Sh'mal Ellenberg's Posts - Zoobird2024-03-28T23:00:33ZSh'mal Ellenberghttps://www.zoobird.com/profile/ShmalEllenberghttps://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2310076595?profile=RESIZE_48X48&width=48&height=48&crop=1%3A1https://www.zoobird.com/profiles/blog/feed?user=1nrx3lcu8b29&xn_auth=noOur Soul Sheds Tearstag:www.zoobird.com,2012-05-07:2129360:BlogPost:490212012-05-07T13:45:47.000ZSh'mal Ellenberghttps://www.zoobird.com/profile/ShmalEllenberg
<p align="center">May 8, 2012</p>
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<p>Bob Sh’mal Ellenberg</p>
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<p align="center">OUR SOUL SHEDS TEARS</p>
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<p>In my meditation this morning I began to concentrate on my soul; sort of looking for where it is in my body. I know though that my total body is my soul. It is not a place: It is all of who I am. As I sat and quietly and I watched my breathe, the term “soul force” came to…</p>
<p align="center">May 8, 2012</p>
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<p>Bob Sh’mal Ellenberg</p>
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<p align="center">OUR SOUL SHEDS TEARS</p>
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<p>In my meditation this morning I began to concentrate on my soul; sort of looking for where it is in my body. I know though that my total body is my soul. It is not a place: It is all of who I am. As I sat and quietly and I watched my breathe, the term “soul force” came to mind, which was the term Gandhi used when he led millions of people in India to defy the rule of Britain over their country. He won a war with little violence and the Brits went home.</p>
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<p>Satyagraha, was the term Gandhi conceived for his movement. It also means, “truth force.”</p>
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<p>What we have witnessed in the Occupy movement is soul force in action. What we witnessed in the revolutions in Egypt, Libya and in the American Revolution, is the soul of humanity collectively coming awake inside of millions of people.</p>
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<p>It doesn’t take a visionary to see that what is occurring around the world, what happened in the middle east countries a year ago and what will continue to happen in one form or another is that that human psyche, our aspiration for right, is being moved by the soul, the divine aspect of our beings, to bring equanimity to our world. That’s all: simple balance for all.</p>
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<p>Last year there was a segment on Native American life on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. The show depicted how pitifully those once honorable people are living. We can see the same thing in many places on our planet.</p>
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<p>We get accustomed to seeing starving babies in the media around the world; we get accustomed to watching bombs being dropped on innocents. We accept a decision, by a few, to tear down a perfectly good hospital rather than leave a small part of it for homeless people. Really, isn’t someone ashamed? </p>
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<p>As human beings we’ve become accustomed to not being the true human beings we wish to be. But our soul does not get accustomed to life that way — inside of us she is crying out that something has to change. Our soul, manifesting in our conscience as “truth force,” knows right from wrong. Hopefully, the Occupy movement will revive itself and the movement will continue in peaceful resistance as it manifests Satyagraha. </p>
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<p>Any rational thinking human being can grasp that life on this planet has gone way askew. From how we have treated what feeds us — the earth — to how we passively accept children going hungry. It brings tears to most of our hearts, obviously not to all, that we can only deny for so long. That period of denial is over. Our conscience has shed tears for too long. We know we can do better.</p>
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<p>And we are going to do better. We have no choice. We want to live in a world that we see as our truth. </p>Oceans Choicetag:www.zoobird.com,2012-01-25:2129360:BlogPost:476112012-01-25T01:12:07.000ZSh'mal Ellenberghttps://www.zoobird.com/profile/ShmalEllenberg
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<p align="center"> OCEAN’S CHOISE</p>
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<p>Really! Flager Beach Ocean, what were you up to that day?</p>
<p>How do you choose?</p>
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<p>It all seemed pleasant.</p>
<p>Enjoying our selves.</p>
<p>As we sat on warm sand; watching people play.</p>
<p>In waves not too rough for a brave few.</p>
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<p>Then down the beach a bit, voices of alarm.</p>
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<p>Oh, come now, it’s a beautiful, sunny, fall, day.</p>
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<p>A few begin to run.</p>
<p>Why…</p>
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<p align="center"> OCEAN’S CHOISE</p>
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<p>Really! Flager Beach Ocean, what were you up to that day?</p>
<p>How do you choose?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It all seemed pleasant.</p>
<p>Enjoying our selves.</p>
<p>As we sat on warm sand; watching people play.</p>
<p>In waves not too rough for a brave few.</p>
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<p>Then down the beach a bit, voices of alarm.</p>
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<p>Oh, come now, it’s a beautiful, sunny, fall, day.</p>
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<p>A few begin to run.</p>
<p>Why run? What’s there to know…or see? Or be with.</p>
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<p>The quiet beach energy shifts. Demands attention.</p>
<p>What’s that there by the ocean’s edge?</p>
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<p>By lapping waves-lets; a wife frantic, bent over, her knees in the surf.</p>
<p>She pounds on her husband’s large, barrel, chest.</p>
<p>She screams through her falling tears,</p>
<p>“John, no.” How can this be?</p>
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<p>A young woman-daughter walks in agony-aimless, in sand circles, fitfully crying;</p>
<p>A dog leashed to her hand.</p>
<p>Her young man-brother, hands on knees,</p>
<p>Then on head, down low, with unfathomable tears;</p>
<p>Sounds of a begging mourn. “I can’t, oh, God, no, please.”</p>
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<p>The Human sense,</p>
<p>Pulls on me to be close.</p>
<p>My empathy swells out of me.</p>
<p>I strain. Uncertain. Not sure what to do.</p>
<p>But know what I feel.</p>
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<p>Am drawn to hug each.</p>
<p>With gentle words of comfort.</p>
<p>In those very, few, brief, moments,</p>
<p>I am joined with Eternity.</p>
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<p> </p>The essence of gardeningtag:www.zoobird.com,2011-12-30:2129360:BlogPost:467232011-12-30T15:32:16.000ZSh'mal Ellenberghttps://www.zoobird.com/profile/ShmalEllenberg
<p>One of my thrills being back in Gainesville after three years is my return to the McRorie Community Garden on SW 4<sup>th</sup> Ave. I planted it early this fall with the help of a friend who maintained it while I was away. I’m so impressed about how productive it quickly became with very large broccoli heads, prolific and large collard leaves, salad greens galore and other veggies.</p>
<p> Something came to mind about gardening that I hadn’t quite felt before: How gardening is a…</p>
<p>One of my thrills being back in Gainesville after three years is my return to the McRorie Community Garden on SW 4<sup>th</sup> Ave. I planted it early this fall with the help of a friend who maintained it while I was away. I’m so impressed about how productive it quickly became with very large broccoli heads, prolific and large collard leaves, salad greens galore and other veggies.</p>
<p> Something came to mind about gardening that I hadn’t quite felt before: How gardening is a sacred ritual and keeps us close to all the ancestors way back in time who did the same thing gardeners are doing today. </p>
<p> We all get very caught up in the mechanical and technological world of our day and culture that we become completely lost to the ways of past generations.</p>
<p> We are hurried and harassed to be there and where before we take a breath of air. Appreciating the relatively clean and fresh air that surrounds us in Alachua County is another aspect of the ancestors that is forgotten. Way back when, breathing and a slow pace, in a calm walk to the garden helped put us in harmony with the natural elements of nature.</p>
<p> It’s a sad commentary that only a small number of people can “get into gardening.” After gardening for a few years, it looses the “get into gardening,” phase and it becomes in harmony with ones life. In fact it helps one be in harmony with the elements of the world around us. </p>
<p> The elements: earth, water, fire, air and ether are not mystical mombo jumbo, but actually comprise the bodies that we are and the composition of the food that we eat.</p>
<p> To put in a garden: digging into the earth, watering it, observing the sun bringing its radiant energies to the plants, sensing the air around us and in the soil helping the organic fertilizers feed the plants, and sensing the etheric energies that help bring all this together truly put us in harmony with our natural world and helps us understand how these elements are affecting our own lives.</p>
<p> I was a bit surprised when I returned to Gainesville six months ago that there weren’t more community gardens springing up in town. Or maybe I haven’t heard about them.</p>
<p> I feel it’s sad commentary on our culture that more people aren’t able to let go of the conditioning they have about only getting their food from the markets and not trusting Mother Nature to provide for them.</p>
<p> Gardening is a lot less time consuming than one thinks. Once the garden is in, it is in and if planted optimally and organically, maintaining it takes little effort. Of course with the farmer’s market, we can leave it up to those who are in touch with the earth a bit more, but to do a little bit on our own, can make a world of difference in ones entire perspective on life. With the New Year it might be a good New Years resolution to learn how to grow your own. If anyone wants to know more about gardening get in touch with the U of F Agricultural Extension Agent or me, Bob Sh’mal Ellenberg <a href="mailto:shmal8@yahoo.com">shmal8@yahoo.com</a></p>
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<p> </p>Breathing in Mt. Rainiertag:www.zoobird.com,2011-10-07:2129360:BlogPost:52212011-10-07T20:01:45.000ZSh'mal Ellenberghttps://www.zoobird.com/profile/ShmalEllenberg
Bob Sh’mal Ellenberg<br></br>
11319 8th Ave. NE Apt. 106<br></br>
Seattle, Wa. 98125<br></br>
352-256-9279<br></br>
shmal8@yahoo.com<br></br>
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BREATHING IN MT. RAINER<br></br>
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Harry was sitting on a bench near Puget Sound with a fixated stare 50-miles away at mammoth Mt. Rainer. He was feeling a connection, inwardly laughing, musing to himself: “we’re both part of the earth; she just happened to grow a bit larger than me.” He wondered if there was a way to make a tangible,…
Bob Sh’mal Ellenberg<br/>
11319 8th Ave. NE Apt. 106<br/>
Seattle, Wa. 98125<br/>
352-256-9279<br/>
shmal8@yahoo.com<br/>
word count 1482<br/>
<br/>
BREATHING IN MT. RAINER<br/>
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Harry was sitting on a bench near Puget Sound with a fixated stare 50-miles away at mammoth Mt. Rainer. He was feeling a connection, inwardly laughing, musing to himself: “we’re both part of the earth; she just happened to grow a bit larger than me.” He wondered if there was a way to make a tangible, feeling, connection, with something so immense. He thought about closing his eyes and imagining the two of them, Mt Rainer and himself as one. So, he did. He wasn’t sure how long he sat there staring with his eyes closed, but he sensed she was as close to him as his own breath. When he opened his eyes, standing in front of him was a tall, attractive, dark haired woman wearing dark sunglasses. She had a reddish, longhaired dog on a leash, sitting quietly next to her.<br/>
He was taken aback, since he expected to see the mountain “she,” but instead this beautiful woman. She didn’t say anything and he wasn’t sure what to say except the first words that came to mind: “how did you get here?”<br/>
She smiled a warm friendly smile; didn’t take off the sunglasses, and told him, “I was passing by this bench where I usually sit, to look at Ms Rainier, just as you were doing.”<br/>
