In the end of Act 1, scene 5 of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the Ghost of Hamlet’s father, who has silently appeared before to Marcellus, Barnardo, and Horatio, confronts Hamlet in a forest clearing and reveals his “most foul and unnatural murder" by his brother, the newly-crowned Claudius. The Ghost is “doomed to a certain time to walk the night” because King Hamlet was murdered before being given formal Christian last rites, so for his “foul crimes” during his life he must have his sins burned away, to "fast in fires” of Purgatory. The Ghost extols Hamlet to revenge his murder, which he repeats was “foul, strange, and unnatural,” the repetition of which highlights the contrasting theme Shakespeare explores between natural and unnatural, and the pairing of lust and violence—themes which return throughout the play. Shakespeare uses diction and imagery to great effect in this scene, where the main conflict is first revealed, guiding the development of the plot from here on, and branding a fiery resolution into the heart of Hamlet to revenge his beloved father’s murder.
When Hamlet first hears that Claudius committed the murder—contrary to the official story that a “serpent” while sleeping in his orchard stung his father—Hamlet’s horrified and surprised response is “Oh my prophetic soul! My uncle!” suggesting that Hamlet garnered suspicions all along about his uncle’s involvement to usurp the crown. The Ghost has brought Hamlet to this clearing to prompt him to revenge, but the Ghost here pauses in a furious side reflection to damn the characters of both Claudius and his wife, Gertrude, whom Claudius swiftly married—that thrift whose “funeral baked meats did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables” and a long-suffering source of Hamlet’s recent despair. It is in this pause that Shakespeare has the Ghost contrast himself with his lesser brother. The Ghost uses the “serpent” element of the official story to refer to Claudius as that “serpent that did sting thy father’s life now wears his crown.” Besides the obvious allusion to the Garden of Eden, whose glory and goodness infuses the Ghost’s description of life and love in Elsinore, Claudius as “serpent” begins a litany of imagery and diction portraying the contrasting theme of natural and unnatural, lust and violence. Claudius is “that incestuous, adulterous beast” using “witchcraft in his wit” and “traitorous gifts,” “wicked,” that “have the power so to seduce!” These all suggest that which is not only unnatural, but powerfully so. True virtue will never falter, even if threatened by a deceiving “lewdness” in “the shape of heaven.” There was a “falling off” from their true marriage
whose love was of that dignity
That it went hand in hand even with the vow
I made to her in marriage…
Falling—like Lucifer, to continue the Garden of Eden allusion—according to the Ghost, into lustful vice which infected Gertrude, “that radiant angel linked” and on the “celestial bed” both the fallen “prey on garbage.” The genuine love we later see expressed between Claudius and Gertrude was rather “shameful lust.” The Ghost implores Hamlet not to let the “royal bed of Denmark,” be turned into “a couch of luxury and damned incest.” Soon after these raging reflections on lust's seductive power, the Ghost outlines his horrible, most horrible foul and unnatural violent murder: lust and violence paired.
We see further the contrasting theme of natural and unnatural when the Ghost, after purging his resentment, scents the morning air and reveals to Hamlet the scene of the murder. Shakespeare’s diction here compares the unnatural to disease and defilement. The poison is described as “leprous” and like a quick acting disease battles the “blood of man” and “swift as quicksilver…courses through the natural gates and alleys of the body.” The natural health of the body, its "gates and alleys" is being attacked in a most violent way--but a violence that seemingly went undetected by the whole of Denmark until the Ghost appeared to Hamlet. This unnatural poison curds in the “wholesome blood” like “eager droppings into milk”. The leper imagery continues as the king falls into death, his skin riddled with sores and scabs, and where in life he resided within a “smooth body” in his death throes he is imprisoned within “a vile and loathsome crust.” The evil deed of Claudius is here given a dramatic effect in all its ugliness in the way the king was “dispatched/Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin” with all of his “imperfections” fresh for the fire.
Two ironies appear in this scene, one of which Hamlet seems unaware of, the other of which the Ghost seems unaware: first, both before he is told of the Ghost’s appearing at several midnights previous, in his first soliloquy when he laments his own empty despair and his mother’s marriage in scene ii. When he confronts his mother in Act 3, sc. iv, Hamlet nearly deifies his father’s great worth and virtue compared to Claudius, “so excellent a king, that was to this Hyperion to a satyr….” Indeed, his father’s virtue hovers like ghostly ideal over the whole play, summoned when Hamlet needs courage. However, for all this, Hamlet seems not to have heard (or doesn’t remember, or cannot admit) that his father’s confinement to “fast in fires” was because of “foul crimes done in my days of nature.” His murder was “foul and unnatural,” but what were these foul crimes done when alive? All we know of King Hamlet before the play was his killing of the elder Fortinbras; all we know of the previous king was that he fought handily in wars and won the lands where Elsinore resides. He was evidently a man of violence, as any warrior must be. One can imagine the younger Claudius watching in seething envy yet spiked with ambition his older brother rage in warring violence, and bathing in the blood of victorious spoils. Claudius was also a soldier at one time, as he battled alongside the French as he reports to Laertes, but was also probably compared not favorably with the beloved King, as Hamlet remarks on the irony later in the play that those in the court were wont to "make mouths" at him, yet now he is respected as King. Envy, resentment, and ambition...these we can easily see inflaming an impassioned Claudius to take what he wants, as his older heralded brother probably did. Hamlet never refers to any of this. One wonders how Hamlet thought of his uncle before his father was untimely "stung."
Tuesday, December 16, 2014
Sunday, November 30, 2014
Home, Wherever It Is (previously unpublished, from some years ago)
A few breaths before afternoon drizzles into twilight, that hushed interval where a blue patina softens the surfaces of the world, October sunlight slants like a shimmering cold knife through the trees in my big backyard in Sacramento and across backyards and housetops beyond. I would open the family room’s sliding glass door and wander outside and simply stand in the day. Never welcoming the night rising in the east, a closing of light, a return to a house where the TV seemed always on, I remember always looking west—to San Francisco, the coast, the Pacific Ocean, years to come; I felt somehow drawn west. October remains the blessed month for this memory, as it was for Kerouac (October for me stands for that autumnal air, the way the day I feels). Summer in its blazing glory threw the sun high overhead and winter dragged it bumping low around the sky, but October freed the light to pulse and pierce the air. I wore a light sweater against early cold and waited for the afternoon’s mystery to rise and linger. Was I waiting for something to happen? Waiting for a question unasked to reveal an answer, like a stone statue blinking dust and turning into a princess? I never knew, and still can’t hold it in my palm. The air was still, the sunlight sharp, and I stood westward as the earth rolled away. You only recognize beauty when it begins to disappear is the last line of a Mark Eitzel song during his time with the American Music Club. The day was disappearing, October disappearing, another year disappearing, and so goes life. That’s precisely what was happening, exactly the answer. And a month or so after having left home in Sacramento for life in the Bay Area (San Francisco, the coast, the ocean), perhaps feeling poor and lonely and distant, I drove home to Sacramento, walked through the family room and sliding glass door to wander again the backyard and linger in the waning afternoon light.
I had left home, but the ghosts remained and waved a kind welcome, the memories imbued in the grass mowed and the silver maple climbed into telephone wires and gnarled plum tree leaning and cracking the cement porch and the pale weathered wooden fence trying to hold the restless dogs within. This backyard was home; it is no longer home, although I feel at home anytime I’m standing in the line of cold sunlight sliding through creaking trees. I have driven by the old house, my mother and father long dead, and once I met the new owners, a young family, their first home. I introduced myself to the lady of the house, and she was overjoyed to meet, anxious to show what she’s done in the house and yard. The yard had changed a bit: I think I spotted a lawn ornament, a fairytale fawn or ceramic bonneted lass gathering invisible berries. The grass appeared designer mowed, as if you’d be scolded for running scrimmage. Growing up I remember proud clumps of weeks, the edges a little unkempt. There is something sinister in the nervous demand for the manicured yard, the ever-renewed battle (waged either by you or immigrants) against wild growth; wanting a lawn that doesn’t offend or require interpretation, but pleases easily like a Christmas with Kenny G album. We had lawns growing up, but we ran and tackled and rolled upon them like dogs. I remember surprises hidden in weeds, whole societies busy with work. Oh where are the frogs of yesterday? Extinct through chemicals, those wreckers of ecological balance. But standing in the backyard no longer my own, the plum tree filled the sky, the loquat held fruit, and the rosemary towered. The lady seemed happy with the yard. She confided in me that often she felt Barbara’s spirit in the house, often thought of her, eagerly hoping my mother approved what she’d done. With tears welling up in her eyes, she received my assurance that my mother would indeed be pleased (for the most part). Here’s another line from a song, Luther Vandross singing the version I heard: a house is not a home. He meant, I believe, his digs felt lonely without his woman. But home is also not a house. When I was standing in my backyard reminiscing with the new owner, I failed to hear the lingering ghosts. They’d packed up and caught the last train for…the coast. Home disappears when the beautiful ghosts stop speaking to you. So I feel little nostalgia for that suburb in South Sac. The house is not a home. Yes, the structure is not the dwelling within. A life is not a body, but the pulsing soul bubbling in the veins and nuzzling the rib cage and rising against muscle and dancing behind the face. Where is home now? We asked ourselves this on our summer flight from Syria to California via Istanbul and New York. Possible answers: Home is where you live, your current address. Home is where you grew up. Home is what is familiar, where you feel welcome. We sit back satisfied when we are “at home.” I’m trying to get at the meaning.
