but now there is a greater hunger for writing and designing, and also for getting out some of the business ideas up and running. When I am be bopping around the globe it is difficult for me to sit down and write! But the world of travel inspires me immensely.

Now to the business of making some do re mi!

Deeply inspired by "Found art"

My Creative Journey: Vermont Our Home & othe work

2009-06-02T09:10:00.007-04:00

The best part of my creative process can be seen in my daily journals. This year I am weighing in at 680 pages so far. I wake up each day by Blue Heron Pond and write for at least an hour to two hours, and lately, this has stretched out to as much as six hours.

As the philosopher Krishanamurti said, the flame of attention. This is my on-going daily meditation, my invitation to look at the world, to be awed by it with all of its flaws and beauty, and to pay attention to my own creative process.

I included a sample of this in the jAz mU entry below, I left it raw with its certain savage beauty intact. Though I like to make sure my writings are clean and flawless, unfortunately, I struggled with getting precise clean copy.

I feel always at the point between birth and dying. There is such clarity and beauty in the world around me. I will miss this amazing life and world, I will miss the friendships and family, I will miss the joy of waking up at Blue Heron Pond, the loves of my life, and as this moment draws closer – valuing each moment as my senses drink in the memory of this paradise called life.

I leave these words, stories, and journeys of the imagination. I hope they inspire you.

Creativity is freedom.

New works: Vermont Our Home: A Celebration - A show of music, poetry, tall tales, and a bit of history of Vermont. This is based on my last book Vermont My Home on Blue Heron Pond. Vt Our Home is the story of the incredible 5 season magic of Vermont. From all walks of life Vermonters are proud of the land and the heritage of stewardship is omnipresent.
The show opens with GAIA the beginning of the day and the creation of the land. As the "day" begins the trees, the wind, the spirits, and animals roar to life. It is a celebration of this moment of creativity, when god/gods created this jewel of a paradise, blessed it with rivers filled with life, sunrises so glorious it inspired the birds to sing, mountains that converse with the clouds and the sky, flowers ecstatically vibrant with colors, and each part of this land a sensuous and joyful creation.
I love the story not only of the land but the people of Vermont -- the dairy farmers, the farmers, the craftsmen, poets, tennis players and sports people, the hip hop kids, rappers, artists, factory workers, stay at home moms and dads, all of these folks that make up our state. Our state motto is Freedom and Unity, and it has often given me pause to think what this means. It represents the values and traditions of tolerance and respect.
Vermont is a state of first: The first state to abolish slavery, the first state for Civil Unions, and I like to think it is first among states for its care of the environment.
I have travelled to between 75 and 100 countries around the world and to most parts of the US, and time and time again I have found communities are most vibrant when people have a connection to the land and have a strong sense of belonging. In our largely rural state that is about 80% covered with forests and rivers, we all have this powerful connection to the land and its beauty. There is this sense of stewardship and pride in being a Vermonter, even for the many of us who were born outside the state we’re defined by our common love for this Green Mountain paradise.

We are having a ton of fun sketching out the ideas for Vermont Our Home and inviting other folks into the dialogue and discussion. A large project of kites and sails for the Welcome Center and public spaces "Blue Skies over the Green Mountains" is in the design stage.

Blue Skies over the Green Mountains

This is a LONG! term interest of mine and that I had created in the project called "Laundry list of wishes" at www.vermontpoet.com/gallery.` A poem or story speaks when Ï see it, when I taste it, and smell it. Even "classical" poems from the Cavalier period like to "Althea from Prison" or "To My Coy Mistress" you can feel and experience these on a visceral level. In my word/ art creations on banners and cloth/ glass/ other materials I try to add some of these dimensions of texture, motion, and light as they converse with the piece. The interaction and interplay between the pieces' environment shapes the piece. Truly, a phenomenological experience, the discourse between object and viewer.

GARBAGE:
Another project, which I designed, and haven't executed is "GARBAGE." Originally, this was designed based on the garbage dump in Shokan, NY as an interactive, multimedia performance project in the garbage dumb. Now we call these places a recycling center. Our garbage, refuse, trash, detritus, carbon dioxide, green-house gases, sewage, and chemical effluence more defines our era than our creativity. An eco-system is constantly engage in this conversation of Eros & Thanatos, creation and destruction

Opus One:
Not Opus Dei, but at Opus 40 in Saugerties New York. In l988 I had this vision of a performance at Opus 40. It was on the full moon on the summer equinox. The performance illuminated by candlelight and torches. It was a pagan/ Celtic offering and service to pay homage to the god of the moon. The vision was clear, almost hallucinatory, and saw the offering and performance in front of my eyes. I never translated the show to text or created it. Strange, I didn’t have the skills, vocabulary or experience to bring it to fruition. Now, as I’ve been creating and producing shows, the confidence increases

Sweet Pond Eco Community
I've been inspired by architecture and design for years, but have done little to bring this perspective forward in a larger way until www.sweetpondecocommunity.com. This is our 9 unit eco-development in Guilford Vermont. I had visited Michael Singer, the sculptor and designer, and was very impressed by his atelier, and how he translated his aesthetic into public projects... www.michaelsinger.com. At around that time we had seen this beautiful 100 acre property and wanted to preserve as much of the natural beauty. So the story of that journey is at the website.
This creative work with the Sweet Pond is an extension of my deeper vision as an artist, not confined by one medium or another, one convention, or style. The artists/creators who always inspired me with this boldness are Dali, Picasso, Da Vinci, Edison, Singer, and others who were/ are amazingly bold and refuse to be hemmed in by an ideology or convention. The world was their palette and the freshest colors drawn from the well of their imagination. Artists/ poets need to be actively involved in creating the world. Though Plato banned poets from the Republic they serve a vital role. I was distressed recently as I saw a project locally designed by a Civil Engineer, it had all the vivacity of a block of concrete. The fusion of form and function is the ideal design.

In this age of fragmentation we desperately need artists, poets, & creators. We rely on politicians, multinationals, military corporations, and oil companies to define our future. Though I am not sure that poet’s are the unacknowledged legislators, but poet’s need to take up the mantle, not only for their own personal aesthetic, but an aesthetic that embraces the social context they live in.

I am growing into a broader definition of who I am as a creative person and this is sometimes disorienting. We all like the certainty of our craft, but art is breaking down the certainty and expectation.

jAz Mu:

Installation Projects and Multimedia:

The jazz Mu installation project is called: jAz in a minor key of love. This is a 3 x 4 meter jagged board, fragments of glass, torn fabric with the jAz in a minor key of love.

On one side is the narrative and on the other are fragments on paper and parchment of the story. I was probably inspired by Dali’s work at the Montmarte Museum with his shot gun explosions of paintings.

It poses the question? What is story? What is narrative? How much depends on the reader? How does sound and texture influence our perception of story? What is a poem? Does it always need to be linear to “make sense”?

jAz Mu Journey:

This is a wonderful exploration and journey. This can be viewed at www.thejazzpoet.com and the www.thejazzpoet.blogspot.com. I had performed this in NYC not too long ago and in various venues. It is the direction of word, sound, art fusion.

It is jazz improvisation in the key of Ku, afflatus in the minor rifting of mU ology, the dance of Eros, the 4 car collision of Kali on cosmic cocaine, bits of stellar dander from a dying super nova, and ordinary madness that poses as revelation. William Blake with a hookah smoking opium with Tennyson, the Emperor Kublai Khan, and the Mad Hatter himself. Blake as the minor cool kat of kwa, Tennyson posing as a photon in charge of the light brigade, and the Mad Hatter needing no disguise – came in his usual drag of self-revelation. Blake was lying low and thumping on the bass, fingers deftly discerning the G minor of the key of ku.