Harry slid over a bit allowing room for her, “here, please share this bench with me.”<br/>
“Thank you I will, but only for a brief, I have to take a friend some place soon, but I’ll enjoy the time. I come here often, but never saw you here before. This is a very special spot, how the bench was placed, so you can sit and look right at her and maybe you can feel her too. And of course the plaque.”<br/>
Harry was taken aback a bit by the synchronicity of his exact previous thoughts; naturally he felt a connection. “Yeah, the plaque got my attention first. Hi, my name is Harry and this is the first time I’ve ever sat here. I just moved to Seattle from Florida to be close to my 3-year-old grandson. I came here today to celebrate my move; to be close to the water and nature. Mt Rainer was the bonus. Maybe you are also.”<br/>
“Well, thanks. I don’t know about that Harry, but I’m Adrianna. Like I said I come here and sit and look at her as if she came down from the sky, not out of the earth, and is here for me to feel close to something so magnificent that it is beyond anything we know about in this life.”<br/>
Harry looked back at the mountain, pleasantly shaken by this woman showing up as she did, when she did, being on the bench with him. “I don’t know much about this stuff, but it feels like a healing energy coming from her.”<br/>
“There is. I knew something special was going on with you when I passed by. Shep, this is Shep,” as she stroked the dog’s soft, red, fur, “must have felt some energy coming off of you, because she’s the one that stopped and began to stare at you. So I stopped and paid attention also. I apologize. It might have been a bit disturbing seeing us in front of you and not Rainer.”<br/>
“Well, yeah, not disturbing, but, well, to tell you the truth, I closed my eyes to see if I could somehow have an intimate connection with Rainier. And here you are.”<br/>
As they both turned and looked at the mountain, a man in a wheelchair approached the bench. He was disheveled, with grimy clothes, hair, long, unwashed looking, his hands dirty, an untended beard. Harry noticed the smell coming off of him.<br/>
Right off Harry figured he was hitting them up for money, but instead: “hey girl, haven’t seen you around for a while.”<br/>
“I’ve been away and haven’t been able to come down to the shelter. How you been Charlie?”<br/>
“Well, you know, look at me. Life is still good. Crippled, barely any money, no place to sleep, eating out of garbage cans. Yeah, I’m doing about the same.” His voice was gravely and rough.<br/>
I’m Harry,” extending his hand, but Charlie just left his on the wheels of the rolling chair.<br/>
“Where’d you meet this guy?”<br/>
“We just met a short while ago and we’re getting to know each other. I actually have to leave in a few minutes. If you don’t mind Charlie, we were talking and I’d like to continue our conversation in private, but I’ll see you at the shelter, tomorrow night, my usual day there.”<br/>
Charlie moved his rolling chair a bit closer to the bench, almost touching both their knees; his voice raised a bit, as he spouted, “so you want the homeless guy in a wheelchair to leave, huh?”<br/>
Harry, was unsure what his place was, but instinctively reacted, “hey Charlie, Adrianna and I were talking. She isn’t being rude. You don’t have to be rude to her.”<br/>
“Kisss my fuckin crippled ass man. Rude, crude, bullshit. I’ve known the bitch for a year, she just meets you and all of a sudden I’m a stranger to her.”<br/>
“Charlie, what are you doing? Yeah, I help out at the shelter and have helped you, but I have a life outside of there.”<br/>
Shep, being protective began a slow, deep, growl; got on her feet hearing Adrianna’s tone, and stood closer to her mistress staring at Charlie.<br/>
“Oh, now your bitch dog is going to protect you from the gimp in a wheelchair?”<br/>
“Yeah, she does protect me and I think for you to be safe, you might want to back away a bit.”<br/>
“Oh yeah, and what if I push myself right up between your legs?” And as he spoke he pushed his chair closer into her.<br/>
Shep didn’t hesitate a beat, but gave a sharp, growl, and grabbed onto Charlie’s pant leg.<br/>
Adrianna pulled sharply on Shep’s leash raising her voice, “Shep, no, don’t. Back off. Let go.”<br/>
Harry, stood up right away, feeling the tension suddenly raising. “Hey man, back away from the bench. This is getting crazy.” He automatically went behind the wheelchair and began to pull Charlie away.<br/>
“Hey, what the fuck you doing man, grabbing my chair. I’ll show you how crazy this can get,” as he pulled a switchblade out of his jacket sleeve and began waving it around as the blade came shooting out, jabbing at Harry’s hand on the handles of the chair.<br/>
The blade grazed Harry’s hand as he instinctively pulled it off the handle. “Shit man you cut me. Okay, man, where you want this to go,” Harry yelled into Charlie’s face?”<br/>
“No place man, I don’t want it to go no place,” as he backed his rolling chair away from the bench, as Shep’s growl and teeth were right back at Charlie’s feet.<br/>
“You better keep moving away Charlie, because I won’t be able to keep her from tearing you up. Put the knife away and keep going. How’s your hand Harry?”<br/>
“It’s okay, it just nicked me a bit. Man, what’s with your anger, man. You need some fuckin help.”<br/>
“Yeah, I need a lot of help, you gonna give it to me? I’ve been needing help since Nam and here I am, a fucked up, angry, gimp, Vet. He turned his rolling chair around, rolling off in the direction he came from.<br/>
“Whew, I used to work in a ghetto school in Miami and dealt with a lot of angry erratic behavior, but I seldom saw anyone explode so fast. He reminded me of kids on meth.”<br/>
“I’m sorry. I was a bit surprised to see you intervene so quickly. Thanks. I’ve known him for a while from the shelter downtown where I help serve meals, but I never seen anything like that before. Most of the time he’s pretty agreeable, although he has an angry temperament.” As she was talking she pulled a handkerchief out of her purse. “Here put this on the cut. It’s doesn’t look too deep.”<br/>
“Thanks. “Yeah, he’s right on the edge. You think I can pet Shep?”<br/>
Shep had come close to the bench again, laying her head on Adrianna’s feet. “Yeah go ahead, she’s okay now.”<br/>
“Good girl, Shep, good girl,” Harry whispered as he rubbed his hand down her smooth, soft, back.<br/>
As they both sat back to relax, their hands came together on the bench. “I have a suggestion,” Adrianna said,” as she took off her glasses and looked at Harry.<br/>
What’s that?” Harry responded with a lighthearted chuckle.<br/>
“I think we should sit here and resume breathing in the energy of Ms Rainier.”<br/>
As she said this they both looked down at the plaque embedded in the cement in front of the bench:<br/>
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Relax⎯Breath<br/>
Know You Are LovedBack in Gainesville after three years in Seattletag:www.zoobird.com,2011-07-31:2129360:BlogPost:402232011-07-31T16:59:34.000ZSh'mal Ellenberghttps://www.zoobird.com/profile/ShmalEllenberg
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<p>After living in Seattle for the past three years, I moved back to Gainesville a month ago. My first impression, a feeling really, was that Gainesville felt as close to me as my skin. Lying in bed on one of those first nights I easily thought of all the things I love about this city. The first week I walked out on Bolens Bluff to the lookout platform on Paynes Prairie. I find that place as sacred and peaceful as any place I’ve meditated. A few days later I was on the wooded paths of…</p>
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<p>After living in Seattle for the past three years, I moved back to Gainesville a month ago. My first impression, a feeling really, was that Gainesville felt as close to me as my skin. Lying in bed on one of those first nights I easily thought of all the things I love about this city. The first week I walked out on Bolens Bluff to the lookout platform on Paynes Prairie. I find that place as sacred and peaceful as any place I’ve meditated. A few days later I was on the wooded paths of San Felasco Hammock and was thrilled to see two cars in the parking lot with peace stickers on their bumpers. Ah, yes, Gainesville, proclaimed the first The City of Peace. </p>
<p> In the 23 years that I lived here I felt empowered by so many activists doing good for the common good. Those energies touched the deepest part of my nature, which enabled me to manifest community energies I didn’t know possessed. I am thankful to have returned.</p>
<p> Because I spent a few years helping homeless people I was disappointed to see the lines of people seeking food at the downtown plaza. From Arupa Freeman’s blog I knew not much had changed, but to see some of the same people who were hungry three years ago waiting in line for a sandwich, a piece of fruit, a cold drink, struck me as something sad. </p>
<p> I probably was a bit delusional, but I used to really believe that Gainesville was an exceptional place in the world and that the problem of the homeless and the hungry could be solved. Maybe humanity, in our elementary school level of spiritual maturity, doesn’t have it in us to be has humane as our conscience asks us to be. Denial is a good defense mechanism. It protects our heart. It was pleasing though to read, yesterday, that Mayor Lowe is agreeing to unlimited serving of food at St. Francis House. When I heard about the 130 person limit all I could think about was Somalia and pictures of starving children. And in our enlightened city, business owners insisted that 130 hungry was enough even though there was food. That felt like insult to humanity.</p>
<p> But Gainesville does remain a notch over many other cities that don’t allow the serving of food in public places. It’s not so bad. On the downtown plaza people line up, eat and disperse — Friday night music events continue, the Wednesday Farmer’s Market flourishes and that semi-fancy hotel across the street hasn’t closed down. </p>
<p> It’s not easy to make it a perfect world for all. We could do better. Homelessness is the result of the choice a community makes to not provide housing for those who can’t provide it for themselves. And regardless of what some believe, many <i>can’t</i> provide it for themselves. </p>
<p> I love being back in Gainesville. </p>
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<p>Rev. Bob Sh’mal Ellenberg</p>
<p>352-256-9279</p>
<p><a href="mailto:shmal8@yahoo.com">shmal8@yahoo.com</a></p>
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<p> </p>Freedom and Peacetag:www.zoobird.com,2011-02-13:2129360:BlogPost:345092011-02-13T06:00:00.000ZSh'mal Ellenberghttps://www.zoobird.com/profile/ShmalEllenberg
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<p>Dear Brothers and Sisters,</p>
<p>I can't help but wonder about the militarism of the United States and what can be done in order for change to come to our country regarding the way we arm countries around the world. I'm not sure what it takes to make this be different, but seeing all the people in Freedom Square standing so firm for what they…</p>
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<p><a target="_self" href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2540838818?profile=original"><img width="750" class="align-full" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2540838818?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="750"/></a></p>
<p>Dear Brothers and Sisters,</p>
<p>I can't help but wonder about the militarism of the United States and what can be done in order for change to come to our country regarding the way we arm countries around the world. I'm not sure what it takes to make this be different, but seeing all the people in Freedom Square standing so firm for what they believed gave me a glimmer of hope for a change that can part of the emerging times of freedom. I feel confidant that many in our country feel as strongly as the Egyptians did about deposing a dictator as we do living in a country that needs to stop arming countries around this beautiful world we all share. </p>
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<p>Dancing and Singing for Peace, Sh'mal</p>A Memory of Mikitag:www.zoobird.com,2011-01-24:2129360:BlogPost:330982011-01-24T23:07:16.000ZSh'mal Ellenberghttps://www.zoobird.com/profile/ShmalEllenberg
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<p>Miki took at least three to four hours getting ready for her “dates,” as a high priced Hollywood call girl. Her ritual process began after she woke late morning to early afternoon, taking a half-hour shower. She would come out of the narrow bathroom that barely had room for the stall shower, sink and toilet,…</p>