I first felt a strange tug of home inNew York San Francisco Brooklyn ’s Brewing Company’s Amber Ale, was on tap. Our waitress dully asked if I wanted a tall one. After recovering from a laughing fit that had my eyes bulging tears and dry mouth a-foaming, I picked myself up off the hardwood floor, rearranged the surrounding tables and chairs in polite order, recovered the knife and fork from the potted plant near Gate 17 where I had flung them after upending our table, and answered yes please. Of course, what you miss is home, but is home simply what you miss? (My ugly god, I’m writing like Carrie Bradshaw in Sex and the City).
Flying into the Bay Area,California Santa Cruz Santa Cruz Syria
In Syria we have our rhymes and rituals, our daily bread of dreams, we hose and squeegee the dust from the patio and pull up the outdoor furniture, check if there’s ice in the trays, tune my guitar, welcome friends and uncork champagne purchased on a run to the Turkish border. Home is less a place or predicament than dwelling emboldened by the mysterious art of living. Home is sanctuary, enclosed only to safeguard the opening to mystery of being alive. This is why holy places feel like coming home, be they stone cathedrals or Sequoia canopies or Pacific Ocean depths, knowing life thrives underneath. Only the truly mysterious possesses the power to draw, to welcome. Arrange your fixtures and furnishings with the delicate touch handling a bouquet of flowers, vines and leaves. Wait for the feather brush of wind, and then call things that truly matter to you into presence, let them enclose you, allowing a moment to fall into your soul like the twirl and snap of a cold October sun, the moist heart pumping in a clump of moss, the murmur in the burrowing warm dark hole that furry critters call home.
I had left home, but the ghosts remained and waved a kind welcome, the memories imbued in the grass mowed and the silver maple climbed into telephone wires and gnarled plum tree leaning and cracking the cement porch and the pale weathered wooden fence trying to hold the restless dogs within. This backyard was home; it is no longer home, although I feel at home anytime I’m standing in the line of cold sunlight sliding through creaking trees. I have driven by the old house, my mother and father long dead, and once I met the new owners, a young family, their first home. I introduced myself to the lady of the house, and she was overjoyed to meet, anxious to show what she’s done in the house and yard. The yard had changed a bit: I think I spotted a lawn ornament, a fairytale fawn or ceramic bonneted lass gathering invisible berries. The grass appeared designer mowed, as if you’d be scolded for running scrimmage. Growing up I remember proud clumps of weeks, the edges a little unkempt. There is something sinister in the nervous demand for the manicured yard, the ever-renewed battle (waged either by you or immigrants) against wild growth; wanting a lawn that doesn’t offend or require interpretation, but pleases easily like a Christmas with Kenny G album. We had lawns growing up, but we ran and tackled and rolled upon them like dogs. I remember surprises hidden in weeds, whole societies busy with work. Oh where are the frogs of yesterday? Extinct through chemicals, those wreckers of ecological balance. But standing in the backyard no longer my own, the plum tree filled the sky, the loquat held fruit, and the rosemary towered. The lady seemed happy with the yard. She confided in me that often she felt Barbara’s spirit in the house, often thought of her, eagerly hoping my mother approved what she’d done. With tears welling up in her eyes, she received my assurance that my mother would indeed be pleased (for the most part). Here’s another line from a song, Luther Vandross singing the version I heard: a house is not a home. He meant, I believe, his digs felt lonely without his woman. But home is also not a house. When I was standing in my backyard reminiscing with the new owner, I failed to hear the lingering ghosts. They’d packed up and caught the last train for…the coast. Home disappears when the beautiful ghosts stop speaking to you. So I feel little nostalgia for that suburb in South Sac. The house is not a home. Yes, the structure is not the dwelling within. A life is not a body, but the pulsing soul bubbling in the veins and nuzzling the rib cage and rising against muscle and dancing behind the face. Where is home now? We asked ourselves this on our summer flight from Syria to California via Istanbul and New York. Possible answers: Home is where you live, your current address. Home is where you grew up. Home is what is familiar, where you feel welcome. We sit back satisfied when we are “at home.” I’m trying to get at the meaning.
I first felt a strange tug of home in
Flying into the Bay Area,
In Syria we have our rhymes and rituals, our daily bread of dreams, we hose and squeegee the dust from the patio and pull up the outdoor furniture, check if there’s ice in the trays, tune my guitar, welcome friends and uncork champagne purchased on a run to the Turkish border. Home is less a place or predicament than dwelling emboldened by the mysterious art of living. Home is sanctuary, enclosed only to safeguard the opening to mystery of being alive. This is why holy places feel like coming home, be they stone cathedrals or Sequoia canopies or Pacific Ocean depths, knowing life thrives underneath. Only the truly mysterious possesses the power to draw, to welcome. Arrange your fixtures and furnishings with the delicate touch handling a bouquet of flowers, vines and leaves. Wait for the feather brush of wind, and then call things that truly matter to you into presence, let them enclose you, allowing a moment to fall into your soul like the twirl and snap of a cold October sun, the moist heart pumping in a clump of moss, the murmur in the burrowing warm dark hole that furry critters call home.
Saturday, November 29, 2014
The Pilgrim's Digress
Rosy air hushed o’er soaring ancient mountain peak silence dawning in the high country. Highway 395 nestles in the valley below. Cold snow slithers down steep canyon cliff face and lonely secret valleys. Air is soft here in high desert; the scraggy shooting peaks above me—Whitney, Lone Pine, Williamson—reach into sky and breathing winds don’t blow as much as heave with tidal oceanic power to splash and flood the dry tree line sloping below. Grandest most rugged and highest mountain range in the lower 48 above; across the long Owens River Valley hunched and rolled the Alabama mountains; glistening and sparkling mirror waters of poor shallow Owens Lake streaked under a peeking sun almost humbly requesting permission to rise and glow over this country majesty that had stood proud guarding the earth all through an icy dark star flashed night and could damn well keep watch another thousands nights, but the sun moved carefully and soundlessly and dipped her blessings over all, the peaks warmed in her offerings and let her pass overhead like golden flocks of birds. Further south stretched the rock silence of Death Valley, and north ran mountain ranges and river valleys and sleeping voices of gnarled desert ranch folk and ghosts of Paiute and Shoshone tribes feasting on prophecies and whispering philosophies with lizards and hawks and yelping coyotes rummaging in underbrush. Morning clouds blossomed pink and orange and hovered o’er the vast country bestowing delicate goodness and light. I tread softly, Ramsay bounded and spied movement and plots everywhere, and scurried around desert shrub and mottled stone.
I’d driven up the morning before from home Sonoma County on a minor pilgrimage to the Great Space Center, a 450 acre ranch up the flank of the Whitney range, former residence of spiritual teacher and philosopher Franklin Merrell-Wolff, who passed in 1985. Along highway 12 gathered dark vultures around some small furry prey. One perched himself upon a post, wings spread ceremoniously north, either blessing the kill or announcing the New Avian Kingdom Come to his gathered adherents. The drive took me through Sonoma wine country, rolling soft green hills, golden yellow tinged orange wine grape vineyard leaves fluttering; around the marshy end of Vallejo San Francisco Bay, sluggish waters iron brown; straight shot onto highway 80 rumbling to hometown Sacramento and highway 50 beyond, yellow foothills to alpine forest curves up the gradual west groove of Sierra mountains, white dust snow peaks clear and cold; Echo summit and over into mysteriously quiet and poised eastern flank, wide pooling meadows and snow tinged waters; highway 395 a grand symphony of cavernous and soaring earth, the heavenly emptiness and poise of Mono lake basin, going down, down South into the valley and the arching sheer burst of mountain range this Eastern Sierra so swift and dramatic compared to gradual rolling lift of foothills into forests into mountain towns and finally snow blanketed mountains of the West rising from San Francisco’s golden shore, the wrapping, enveloping Pacific Ocean.