The sweets fumes of the opium pipe sauntered in like a frail wearing a rhinestone evening dress and seduced by her own voracious charms. The reflective nature of love, the pool that narcissus drowned in, the oceans of desire, the infinity of sound, and the realization that the notes Charlie Parker played in l947 at Carnegie Hall are now reaching the periphery of the galaxy.

How could love be so cold and strange?

How could desire offer so much promise and never find its way to redemption?

I didn’t mean to rift, wander or leap through the window – suddenly appearing and dancing in the world of ku. The parting of the foam and sea, waiting for Venus to appear on the crest, dance beneath the harvest moon on a June bright night, morning howls in the rapacious excitation of a new day in Kauai, and the minor keys of love itself decided to repose in a hammock made of gossamer wishes.

Inka Dinka do said the sailor by the Winken.

Binken and Nod slipped away into the evanescent stream of reverie. Too much of the madness in the world would compel any of us to tumble into that space of dream.

We are of clay and music, ash and start dust, and we dream and dream in the dream time world that defies order and sequence. The key of ku opens the immutable transformation of mU to unlock our souls. Released from our bondage what would we create? Would we create the paradise of madness? Could we bear the exquisite beauty of looking at the beloved face of god? A scarlet purple azalea as exquisite as the face of a new born child.

The world of jAz mu as tangible and tantalizing as the first spring tangerines that come to the markets of Rabat. The souq is filled with the smell of tangerines and flowers. I sit at the edge of the old city, by the graveyards and mausoleums, with a half a kilo and peel a tangerine, a morsel tart and mouth watering, the high tides come in, the ocean is less than a 100 meters from where I’m sitting, and a skiff with three cats comes up the estuary. One with a penny whistle, the other a hand drum, and the last singing an aria

of farewell from Madam Butterfly.

Jaz mU:

It is altogether too easy to slip into the stream and river of mU.

Transition:
Poetry is la lingua de mi madre, my first language, it is how I process and see the world. Poetry is my lens of clarity, reflection, meditation, and articulation. For a number of years I meditated and sat in Zazen, but I realized my language was poetry, and when I sit by the window at Blue Heron Pond my mind is clear, attention is riveted, and my senses are alive as I engaged.
But my creative energies are expanding. My confidence is growing. My experience always a ragged vestment of a good long and well lived life

This is a bit of my ragged story, unedited, as I am on the way to the airport, but I wanted to leave you a bit of my journey. Please download the music, the poems, stories, pass them on.

A blissful day to you.

Church of Kindness

2009-05-29T11:40:00.005-04:00

I like what the Dali Llama had said, my church is kindness.

Imagine what the church of kindness would look like? No walls, no boundaries, no membership, and the only requirement for entrance would be to allow yourself to be a bit kinder to yourselves. Allow the splendor of the day & this simple pleasure of being alive to radiate through out our being.

Be kind to yourself. Do something fun today! Do something playful! Do something silly. Or do nothing at all, but stare off into the blue sky, and celebrate the day.

Imagine a world where people were engaged in kindness to themselves?

I am working on being a bit kinder to myself as well.

Thank you

Namaya
PS: new work@ www.vermontpoet.com

Blue Heron Pond Ever Glorious

2009-05-26T08:15:00.009-04:00

Today the world away from Blue Heron Pond will be consumed by a lot of craziness that not even god's love can cure. God's love, from this panthiest’s perspective is nature. Nature and the beauty of her love can mend and cure so much madness in the world if we allow it. Imagine beginning the day, like here at the pond, taking a moment to listen to the birds, watch the flowers opening to the new sun, looking at the morning light and watching the miracle begin.
Today the possibilities are limitless: The reverence for life, the peace of waters, the kindness of the sun's warmth, the smile and laughter of an infant, a kind word from a stranger, mending a misunderstanding, or simply taking a moment to enjoy the special beauty of the day. Enjoy the day. Celebrate!

HEP CAT JAZ POET MYSTIC'S JOURNEY

2009-05-25T09:12:00.002-04:00

The mystic’s journey is my journey as a poet, but I don’t think there is a job description for it. Though much folderol has been made of it as being enlightened or excessively wise (can one be excessively wise?), that may be a sage or a saint, I am neither excessively wise nor saintly; on the contrary, my sins are legendary, my impatience well known, and my sublime foolishness is a trait I cherish well. The mystic’s journey is merely “to see, to hear, to be aware” and my power as a writer is to harness that awareness. The Western African word for awareness is “hepi” to be aware and where we get the word “hep cat,” one who is cool and aware. I like that definition of a hep cat Mystic. Nevertheless, awareness doesn’t always translate to being enlightened. My awareness is through poems, the window of my reality, and I am enchanted by the world I am seeing.
The jAz poet thang’ is to see this world in terms of its extraordinary colors and compositions
I live in a sublime state of enchantment. The mystic is one who aspires to see the enchantment or if you will, the divine in each moment. As Blake said in Auguries of Innocence
To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an Hour.

The Hep Cat's scene is to be aware. Watch. Attentive.

Dig the infinity of your imagination!

Creatve Imperative, Blogging. Dig the infinity of you

2009-05-25T08:16:00.008-04:00

Namaya quiet? Hardly.

It is remarkable that I have over 645 pages of journal notes since the beginning of the year, but no entries on the main blog page since 2 April 2009. The blog world is still a mystery to me, where people gush out their thoughts and feelings, largely unedited, first draft, and voila their thoughts are broadcast to the world. I am a far more agonizingly slow writer. Though that may come as a shock to people who see me perform and watch me virtually create an entire show on stage.

My writing is always too imperfect, I like when I’ve had a full six months to a year to view it from a myriad of angles. My best editing for poetry is to tape a new poem to the kitchen cabinet and while waiting for coffee or cooking. I look at the poem from a distance. A poem is best viewed in the same way you look at a painting – give it distance, step back, look at it from various perspectives, and compare it to other poems during that period. Is the poem fresh? Are there favorite words I always come back to? Is my structure too familiar? Does the smell of garlic influence the poem? Is the impatience of brewing coffee reflected in the poem? Do I too much “delight” in delight? Ecstatic in my sea of ecstasy? Am I surprising myself? What is the jewel in the heart of the lotus?
Writing is a quick sketch and inspiration, the sudden insight, and the slow realization. While I can dash off poems and stories, there is the inhibition that most writing, in fact, all writing, is better when it is left in a drawer for a few weeks to sit and stew. It is the mold effect. When you first write, all pieces look wonderful and creative, but if you let it sit in the drawer for a day or two the mold and the imperfections easily show. By the second or third week, it looks horrendous, a science experiment gone awry, and if you're lucky, very luck, maybe a few pieces will be golden on popping out of the creative oven.
Though I am quite, perhaps too, candid at saying pretty much what comes to mind, writing mad dash missives, the truer comment and the more accurate writing is the slower more deliberate approach. I've struggled mightily with writing for decades. Some sort of brain chemical lack of insight or the unwillingness or inability to write clear cogent sentences. subject verb agreement, right tense, etc. haunts me. Though I’ve written millions of words, far too few have been as flawless as I would like. Some writer's can turn out beautifully crafted, grammatically cogent and bold sentences that appear as flawless jewels, but almost all good writers agonize over their work. I should say, the writer's I admire, are not weighed down by the artifice of cleverness, clever for the sake of being clever (which if you read the jAz mu blog I can be accused of that), but live for the pure joy of writing clear vivid sentence and well crafted stories. I love well crafted writing whether it is Calvino, Octavio Paz, Neruda, Ishigura, TC Boyle, Voltaire, Dante, Rushdie (though I admit sometimes I think he does get excessively drunk on words-- what is that libation -- Erotomania?), Faulkner, Anais Nin, Charles Frazier... and the list goes on of all the writer's who inspire me to my core. However, I am immensely inspired by other artists and craftsmen/women -- the sculptor Michael Singer who has been able to translate his artistic vision into a viable business; my jazz buddy Chris Bakridge who is so insistently loving in his exhortation "Find your tribe!; and the world of artists who were insistent on pursuing their vision Dali, Matisse, and the thousands of obscure artists who followed that divine imperative - create!
In this short missive to you today, create, dig the infinity of your imagination. Write without fear. Create without boundaries. Sing without fear of missing a note. Dig the sublime bliss of being you.