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<p>Miki took at least three to four hours getting ready for her “dates,” as a high priced Hollywood call girl. Her ritual process began after she woke late morning to early afternoon, taking a half-hour shower. She would come out of the narrow bathroom that barely had room for the stall shower, sink and toilet, having a light blue towel twisted over her wet hair, another pink towel wrapped tightly around her slim, well figured body. While drying off, Miki and every one who visited, was invariably drawn to look out the large, wrap-around, picture window, with an expansive view of Los Angeles. The view went from downtown, to the southern horizon, to the ocean. It was 1962, during the Cuban missile crisis. Looking out that window I couldn’t help imagine what would happen to that view if Russia dropped a bomb on Los Angeles. It caused me more than one nightmare. </p>
<p>When her hair and body were dry, Miki went to her dresser, and carefully picked through her abundant underwear. After making her choice, she semi-modestly turned her back to me, and slowly allowed the towel to fall to the floor, sensually wiggling her thin hips just a bit as she pulled up her tight fitting, skimpy, panties, then with a half-turn back to me, put on a bra to hold her, petite, well formed, breasts. </p>
<p>This done, she took a short break and lightly dropped herself into a second hand, overstuffed chair, that faced out over the city. She lit a cigarette, but after only a few drags, laid it down in an ash tray she washed and dried earlier, walked to the dresser and came back with her make-up kit and a hand held mirror she’d set against some books in front of her on the coffee table. </p>
<p>Her next step get ready for her date would take from 45 minutes to an hour, always, with cigarette or joint-breaks, so as not to feel too rushed. To me, this part of the ritual felt long and tedious: the slow and methodical application of make-up. For Miki, it was creating a daily piece of art. I loved her beautiful, narrow, somewhat pale, freckled face, without the make-up. But she didn’t quite like what she saw in the mirror, and was set upon creating someone she could appreciate more.</p>
<p>She began on her eyes then lips, where each stroke of her eye liner, mascara, shadow then her lip stick, was like applying paint on a canvas. She had many shades and colors to choose from depending on what she already planned to wear that evening, but still hadn’t taken anything out of the closet. Miki knew her wardrobe well, and was exacting as she coordinated everything she was creating.</p>
<p>After the lips were finely sculpted she precisely applied make-up to cover her freckles. To our friends, the freckles gave her a cute, teenage kind of look, but to Miki they were a curse, a blemish she needed to cover completely. She was perfect in covering them, so, “I won’t look like a teenager, but like a mature ‘working girl,’ so the johns will treat me with more respect.” The “treated with respect” thing was important to the “working girls” I knew. They all felt they needed some added compensation, besides money, for what they were doing. She didn’t talk much about her work, only in passing, or if something really odd was going on with a john. </p>
<p>There were always two or three phone calls that came in or Miki made to prospective johns, or one of the other “working girls,” or her boyfriend Phil. She accepted the phone calls as part of her business although sometimes she would get annoyed at the interruptions.</p>
<p>What really bothered her was when one of the girls called to tell her there was some mix-up in where or when they were to meet the johns. She hated complications, and would get mildly irritated with her co-workers for screwing up when they didn’t get the arrangements right the first time.</p>
<p>Miki would pick up the phone, cigarette in hand, with the twenty foot cord trailing behind her she would walk around the large living room, the only room of the apartment, besides the bathroom, talking animatedly, questioning what changes were made and why. With that business done, she took a Valium, re-lit a joint, and relaxed.</p>
<p>“The first call was Phil. He’s coming over. I don’t know why he always wants to come here when he knows I’m busy getting ready to go out.”</p>
<p>I didn’t understand Phil. He was handsome, well built, wealthy. I had a hard time imagining his love for her, and if he respected her with what she did for a living. But, she was my friend too, and I didn’t demean or disrespect her for what she was doing. Maybe he felt the same way. Hollywood in the 60s, where so many were trying to accept everything as being “normal,” so no one judged what she or anyone else was doing. It was who she was that everyone loved. And many did, with her apartment on the top of Argyle Ave., off Hollywood Blvd., as a favorite gathering place for a community of friends on the thin margin of society. </p>
<p>“He wants to bring over take-out food for me that will last a couple of days. He’s going out of town and wanted to make sure I had something to eat. You heard me, I told him I had food, but he insisted anyway. Sometimes I think he doesn’t trust me and just wants to make sure I’m here getting ready for work and not running around with some one. Last week he dropped off some pot just before I was ready to go out. I love him, but sometimes he can be a pain.</p>
<p>I never knew for sure, but I had the feeling Miki had other lovers besides Phil; even within our circle of friends. It was a time where many were trying to let down inhibitions. Hollywood showed us one way and we were trying to replicate the design. Personally, I liked her as a friend and let it be.</p>
<p> “I think he’s just concerned about you; that you’ll have food around while he’s gone. Something to smoke. That’s how he is.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, maybe.” She didn’t say more about that and it wasn’t my business. He probably had other relationships too. </p>
<p>Her face finished, she began to brush, straggly, bleached blond hair. She hesitated, looking out the window. “Bob, I want to tell you something I’ve been thinking about lately. Don’t think I’m weird, but I’ve been thinking a lot about God, wondering what my connection is with Him.”</p>
<p>“God? Him? Are you sure,” I questioned jokingly?</p>
<p>“Yeah, God. I don’t know. Him? Oh, Her? I heard people ask if God could be a female. You talk about stuff all the time. I’ll try it. ‘Sheeee’s here with me,’” she said as she put a drawn out Texas emphasis and a smile on the gender change of God. “Hey, I like that, it sounds cool. Who ever said God had to be a man?” </p>
<p>“I think it was the priests,” I said with a chuckle. It was in their favor. But you know, many people in our world see a female God others don’t see man or woman but the Creator, the energy behind creation. Who knows? I believe something is going on beyond our realm of understanding and I put that on a Creator of the Universe. CU. Hey, I Like that. See you. The She/He, Creator of the Universe is probably saying that to us with a smile.” </p>
<p> She looked at me with a sweet smile of understanding. “You know, Bob, we need to talk about this more. It helps me get away from some of what I’m doing. To be honest, sometimes I have good sex, even enjoy the dude, and I get paid for it, go to fancy restaurants, shows, travel but naturally a lot of what I’m doing really bothers me, you might imagine, but where can I make this money and have my own time.” </p>
<p>It was hard for anyone to stand and not look out that big window, especially when we had philosophical conversations. She turned back to me, “I used to not believe, but something happened when we all took acid a few months ago. I had one of those spiritual experiences you said can happen. Something inside my head won’t leave. For some reason, it’s like now I know there’s more of a purpose in being here, you know, in this life, but I’m stuck in this work and don’t know what else to do. You know what I mean?” </p>
<p>“Yeah, I think so. What do you want to do?”</p>
<p>“It’s odd, but I like to help people and being nice to them, and in some ways my kind of work does that, but I’m not fooling myself, I’m a hooker, and I’m not sure if it will get me in heaven.”</p>
<p>I never heard her refer to herself as that—it was always “working girl.” It crossed my mind a few times about the kinds of regrets Miki may have and others had being in the selling-their-body-for-sex business. It’s been around ever since man realized he wasn’t getting enough from romantic means, or up-tight men who couldn’t find romance, or the rich and popular who just wanted more or someone exotic and some women provided this service.</p>
<p> “Miki, I don’t think God cares what you’re doing. It’s how you feel about Him, oops I forget too, it’s what were used to: Her, Her, Gods a Her. It’s the love we have in our heart for Him or Her, and mainly, how we treat others.”</p>
<p>She stood deep in thought, again looking out the picture window. “Do you ever wonder what would happen to all that out there if the Russians dropped the bomb?”</p>
<p>My exact thought. How does it happen? I wondered if our other friends had similar thoughts when they stood by the window. The drama was being played out on TV and radio, the front page headlines telling us the range of the missiles Cuba possessed, and what cities could be targeted. Florida was easy pickens, L.A. was trickier, because of distance. We had the window as a reminder, just in case. It crossed my mind what I would do if we were told that a big one was on the way, assuming there would be a warning. I thought about the Miki’s wrap around window, being there with friends watching the last second of that existence, wondering whether it would be a forever-lasting image taken to the next plane or sphere of existence after this experience.</p>
<p>Our community of friends appreciated this apartment, a home for “a woman of the night,” although she never worked out her apartment, in another context, it was the spawning ground for many philosophical talks. Everyone paid attention: Which one, of the two Mr. Ks.—the world superpower leaders—was going to blink. It was during this time that I had dreams of boxcars filled with semi-dead Polish Jews. I had the sensation of being there, on my way to an execution. In another dream I was in a jungle someplace running fast, through the trees and brush, my tribe being pursued by white people shooting automatic weapons at us. </p>
<p> “Lately Miki” I told her, “every time I come here and look out that window I have that same thought. It must be on a lot of people’s minds. It scares me: the threats Kennedy and Khrushchev are making to each other.” </p>
<p>She turned around looking at me with a concerned look on her face, trying to understand. And then thoughtfully, “I don’t think God would let that happen. He made a wonderful world for us and I don't think He would want it destroyed.” </p>
<p>“You’re probably right, but everything is so.....” I hesitated unsure of what I wanted to say. “I don’t know, I guess things feel unpredictable, like anything could happen.”</p>
<p>“Unpredictable. I know what you mean. I feel that a lot. Like going out with Sally tonight. I thought everything was all set, then she calls and tells me we’re meeting the johns at a different restaurant and there may be four johns and not two. She wanted to know if she should call two more girls or if we should do them. It’s hard to plan anything when people are always changing their minds. You know what I mean?”</p>
<p>I looked at Miki, surprised at the twists in our conversation. She still held her hair brush—intermittently brushing, thoughtfully standing, sexy as any woman could be, in her panties and bra. Her expertly applied make-up that covered her natural beauty, as she looked out over the most populous area in the world, with millions of people going about their day to day business, her mind though, stretched to look for meaning, as it toggled between God, nuclear holocaust, and soon going out to trade her body for money. </p>
<p>I wasn’t sure if there was any incongruity. We all made adjustments as we accepted inconsistencies in life, as well as in the world and in our minds. Thinking one way about life, but having our life go in another direction. I knew that most people weren’t in control of their personal environment as much as they wanted. This being one of the existential topics of discussion that came through her apartment. </p>
<p>Miki was trying to make sense of our young lives in a fast city, in a threatened world. She was one of three or four call girls I knew, who were part of a small, self-employed, women’s collective, who weren’t going to make it in Hollywood. They all had boyfriends I vaguely knew since they’d show up at that Argyle apartment on the hill. Most of the time I felt I was on the periphery of the group. Now, decades later I wonder if others felt the same, or maybe it was the nature of living in such a unique place on the planet, where movies came from, to fill lives with dreams. I used to think I was the only one out of place in Hollywood, but now, thirty years later, I suppose there were many others. For those moments in time, it was the place we needed to be. Fortunately, something in my life clicked—ten years in Hollywood was enough. Miki, stayed on.</p>
<p>Recently I was saddened after I talked with an old friend who told me Miki died in her early 50s, homeless; a bag lady.</p>