But into the small town of Lone Pine I drove as the sun had long sunk over the ridge line and shadows darkened the desert slope and pooled around the twinkling lights of buildings and windows. The Great Space was still three miles up into that darkness. Slow rumble up a rutted dirt road, I searched for a light, and found none. At one point I passed a tall figure in a tree shrouded driveway, and nearly blind backed up along the narrow road fenced by thick dry bush. Turns out he wasn’t the man I was looking for, Franklin’s granddaughter’s son, Robert. No, this man was standing in the darkness evidently waiting to help me, for I had gotten stuck. After he pointed up the road and mentioned where the guest cottage rested, he watched as my tires spun in the soft pillows of dust. Investigating, he noted I was stuck on a rock. He rustled around his dark dwelling, an airy cabin, and located pickaxe and shovel, and we dug in trying to free the trapped vehicle. Ramsay was whining the whole time, not understanding why, since we’d obviously arrived, she wasn’t allowed out to begin surveys of the land and assessments of security threats. The bodhisattva tried pushing, but the small car just heaved and gave up. I got down underneath and felt the rock, brushed some dirt way, and lifted the thing away. Like any good teacher, the grizzled old guy had simply pointed the way, and I freed the car myself. We finally made it to the cottage, lit the oil lanterns in the rustic two-bedroom house, and settled in with some Irish whiskey and Franklin’s first work, Pathways Through to Space.
Franklin wrote of his transcendental experience from 1936. He realized that what we in our relative consciousness normally think of as have substance, the material of our sensual world (a subjective consciousness over against the “objective world” of things, ponderable matter), is actually empty of Substance, and what we take as emptiness, darkness from the relative standpoint (that which is the empty “stuff” between a conscious subject viewpoint and the things our senses discover “out there”) is fundamentally the deeper real, fullness and light, and the core is the seat of Consciousness itself. When one searches for this self, of course one finds nothing. One is searching for an object, whether gross or subtle. A thing. So one is deluding oneself, as the fundamental source, the holy ground of consciousness, cannot be an object presented to one as subject. This is the relative field. But God is the Absolute. See the difficulty? The writing of this, of course, has no bearing on the truth of the experience conveyed. And I do it no justice. Franklin did say, however, that the Key to his Recognition came when he gave up searching for a subtle object of Liberation, which of course posits that there is something outside of the subjective pole of consciousness to “find”. There was no aim. Freedom is re-cognizing you are free. I suppose another incarnation would be “Christ is within you.” I remember having a minor recognition along these lines, one afternoon looking with great love and desire on a beautiful ocean from Land’s End in San Francisco. The light on the water, the tidal dance, the holy mist gracing the blown Cyprus trees. I suppose I desired to meld with all the beauty, which I took to be forever distant, “out there”, unreachable, and all the more desirable for that impossibility of possessing it, or being possessed by it. It then hit me: I was in that already, it was all around me, standing as I was on a bluff within this our glorious earth, and I smelled the ocean, breathed in the briny perfume. At that point desire dropped away, and only beauty remained.
What dreams spur the flight of the pilgrim? Latin peregrinus, “foreigner”, peregre, “from abroad”, per + ager fundamentally meaning “through field, country”. A pilgrim is one who wanders about, secondarily one making a journey to a shrine or holy place. Think of the peregrine falcon in flight on a hunt. The popular notion of the pilgrimage captured in the image of the hunt: craving the prey, spiritual sustenance, fair enough. What precisely does the pilgrim lack, need, or thinks he needs? In Islam the hajj is one of the religion’s five pillars; the believer should make the trek to Mecca, recreating and celebrating the hejira or “flight” Mohammed made from Mecca to Medina in 622. A more formal component of a Muslim’s spiritual duty, whole families gather at airports to welcome back the sojourner. On the sides of concrete slab houses in Aleppo, Syria, a green spray painted palm tree confirms a resident had undertaken the trip successfully. Adhering to the original notion, pilgrimages are feats of walking. Circumambulating Mount Kailas and Lake Manasarovar in Tibet; on the Camino de Santiago through Europe to the bones of Saint James. Hundreds of hikes girdle the globe, seekers on a mission shuffle thoughtfully in fog and rain and dusty sun. A further question: what is the pilgrim hoping to find at the terminus? Ah, perhaps nothing; the journey commences, endures, ends. Perhaps one prays over relics, holy bones of the saintly departed. Ironic, as the most honest prayer will be answered: yes, you too shall wind up piled bones! I felt no mystic sensation upon arrival. The wild mountainous, cavernous, rivering, meadowing, snow-feathered land was wondrous enough. So I slept.
A rutted two-wheel trail crawls up the Whitney flank toward the canyon, where that late afternoon swirls of misty cloud fog spiced in the yawning, burbled and warped the wind, beckoned to enter. Dog Ramsay and I did, hiking across the already late afternoon shadowed cool of eastern Sierra toward the ashrama built deep in the Tuttle Creek Canyon by Franklin Merrell-Wolff in the last century. A fierce slicing wind roars from the canyon’s bowels. I was Yudhisthira with his dog coming into the gates of heaven, and Indra stood her ground, throwing whorls of sand and dust down from her growling countenance. Returning down the trail, I spy a figure coming up, slowly. It was the grizzled bodhisattva who the previous evening assisted in freeing my car. We met, shook hands. Ramsay begin digging off the trail and wrestling shrubbery branches. The old guy gave me the history of the place, pointing out neighbors and their stories. He knew Franklin’s story, too. Admitted trying to read through his work, but it flummoxed him. He had respect for Franklin, considered him legitimate, but sniffed disdainfully at those he labeled Franklin’s “acolytes.” Who the grizzled bent figure really learned from was Krishnamurti. I concurred. Said he saw/heard Krishnamurti speak of few times.
“Yeah the first time I went down to that place, down there by Santa Barbara”—he waved southward, “Ojai” I said—“and the first time Krishnamurti asked me ‘Why are you here?’ and I thought, huh…so I stayed and listened to him. The next time Krishnamurti asked me the same thing, ‘Why are you here?’ I said I didn’t really know why. So then he says ‘Well then why don’t leave.’ So I did. The third time, two guys I knew wanted to see him. I'd already seen him twice--"
"Yes, like Alan Watts said: once you get the message, hang up. No use putting the phone on an alter--"
"Yeah so these guys didn't have a car. So I drove them down."
"Ah, the Buddhist ferryman making the crossing, taking folks to the other shore--"
"I knew Krishnamurti talked for 45 minutes. So I walked around [whistling as if passing time] and after 45 minutes, there they were just coming out."
After awhile he bade goodbye and started up the trail. To where I couldn’t say.
Late afternoon I got back to the cottage. Ramsay and I had done three long hikes. I’d reread many chapters of Franklin's book during the day as the sun warmed the cottage, gathered Ramsay close and tied her leash to the porch chair when I heard coyotes yelping not too far off. But now the rosy air was cooling. It was only 3:30 in the afternoon. The heater wasn’t working. Prospects were cold leftover lentil salad. What, I’d sit in this rustic cottage and drink until bed? So I packed up and we drove off. On the road again, zooming through fallen darkness to a motel in Bridgeport, three hours north. A blessed life is pilgrimage enough.
I’d driven up the morning before from home Sonoma County on a minor pilgrimage to the Great Space Center, a 450 acre ranch up the flank of the Whitney range, former residence of spiritual teacher and philosopher Franklin Merrell-Wolff, who passed in 1985. Along highway 12 gathered dark vultures around some small furry prey. One perched himself upon a post, wings spread ceremoniously north, either blessing the kill or announcing the New Avian Kingdom Come to his gathered adherents. The drive took me through Sonoma wine country, rolling soft green hills, golden yellow tinged orange wine grape vineyard leaves fluttering; around the marshy end of Vallejo San Francisco Bay, sluggish waters iron brown; straight shot onto highway 80 rumbling to hometown Sacramento and highway 50 beyond, yellow foothills to alpine forest curves up the gradual west groove of Sierra mountains, white dust snow peaks clear and cold; Echo summit and over into mysteriously quiet and poised eastern flank, wide pooling meadows and snow tinged waters; highway 395 a grand symphony of cavernous and soaring earth, the heavenly emptiness and poise of Mono lake basin, going down, down South into the valley and the arching sheer burst of mountain range this Eastern Sierra so swift and dramatic compared to gradual rolling lift of foothills into forests into mountain towns and finally snow blanketed mountains of the West rising from San Francisco’s golden shore, the wrapping, enveloping Pacific Ocean.