Abrazos,
Namaya

Nigger Hating Rednecks

2009-04-02T13:03:00.001-04:00

In our community in Southern Vermont a group of teenagers who call themselves, “Nigger Hating Redneck Association” (NHRA) has appeared. It is a powerful opportunity to really address how racism affects us as a society and on a personal level. The teens who espoused this “Nigger Hating Redneck Association” should be invited to an open forum to clarify their opinions. Though I disagree with their perspective, I’m grateful they aren’t in the closet. I suspect that for everyone of those youngsters in the NHR there are more behind them who say nothing. The problem is when “free speech” offends or hurts someone else, then the person’s right of free speech runs up against a wall. In no case should a person feel harmed or in danger because of offensive speech. This NHRA reflects a more fundamental problem in society, despite progress over the past decades, the United States is still a profoundly racist and classist society that is evidenced by a prison population that is over sixty percent Black and Hispanic or in Vermont where minorities are ten times more likely to be incarcerated.
I want to understand how the “Nigger Hating Redneck Association” gained their insight that African Americans are somehow harmful to them. Given the population of their hometowns of Brattleboro and Guilford, Vermont are over 90% White: Why do they perceive Blacks or minorities as a threat to themselves? What are they angry at? Or is there a deeper reason: Do they not feel valued or respected? Are they fearful or alone? I want to listen to them, and by genuinely listening to them, they may be able to hear my concerns about racism and how it affects my life.
Hate mongering bigots from O’Reilly to Limbaugh fill the airwaves with their verbal flatulence, but those are the obvious examples. In the recent campaign of Hillary Clinton versus Obama, I kept hearing the subtext of the Clinton’s campaign, which was that Obama was uppity – “the elitist,” as they called him. How can you call a black man whose white mother was on welfare and who grew up poor an elitist is baffling. Bill Clinton’s ranting of Obama as inexperienced and not ready – again, was the subtext that Obama was a boy? The neo-conservatives have no corner on racism. Racism and bias are as much a part of the USA fabric as the red, white, and blue on our flag: Democrat, Republican, Conservative, or liberal the racist rat lurks in every corner.
Let us consider the vilification of Reverend Wright who correctly pointed out that the USA is a society built on the bones of African American slaves, Chinese railroad workers, Mexican farm workers, the genocide of Native American Indians, and the list goes on. The New York Times on a front page rant, stopped just short of calling Reverend Wright “a crazy nigger,” but they were too politically correct to be so overt. If you listened carefully to him, he hit the nail on the head, we are a racist society, and as a black man he has lived that experience. Though the segregated water fountains have vanished, racism and classism are tightly woven into our experience as US Americans.
Martin Luther King asked, “Do we judge a person by their character or their color?” It is imperative as a community that we draw the students who are involved in the “Nigger Hating Rednecks” into a genuine dialogue. Even when racism is deep rooted there is the possibility for profound change; for example, CP Ellis a former KKK leader became a civil rights leader in Durham North Carolina. If a former Klansman can have the possibility of transformation, then we most also hold out that possibility for these teenagers in our community to be transformed as well.

Night Walking in the Cooper Creek in the Daintree Rain Forest

2009-02-25T19:22:00.002-05:00

The Daintree rain forest is more than 100 million years old and though only a million acres of it still exists on the eastern border of Australia from Cairns to Cook Town, it is one of the most ecological vibrant and intact rain forests. Nevertheless, like the Great Barrier Reef it borders, it is a fragile irreplaceable jewel whose fate is in human hands.
At 8 PM we’re taking the famed night-walk through the Cooper Creek Rain Forest (http://www.ccwild.com) with Neil Hewitt the naturalist who was quite at home in his backyard forest in the pitch black of night. With his headlamp on like a miner he scanned the paths, each limb and branch, and with a discerning eye was able to see a world we were blind to: lizards wrapped around tiny stalks, frogs the size of a thumbnail resting on a green leaf, poisonous spiders nearly invisible on a tree, venomous brown snakes slithering near our feet, fruits poisonous to humans but benign to animals, the half dozen species of bats who eat their weight in insects each night and this is only the tip of the activities at night. In a hectare there are hundreds of species of insects, birds, animals, and plants. Though we were busily looking for creatures and unusual patterns, we were clueless, until Neil pointed it out. Though I have a good sense of the woods back in my Vermont home, I do wonder how much we all miss in our understanding and value of the earth. I felt like an innocent child newly introduced to the world.
The miracle of the web of life never ceases to amaze me. Standing by one mahogany tree some 50 meters tall, this tree supports an entire ecosystem by itself and it is integral in holding the forest canopy up. In turn it is totally dependent on its surrounding area. The mightiest tree to the most venomous snake or the most poisonous plant exists in a symbiotic relationship. The relationship is dynamic as temperature changes, cyclones roll across the land, a new strain of disease or one of a hundred variables occur, but this quest and imperative for balance is on-going. The mahogany could not exist without the forest, though the forest may adjust for the loss of mahogany, it has lost part of its integral fabric.
With the flashlights turned off the moon light dimly peeks through the dense tree top canopy. Flying bats dart above our heads, leaves stir in the trickle of a breeze, and the crickets, frogs and hundreds of other creatures all have their own song. The large venomous spider in her web is humming her own song, “Come closer. Come closer visit my web,” or at least that is what I thought she said. In the dark, unable to see another person a few steps away, without the sounds of civilization and motors, the forest animated only by the sounds of insects and creatures of the night, and in the nakedness of the pitch blackness I stepped back in time to the dawn of Mankind. Did early primates huddle in fear or was the night a familiar world? I felt alone and vulnerable, the oppressively hot humidity weighing down on us.
We turn the flashlights on again and return to present time. A bird not more than 10 centimeters long sleeps on a palm frond. The night forest is alive with sights, sounds, and creatures of all kind and as busy as a street in Manhattan: Conversations, chattering, arguments, shouting, a few planning murders, others thinking about procreation, others secretly making love, some are dying, and some are being born. The conversation and activity is omnipresent, though we can only hear a tiny part of it, spoken in pheromones, scents, chemical markers, and the most subtle of instincts. A blind snake that senses its prey by the presence of heat is as refined as our best instruments. Though our world of technology is impressive it pales in comparison to the elegant symbiotic diversity of the rainforest.
The rain forest, despite all its power and majesty, is a fragile world that took eons to create. The soil is particularly fragile and once the protective covering of trees is lost, the soil loses its vitality. Invasions of foreign species from introduced plants to the wild boar continue to undermine the ecosystem. However, hands down, the greatest threat is humans. The decimation of the rain forest leads to an increased carbon dioxide level and prevents heat from escaping into space and thus warming the Earth's atmosphere. As the earth gradually warms the polar ice melts and sea levels rise. At the present rate of destruction, the rain forests will be decimated in the next fifty to seventy-five years. We are at a pivotal moment in history. There is the story of the frog placed in boiling water and jumps right out, but if you place him in a cool pot and gradually bring it to a boil he will perish. We are slowly simmering and coming to a rapid boil.
Cooper Creek in the Daintree is a tiny window to an immense world that few of us can fully appreciate or value. The lesson, for me, is not all the names of each creature or plant, but the awareness and appreciation of the miracle of this vibrant ecosystem. How do we live in harmony and cherish the miracle of our natural resources, not only in the preservation of the rain forests and global ecosystems, but how are we equally and ardently protective of our home environments? Each one of us needs to wisely reflect on our impact on the earth and its resources, and find ways to mitigate it. The rain-forests are one of the most important treasures of the planet and the future of Mankind is dependent on how we care for them.