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<p> </p>A Death in the Dusttag:www.zoobird.com,2011-01-15:2129360:BlogPost:328212011-01-15T01:07:21.000ZSh'mal Ellenberghttps://www.zoobird.com/profile/ShmalEllenberg
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<p> Sh'mal Ellenberg</p>
<p>908 NE 115 St.</p>
<p>Seattle, Wa. 98125</p>
<p>shmal8@yahoo.com</p>
<p>352-256-9279</p>
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<p> A DEATH IN THE DUST</p>
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<p>The young man was wearing a traditional Muslim skullcap, neatly dressed in stripped, loose fitting slacks, a lightweight, long sleeved, knit shirt squared off at the bottom, loose out of his pants; he walked into a temple unaware that he…</p>
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<p> Sh'mal Ellenberg</p>
<p>908 NE 115 St.</p>
<p>Seattle, Wa. 98125</p>
<p>shmal8@yahoo.com</p>
<p>352-256-9279</p>
<p> </p>
<p> A DEATH IN THE DUST</p>
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<p>The young man was wearing a traditional Muslim skullcap, neatly dressed in stripped, loose fitting slacks, a lightweight, long sleeved, knit shirt squared off at the bottom, loose out of his pants; he walked into a temple unaware that he was being watched by some one very far off who was peeking into his life. The thought in the mind of the observer, was one of surprise that the young man had come into this consciousness; he accepted this small quirk of fate, concentrating his inner eye on the young man, wondering why they had come together in this manner. It was a one way view of some ones life from the outside, which may not be acceptable in the mystical life. It was more than curiosity though, that compelled him to peer deeper; seeking understanding was our viewer’s sacred intentions.</p>
<p>In a flash back sequence, the observer saw that the young man had just left his mother’s small hovel of a home on a narrow dirt street in Jerusalem. His mother was in a state of painful, turmoil, suffering from the pain of her husband’s death through the gun of an Israeli soldier. The old woman didn’t understand any of ongoing conflict that existed between her people and the Jews. She knew that many violent deaths spread over the land of her people who in turn caused deaths to many across the border. Neither she, nor her husband, allowed themselves to be involved in the conflicts, having many, long time, close friends, on the other side. They tried to remain friends through the years of war, but it was harder all the time to maintain the friendships since most mistrusted Palestinians and Jews being friends. She didn’t understand. It wasn’t the way she was raised nor was it the way she thought of life. Allah had made all beings to love each other: “we are all one with Allah,” she continued to proclaim, to all who would still listen.</p>
<p>When her son came home to tell his mother that her husband Rashid had been killed she went into an immediate faint, falling to the dirt floor of her home. Abdullah picked her up and put her on her small bed in the corner of their simple home. He brought a cup of water, wet her trembling lips, raised her head a bit so she could sip a few drops. When she opened her eyes, he told her he was sorry that her husband, his father, had died. “He is one of many, dear mother, and I need to do something about this.” She looked at him through barely opened eyes, only partially understanding his words. He held the water close to her mouth, she sipped a bit more, as he told her he was going to get Sarina, his sister, to stay with her as he had to go. He bent down, whispering a promise, “I will do something about the killing of so many, mamma,” then kissing her on her forehead, before turning with tears in his eyes going out the door.</p>
<p>The observer had to peer deeply in order to continue his vision. There were blank moments when he lost sight of Abdullah who he saw again walking the dusty streets, not going far to his sister’s home to tell her what many neighbors had also done with their own families, when this all too common calamity came upon them. Upon hearing her brother, Sarina screamed a scream that was heard up and down the dusty street. It was a similar agony heard too many times in the past years. Abdullah felt he had no time and told his sister to “go stay with our mother, I have something important to do.”</p>
<p>“Where are you going? What are you talking about? You are now the oldest one, you have to be with her. Please come back with me,” Sarina sobbing, gasped. “I can’t be with her alone. I won’t know what to do.” “Just be with her” he told her, “she needs you. Others will come in and help. I have something I must do.” Abdullah, didn’t say anything more, but left, only pausing at the door, looking back over his shoulder, telling Sarina in a voice that was their father’s, “may Allah be with us.”</p>
<p>The observer continued with his eyes closed watching Abdullah leave his sister’s house and walk the dusty, dry street to the temple which he entered, knelt down, and prayed to Allah that his father may be at peace and that peace would come to all.</p>
<p>It was the sanctuary that had always been a comfort to him. Once inside he felt close to the One God he trusted, where he could share his innermost thoughts.</p>
<p>Abdullah prayed out what was inside of him: of knowing what his father’s wish would be and what his mother’s prayers had always been. They were instilled deep within his being and he felt that peace in every cell of his body. He knew the Allah of Peace to be in every particle that existed in life. He also was painfully aware that many of his friends had picked up rocks, sticks, even dung from the streets, and thrown them, in anger and desperation, at Israeli soldiers. Some, when the opportunity was theirs, picked up guns to shoot at the soldiers and many of his friends had died as his father had this day. </p>
<p>As Abdullah prayed, he cried. His mind wild with thoughts he didn’t want to entertain. He prayed for strength to do something, in Allah’s name, to change the course of man’s violence. He cried and prayed, cried and prayed, using a strong force of will to keep the picture of his bloodied father lying in the dusty street out of mind. He looked deep within for some answer, for something he could do to make things different. </p>
<p>When he left the temple, woozy and disoriented from his trauma and solitude prayer, he was thankful to find his childhood friend, Jabir, sitting near the well in the center of the village. With tears streaming down his face, Abdullah asked his friend, “Jabir, my friend, what am I to do after what happened today?”</p>
<p>“I know what has happened Abdullah: The whole village already knows. You know that my sister, Kareema, was also killed. She was only a small girl of six. We buried her together. We all are suffering from this awful thing that is upon us. I have no answers. As you, I am unable to understand why this is happening and no one knows how it will end. We all have tears and the pain of death in our souls, but yet Mohammed, praise be his name, wants us to follow the teachings of the Koran. We have studied long together, learning the way of Allah and must keep this path. Revenge may be a sweet way to satisfy our pain, but that sweetness, only turns sour, bringing more pain. Let us be as strong as the arm of Mohammed, praise be his name, and continue on the only path that is truth. It is the way of your father and mother and all our people. Many feel forced, impelled, to stray from it, but we know that it is in vain. I will honor your father and my sister by staying close to you in our love for Allah.” </p>
<p> As the two friends shared their common bond of peace, by the village well, they were approached by another old friend. Omar, carried a rifle over his shoulder, a grenade belt around his waist. He was dressed in battle clothes of mujaddin. “Aslaam Alecheim, Abdullah, I’ve been looking for you. I heard about your father. My deepest sympathy goes out to you.</p>
<p>“Alecheim slaam, Omar,” responded Abdullah. </p>
<p>“May your father now be in peace with Allah. It is unfortunate that we can’t take the time to mourn his death, before we seek revenge. The Israeli soldiers are still on the outside of the village, taunting us to come out and fight them. Come Jabir, you too. Only two weeks ago, we all buried your little sister. There more arms in the old school that are waiting to be used to kill Jews.”</p>
<p>The two men discussing peace, were now being tempted by the anguish and logic that prevailed in the lives of all those they knew. They stood, shaken, momentarily confronted with the other side of life. Omar sensed their hesitancy. “What’s with you two, why aren’t you moving fast to avenge the evil that came upon the both your families. The Jewish dogs must pay.”</p>
<p>“Omar please wait,” pleaded Abdullah. “You know my father, what he stood for and what he believed. I went to the mosque and prayed so I can understand what is right for me.”</p>
<p>“What is right?” Omar barked. “Ask your mother what is right. And you too, Jabir, ask your mother what she thinks of her shinning star, Fatima, buried before she became a woman. The Jews won’t stop killing till we kill them. All of them. You know what is written.”</p>
<p>“Written where Omar, Jabir responded? “We all studied the Koran together. Forgiveness is the teaching that Mohammed, blessed be his name, gave to us. We must follow that way.”</p>
<p>“Till when. Till they kill us all. Your sister, Jabir, was an angel of Allah. And now she is gone. There is only one way and you can see, I am ready to do what the two of you are hiding from doing. Being weak is not what Mohammed wants from us. We must exterminate evil. I am going. The two of you can stand by the well and wait for it to be filled with the blood of our people. I am being called. May Allah forgive your weakness.” With no more words, Omar walked off without looking back. </p>
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<p>The two remaining friends stood alone, weak now in their knees, their thoughts shaken by a childhood friend who was seeking a thing that in them they understood, but their wills were strong on another plane. Jabir spoke softly. “He is right and we are right. I know no other answer, “Thank you Jabir for your kind words. They are a comfort to me. May we both honor our families and the sacred teachings of the Koran and help others to follow that way. May Allah protect our friend.” </p>
<p> As the last sight of Abdullah and Jabir slowly faded away, as the far away observer slowly opened his eyes in wonderment that this vision had come to him. As a venerated practitioner of the Kaballah, he knew there was deep meaning to his inner experience. He had struggled for many years trying to understand the centuries and current turmoil between the Jews and the Muslims. He knew the troubles of cousins would go on as each searched for truths deep within their souls.</p>
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<p> XXXXXXXXXXXXX</p>Changing Mary's Diapertag:www.zoobird.com,2010-12-10:2129360:BlogPost:315812010-12-10T19:33:18.000ZSh'mal Ellenberghttps://www.zoobird.com/profile/ShmalEllenberg
<p><br></br><br></br> Sh’mal Ellenberg <br></br>908 NE 115 St<br></br>Seattle, Wa. 98125<br></br>206-268-0160<br></br>Shmal8@yahoo.com<br></br> <br></br> <br></br> <br></br>CHANGING MARY’S DIAPER<br></br> <br></br> <br></br> <br></br> <br></br>Mary was frail, so weak she could barely get to the potty near her bed without help. When I came into her room to see how she was doing, she was lying, prone in bed, her knees, slightly bent up; her face, a bit ashen from not eating well and sickness, but still with her glowing, smile, so familiar to me. Having…</p>