But into the small town of Lone Pine I drove as the sun had long sunk over the ridge line and shadows darkened the desert slope and pooled around the twinkling lights of buildings and windows. The Great Space was still three miles up into that darkness. Slow rumble up a rutted dirt road, I searched for a light, and found none. At one point I passed a tall figure in a tree shrouded driveway, and nearly blind backed up along the narrow road fenced by thick dry bush. Turns out he wasn’t the man I was looking for, Franklin’s granddaughter’s son, Robert. No, this man was standing in the darkness evidently waiting to help me, for I had gotten stuck. After he pointed up the road and mentioned where the guest cottage rested, he watched as my tires spun in the soft pillows of dust. Investigating, he noted I was stuck on a rock. He rustled around his dark dwelling, an airy cabin, and located pickaxe and shovel, and we dug in trying to free the trapped vehicle. Ramsay was whining the whole time, not understanding why, since we’d obviously arrived, she wasn’t allowed out to begin surveys of the land and assessments of security threats. The bodhisattva tried pushing, but the small car just heaved and gave up. I got down underneath and felt the rock, brushed some dirt way, and lifted the thing away. Like any good teacher, the grizzled old guy had simply pointed the way, and I freed the car myself. We finally made it to the cottage, lit the oil lanterns in the rustic two-bedroom house, and settled in with some Irish whiskey and Franklin’s first work, Pathways Through to Space.
Franklin wrote of his transcendental experience from 1936. He realized that what we in our relative consciousness normally think of as have substance, the material of our sensual world (a subjective consciousness over against the “objective world” of things, ponderable matter), is actually empty of Substance, and what we take as emptiness, darkness from the relative standpoint (that which is the empty “stuff” between a conscious subject viewpoint and the things our senses discover “out there”) is fundamentally the deeper real, fullness and light, and the core is the seat of Consciousness itself. When one searches for this self, of course one finds nothing. One is searching for an object, whether gross or subtle. A thing. So one is deluding oneself, as the fundamental source, the holy ground of consciousness, cannot be an object presented to one as subject. This is the relative field. But God is the Absolute. See the difficulty? The writing of this, of course, has no bearing on the truth of the experience conveyed. And I do it no justice. Franklin did say, however, that the Key to his Recognition came when he gave up searching for a subtle object of Liberation, which of course posits that there is something outside of the subjective pole of consciousness to “find”. There was no aim. Freedom is re-cognizing you are free. I suppose another incarnation would be “Christ is within you.” I remember having a minor recognition along these lines, one afternoon looking with great love and desire on a beautiful ocean from Land’s End in San Francisco. The light on the water, the tidal dance, the holy mist gracing the blown Cyprus trees. I suppose I desired to meld with all the beauty, which I took to be forever distant, “out there”, unreachable, and all the more desirable for that impossibility of possessing it, or being possessed by it. It then hit me: I was in that already, it was all around me, standing as I was on a bluff within this our glorious earth, and I smelled the ocean, breathed in the briny perfume. At that point desire dropped away, and only beauty remained.
What dreams spur the flight of the pilgrim? Latin peregrinus, “foreigner”, peregre, “from abroad”, per + ager fundamentally meaning “through field, country”. A pilgrim is one who wanders about, secondarily one making a journey to a shrine or holy place. Think of the peregrine falcon in flight on a hunt. The popular notion of the pilgrimage captured in the image of the hunt: craving the prey, spiritual sustenance, fair enough. What precisely does the pilgrim lack, need, or thinks he needs? In Islam the hajj is one of the religion’s five pillars; the believer should make the trek to Mecca, recreating and celebrating the hejira or “flight” Mohammed made from Mecca to Medina in 622. A more formal component of a Muslim’s spiritual duty, whole families gather at airports to welcome back the sojourner. On the sides of concrete slab houses in Aleppo, Syria, a green spray painted palm tree confirms a resident had undertaken the trip successfully. Adhering to the original notion, pilgrimages are feats of walking. Circumambulating Mount Kailas and Lake Manasarovar in Tibet; on the Camino de Santiago through Europe to the bones of Saint James. Hundreds of hikes girdle the globe, seekers on a mission shuffle thoughtfully in fog and rain and dusty sun. A further question: what is the pilgrim hoping to find at the terminus? Ah, perhaps nothing; the journey commences, endures, ends. Perhaps one prays over relics, holy bones of the saintly departed. Ironic, as the most honest prayer will be answered: yes, you too shall wind up piled bones! I felt no mystic sensation upon arrival. The wild mountainous, cavernous, rivering, meadowing, snow-feathered land was wondrous enough. So I slept.
A rutted two-wheel trail crawls up the Whitney flank toward the canyon, where that late afternoon swirls of misty cloud fog spiced in the yawning, burbled and warped the wind, beckoned to enter. Dog Ramsay and I did, hiking across the already late afternoon shadowed cool of eastern Sierra toward the ashrama built deep in the Tuttle Creek Canyon by Franklin Merrell-Wolff in the last century. A fierce slicing wind roars from the canyon’s bowels. I was Yudhisthira with his dog coming into the gates of heaven, and Indra stood her ground, throwing whorls of sand and dust down from her growling countenance. Returning down the trail, I spy a figure coming up, slowly. It was the grizzled bodhisattva who the previous evening assisted in freeing my car. We met, shook hands. Ramsay begin digging off the trail and wrestling shrubbery branches. The old guy gave me the history of the place, pointing out neighbors and their stories. He knew Franklin’s story, too. Admitted trying to read through his work, but it flummoxed him. He had respect for Franklin, considered him legitimate, but sniffed disdainfully at those he labeled Franklin’s “acolytes.” Who the grizzled bent figure really learned from was Krishnamurti. I concurred. Said he saw/heard Krishnamurti speak of few times.
“Yeah the first time I went down to that place, down there by Santa Barbara”—he waved southward, “Ojai” I said—“and the first time Krishnamurti asked me ‘Why are you here?’ and I thought, huh…so I stayed and listened to him. The next time Krishnamurti asked me the same thing, ‘Why are you here?’ I said I didn’t really know why. So then he says ‘Well then why don’t leave.’ So I did. The third time, two guys I knew wanted to see him. I'd already seen him twice--"
"Yes, like Alan Watts said: once you get the message, hang up. No use putting the phone on an alter--"
"Yeah so these guys didn't have a car. So I drove them down."
"Ah, the Buddhist ferryman making the crossing, taking folks to the other shore--"
"I knew Krishnamurti talked for 45 minutes. So I walked around [whistling as if passing time] and after 45 minutes, there they were just coming out."
After awhile he bade goodbye and started up the trail. To where I couldn’t say.
Late afternoon I got back to the cottage. Ramsay and I had done three long hikes. I’d reread many chapters of Franklin's book during the day as the sun warmed the cottage, gathered Ramsay close and tied her leash to the porch chair when I heard coyotes yelping not too far off. But now the rosy air was cooling. It was only 3:30 in the afternoon. The heater wasn’t working. Prospects were cold leftover lentil salad. What, I’d sit in this rustic cottage and drink until bed? So I packed up and we drove off. On the road again, zooming through fallen darkness to a motel in Bridgeport, three hours north. A blessed life is pilgrimage enough.
Wednesday, September 3, 2014
The Wandering Kerouac Defended - point taken up in Adam Gopnik's review of Frederic Gros's "The Philosophy of Walking"
Why do we walk? The much loved and erudite Adam Gopnik in the September 1, 2014 New Yorker reviewed two recent works on the subject of walking. Is it a sport? Twas a spectator sport in the 19th century among the working classes. But in his review of Gros's book he focuses on the writer's division of walking into the contemplative sort, where we walk to clear our heads, move our bodies, be out there in the world but within a social solitude--in an urban environment we walk to be alone in a world of others; and there's also the rootless walking of, say, the homeless, who walk for having been denied a place. There's in their ambling presence a threat to the comfortably destined and purposeful. Gros references the old Cynic walker, a kind of homeless hippie (in Gopnik's characterization) who leaning into the wind walks to get in the face of passersby. Gopnik also rightly hails the great strider, Walt Whitman, who hiked and rambled to experience the city and country and world, to sing its joys and rally its banners. The latter mention is contained in a note by Gopnik that few of the Frenchman's walking samples come as Americans; indeed, it is Gopnik who hails Whitman and Alfred Kasin, the great New York walker, whose 1951 book is titled "A Walker in the City."