Notes from a Fragile Planet

2009-02-19T14:32:00.006-05:00

Hawaii: Australia Jan and February 2009:
Notes from a Planet in Peril
Preface:
A month away from Vermont and the US, in a time of great transitions: the global economy is sinking, Obama coming on and looking to save us, and we are off to Hawaii and Australia. I’m looking forward to leaving the cold paradise of Vermont.
Each journey holds a truth or awareness. What is the awareness I need? The trip is in part to perform in Hawaii and Australia (GOD SEX POLITICS 2009), to see the Australian Open, visit some friends in Melbourne, and gain an insight into a world I didn’t know before.
In witnessing scenes of incredible beauty from the interior of the Island of Kauai, playing guitar while watching sunrise over the Pacific, kayaking among the seals by Apollo Bay, snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef, staying in the Daintree Rainforest, and visiting the parched and burning southern Australia, I was left with the story of a fragile planet in peril. Though there are great acts of personal ecological heroism: Are there enough to save the humans? Eventually humans will die out like the dinosaurs and it’s only a question of when. At the O’Hare airport in Chicago is a towering dinosaur skeleton and is that symbol trying to tell us something or merely a curious artifact? The important issue is – Will humans leave anything on the planet worth saving? Will it be an overheated radiological wasteland? As one science fiction writer said, “The last species on the planet will be a cockroach eating a fungus.” Actually it will be the bacteria in the cockroaches’ gut. Or, are we wise and courageous enough to step back from the abyss? As the world economy is going through a major meltdown, it is surprising there isn’t the insight that questions the validity of unbridled industrial activity and the constant expansion of the human population at the expense of our habitat.
Some years ago, bicycling through New York City at rush-hour in August and darting among the cars, I felt the intense heat from the buses and the cars; I didn’t need further evidence of global warming. Or, standing in Connaught Place in New Delhi at rush hour where you can’t see more than 10 meters in front of you because of the suffocating cloud of two cycle engine fumes. It is a hot and crowded planet.
Though I had been on a newspaper “fast” I would occasionally read the headlines: Cholera kills 3,000 in Zimbabwe; the Israeli Army kills 900 civilians; forest fire kills 175 people in Melbourne; and this is only the tip of what goes on a regular basis. Maybe newspaper headlines are really homage to a dying planet? Each headline an epitaph
or is it an epithet? Though individual acts of courage like the Sea Shepherd trying to stop the Japanese whaling ship is laudable and necessary, it highlights the global ecological collapse as Japan has virtually over fished its costal waters. I wish I could see some kind of positive affirmation or that humans have gained some kind of insight, but I only see the brutal tragedy of a species, Homo-sapiens, that has gone mad; perhaps the new designation is Homo-locust, a spreading invasive disease that complete destroys its environment. In the midst of this ecological suicide I will tell you these things that I do find glorious and awe inspiring. If we were awed by the miracle of life, spell-bound by the presence of a drop of water, savored a full breath as if it were our last, astonished by the magnificence of a tree, and realized that paradise is not in the next life, but here, present and alive, this is heaven. Can you see it too?
Kauai: Capricious Lady
In Kauai, a twenty minute plane ride from Oahu is the stunning beauty of a volcanic island verdant from the tropical rains that seem to come and go throughout the day with such regularity. Though much of the vegetation from the coconuts, palms, and grasses have been brought in by settlers both Polynesian and others, Kauai remains the quintessential paradise, lush forests, skies that are crisp and clear, and then darken over for a rain shower. The clouds and the skies of Kauai in January are a constant shifting of light, colors, and moods. Sunlight and rain dance throughout the day, a rain shower gives way to an inundation, and then a glorious moment of light.
At 5 am, the moon and stars over the Pacific brightly illuminate the ocean, splashes of near phosphorescent light as the surf pounds against the volcano rocks on the shore. Standing on the promontory of Poipu beach, the night sky is vivid, and the sun’s first light creeps from the East. The ocean is an interplay of light and colors, clouds refracting moon-light, tides swell and a chorus of waves breaks across the shore. The wind roars through the grasses and the tall coconuts, and faintly the call of birds join in the symphony. A small sail boat, a kilometer off shore, with orange striped sails skips across the water. A red headed and white bodied British cardinal searches for food on the beach and white herons in the tide pools hop along the shore. The moon refuses to surrender to the advancing day, growing more ghostly, while the Northern star remains constant. Daybreak is insistent that it will be even more magnificent than the night; it comes to life with ruddy reds and mango yellows that are as luscious as the fruit. The steady tide, the fair wind from the North promises a good day of sun, and the slender possibility that the sun showers will be brief.
There is an easy indolence to the day, my lethargy grows, and I can barely find the energy to move or write. I am astonished by the symphony of color, light, sound and the smell of the ocean as it fills all of my senses. After god created this, did she lie back in the hammock with a marguerita, and admire it as much as I do?
Most of the beaches on the island are for resorts, condominiums, or some kind of over priced development. But there are public beaches where you always find Hawaiian families. The tremendous injustice is that native islanders can’t afford to own or live on the beach, though the beach is integral to Hawaii life and culture. One local girl showed us the creatures in the tide pools, the Spanish Dancer; a red jelly fish did a swirling flamenco dance for us in the pool.
Most of the local people we encounter are a mix of many different cultures – Filipino, Chinese, Polynesian, and White and so on. There are some old hippies we have run into who came to the island decades ago and have found a niche as shopkeeper, musician, or something that sustains them without a considerable effort. Kauai is inundated with Californians who don’t mind the five hour flight to their second home or retirees who live in gated enclaves: Gated communities – reservations for white people.
Though we would like to think of Hawaii as an ecological paradise, the thousand years of Polynesian and Hawaiian influence had caused ecological destruction before the white colonialists, but the far greater destruction has been due to the vast cattle and sugar cane plantations, the influx of tourism, development and population growth. On Poipu, our hotel occupies about a kilometer of shore line, volcanic rocks line the beach, and closely cropped lawns as uniform as astro-turf. The gardeners spend their day making sure the lawns, a precise shade of green due to chemicals and pesticides, are free from coconut fronds and debris. Though ecological tourism, with low impact housing, is a step in the right direction, the tourist industry that economically sustains the island will be part of its demise.
I don’t know how to minimize or mitigate than? Travel less? Travel with a backpack and walk everywhere? Or stay home? Is the far safer and saner to walk or bike everywhere? Get rid of the cars, ride on trains, or sit quietly in your backyard? Move to Europe or an urban center where you don’t need a car? This question or awareness of global destruction is ever present on our trip. Sitting at Joe’s Restaurant at one of the public golf courses with its18 holes golf course of trim uniform grass, but the ever present monoculture and insistence that nature conform to mankind’s narrow aesthetic guarantees an ecological suicide. Yet, as I am leaving Kauai, I value the immense beauty of the island, and hope that there is a collective wisdom that can keep this paradise for generations to come.
The Daintree Rainforest to Follow

Questions for the poet

2009-01-22T17:06:00.002-05:00

Questions for an interview. This is a good summary of my creative process and journey.
I've written for the past thirty some odd years and my journey ... love, adventures, travels, concern for the planet, my commitment to creating a more sane and peaceful world have all been part of my inspiration for writing. Though my core instinct is to write poetry, I've written scores of songs, a musical revue Beatnik Café, short stories, the work for the Jazz Beat Blues Poetry Ensemble ( with co-musical direction by Bill Shontz) a book on working on an end-stage AIDS ward, stories and articles on travel, and children's stories. The unifying link is my love for the richness and conciseness of poetry.