<p><br/><br/> Sh’mal Ellenberg <br/>908 NE 115 St<br/>Seattle, Wa. 98125<br/>206-268-0160<br/>Shmal8@yahoo.com<br/> <br/> <br/> <br/>CHANGING MARY’S DIAPER<br/> <br/> <br/> <br/> <br/>Mary was frail, so weak she could barely get to the potty near her bed without help. When I came into her room to see how she was doing, she was lying, prone in bed, her knees, slightly bent up; her face, a bit ashen from not eating well and sickness, but still with her glowing, smile, so familiar to me. Having given loving care to Mary for the past 10 years, I felt close and endeared to her, somehow even appreciating more the opportunity to help her now that she was less able to do the most basics for herself. <br/> But changing her diaper? How was I going to manage that? My wife, Linda, was out of the house for the day; diaper changing was part of her job, now I was here alone with Mary.<br/> I stood for a few moments, gazing, a bit damp eyed, at her angelic face that had brought so much joy to our family. I wondered if she was going to die soon. She had been sick off and on for the past couple of years, her body becoming weaker, with one function after another shutting down. Now, here I was alone in the house, her diaper probably wet, maybe more. I couldn’t let her just lie there.<br/> I naturally thought of our three children whose diapers I had frequently changed, considering how many countless times my hands had been in the toilet rinsing them out before they went into the machine. But here Mary was; a woman, an elder ─ a spiritual elder, who had come to live with us for a few weeks: now, ten years. I was definitely feeling a bit uncomfortable as I prepared myself to help her.<br/> It always amazed Linda and I how Mary was referred to us by someone we didn’t even know, as having a good home for those needing assistance. We had only begun this personal care home business a few weeks earlier, but yet, the social worker came with Mary from the hospital feeling assured her contact was right. <br/> The social worker had told us over the phone that Mary needed speech therapy at the local hospital for a few weeks, maybe a month or so at the most, then Mary would return to her employers, where she was a nanny for their two children. She was only 62 at the time and had no paralysis from the stroke, and her only disablement, seemed to be her speech pattern.<br/><br/> For whatever their reason, her employers, who brought Mary with them from Chicago to West Virginia , to be a nanny, never came to see her at the hospital where she went after she had a stroke in their home. Nor did these mysterious people come to see her at our house after she was discharged from the hospital. <br/> <br/> I asked her, “Mary, is your diaper wet?”<br/> She smiled and said, “That’s nice.”<br/> Her radiance and ‘that’s nice’ attitude, shown on all the other guests we cared for in those ten years since she temporarily came to have speech therapy.<br/> I tried, quietly again, “Mary, do you need your diaper changed? Are you uncomfortable?”<br/> She smiled again, nodding her head, but with her weakness it was unclear to me, which way she was nodding; up and down or sideways. Her head actually rolled around, maybe meaning nothing. Be patient Bob, I reminded myself. Be as nice to her as she is to everyone else. “You haven’t been to the potty for a few hours why don’t we take a look and see if you need changed? I was venturing into unfamiliar territory, but was now ready.<br/> I walked tentatively to her bed as she began to pull back her sheets. She needed help: “here, let me help you.” Her nightgown was pulled up to her thighs and I could see how thin she had become in the past year. She was never heavy, but now her body was mostly sagging flesh with bones jutting out. She smiled and nodded thanks.<br/> “Mary, I never changed an adult’s diaper, but you saw me do it with the kids many times so we should make out okay. You don’t mind me helping you, do you? Linda is away for the day and I’m the only one home. She smiled and tried to sit.<br/> “Here Mary, let me help you,” as I put m arm around her back and helped her into a sitting position and then swung her legs around off the bed. Mary was short; her feet almost touched the floor. “Do you need to go to the potty?” She didn’t answer, but tried to push herself onto her feet. “Let me help you up and get you over to the potty.”<br/> <br/> When the family didn’t come to see her; actually they never even tried once, to contact her or us, Linda and I discussed what we were supposed to do, and soon, took it all as a sign and understood. We felt we were being gifted. All we had to do was ask her if she wanted to stay with us for her to give us that smile and tell us, “how nice.”<br/> Mary moved with us from West Virginia to Pennsylvania where we expanded our personal care home and took care of seven people. Then, after six years, with three small children, it was impossible to care of everyone so we sold our business and moved to Florida, to be closer my parents. Mary, who, by then, was an intimate part of our family, came with us.<br/><br/> I supported her under her arms and helped position her in front of the potty chair. “Can you stand okay while I take off the diapers? Hold onto my shoulders and I’ll get these off.”<br/> I felt under the plastic to the wet diaper. “Yes, they are wet,” I said to her; “you must have been uncomfortable. Maybe we should hook up a bell like we used to have so you can ring us if you are wet or need something. What do you think?”<br/> I really wasn’t sure if Mary thought of much anymore, but it was familiar talking with her, even if the conversation was now mostly one-sided. And the bell: I remembered we stopped having it hang on the bedpost when she was no longer alert enough to use it.<br/> I managed to get the plastics off and then the Attends were down by her ankles. “You’re going to have to hold on and lift a leg again so I can get the diaper off. She knew the routine and lifted one leg and than the other. This stage was over. Then I carefully helped her sit down on the potty chair.<br/> <br/> At one point in Pennsylvania Mary had become very sick; so sick she couldn’t do anything; remaining in bed, barely eating, but not complaining about any pain. Linda and I agonized for two days in wanting to do the right thing for Mary, but didn’t want to do anything that would be contrary to Mary’s wishes of, “the least treatment the better.” In the few years she was living with us, Mary had appreciated our personal care philosophy based on holistic treatment and how our three children were birthed at home with midwives. But here we were now, totally responsible for her and needed to weigh our personal philosophy versus what was best for Mary. <br/> We finally contacted a hospice nurse we knew who referred us to a doctor, who, she told us, would be the least of the doctors in that small town, who would want to put her in a hospital if it wasn’t urgently needed.<br/> Back home after the doctor’s visit, we gave her beef broth, from friends who raised their own beef, and so she wouldn’t get bedsores, we put a sheepskin under her from another friend who raised sheep. The next day, feeling a bit better, we told Mary the children wanted to be in the room with her and she nodded a smile. We brought them quietly into her room to visit. In a young children’s way, we allowed them to gently, crawl under the bed, even allowing Rebecca, only a year old, to rest along side of her, which put a slight smile back onto Mary’s her face. During that week of healing, we also allowed the children to play quietly on the floor besides her bed, while spiritual music, Mary loved, played quietly in the room. It was as touching of a human interaction as I had ever experienced.<br/> In a week or so, she was up and back, resuming her informal assignment of house parent to the more disabled folks we helped out. She really didn’t do anything to help any of them, but sort of kept an eye on things when we were busy maintaining the house or were out with the children for a walk. <br/><br/> I helped lower her onto the potty chair and told her, “Mary, I’ll wait right outside by the door so you have privacy.” She smiled. I thought about what I had just said, smiling to myself. Here I was helping her out of a diaper, as intimate of a human interaction as there can be, but feeling there should be some privacy attached to her sitting on the plastic potty chair. I also wondered about the loss of self-esteem as some one became infirm and needed this kind of help from others. I didn’t think she paid too much attention to that kind of stuff, but privacy on the potty, in this circumstance, seemed to be a social given.<br/> I gave her a few minutes until I heard the tinkle in the bucket. I poked my head in the room, “are you done Mary?” She smiled as she was trying to stand. “No wait Mary, let me give you paper to wipe yourself.” As I handed her the paper I realized I should have done that before I left the room. I told her again, “I’ll go out of the room while you clean yourself and than I’ll get you a washcloth to wipe your hands.”<br/> When I came back into the room she was half way on her bed and half on the floor. Just hanging on. “Mary, what are you trying to do? Here let me help you onto the bed.” She smiled and nodded as I helped her into a sitting position. “Here’s a washcloth,” which she took and diligently cleaned each finger, her palms, than the backs of her hands. She handed me the washcloth and started to turn herself around into a lying position.<br/> “Wait, Mary, I have to get a dry diaper on you.” I wasn’t sure if it was easier to get it on if she was lying down or sitting. I thought of how I had seen Linda do it and realized I didn’t pay much attention when it was being done. With the babies they were almost always lying down, so I told her I’d help her lay down. I put my arms around her, lifting her legs onto the bed and she was in position. I took the Attends out of the box, looked at them and laughed quietly to myself, as I realized I had no idea which way they went.<br/> Maybe I should have paid attention when Linda changed Mary. Maybe there should be a nurse; maybe I should be a nurse. I’m not a nurse. How come I’m here changing the diaper of a 73-year-old woman? Come on get serious, she’s been a friend, a surrogate grandmother to our kids, almost like an angel in our home. She has been a gift being a resident angel. I briefly thought of the words of the Shaker song, “'Tis a Gift to be Simple,” the words rising on their own, as a reminder to me of Mary’s simplicity and how I loved that part of my own nature. So if I think of Mary as an angel, what am I doing helping change her diaper. Am I worthy to do this for an angel? No time to ponder philosophical meanderings, she’s on the bed, nightgown up to her knees waiting for help.<br/> “Okay Mary, I think it goes this way. No, maybe this way,” as I held the diaper in front of me turning it around a few times. It reminded me of the first time I used disposable diapers on the kids. Did it matter which way? Mary reached for the diaper and turned it into position trying to raise herself a bit. “Here let me lift you and get this under you.” She made it easy and soon it was on, and then the plastic over it and we were done.<br/> “We did it Mary. Are you comfortable?” She smiled. “Do you need anything else? Are you hungry?” She smiled again and said, “How nice.”<br/> <br/> It wasn’t too long after my special time with Mary that she had another stroke resulting in brain a hemorrhage. The doctors told us that any invasive, heroic, surgery was chancy. From what we discussed with Mary previously, we knew it would have been her decision to not have anything done. We asked the staff on the Intensive Care Unit to let us know when her time was close. Within two days we received a call from the hospital that it was getting her time. Linda and I retrieved our two sons’, Jacob and Gabriel out of grammar school, and with four year old Rebecca, we were all by her beside when she took her last breath; grateful that the hospital staff had brought Mary from the ICU into a private room allowing our children to be there with us.<br/> As we stood there with our tears, I remembered three years earlier, how lovingly the children were, crawling in and out and around her bed, as we told them Mary was very, very sick. She loved their presence so close to her. Unknowingly, the children were doing a children’s healing dance, now, sharing a timeless moment with her as she left this plane.<br/><br/></p>SOMETHING IS HAPPENING HEREtag:www.zoobird.com,2010-07-09:2129360:BlogPost:266632010-07-09T17:00:00.000ZSh'mal Ellenberghttps://www.zoobird.com/profile/ShmalEllenberg
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Dear Shaya:</span></p>
<br></br>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br></br>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Honest, honest. This ongoing poem began as I relate in the early stanzas, but I couldn’t stop myself, working on it daily as days unfold. It began just for you, to be shared with<br></br> Bahira; now I find myself wanting to work on it more and more to keep expanding<br></br>
this mode of sacred telling. I have joked about Batina have ocd,…</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Dear Shaya:</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Honest, honest. This ongoing poem began as I relate in the early stanzas, but I couldn’t stop myself, working on it daily as days unfold. It began just for you, to be shared with<br/>
Bahira; now I find myself wanting to work on it more and more to keep expanding<br/>
this mode of sacred telling. I have joked about Batina have ocd, but now I find<br/>
myself in that category of creative folks. You must know yourself: to share<br/>
what is learned with others, it’s a “we can’t stop ourselves” from being that<br/>
instrument of Hashem-Allah, who some how put us here to <i>be</i></span><span style="font-size:12.0pt">, not necessarily do, as much as we can be.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Healing, healing energies</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">May they infuse themselves into your body parts</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">To help make you whole-ly.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Yes, you are already.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">The docs will know they are touched with light,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">As they enter the lightness of your physical.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Delicate particles of matter needing delicate hands</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">To rectify, correctify,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">The Light as matter.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Shaya, you have become my muse. Thank you. I’ll stop now and send this for you. Take your time. I did go on and on.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