But Gopnik begins this noting of American ambling absence by puzzling over the inclusion of Jack Kerouac, who Gopnik refers to as "the echt American driver". Yes, I have to look up "echt" as well: back in a second...okay, German origin and means "authentic and typical". Gopnik assuredly refers to the popular image of Kerouac in his most known and influential novel of 1957, On The Road. I've only read the novel once, as I was more intrigued and influenced by other works by Kerouac--much heartier fare than the tamed and straightforward structure of his most known novel and the reference I'm guessing Gopnik has in mind. Visions of Cody, Desolation Angels, Big Sur, Doctor Sax...in all of these we find our hero and narrator wandering the streets of native Lowell, the alleys of Tangiers, the sparkling lights of New York and bleary hungover dawns of San Francisco, hitchhiking along highway 1 to the forest valley central coast dwelling of friend and poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti's cabin, the northwest mountain trail down from fire lookout solitude to the civilization of Seattle...Kerouac wandered! Walked and observed and mused and paused to gaze upon the fleeting of life and beauty. Furthermore, I don't even remember if Kerouac drove much at all; Neal Cassidy was the roaring driver in many scenes and chapters of many books. Kerouac was often literally and poetically in the back seat, or just along for the ride, watchful, on trains and buses and merchant ships too, the great recorder and rememberer, to lift from Ginsberg's description.
My respect for Gopnik hasn't diminished a bit, and I continue to be absorbed by and cherish his writing. But Jack Kerouac walked, paused, gazed, recorded, in the days and nights of the streets and mountains and rivers of his time, for our time, and for all time. And pretty much Neal drove.
But Gopnik begins this noting of American ambling absence by puzzling over the inclusion of Jack Kerouac, who Gopnik refers to as "the echt American driver". Yes, I have to look up "echt" as well: back in a second...okay, German origin and means "authentic and typical". Gopnik assuredly refers to the popular image of Kerouac in his most known and influential novel of 1957, On The Road. I've only read the novel once, as I was more intrigued and influenced by other works by Kerouac--much heartier fare than the tamed and straightforward structure of his most known novel and the reference I'm guessing Gopnik has in mind. Visions of Cody, Desolation Angels, Big Sur, Doctor Sax...in all of these we find our hero and narrator wandering the streets of native Lowell, the alleys of Tangiers, the sparkling lights of New York and bleary hungover dawns of San Francisco, hitchhiking along highway 1 to the forest valley central coast dwelling of friend and poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti's cabin, the northwest mountain trail down from fire lookout solitude to the civilization of Seattle...Kerouac wandered! Walked and observed and mused and paused to gaze upon the fleeting of life and beauty. Furthermore, I don't even remember if Kerouac drove much at all; Neal Cassidy was the roaring driver in many scenes and chapters of many books. Kerouac was often literally and poetically in the back seat, or just along for the ride, watchful, on trains and buses and merchant ships too, the great recorder and rememberer, to lift from Ginsberg's description.
My respect for Gopnik hasn't diminished a bit, and I continue to be absorbed by and cherish his writing. But Jack Kerouac walked, paused, gazed, recorded, in the days and nights of the streets and mountains and rivers of his time, for our time, and for all time. And pretty much Neal drove.
Monday, August 18, 2014
Weeding and Settling
Simply working in the yard, gardening, takes on a solemn grace when returning home from a long and trying absence. Delight taken in the rhythms of physical labor, the weary muscles. The morning after our homecoming from three years in Honduras, we pulled on the raggedy pants and threadbare T-shirts and unlocked the backyard shed. Having entrusted the yard’s upkeep to a friend’s teenage daughter, we nodded that trees, shrubs, bushes, and lawn offered some evidence of husbandry, but we felt eager to don the gloves and trim, yank, mend, uproot, clip, dig, deadhead, rake, and fill the green barrel ourselves.
After a morning with coffee reading Peter Bergen’s “The Longest War” about the troubling and fractious struggle of the United States and Al Qaeda, the larger struggle, it seems, of embattled civilizations, I drifted to the front yard. The previous owners had wisely planted drought-resistant, and so healthy looked the Japanese maple, the succulents, a swath of seaside daisy, needle grass, what may or may not be Toyon, Spanish lavender, and tall swaying palms. Rose bushes under the roof line were top-heavy but hardy. One morning my wife, Carrie, ventured out—she’d been working within on our new bathroom—and hacked and sawed her way through a number of invasive trees which lurk in numerous Santa Rosa neighborhoods and scatter thick carpets of foamy yellow blossoms in the fall. I took to cutting the branches, dragged them around to stack them for the barrel, and then cleared dead brush, twigs, and pale brown leaves.
Often I paused to stand dejectedly beneath our ample-leafed but nearly fruitless apple tree. A young guy sent out by AAA to replace the dead battery in our van, Merle, suggested, as we ran the engine to charge the new battery, that drought could have been the culprit, or perhaps by trimming too early I had “shocked” the poor tree, traumatic stress dampening any surge to bear fruit. Merle’s family own a 40-acre farm in Willets, an hour or so north, and his parents knew orchards, and although he suggested drought, he didn’t mention the late and lusty spring rains that could have slashed the delicate blossoms, but he seemed the kind of man who’d know that. Our neighbor, Doug, wandered over later that morning, and I congratulated him on his robust and lush garden: California poppies in a wild and swirling mass, fleshy lettuce, dozens upon dozens of yellow star blossoms hanging on dozens of tomato plants, verdant mint, vines of wine grape, wildflowers. Our patch under the apple tree looked dusty and barren apart from the sproutings of poppies flung on the wind from Doug’s garden, or drizzled across in the rains.
After consulting with Carrie to differentiate weeds from friendlies, I began digging with hand shovel into the unwanted roots of dandelion and thistle and grasses. The tiny yellow dandelion blossom prompted an inquiry into weeds, so uniformly despised for their thriving domination, but is there a more delightful word than dandelion? Why are weeds weeds? The common sense defines them as unwanted plants, unplanned and threatening to overtake the plants we want and cultivate. On his helpful webpage, Dwight D. Ligenfelter, Assistant Extension Agronomist at Penn State University, offers a few ideas: that weeds are plants not intentionally sown, plants out of place; and note the adjectives: competitive, pernicious, persistent, and “interfere negatively with human activity.” The official definition is a plant that is not valued where it is growing and is usually of vigorous growth; especially: one that tends to overgrow or choke out more desirable plants. You’ll notice the passive voice in these designations, but only because it’s quite obvious, as Protagoras of Abdera put it around 5th BCE, that man is the measure of all things. Only we determine what is a weed from what is not, nature doesn’t.
Interestingly, a lesser known definition of weeds is dress worn as a sign of mourning, proper attire for the widow of yesteryear. I doubt this almost completely, but take some imagined delight thinking that in conservative Muslim societies the women share a private cultural joke, wearing the black hijab to mourn their loss of freedom and equality.
Mr. Ligenfelter also shared Ralph Waldo Emerson’s insight that weeds are plants “whose virtues have not yet been discovered.” Through experience we know the characteristics of weeds, but our scholar at Penn state offers thorough “negative” virtues: abundant seed production; rapid population establishment; seed dormancy; long-term survival of buried seed; adaptation for spread; presence of vegetative reproductive structures; and ability to occupy sites disturbed by human activities. This last is telling: by disturbing nature, we invite weeds to lay claim to the land, and so we begin the never-ending battle of control and eradication.
Weeds as we deem them didn’t exist before agriculture. As Merrill and Ortiz put it in The Gardener’s Table, weeds were “simply invasive, fast-growing herbs that had a purpose in the grand scheme of things.” Indeed, weeds served the useful natural purpose of getting soils ready for planting. Table rasa land invites weeds, which die and provide organic compost to soils. From weeds propagating and dying, ground is prepared for perennials, shrubs, and then trees. “Essentially,” they continue, “your garden is a permanently disturbed area that serves as a haven for weeds.” Nature is balanced, harmony. And in the same way nothing in nature is inherently “bad”, so there are benefits to leaving some weeds to thrive: their deep-ranging roots open up the soil for air and water, summoning up subsoil nutrients; beneficial insects (bees, dragonflies, ladybugs) find shelter, food, and enriching liquid in weeds; they also keep the soil from eroding and blowing away, even keeping the soil moist. It seems we need a thorough knowledge and understanding of useful weeds to keep our gardens growing. Toward this end, Carrie and I constructed two 6x3x1 foot raised beds of redwood for golden zucchini, sage, Brandywine tomato, Sungold cherry tomato, tomatillo, French thyme, chili de arbol, and basil.