I wake up every day and write for two to three hours in my journal. From that early morning start,springs poems or stories. The poems could be something as simple as life on Blue Heron Pond, politics, or life. If I'm on the road, which is often, I try to write consistently, but I find that I am making quick verbal sketches on paper.

2. You have been a homeopath, a community activist and a performance artist. When did you know or suspect that you wanted to become a poet as well?

I've written consistently over the past thirty years and the writing has chronicled my journey. Poetry had always been my first love and instinct. It didn't arise from the desire to "be a poet" but from a deeper well: necessity. Even if I never wrote a word of "poetry" again, I would always be a poet. A poet is not necessarily defined by what you write on paper, but it is a way of being in the world and seeing. William Blake said it best in "Auguries of Innocence"
To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour

I have always been involved in community development/ Social Transformation in one form or another. In the l970's I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Yemen, in the early l980's I worked in Morocco with Catholic Relief Services, then worked with grass roots Social Change groups developing programs to sustain activists, as a graduate instructor in Cross Cultural Communications, and health care as a Nurse Practitioner and Homeopath. In the early, l990's I worked for a year on an end stage AIDS ward and the result of that was a book Journal of the Plague (which will soon be available as an ebook on my website www.vermontpoet.com).

Though I have taught at a college level and enjoy offering a "master class" to students, I thoroughly enjoy the two days a week that I do homeopathy. Working with someone to transform their health is immensely satisfying. I follow in the tradition of many writers and poets, like William Carlos Williams, Ibn Sina (Avincenna), etc. who were physicians and poets.

My work as a performance poet is also focused on addressing issues of Social Change like the "Amerika Uber Alles" video on my website or other work from GOD SEX POLITICS. The new book Vermont My Home on Blue Heron Pond is about finding my sense of place and strength as a poet.

The Vermont My Home and the illustrated poems at www.vermontartpoetry.com are poems and stories that celebrate the Green Mountain State. The last poem in the book "Care Well" is about the imperative to care well for this planet.

3. Does your work as a poet enhance your work as a performance artist and/or activist? If so, how?

My creativity may express itself as poem or a song, in English, French or Spanish, and rarely in Arabic. My creative process is a seamless curtain, sometimes a story that I have improvised on stage will reappear in a written story. I rarely see poetry as something written on a paper. For me, a poem is alive as the wind, as the colors of a tree, and as the vibrancy of life. Over the past few years, I've been developing large art poetry banners for public spaces. As you go through a public space like an airport, the poems and colors are alive in fabric or other medium

I am most alive and creative when my identity as a poet, healer, and secular mystic meet. All roles require clear logic and the window of insight open to the metaphysical process. Also, as important, is to be awed and humbled by the enigmas of life, and to realize that love and caring are the most powerful medicines. Whether one is working in social change, health, poetry, art, etc..when a profound love and compassion are at the center of that process, there is a true transformation, both for the doer and the receiver.

I do not limit my creativity to the arts or performance, and creativity and imagination are the predominant themes in my life. I view my entire life as a creative process. This creativity may come as the Creative Director for the Sweet Pond Eco Community or with our foundation www.GRACECARES.com which provides grass roots community development projects to third world communities.

I have an insatiable curiosity and consider myself a "learning junkie," the world is my university. I could be very happy to be on the road as a vagabond.

My Journey in Illiteracy: Knowledge is Light – Amar Al Noor

2008-12-28T11:46:00.002-05:00

I have a doctorate, two master’s degrees, and a wealth of education and certificates, but I was until recently, illiterate: Illiterate in Arabic. Though my native language is English, I had lived and worked in the Middle East, and learned Arabic mostly by ear. I could read enough for street signs, the basics of a menu, and enough to fake it, but I could not really read or write much beyond the most basic level. While that may be impressive to a Westerner, this reluctance or laziness to sit down and thoroughly learn the basics of writing and grammar prevented me from taking my Arabic to the next level. Easy simple mistakes were overlooked because any Westerner making even the most rudimentary attempts at speaking Arabic was considered laudable, but I was faking it. In part, I had been working in a hospital and community setting, I only had to speak and teach, not really write, and though my Arabic was grammatically awkward it was enough to get by and communicate. When I lived in Morocco the language of the street was Dirja, and it gave me less impetuous to learn to read and write. I have only recently confronted the reality that for the most part I was illiterate. In Arabic they say, Knowledge is light.
Now, as I am working with primary grade books, I am forcing myself to write and study every day, and discovering the foundations of grammar that I had glided over. To my surprise, I discovered that my grammar wasn’t as bad as I thought and though solid Arabic grammar is arduous to get down, mine was fairly on target for someone who had learned mostly by ear and with only an occasional glance at a book. In English, I read and write at a University level, Spanish and French at a proficient level, but in Arabic I am the big kid in the back of the classroom slowly forming letters with the correct diacritical marks, words with the correct case ending, and learning to write clear sentences. Though it is slow going, the writing actually, well almost, look like real Arabic.
It is ironic that I have a profound admiration for Classical Arabic/ Koranic script from the time of the early Fatamid period to the inscriptions on the walls of Al Hambrah, but never had the desire to emulate it or learn to decipher the Suras (verses from the Koran) beyond a basic level. The Classical Arabic poetry is pure music, even if you don’t understand a word of it. I was listening to one recitation and I turned to a friend who was a well-educated Yemeni and asked "What does it mean?" He said, “Ï don’t know either, but it is beautiful.”
In the old city of Cairo I was studying the writing on the outside of a mosque from the 10th Century and trying to decipher the (Kuphic) script with a guide book, and it was a delight when the shop owner next to the mosque, who had never bothered really looking at the building, began to be excited as he read the inscriptions with me.
After my recent trip to Egypt, I was inspired to learn the real structure and grammar of Arabic. Though I do not speak Egyptian, my basic standard Arabic was more than enough to get by and hold a conversation. When I a man came by selling cigarettes, he looked a bit shocked when I said (in classical Arabic), “No, I don’t smoke and that stuff will give you cancer.” It is the well-chosen phrase that is sometimes most helpful, but it is far more effective to be able to write that sentence.
I am unraveling my Arabic illiteracy and though I may never get much beyond grade school level, I am enjoying the process of writing clean simple sentences. As I confront the extreme bias in the West, US and Europe, against Islam, and take pains to explain the profound achievements of the Islamic classical world, I am also realizing I needed to hold myself accountable for my own lack of education or maybe it is something as simple as laziness. But, knowledge is light, and I am enjoying the slow dawning illumination of learning to read and write.

O' New America

2008-11-05T12:24:00.000-05:00

O’new Jerusalem, beacon of light
on the hill,
filled with the promise unspoken.

O’new awakening of the sleeping
dreams,
alive with hope again.

O’New America radiant with
possibilities
aspiring for its true soul.

Justice

2008-10-07T16:15:00.003-04:00

Prisoners:

There are thousands of remote islands in the world, with food, water, and the basic necessities of life. Bare, harsh, vital. I was reading of a prisoner in solitary confinement for 24 years in NY state, I am glad they keep him apart from us, but $75,000 a year or more to keep this person locked up for the rest of his life is not a prudent cost. Instead, give him the choice: Death, confinement, or an island in the Pacific. On the island in the Pacific a thousand miles from civilization, he can fish, eat coconuts, and live out his life at no further cost to the state. What would he choose: The caged savage? The primitive? Or eternity? I would also like to take all the CEOs who have raped and looted their companies: Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Enron, and the War Profiteers like Halliburton,Bechtel, etc., and also place them on that same island. The prisoner and the CEO’s would make make perfect company; though I am a little concerned about the prisoners safety.