This extended poem was inspired by my Rebbe, Shaya Isenberg.<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">SOME THINGS ARE HAPPENING HERE</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">June 30, 2010</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Clear Seattle Day.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">We’re on a roll here;</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Three days in a row.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Warmish too: 70s.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">But to be honest, I must be a bit crazed, but,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">I do long for the long, hot, humid, summer days in Gainesville.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Getting dirty and sweaty in</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">the</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">McRorie Community Garden.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Love of life comes in different ways.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Listen.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Puget Sound</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Golden Gardens Park</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Far apart, white cumulus clouds,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Floating lazily suspended by the unseen.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Evaporating water particles unseen</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Rise up before me.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">From the Sound,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">That is majestic.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Gentle winds; an unseen energy.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">So much is unseen.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">There is, it’s true,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">More around us unseen than seen.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">The beauty of this day is felt so peacefully.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Batina paints on 5 x 7 cards,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">I write,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">The same view</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Different Way.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">We sit 30 feet from the waters edge,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">A large boulder barrier between the water and comfort for humans….and dogs. Every other person walks with at least one dog on the asphalt path between the water and us.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Seattle with a high level of dog love.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">And coffee.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">More coffee and dogs per capita than where, what?</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Those boulders, larger than man can move,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Moved into place by machines?</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Pyramids, A Great Wall, built by humans;</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">With unseen help? Did they have help?</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">All slaves?</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Mega-creations</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Does anyone volunteer this work?</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Batina and I enjoying this day.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">I declared it a vacation day.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">A stress reduction process.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">To the beach we go,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">But we can’t just be.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">We doodle our crafts.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Eyes take in what fills the space.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Something moves something else. Inside.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">All Muse. Not us.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Allow for creative energies to flow.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">A love of life.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Two days ago there were hundreds of teens here.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Gathering in groups.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">That was the first of this three day</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Run of sun.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Must have been a school is over event.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">On that day I sat in my van with a man not much older than me,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Stroked to be a partially disabled man.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">A 24 hour shift, for me, 9 a.m. to 9 a.m.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Getting paid for sleep.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Hmmm, not like moving boulders.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Only my third time with him. Getting to know him. He me. But still, “a stranger in my apartment?”</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">How would anyone think or feel about this when</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">A someone just shows up?</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Sent by an agency?</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Just to be clear here:</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">He was informed by his power of attorney.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">But still, cognition impaired by a stroke.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Language, movement, will never be</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">As it was.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">He seemed to love just being by the water,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Responded immediately</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">To my suggestion.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">He doesn’t communicate well.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">May not want to.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Uses a walker easily.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">But didn’t need or want to get out of my van.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">90 minutes comfortably watching the water, boats and those many passing by</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Our van window view.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">He talked a bit, to my questions: Today told me he was a: mountain climber,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Electrical engineer a photographer,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Had a motor boat.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">No children.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Batina and I:Words and paint expressing something</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">That inhabits our beings.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Is there credit due someplace?</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">To Whom? To What?</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">A hand holds a brush.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">A hand a pen.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">From where?</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">How did they get</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">In To our hands?</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Miracles of time, space,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Industrial transportation.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">We’ve no clue, give no inquiry,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Except where we buy,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">What we need.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Water ripples, breath flows.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Slow and easy</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">As we</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Absorb the natural world,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Become it</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">As feet move on asphalt.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Her fingers hold a brush.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">What are the bristles made of?</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Where did they come from?</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Everything is in place.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Some sails down, engines on,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Some sails filled with that</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Unseen energy, engines off.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">She here, me here.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">She who? Me who?</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">For how long???</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Any… anytime,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Without warning,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">It will change. I know and</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">We won’t be here or anyplace.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Then, just being.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Or</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Still doing. A higher work.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Perhaps.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">We will abide in Love. A Gift to cherish to,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Take with us.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">The brush squiggles</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Held in deft, delicate, God Fingers.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Paint from some where,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Onto paper from another where,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Re-Creating water, sky, grass, sail boats,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">On paper that</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Was a tree.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Imagine that.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">For an eye-sense. That</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Sends a message,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Deep inside being, to a place,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Unseen, but knowable,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Becoming a Soul Experience.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Her hand. A Hand.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Joined to a</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Greater Hand</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Dips the paint,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Moves the brush.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">What is that Force behind the action?</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Samples, samples, of the beauty seen.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Where does pride enter as we do and be?</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">What we do and be, but</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Soon we won’t be or do.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Time moves faster than our blinking eye</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">And we don’t know.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">When or How?</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">She holds the brush,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">I a pen</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Paper lent</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Love lent</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Body lent</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">All a Souls mission to experience,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">To know.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Memories of parents.