Our tortoise shell cat, Tigre, made the arduous journey with us from Honduras through airport security and under the seat in front of you in her collapsible carrier. In her first days in the new world she found dark secure caves of isolation to adjust, venturing out with tentative trust for meals and bathroom. After completing surveys around the house, she located prominent morning and late afternoon ribbons of sun to lounge and contemplate questions of natural theology and canned food. Small birds alighting on telephone wires issued lively and open intelligence reports as Tigre ventured out back to explore the foreign grass and shrubbery (she’d only known a walled-in driveway and potted plants in Honduras). We worried about the bird life, desired peace but hoped for an uneasy détente between avian and feline, and to this end attached a bell to Tigre’s collar. Of course, as actions can produce the desired as well as unintended consequences, the dangling declaration of Tigre’s presence for birds also alerted the dogs on all neighborly sides to possible issues of national security. Tigre’s stealth was compromised early on, and one afternoon she’d crossed the boundary and was chased by growling beasts—she escaped, and disappeared for hours in hiding—but this in turn produced the welcome outcome of keeping her generally within our backyard. Undeterred, she was quick to exploit a loophole by swiftly mounting the fence to conduct reconnaissance (she cocked an ear at our warnings, but refused to descend; after all, she was still within the backyard), and in doing so provoked border tensions when the dogs would spot her in their binoculars. We hope she stays near, but we love when she explores. Such is our ambiguous relationship with what we value and love in everything. So we’ll listen for her bell, cultivate our garden, and remember to count our blessings in this land we call home.
After a morning with coffee reading Peter Bergen’s “The Longest War” about the troubling and fractious struggle of the United States and Al Qaeda, the larger struggle, it seems, of embattled civilizations, I drifted to the front yard. The previous owners had wisely planted drought-resistant, and so healthy looked the Japanese maple, the succulents, a swath of seaside daisy, needle grass, what may or may not be Toyon, Spanish lavender, and tall swaying palms. Rose bushes under the roof line were top-heavy but hardy. One morning my wife, Carrie, ventured out—she’d been working within on our new bathroom—and hacked and sawed her way through a number of invasive trees which lurk in numerous Santa Rosa neighborhoods and scatter thick carpets of foamy yellow blossoms in the fall. I took to cutting the branches, dragged them around to stack them for the barrel, and then cleared dead brush, twigs, and pale brown leaves.
Often I paused to stand dejectedly beneath our ample-leafed but nearly fruitless apple tree. A young guy sent out by AAA to replace the dead battery in our van, Merle, suggested, as we ran the engine to charge the new battery, that drought could have been the culprit, or perhaps by trimming too early I had “shocked” the poor tree, traumatic stress dampening any surge to bear fruit. Merle’s family own a 40-acre farm in Willets, an hour or so north, and his parents knew orchards, and although he suggested drought, he didn’t mention the late and lusty spring rains that could have slashed the delicate blossoms, but he seemed the kind of man who’d know that. Our neighbor, Doug, wandered over later that morning, and I congratulated him on his robust and lush garden: California poppies in a wild and swirling mass, fleshy lettuce, dozens upon dozens of yellow star blossoms hanging on dozens of tomato plants, verdant mint, vines of wine grape, wildflowers. Our patch under the apple tree looked dusty and barren apart from the sproutings of poppies flung on the wind from Doug’s garden, or drizzled across in the rains.
After consulting with Carrie to differentiate weeds from friendlies, I began digging with hand shovel into the unwanted roots of dandelion and thistle and grasses. The tiny yellow dandelion blossom prompted an inquiry into weeds, so uniformly despised for their thriving domination, but is there a more delightful word than dandelion? Why are weeds weeds? The common sense defines them as unwanted plants, unplanned and threatening to overtake the plants we want and cultivate. On his helpful webpage, Dwight D. Ligenfelter, Assistant Extension Agronomist at Penn State University, offers a few ideas: that weeds are plants not intentionally sown, plants out of place; and note the adjectives: competitive, pernicious, persistent, and “interfere negatively with human activity.” The official definition is a plant that is not valued where it is growing and is usually of vigorous growth; especially: one that tends to overgrow or choke out more desirable plants. You’ll notice the passive voice in these designations, but only because it’s quite obvious, as Protagoras of Abdera put it around 5th BCE, that man is the measure of all things. Only we determine what is a weed from what is not, nature doesn’t.
Interestingly, a lesser known definition of weeds is dress worn as a sign of mourning, proper attire for the widow of yesteryear. I doubt this almost completely, but take some imagined delight thinking that in conservative Muslim societies the women share a private cultural joke, wearing the black hijab to mourn their loss of freedom and equality.
Mr. Ligenfelter also shared Ralph Waldo Emerson’s insight that weeds are plants “whose virtues have not yet been discovered.” Through experience we know the characteristics of weeds, but our scholar at Penn state offers thorough “negative” virtues: abundant seed production; rapid population establishment; seed dormancy; long-term survival of buried seed; adaptation for spread; presence of vegetative reproductive structures; and ability to occupy sites disturbed by human activities. This last is telling: by disturbing nature, we invite weeds to lay claim to the land, and so we begin the never-ending battle of control and eradication.
Weeds as we deem them didn’t exist before agriculture. As Merrill and Ortiz put it in The Gardener’s Table, weeds were “simply invasive, fast-growing herbs that had a purpose in the grand scheme of things.” Indeed, weeds served the useful natural purpose of getting soils ready for planting. Table rasa land invites weeds, which die and provide organic compost to soils. From weeds propagating and dying, ground is prepared for perennials, shrubs, and then trees. “Essentially,” they continue, “your garden is a permanently disturbed area that serves as a haven for weeds.” Nature is balanced, harmony. And in the same way nothing in nature is inherently “bad”, so there are benefits to leaving some weeds to thrive: their deep-ranging roots open up the soil for air and water, summoning up subsoil nutrients; beneficial insects (bees, dragonflies, ladybugs) find shelter, food, and enriching liquid in weeds; they also keep the soil from eroding and blowing away, even keeping the soil moist. It seems we need a thorough knowledge and understanding of useful weeds to keep our gardens growing. Toward this end, Carrie and I constructed two 6x3x1 foot raised beds of redwood for golden zucchini, sage, Brandywine tomato, Sungold cherry tomato, tomatillo, French thyme, chili de arbol, and basil.
Our tortoise shell cat, Tigre, made the arduous journey with us from Honduras through airport security and under the seat in front of you in her collapsible carrier. In her first days in the new world she found dark secure caves of isolation to adjust, venturing out with tentative trust for meals and bathroom. After completing surveys around the house, she located prominent morning and late afternoon ribbons of sun to lounge and contemplate questions of natural theology and canned food. Small birds alighting on telephone wires issued lively and open intelligence reports as Tigre ventured out back to explore the foreign grass and shrubbery (she’d only known a walled-in driveway and potted plants in Honduras). We worried about the bird life, desired peace but hoped for an uneasy détente between avian and feline, and to this end attached a bell to Tigre’s collar. Of course, as actions can produce the desired as well as unintended consequences, the dangling declaration of Tigre’s presence for birds also alerted the dogs on all neighborly sides to possible issues of national security. Tigre’s stealth was compromised early on, and one afternoon she’d crossed the boundary and was chased by growling beasts—she escaped, and disappeared for hours in hiding—but this in turn produced the welcome outcome of keeping her generally within our backyard. Undeterred, she was quick to exploit a loophole by swiftly mounting the fence to conduct reconnaissance (she cocked an ear at our warnings, but refused to descend; after all, she was still within the backyard), and in doing so provoked border tensions when the dogs would spot her in their binoculars. We hope she stays near, but we love when she explores. Such is our ambiguous relationship with what we value and love in everything. So we’ll listen for her bell, cultivate our garden, and remember to count our blessings in this land we call home.
Wednesday, August 6, 2014
Analysis of Witches' first prophecy to Macbeth and Banquo
In Act 1, scene three of Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Macbeth, a dark tale of strife, bloody revenge, and malicious ambition, the three witches, or “Weird Sisters” as they are referred to in the text, are on a “bleak place near the battlefield” awaiting Macbeth, who, with fellow nobleman, Banquo, returns from a bloody battle to put down rebels. Upon meeting the two noblemen, the Sisters prophesize that not only will Macbeth be awarded the title “Thane of Cawdor” but crowned King, as well. The witches then reveal that Banquo “shalt get kings,” though he himself will not be king. The foreshadowing offered in this brief appearance by the Weird Sisters provides a powerful backdrop and spur to Macbeth’s terrifying ambition to ultimate power, even through ruthless measures.