$700 Billion Pig Fest Wall Street

2008-10-04T13:30:00.002-04:00

Strange dreams last night:

All these fat cats at
Lehman Brothers,
Goldman Sachs,
Merrill Lynch, etc..
all the corporate
gangsters who are
knee deep in the
muck of this latest
corporate debacle

are shackled together
in old fashioned
stocks in front of
Wall Street.Yes,
like in Colonial
times, don’t bother
with prison so
they can hide
away in shame.

Men and women
of Enron, CEOS of
Exxon, Haliburton
and so on all lined
up to join them in
the stocks.

Fat white cats shivering
naked in the autumn
air, arrayed in a circle
around Wall Street,
while the cold wind
blows off the Hudson.
Everyone who lost
money in the stock
market could drop
garbage on their heads
or simple piss on
them.
At feeding time,
long pig troughs so that
the fat cat CEOs
would be cheek and
jowl to munch the slop.

I hope the pigs don’t
get sick from the
contagion.

Some Outrage for the Genocide in Palestine?

2008-10-02T20:58:00.003-04:00

It is strange all of this rancor against President of Iran Ahmadinejad, which may be deserved, but at the same breath do we talk about the genocide of the Palestinians, their imprisonment in the walled ghettos of the West Bank, and their isolation in Gaza? As reported on the BBC on 24 September, international communities have condemned Israeli Settlers who illegally have and now continue to take the land of Palestinians. Last night videos of Israeli settlers attacking Palestinians homes while the IDF (Israel Army) stood by.
I would hope that people save some of their outrage against the President of Iran for the genocide against the Palestinians. I really do not see much difference between the Israeli government actions against the people of Gaza and West Bank, and the actions imposed on my Jewish ancestors during and before WWII. For thousands of years, we Jews were persecuted, driven out of our homes, and ironically, thrived in the Islamic countries. We were welcomed. While in Europe to Be a Jew was cause for murder. The holocaust in Palestine is happening before our eyes
Perhaps, when there is a true independent state for Palestinians and the means to genuinely survive, we will then remove any rationale for someone like Ahmadinejad. Iran had a democratically elected President in l954 who was overthrown by the US. The Shah, a puppet leader, created a surrogate US colony, it was a police state that ruled for decades that persecuted and killed its own people. It is sad that when a reformist government was in power before Ahmadinejad, the United States refused to recognize and make rapprochement. When this last invasion of Iraq took place, the Iran government made a public statement that all US fliers if they landed in Iran would be repatriated to the US. Within a week Bush declared Iran as an "axis of evil." This eventually lead to a more hard line regime.
The US Government who is one of the worst propagators of state sponsored terrorism is condemning Iran? The US? Guantanamo? Abu Ghraib? Renditions? The deaths of perhaps hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilian deaths, responsible for the $4 billion dollars in military aid to Israel that supports the genocide of Palestinians, and people wonder someone like Ahmadinejad has any legitimacy?
One can understand why Iran might be disappointed in the West. Hey, maybe if we get rid of our own version of Ahmadinejad, GW BUSH, and replace it with someone who is reasonably intelligent, Obama, then maybe we can have genuine progress with Iran.
Let's save some outrage for the genocide against the Palestinians.

Walking the Black Line: The N Thing and Obama

2008-09-24T21:49:00.001-04:00

Walking the Black Line: That N thing and Obama

In the movie Blazing Saddles Mel Brooks lays the racist arguments right on the line. The Black sheriff is riding into save a town that is being threatened by outlaws. The people are excited and then they find the “The Sheriff is a N…” Bells ring and no one can hear it. When he finally does arrive, they want to shoot him! Though it appears he is the only one who can save the town, they are more concerned that he is a, N… .

The NY Times recently wrote of Obama’s debating style as, “Cool, detached, and intellectual.” After eight years of a president who can barely speak a cogent sentence; an articulate and intelligent person should be a welcome change, but this is America in 2008: The sound byte reigns supreme, and the Republican convention, like the Nuremberg rally, is filled with obeisant patriotic chants, in this case, USA, USA. As Einstein said about blind patriotism, any one who marches in a parade denies the necessity of the development of the cerebral cortex. In this election, it is imperative, though unlikely; we will get to a substantive debate about the future of the USA. In the meantime, Russian warships are challenging the Monroe doctrine, and the US like Rome in the late 2nd century is watching its world power shrink. Welcome to the 21st Century.

People are primitive pools of emotions, passions, and tribalism. Most of humanity’s march over some 4 million years since we bid farewell to our primate first cousins, has been a brutal struggle for survival, us versus them, tribe against tribe. Despite some rudimentary signs of progress, humans have not really evolved in the fundamental way that will ensure long term survival. Wars, tribalism, us versus them, ideologically driven… Nigger, spic, honkie, redneck, fascist, and so on. We define: other and like us: Friend or foe.

Barrack Obama blows the conventional paradigms out of the water and yet through the lens of red, white, and blue – and too many, we are stuck on the N thing. Yes, the sheriff may be black, but the question is: Does he have the energy, commitment, the intelligence, integrity, and character to lead the nation? The answer is yes. If we can get past the subtext about race and look at the man, we will not see a color blind or white washed version; we will see the full spectrum of the man. A man who is white, black, African, mid western, urban, grew up poor and middle-class, earned his way through college, who forsook a very lucrative law career to be a community organizer, and though he didn’t fight in the trenches, he fought in a more dangerous place, the Illinois Statehouse.

Yes, the Sheriff may be black, but he’s our only choice.

Namaya@vermontpoet.com

2008-08-22T19:29:00.002-04:00

JaZ in O positive:

Murder in the Cathedral of Love

“The music business will kill ya’!” said Jack.

“And how!” Said I.

In the cathedral of jazz the cacophony of sounds rolled into the void. A shiftless dreaming F minor flat, boozy, flabby with cirrhosis and sclerotic eyes, peering down the long tunnel where sounds disappeared into a melodic introspection, was lying in a nest of music manuscripts tossed out from the publisher.

It was strange, she said, that the scale disappeared into an alley that was marked with the blood hand print of a C flat minor on a white basement wall next to the Cathedral of love.

Footstep echoed like lilac fragranced notes faltering in an arpeggio. It is always the top of the note that contains the essence of the fragrance, in the middle is the melody, and along the river by the muddy shores is the bass walking line. Bones ossified peer upwards dreaming of the memory of their lives.

Along the river banks in the thick estuaries that lead from the Thames towards Kent are the bones of the martyrs who dream of redemption.

Marlow was on the case, a private dick on a public recollection.

Fragments of lies littered the sidewalk and when the janitor sprayed them with the hose, the small particles of blood tenaciously clung to the calcified particulate exoskeletons. How many corpses of bivalves make up a city block?

Ghosts, permeate every pore of memory? said Mister Jones bojangle jingling a jig of jonesed blues.

What ya gonna do when the well runs dry?

Hey, hey Sambo?

What ya gonna do when the well runs dry?

Hey, hey Sambo?

He took a swig from the corn liquor jug and with the sun burning across the sky in an orange vengeance he drew up a glass syringe and spiked himself.

What ya gonna do when the well runs dry?

Hey, hey Sambo?

Christ that old offay boy died only once, I die every day for you! Said Jones as the blood rolled down his arm and coagulated every so slowly. It looked like a map of the Upper Nile.

Jack wiped off the trumpet and declared, Jazz in a key of O positive. Jazz is a universal donor. Ain’t it? Or is it huffing and puffing, flaunting itself in drag, willing to provide fellatio to the string section while the jealous cuckold is simmering in the bar trolling for young beauties. It is j A Z after all. Inflagrante! Heroin addicts, pimps, whores, and saints of the mortal coil.
Saints?