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Forgotten how they held us</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">When we were their gift from</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Who knows?</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Two day later another near Seattle beach.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">My 13 month old granddaughter, Clover,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Our first excursion out of their house,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Into my van, she enjoying,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">The prep.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Understands what I am preparing for us.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">But not my struggle with the car seat straps.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Cries, is uncomfortable.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Me too.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">But all settled, now smiling, knowing Grandpa Bob’s words about</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Car, go, good time.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">I’m impressed with this babe,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">How cool she is.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">We are getting to know each other.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">I’m came here 2 years ago, for</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Grandson Vaden, and then</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">God blesses us with a female angel too.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">We meet Batina at the beach, she was attending a</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Art meeting as her reputation is slowly expanding</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Having a show here and there.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Baby girl Clover, a smiling angel,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">No discernable words, no stand up walking,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">A good crawler.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">And a great smiler. A Great Smiler.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">No faking.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Like from the place where she abided</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Before showing up here.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Love — Love brings us into</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Being in Life together.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">A Passage to Eternity.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Could not have imagined that,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">But I see who I see.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Yes this is real.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">I point out the boats, a train goes by,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">The water the sand the grass.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">The mysteries of life unfolding daily.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">A stroller. Thanks Megan for remembering.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">My first stroll with a stroller in many decades.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">On the asphalt, onto a pier, Clover keeps a well balanced demeanor.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">We drive home.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">I reach over and touch her feet as I did going. We smile at each other in the rear view mirror.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">A charge of love emotion fills me.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">She dozes.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">We arrive at Gabe’s house. I wonder</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">If Clover coming out of a soft sleep will</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Will feel a bit of discomfort — but no,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Ah, perfect equanimity.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">I love so many aspects of life. Thankful. Gracious.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">HashemAllah Hu</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Not a vacation day today,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Even better: a blessed day with</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Clover.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">OTHER SACRED MOMENTS</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">(Now a few days later, still working on this piece of peace and I <i>have</i></span> <span style="font-size:12.0pt">to interject, that I just picked cherries from a backyard tree.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">A total first.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">A cherry tree in this rented space.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">30 feet, maybe more,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">They are ripening, the other two, ten feet, still a way to go for ripening.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Maybe another variety.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Maybe not cherry, although are the same shape but remaining hard</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Amazing. Nuts?</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Cherries.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">It makes me happy to have this.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">And be alive to it.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">I thought there would be a tug of war between me</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">And the black birds, that nested in this tree and birthed chickies.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Maybe they’re getting the higher ones.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">A fair trade.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">For me.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">From tree to mouth</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">The love of life manifesting in so many ways,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">As I thin small lettuces from my</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Seattle front Yard garden,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Propagated from seeds saved two years ago from lettuces in the</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">McRorie Community Garden Gainesville plot I helped attend.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">These tiny, some tiny, tiny, baby lettuces,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Thin-d from between two inch high Romaine.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">That hopefully will grow full size,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Allowing two or three to “go to seed,”</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">So I can again save seeds.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">I couldn’t throw the leaves aside.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">I know they contain energies I don’t understand.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Cut their thin rootlets,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Rest the rootlets near the larger plants,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">To again become earth.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Gather the lettuces leaves,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">So carefully in my palm.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Into the kitchen,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Many rinses</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">To get off</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Tiny soil particles,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Lightly clinging to tender leaves.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">That soil</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Helped bring forth.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">So close to the ground they were.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">I include these leaves in the salad</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Of the day</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Appreciating their young energies.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Never knowing what is eaten from the</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Organic gardens will have</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Special Energies that will do for our beings what</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">We need to be</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Physically whole.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">After all,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">What is eaten from ones garden, that is carefully nurtured,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Sweated upon, personally energized, honored and prayed upon,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Is in return a taste of ones own self.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">DO I WANT TO SWITCH</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Wait, wait for me. My mind hears others sounds,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Coming from the deep. Deep water oil well.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Do I want my mind switched from so pleasant,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">To what was not our wish?</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">How can this be?</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Sitting by Puget Sound, somewhat cleaned up after its struggle with human disingenuity.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Dissing ingenuity.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">But it is what we are known for.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">“Too bad all is not well in the well.”</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Where is the voice coming from?</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Who says it won’t be well? We’re a smart species.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">We can screw things up</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">And unscrew them just as easily.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Show me.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">We’re working on it as we speak.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Some ones wish.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Some place with dark voices from places</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Unseen, unknown,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Almost Ghoulish, but with a sidestep away,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">“You didn’t have to do things this way.”</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">We had no choice.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Time moved to where we were destined to go.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Oh. Zat so. Tell me more about your brilliance.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Machines were invented.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">They needed fuel.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Oh, zat so. Tell me more about your brilliance.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Oil it was coming out of the ground,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Just waiting for humanity to make good use of it.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">And did you?</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Look at all that we have now.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Look at all you don’t have.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Species loss, forest loss, plants lost, butterflies.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Should I go on and on and on……?</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Our species is recalibrating.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Our ingenuity got ahead of our</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Spiritual destiny.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">It does create the high life.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">For some.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Oil was going to help all.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">All? Oil was going to help all?</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Who believed that?</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Nuke energy was going to be so cheap,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">It was going to be free. Ha!</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">We have plans for betterment of the whole.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">But instead you drilled holes where it</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Wasn’t intended.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Sham on you.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">BP didn’t know what they were doing.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">None of you up there know what your doing. You are all complicit in what is going on using the oil drug. It’s a world strung out and you won’t change until your are forced to change<br/>