To fully appreciate the gravity of this scene, note that Shakespeare places it adjacent to the provocative first two scenes—one, where the Weird Sisters invoke their planned meeting with Macbeth, introducing the supernatural and sinister tone which opens and seems to cast the whole play under its spell; and two, where reports are given of Macbeths bloody victory on the field of battle (he “unseamed” a rebel “from nave to th’ chaps/And fixed his head upon our battlements”). The wicked and the bloody usher in the play. Near the battlefield, the “bleak place”, Macbeth echoes the early chant of the Sisters: “So fair and foul a day I have not seen” he remarks to Banquo. Indeed, for discerning what is just and what is unjust will plague Macbeth from this scene on like scorpions in his mind.
Immediately they encounter the Sisters. Banquo wonders that they are so “withered and wild in their attire” and seem “not like th’ inhabitants o’ th’ earth…” These bearded women appear to understand Banquo by the way each laying a “choppy finger …upon her skinny lips” which effect is to silence him. Yet it is Macbeth they address at first accurately, “All hail Macbeth…Thane of Glamis” but progressively with potent predictions of Thane of Cawdor and even “king hereafter.” Startlingly, it is Banquo and not Macbeth who responds to the witches’ grand predictions, but tellingly he first comments on Macbeth’s reaction. “Good sir, why do you start and seem to fear/Things that do sound so fair?” What could Macbeth, who had just been heralded as brave, noble, and fearless in bloody battle, seem to fear? Shakespeare’s witches do not prophecy what will occur as much as what they know Macbeth desires to occur; the witches serve the supernatural purpose of drawing out what lurks darkly within Macbeth’s very soul.
Banquo then turns and addresses the witches again, noting that his “noble partner [they] greet with present grace and great prediction” but are silent with regard to Banquo’s future: “To me you speak not.” In effect, Banquo seals his fate by welcoming them to usher him into their “fantastical” prophecy:
If you can look into the seeds of time And say which grain will grow and which will not, Speak then to me, who neither beg nor fear Your favors nor your hate....
The witches in turn duly answer his plea with “Hail” then offer their paradoxical predictions: Banquo will be “Lesser than Macbeth, and greater,” “Not so happy, yet much happier.” This last prophecy is worth pondering before moving on to the devastating final one. After Macbeth murders Duncan, he is assailed by doubts and guilt over his terrible deed. He admits to Lady Macbeth that he heard a voice crying “Sleep no more/Macbeth does murder sleep.” Later he seems almost to envy Duncan who now in death sleeps—soundlessly, as it were, without worry that sting living minds. Tragically, we can take this latter prophecy not as ambiguity but as progression: not as fortunate as Macbeth, not a king, but the seeds he casts will indeed grow, as the final prophecy determines. “Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none.” And these are the last words Banquo and Macbeth hear from the witches. Not surprisingly, Macbeth’s first query, or rather demand that the witches remain and clarify, centers on how it’s possible that he would be Thane of Cawdor while the man “lives a prosperous gentleman.” Macbeth claims to believe the prophecy of his being crowned king “stands not within the prospect of belief.” But Shakespeare’s brilliant painting of ambiguity shows never more colorfully than the witches’ prophecy that he indeed shall be king. For it can be either a seed offered Macbeth to plant and nurture into growth, or the awakening of an ambitious desire lying asleep within. Regardless, the moment is charged, the spark lit, and events heretofore begin their ruthless unfolding.
Without further addition, the witches here vanish, refusing Macbeth’s demand they “Say from whence you owe this strange intelligence.” But of course why should they stay? Macbeth’s question is moot. Wicked intentions, cruel ambition, have no supernatural origins but lie humanly, all too humanly within. Banquo and Macbeth calmly remark, perhaps quietly smiling, on their final given prophecies, Macbeth noting that Banquo’s sons will be kings, Banquo retorting that Macbeth will be king. Perhaps out of noble friendship, neither comments on this seeming impossibility: both can’t be true, or come true, at the same time. But it is left for one to determine the dreadful fate of the other, and his own fate as well. Resounding above, you can almost hear the witches’ hoarse and cackling laughter hovering "through the fog and filthy air.”
To fully appreciate the gravity of this scene, note that Shakespeare places it adjacent to the provocative first two scenes—one, where the Weird Sisters invoke their planned meeting with Macbeth, introducing the supernatural and sinister tone which opens and seems to cast the whole play under its spell; and two, where reports are given of Macbeths bloody victory on the field of battle (he “unseamed” a rebel “from nave to th’ chaps/And fixed his head upon our battlements”). The wicked and the bloody usher in the play. Near the battlefield, the “bleak place”, Macbeth echoes the early chant of the Sisters: “So fair and foul a day I have not seen” he remarks to Banquo. Indeed, for discerning what is just and what is unjust will plague Macbeth from this scene on like scorpions in his mind.
Immediately they encounter the Sisters. Banquo wonders that they are so “withered and wild in their attire” and seem “not like th’ inhabitants o’ th’ earth…” These bearded women appear to understand Banquo by the way each laying a “choppy finger …upon her skinny lips” which effect is to silence him. Yet it is Macbeth they address at first accurately, “All hail Macbeth…Thane of Glamis” but progressively with potent predictions of Thane of Cawdor and even “king hereafter.” Startlingly, it is Banquo and not Macbeth who responds to the witches’ grand predictions, but tellingly he first comments on Macbeth’s reaction. “Good sir, why do you start and seem to fear/Things that do sound so fair?” What could Macbeth, who had just been heralded as brave, noble, and fearless in bloody battle, seem to fear? Shakespeare’s witches do not prophecy what will occur as much as what they know Macbeth desires to occur; the witches serve the supernatural purpose of drawing out what lurks darkly within Macbeth’s very soul.
Banquo then turns and addresses the witches again, noting that his “noble partner [they] greet with present grace and great prediction” but are silent with regard to Banquo’s future: “To me you speak not.” In effect, Banquo seals his fate by welcoming them to usher him into their “fantastical” prophecy:
If you can look into the seeds of time And say which grain will grow and which will not, Speak then to me, who neither beg nor fear Your favors nor your hate....
The witches in turn duly answer his plea with “Hail” then offer their paradoxical predictions: Banquo will be “Lesser than Macbeth, and greater,” “Not so happy, yet much happier.” This last prophecy is worth pondering before moving on to the devastating final one. After Macbeth murders Duncan, he is assailed by doubts and guilt over his terrible deed. He admits to Lady Macbeth that he heard a voice crying “Sleep no more/Macbeth does murder sleep.” Later he seems almost to envy Duncan who now in death sleeps—soundlessly, as it were, without worry that sting living minds. Tragically, we can take this latter prophecy not as ambiguity but as progression: not as fortunate as Macbeth, not a king, but the seeds he casts will indeed grow, as the final prophecy determines. “Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none.” And these are the last words Banquo and Macbeth hear from the witches. Not surprisingly, Macbeth’s first query, or rather demand that the witches remain and clarify, centers on how it’s possible that he would be Thane of Cawdor while the man “lives a prosperous gentleman.” Macbeth claims to believe the prophecy of his being crowned king “stands not within the prospect of belief.” But Shakespeare’s brilliant painting of ambiguity shows never more colorfully than the witches’ prophecy that he indeed shall be king. For it can be either a seed offered Macbeth to plant and nurture into growth, or the awakening of an ambitious desire lying asleep within. Regardless, the moment is charged, the spark lit, and events heretofore begin their ruthless unfolding.
Without further addition, the witches here vanish, refusing Macbeth’s demand they “Say from whence you owe this strange intelligence.” But of course why should they stay? Macbeth’s question is moot. Wicked intentions, cruel ambition, have no supernatural origins but lie humanly, all too humanly within. Banquo and Macbeth calmly remark, perhaps quietly smiling, on their final given prophecies, Macbeth noting that Banquo’s sons will be kings, Banquo retorting that Macbeth will be king. Perhaps out of noble friendship, neither comments on this seeming impossibility: both can’t be true, or come true, at the same time. But it is left for one to determine the dreadful fate of the other, and his own fate as well. Resounding above, you can almost hear the witches’ hoarse and cackling laughter hovering "through the fog and filthy air.”