Yes, you wouldn’t expect knowing redemption from a satyr posing as a monk. That is why there is Murder in the Cathedral of Love. I said

Mister Jones nodded off and drooled while humming on his Jew’s harp.

A fat sax man in a dipsomaniac roll kept spinning b flat minor rifts up the tube of the drainpipe and fell on the ear of the widow Rosalita an old prostitute whose eyes were devoured by syphilis. She sat by the window with her rosary beads and prayed for the souls of her lovers while serenaded by the bourbon soaked blues.

Sonnets are weavings of time, fourteen lines of ecstasy cut with vitamin K, strands of indigo woven into the coarse lilac of memory as the song of a grey thrush on a June morning in Vermont thrills to the instigation of love. A window to the meadow is thrown wide open. Each memory of love, sex, indiscretion and redemption cherished.

How many memories does a syphilitic spirochete devour before it explodes? How many memories are stored in its cells and fibers before it explodes in a rapturous orgasm?

To be quaint: Is there a price for love?

The quick running steps of memory disappear into the vault of time, as seconds vanish in a fugue of notes, violet burning into indigo, a flame tinged incandescent thrilling blue that inspires love to simply burn and devour itself.

Marlow with the quick white glove whipped the counter faintly and smelled the arsenic, but couldn’t find a reason for Murder in the Cathedral of Love. Four blocks down on St.Vincent’s, a quick jog down an alley where the filtering blues flittered and fluttered with a moaning effervescences of unrequited desire, and goddess Desdemona played the harmonica in a baroque D minor that hummed.

Mister Jone’s did the St.Vitus dance for the homies, a premonition of desire, and the angels on 12th Avenue sauntered down to the water front waiting for the Argonauts to return

“And is love enough?” she asked.

Ibbbidy bibby I bop dice Salve Minore of an E Flat Minor Opus by the punk poet Namaya.

Him? Mad as two melted brain cells under a Sahara sun, said his ex Philomena.

What he think he be? Like Alfred appearing in his movies?

To the Narrative Again:

She was in improvisation artist, willing to do anything for the purity of Art. An arabesque, burlesque where the words dropped to the floor, long winding Isadora Duncan scarves that sailed behind her and threatened to decapitate her. In the final proceeding, the hand painted scarves contained ideograms from lovers, sonnets from sentries who guarded her virginity with the zealotry of Sappho and the pleasing teasing love by the Satyr in the guise of a Nubian eunuch.

Not a tortuous trail, not a cosmic comic adventure, nor a salutation to the mind bending Master Calvino, but a love missive to memory and murder which was the original journey.

J a Z in O positive where the ovulation of vowels makes for the ungulations and utterances poets seem intelligible, but the dah dah dah of darhma ohm ovations defies the resistance of imagination.

Then there is finally, murder in the cathedral of love. While the widow may be seduced by the fat man’s blues, the window may look out to the meadow, in the night club there was a murder.

A saxophonist, pianist and bassist, upright at their posts, bound to their instrument. Redemption in the cathedral of love.

Ghosts, permeate every pore of memory. Said Mister Jones bojangle jingling a jig of jonesed blues.

What ya gonna do when the well runs dry?

Hey, hey Sambo?

What ya gonna do when the well runs dry?

Hey, hey Sambo?

Jazz in O Positive spiked for transfusion.

Murder in the Cathedral of Love an F minor ovation to the round resonant G descending to O positive in a minor diatonic scale of desire.

Nigger Hating Rednecks in Vermont

2008-07-24T14:52:00.000-04:00

In our community in Southern Vermont a group of youngsters who call themselves, “Nigger Hating Redneck Association” (NHRA) has appeared and it is a powerful opportunity to really address how racism affects us as a society and on a personal level. The teens who espoused this “Nigger Hating Redneck Association” should be invited to an open forum to clarify their opinions. Though I disagree with their racism, I’m grateful they aren’t in the closet. I suspect that for everyone of those youngsters in the NHR there are more behind them who say nothing. Do the parents and relatives who shaped these youngsters also feel this way? The problem is when “free speech” offends or hurts someone else, then the person’s right of free speech runs up against a wall. In no case should a person feel harmed or in danger because of offensive speech. But this NHRA reflects a more fundamental problem in society, despite progress over the past decades, the United States is still a profoundly racist and classist society that is evidenced by a prison population that is over sixty percent Black and Hispanic or in Vermont where minorities are ten times more likely to be incarcerated.

I want to understand how the “Nigger Hating Redneck Association” gained their insight that African Americans are somehow harmful to them. Given the population of their hometowns of Brattleboro and Guilford, Vermont are over 90% White: Why do they perceive Blacks or minorities as a threat to themselves? What are they angry at? Not valued? Not respected? Fearful? Alone? I want to sit down and listen to them, and by genuinely listening to them, they may be able to hear my concerns about racism and how it affects my life.

Hate mongering bigots from O’Reilly to Limbaugh fill the airwaves with their verbal flatulence, but those are the obvious examples. In the recent campaign of Hillary Clinton versus Obama, I kept hearing the subtext of the Clinton’s campaign, which was that Obama was uppity – “the elitist,” as they called him. How can you call a Black man whose White mother was on welfare and who grew up poor an elitist is baffling. Bill Clinton’s ranting of Obama as inexperienced and not ready – again, was the subtext that Obama was a boy? The neo-conservatives have no corner on racism. Racism and bias are as much a part of the USA fabric as the red, white, and blue on our flag. Democrat, Republican, Conservative, or liberal the racist rat lurks in every corner.

Let us consider the vilification of Reverend Wright who correctly pointed out that the USA is a racist and classist society, built on the bones of African American slaves, Chinese railroad workers, Mexican farm workers, the genocide of Native American Indians, and the list goes on. The New York Times on a front page rant, stopped just short of calling Reverend Wright “a crazy nigger,” but they were too politically correct to be so overt. If you listened carefully to him, he hit the nail on the head, we are a racist society, and as a Black man he has lived that experience. Though the segregated water fountains have vanished, racism and classism are tightly woven into our experience as US Americans.

Martin Luther King asked, “Do we judge a person by their character or their color?” It is imperative as a community that we draw the students who are involved in the “Nigger Hating Rednecks” into a genuine dialogue. Even when racism is deep rooted there is the possibility for profound change; for example, CP Ellis was a former KKK leader who became a civil rights leader in Durham North Carolina. If a former Klansman can have the possibility of transformation, then we most also hold out that possibility for these teenagers in the Nigger Hating Racist group to be transformed as well.