Saturday, April 26, 2014
Tropical Idyll - Utila
Reclining in languid ease, brushed by floral trade winds, eighteen miles off Honduras’s northern coast, an island six and a half miles long and three miles wide—two thirds of which wallows in swamp, the rest sporting coral reef, mangrove, sea grasses, fossilized sun-bleached pale “iron shore” broken coral, savannas and thick jungles, trees of palm, coconut, mango, banana, and papaya—Utila is the Bay Islands’ low rent tropical jewel of Caribbean beach life. One morning we actually witnessed a hummingbird on “island time”, swooping by a knot or so faster than a butterfly, en route, no doubt, to a lazy afternoon hammock. You’re gently admonished to move at a slower pace...:) The island embraces roughly two thousand residents, most of whom reside in Utila Town necklacing the east harbor, and besides local Hondurans, Garifuna, and mingling Latinos, we passed many shuffling, grizzled, wiry, unshaven, wild-haired, glassy-eyed but determined and aged gringos who long ago settled here dodging taxes, debt, cackling, knife-wielding shrews, child support, sanity. But we also encountered folks who chose to drop the hectic and demanding suburb and city for a tropical pace; one muggy morning we sipped delicious local coffee at a small café beneath a house facing the bay run by a mildly elderly couple whom you wouldn’t be surprised to see taking donations for a Methodist Church food bank in Cleveland, Ohio. Hippies, that undying race sprouting up in quiet locales like kindly weeds, also swayed through the island town’s narrow streets and sold leather adornments and silver jewelry. Guidebooks tout Utila as being laid back, haven for backpacker and lonesome traveler, and a sacred destination for scuba divers desiring to explore the island’s cooling pale emerald and cerulean waters, coral walls and valleys of undulating sea sand teeming with parrotfish, barracuda, spotted eagle rays, sea turtles, the shy nurse shark, which is why we landed here for four nights over Semana Santa. Anything to get away from the annual Central American spring rites of farmers burning forest lands to clear room for agriculture; thousands of fires all over the countryside and mountains, clogging the air with thick white dirty smoke for weeks and weeks...) I neither washed nor combed my hair for five days, and life seemed no worse for wear. Slip on a bathing suit early in the morning and you’re dressed until bedtime, pulling on a faded T-shirt and digging your toes into flipflops when sauntering to the restaurants—open-aired, techno-Reggae bouncing, and cheesy pirate themed banners and flags, one of which borrowed from Renaissance faire’s “The whippings will continue until morale improves”. No one stands on ceremony—certainly not the cuisine. But we arrived, as mentioned, to scuba dive; we submerged six glorious times during our time here. But when we weren’t diving, eating, and sleeping, nothing much else beckoned on Utila. We wouldn’t pass for teenagers: no texting, planning for the beach rave, trolling the harbor main street narrow as a city alley, dodging reckless tuk-tuks, ATVs, scooters, motorcycles, golf carts, and pickup trucks, nursing hangovers. Glossy advertisements and guidebooks delight in the untouched sandy cove, the breezy sheltering palms, the promise of quiet hours, perhaps an invisible attentive native who alights whenever you wonder how refreshing a Pina Colada would taste. “Get away from it all” goes the command. Best of luck finding that on your budget. We were either fortunate or unfortunate to book the Pirate Bay Inn at $40 a night, smack in the middle of the town but fronting the dock where Captain Morgan’s Scuba Diving launches its outings, so we were mere sandy steps away. More expensive lodgings could be had, but these were farther outside of town, which puts you farther away from the restaurants and scuba dive launchings and establishments open to replenish the rum you thought would last the week. To really “get away” means to relax, and this implies satisfying one’s desires, even whims, at one’s chosen, unhurried pace. Leisure sees needs melting into simple, gentle wants, and attending to these wants unbidden by deadlines or the strict expectations of other. Life is good, goes the affirmation. If you crave a beer at 9:00 in the morning, pop open a coldie. Nap when- and wherever. Those expectations and deadlines are the “all” away from which you strive to get. And the more money you spend, the more oiled and smooth running is this illusion enacted for your benefit that you are indeed away. But in fact those expectations and deadlines and shopping and cleaning and cooking and frantic tasks marking your grind back home get subsumed under cost of your Tropical Getaway. The work is done for you, as you’ve paid to keep the service industry humming. Getting away from it all can also imply an escape from having to deal with people. But we only paid $40, and during the hotly vibed holy week the price got us basically a dorm. The room blessedly had air-conditioning, but the remote to activate it was another $10 a night. Our hotel was smack dab in the town; there was no getting away. Strewn about in hallways and benches and barstools were the young, tanned, and hopeful. The hotel adjacent was undergoing renovation, so post-breakfast reading in the Adirondack outside our window shared the air with electric saws searing, babies squealing from boredom, hunger, the thick wet heat, or dread that they’re destined to inherit one of the island’s dilapidated souvenir shops swaying on the tourist drag, the whine and whirr of exhaust-spewing vehicles, the cacophony of aforementioned techno-Reggae booming beats roaring from shops and restaurants as though vying for dominance…the daily sounds grating and intrusive, the stench of light industry and minor transportation bearing necessary goods to make your stay livable and perhaps memorable, these are the strains wrought in jagged harmony while you, too, are awake and doing your living...:) The dive boat pulls out of the harbor, glides through the bay passing shallow aquamarine waters, shimmering white sandbanks and shadowy reef, then heads northeast into open sea. Carrie and I climb up a ladder to the bridge to join the silent captain. The request to join garnered a barely perceptible nod. We are searching for whale sharks, the Caribbean a windswept blue beneath a canvas white sky. The boat rumbles and rises up and over swells for forty-five minutes, the captain scanning the distance for signs: a slight ruffling on the white-capped horizon indicating tuna feeding in a frenzy on smaller fish, which in turn swirls of the krill, and the resulting “boiling” patches spreading on the sea attract the gulls. Onboard we all scan the four corners. I watch the captain turn and follow the flight of a gull easing over the stern. Sunshine warms my shoulder and forearm. A long moment later the captain returns his gaze, unimpressed by the gull’s powers of discrimination. Rising and falling, rising and falling. Suddenly the captain locks on a point on the horizon starboard. Slowly the big boat veers. I see nothing. But the captain yells “There!” to a spot half a mile away. A minute later a gull races over the bow, and the captain calls out “I saw it before you did!” Soon we slow and the boat moves into the heart of the roiling sea boil. Tuna spear the air by the hundreds. We look hard on the waters. The captain points, and just beneath the surface glides a whale shark, perhaps 18-feet, a shimmering dark gold ethereal shadow. We climb down, don snorkel, mask, and fins with five or six others, and sit waiting at the low stern. The captain positions the boat, gently, gently. “Go, go, go!” he bellows, and we ease into the sea. She rises to us silently, wide as a small open-mouthed planet, golden with green textured spots, and with large-hearted grace she arcs away from this pack of bobbing and wide-eyed humans. We turn as she swims on, stroking and kicking till our lungs ache, gazing upon her gentle sway against pearl blue open and endless sea, and then she descends....
Sunday, February 9, 2014
Cross Dressing
If one searched within, not fingering for delectable notions deemed "spiritual" but simply felt with imagination what the body conceals beneath its ever-aging skin, one could fashion an iconic cross from a geometry of bones. Touch the sternum. Isolate a holy cross from the rib cage. If the desire to wear the cross dangling from your neck was yours, you need look no further. Indeed, the symbol of your faith is within.... Bones last longer than you do. You need not even crouch and sweat on an earthen floor, whittling wood under a scorching Nazareth sky to fashion naturally an artful cross to hang your hopes. Others fallen before you provide ample building blocks, sucked clean by worm and preserved in quiet dust, to string and nail together dull bleached bones to raise crosses of varying sizes. How loudly, stridently your construct proclaims your faith to the world is up to you.... If your bone cross is to hang down from your neck, size matters. If your cross will be worn outside your shirt or blouse, it can swing easily and unencumbered (though rocking and reeling on a subway ride may pose hazards to the eyesight of lucky soul next to you who'd grabbed the seat). Those who consign their symbol of faith to the warmth of their skin, providing proof only to folks around whom they trust when venturing shirtless, will tend to gather smaller bones, those once fingers, say, lying loose and scattered in caves and hillsides and dry riverbeds.... In either case, the cross of bones worn will do more than sing your whispered faith; they will mirror the old man skeleton within, that hard testament to your own brief wanderings, lovings, fightings, dawnings and evenings here in your cities and countries, a lasting narrative that you once traveled on through, scratched out a path on this planet whirling through cold dark space, and perhaps those wanderings were meaningful. Of course, the cross of your Christian faith is imbued with more, much more. Yes. But the old man will have the last laugh.
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