Day at the Gun Club

2008-07-09T16:18:00.000-04:00

I’ve been disturbed by the noise of the adjacent gun club for some time, large semi-automatic rifles blasting away, disrupting my sleep and work. I had opposed the 2nd Amendment’s implied injunction that people should be free to own guns and foolishly believed that people killed not guns. It was difficult to remember the correct bumper sticker of ideology, so I decided instead of railing again guns and gun violence, I needed to seize the day, and come to a genuine understanding of guns and people.
Saturday, in late May, everyone at the gun club was out for their Memorial day shoot, gun members from Connecticut , Massachusetts , and one from Virginia came to celebrate all the skeet shooting, target practice, and good natured noisy fun that a rifle range is open to. I was a little hesitant as I’m a die hard leftist libertarian and realized I needed to challenge some of my assumptions about guns. The guys and the gals at the club couldn’t have been more friendlier, though they did look askance at my “Send Bush to Iraq” bumper sticker, they knew that I was trying to reach out and connect with my southern New England neighbors who love to come up to Vermont to shoot. Liberals only can dream about having so much fun. I leaped on to a monstrous ATV with my 12 gauge shot gun strapped across my shoulders and on my hip was a 44 Magnum that would have made Dirty Harry proud and zoomed away to the practice range. I had finally found my tribe. Little kids were out there with 22’s and a skinny bleached blond girl in a black leather jacket was firing on her little uzzi like a proud aspiring assassin. These are serious folks, no wonder the liberals can’t win an election… they need more firepower. There is little that is more orgiastic exciting than coming out for a day of shooting with the semi-automatics, the shot guns, and a hand pistol. As I saw the American flag in red, white, and blue on the hillside I had a lump in my throat, a tear, as I saw the blasting of rifles on that glorious afternoon and recalled the bombing of Fort Sumter where the flag held through that night. Holding the cool long steel barrel in my hands and feeling the portent of pulsating hot plasma of fire, I knew that I was on to something big.
My new found friend Big Jim and Bubba are two good old southern boys ( Southern Vermont that is) who love to hunt, fish, and hunt. A few swigs from Big Jim’s Jim Beam and I’m feeling in the cozy warmth and familiarity of “my tribe.” Despite all the progress of humanity, bigger firepower, and bombs of all kinds there was something so reassuring about the basic connection with ones own tribe in the hunt. I was beginning to wish there were a few liberals romping across the field so I could feel the real thrill of the kill and asked Big Jim about it.
“I know what ya mean about getting something meaningful, like taking down a beautiful 12 point buck or dropping a big old black bear. Man, there are few things that compare to that.”
“How about sex?” I asked
Big Jim looked at me kind of strange, “What ya man, sex.” Then looked around to make sure no one had heard him.
“What’s better sex or killing a big trophy deer? Or is there that same rush of sex you get when you kill?”
Bubba said, “That’s a might strange way of looking at it. Why don’t you go over to the target range on yonder and think about it a bit.”
“Sure enough.” I’d give them a little bit of time to think about that one. I had my Magnum and was itching to try it. Suddenly I had an epiphany.
“Big Jim! Bubba! Come back I want to try an experiment!”
I walked over to Big Jim some ten feet away from me, raised my gun to his head and fired point blank, took a half step to the right and shot Bubba once between the eyes. Someone else came, I raised a gun and fired. It was the slow dream of carnage in the carnival of death. Then everyone ran into the woods.
“Wait! Come back!” I was so angry. I had made the effort to connect with the club, got over my narrow prejudices about guns, finally made a breakthrough and then they all fled, but I came to truly appreciate Big Jim’s perspective-- guns don’t kill, but people do.
p.s. In lieu of flowers to the Gun Club, please send donations to: NRA Youth Education Fund.

As a White Guy Does Racism Affect My Life?

2008-07-07T17:16:00.001-04:00

I’m a White middle class middle-aged man with more than a few dollars in the bank. I see the police and can wave at them and drive safely on by. If I reach into my coat pocket for my wallet and identification I will probably not get shot with forty bullets. I can shout out my magic protective words, “Don’t shoot me, I’m White. Put on some James Brown, see I can’t dance!” Oops, did I just fall into a stereotype? So, as a White guy does racism affect my life?

Being White and of European descent I don’t worry that I’ll be mistaken for a brown Muslim named Mohamed, strip searched, and undergo a rectal probe at the airport. However, given Timothy McVeigh’s role in blowing up the Federal buildings in Oklahoma it would seem reasonable that White guys should equally be suspect and the US should have launched an invasion on Scotland. (Though it is still puzzling to me why fifteen Saudis attacked the World Trade Center Towers and the US invaded Iraq and not Saudi Arabia: A case of the US being geographically challenged?)

When I apply for work and they look at my credentials or college education employers will not wonder if I was successful because of affirmative action. The employer may assume I did it on my own merit or at the least perhaps if I did attend an Ivy League school, it was because I was smart or in the case of GW from a wealthy and well connected family. If I was from that well connected family a gentleman’s C grades will do.
When I go into a grocery store and decide not to use a shopping cart and stuff a few things in my pockets; generally, it is assumed that I was in a rush and the management doesn’t call the police. Because I am a White middle aged man who is not walking around in raggedy clothes mumbling to myself (most times) it’s assumed that I’m harmless, a little careless in not using a cart, but not a significant problem. If I was Black or Hispanic, how long would it take before the police are called?
I can walk into a local bank and cash a check without an ID. They will not ask me for four pieces of ID, even though I might have had a bank account there for years. I will not have the bank guard calling for back up because I get in an argument with a teller over an error in my bank account. As a White middle aged middle class professional, I know she will defer to her manager, and we will resolve this.

If I move, I can be pretty sure of renting or purchasing housing in an area which I can afford and in which I would want to live. I don’t need to ask my friend to find an apartment. I can let the grass grow on my front lawn, have the hedges a bit shabby and the neighbors will think “He’s still a bit of a hippy.” But if my name was Gonzales would the neighbors think, “Those damn Hispanics – one moves into the neighborhood and look what happens.” It is the hundreds of small clues during the course of day that says, “You’re different. You’re not quite like us.” If there is a fistfight at the school do they assume the Black or Hispanic youngster is the aggressor?

When an African American friend of mine comes to town, do I need to give them a heads up about our local police department’s history of racial profiling or bias. If he is stopped does he need to do his Black thing?

“Yes, sir officer. I know it looks suspicious being a six foot tall black man wearing a suit and tie waiting on the street corner for my wife. No, I wasn’t casing the store for a robber. Yes, officer I have identification. Yes officer, observe my hands as they are going into my pocket. No, I don’t have a gun or a shiv.”

Do people of color and various ethnicities feel safe and welcome coming into town? Will they spend their money for shopping? Will they buy second homes here? Will they invest their talents as lawyer, carpenter, artist or poet? Will the richness of many diverse cultures that have strengthened our collective national cultures be welcomed and become an asset to our community?

Does racism affect me in my life? On the surface it doesn’t. As a White middle-aged man, living in a predominantly White community, racism can be a ghosted shadow drifting invisibly by. However, racism/ bias/ discrimination, is the sure and slow corrosive acid that that eats away at the fabric of a community. It says there is an “us and them.” It is another wall in the community that divides neighbors, differenced solely based on ethnicity or color.

When Vermont Yankee Blew Its Top

2008-05-24T17:40:00.001-04:00

When Vermont Yankee Blew Its Top

When Vermont Yankee blew its top

the whole world turned to stop

Windy morning in March

when all hell broke loose.

It was history’s fatal arc,

our town swung by a noose

Wind blew the fatal curse

Yesterday’s news was torn,

as fate drove in a hearse

but no one left to mourn.

20 years past its prime

it was a ticking bomb

and in a second of time

our fate was entombed.

20 years past its end

Entergy knew it best

as it lied to defend

all of its failed tests

When Vermont Yankee blew its top

the whole world turned to stop

Miles of pipe lurking

a coiled snake to strike

fatal chance was stalking,

a lightening quick spike.

Old sagging pipes blew,

from a crack of steam,

a string of mistakes flew

then heard a scream,

“Boys, head to the hills

this one is going to blow!

Grab your families and run!”

The brave stayed to fight

but too few to stave the fate,

as execs quickly took flight,

there was no time to wait.

When Vermont Yankee blew its top

the whole world turned to stop

Winds blew wild that day

a radioactive wind of fire,

roared each and ever way,

in the skies an unholy spire.

For miles, roads did clog,

too few could flee or run

as if stuck in a mud bog,

light chilled to a black sun.

Chilling and killing wind

seized everyone instead.

The old, infirmed & blind

quietly died in their bed.

When Vermont Yankee blew its top

the whole world turned to stop

Years now since it blew

Brattleboro long gone,

but skies again are blue

with weedy grass lawns.

All seems back to normal,

a few birds wobble in flight,

natural selection is natural,

with the return of corn blight.

Starlight peeks thru the sky,

in the cold fading twilight,

never asking of Man’s why

or indifference to insight.