and maybe we, the diabolical good forces have finally created a disaster that<br/>
will wake everyone up to their sickness. So much of what you produce, what you<br/>
consume, what you do, is guided by the worst principles in relationship to the<br/>
good of the earth and to life. You are all so accustomed to living in a bizarre<br/>
world of accepting the worst as if it was the only means of sustaining your<br/>
lives.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Okay so we’re stuck. Wise guy. Do you have any idea of how we can get out of the purgatory we are forced to live in?</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">There was a time when people lived more in harmony with the natural world. So many of you know this, but most are so out of touch it may be impossible to bring them into that<br/>
harmonious way.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">So many will have a harder and harder time as the world they are accustomed to dissolves.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Dissolves? What do you mean dissolves?</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Well, it’s not like soap dissolving in water, but it may seem like that as so much of what your people expect as always staying the way it has been will fade into obscurity.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">It won’t be detected the way it has always been. It will be a slow but steady disintegration of life as you knew it. It has been written about many times in your life, it is nothing new<br/>
under you sun, but still, what a surprise it will be when one wakes up one<br/>
morning and the world isn’t what it was and for most of the human race, it will<br/>
be a scramble to survive and it’s quite possible that most won’t. It’s happened<br/>
before on your planet, that information is out there and many are aware of it<br/>
and many are doing some preparation for how to deal with a recovery once the<br/>
disintegration occurs.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">What does one do?</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">No one can tell anyone else what to do. Each has to pursue what they feel is the right way for them. Smart ones are already gathering small communities together to work cooperatively<br/>
with each other to share what needs to be done in order for the regeneration of<br/>
social norms, if there really is anything like social norms in your world. It<br/>
is only the very few old cultures that have been able to hold on to mores and<br/>
folkways, customs that may seem old fashion to each modern culture, but what<br/>
these primarily were able to do was maintain a dignity between themselves and<br/>
the natural world they were in harmony with.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">We can go back to those ways. Yes we can. I know many people who are willing to give that a try considering the critical nature of what you are suggesting.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Suggesting, I’m not suggesting anything, all I’m doing is telling you the way it is and if there are those who can see some of the danger that is coming, maybe they should have<br/>
been getting ready before circumstances became as dire as they are.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">July 3, 2010</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">I am thankful for being this Gift from God;</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Oh Creation, behold this being as part of You.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">A new adventure today,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Prompted by Batina so I wouldn’t</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Sit home and dawdle away.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Now in a forest, new to us, but ancient.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Near Edmonds Beach,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Sitting on a well rotted, fallen tree,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">One amongst a few others,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Nestled in a bit,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">A naturally</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Carved out, dent in the earth,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Tucked away, off the narrow dirt paths,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Through the woods. Scattered pieces</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Of broken branches are randomly all around this</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Dent in the earth forest.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">It’s almost like a large nest,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Sitting here gives me the feeling of</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Being a Gnome.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Batina painting the view,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Me doing my recording</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">She doing hers.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">So comfortable being here,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Away from</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">The world of human made,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Most of us abide in.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Is it unnatural man creating unnatural</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Environments and products</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">For mainly, (only?)</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Profits.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Comfort.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">No, I don’t want to get into war machinery.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Needing yes, oil.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">For so many,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">The Natural World.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">This is what we are missing.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Mae Zifken Ellenberg,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">May she r.i.p., would have</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Nothing to do with this that I love,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">That is part of my nature.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><br/> It was hard for her to appreciate the</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">World of</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Birds and Bees, woodlands and forest.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Flowers she loved,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Picking low hanging Magnolia Flowers.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">She didn’t see God in nature.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">I tried to help her see more deeply</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Into what was around products of man.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Where she lived in my apartment</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">For half a year,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Until she couldn’t anymore.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">It was a trying seven months,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Not seeing eye to eye or belief to belief,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">But connected by birth and maybe more.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Her last hours,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Finally, getting her to relax.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Lighten up mom, I pray,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">I love you, I say.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">She uncurled her body from a tight,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Womb like, fetal pose.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Easing her from 24 hours of moaning and groaning, as she</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Knew her time was very close.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Gentle back rubbing, “breath mom, try and relax, I’m right here with you. I love you. Becca is here too.”</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Rub, rub, my mom. And ah, yes, she can, yes she can,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Relinquishing her hold on suffering,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Stretches out finally, no complaints.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Imagine. No complaints. I love you mom.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">No thirst, no pain,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">None. I asked.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">She whispered, “no.”</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">I am thankful,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">The time with me was a preparation</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">She was ready to leave this plane.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Came back as a small bird, I imagined,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">In a story</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Not too long after,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">She was able to know the natural world in ways</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">She hadn’t before.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Batina and I walk out of the forest</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Up steep incline, narrow path.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">From the forest, an immediate shift,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Into Suburban planning. A neighborhood.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Homes right on the edge of the forest.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">How lucky for them.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">A small patch of managed flowers,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Right on the edge of the forest,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">With a marker,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">“Backyard Garden Sanctuary.”</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">A metal table with matching chairs.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Set off a bit from any nearby house.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">We discuss: Whoz iz it?</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Public or private?</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Whose garden?</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">We take advantage of the space,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Batina sits on the ground with her 5 x 7 cards,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">I take my self to one of the metal chairs,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">To mark our day,</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">I write this place, Batina paints.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">We all are learning what we need to learn.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Do what we need to do.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>Running with the Salmontag:www.zoobird.com,2010-04-28:2129360:BlogPost:244772010-04-28T16:30:00.000ZSh'mal Ellenberghttps://www.zoobird.com/profile/ShmalEllenberg
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align: none;text-autospace:none"><span>I wrote this story for an under 300 word contest. The story came to me after standing by a stream in a park outside of Seattle that had a sign about the stream, that fifty years<br></br> ago, during spawning season, the stream was filled with salmon bank to bank. Next<br></br> fall I’ll have to check out how few there are. And there was a metal statue of<br></br>
the otter in the park.…</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align: none;text-autospace:none"><span>I wrote this story for an under 300 word contest. The story came to me after standing by a stream in a park outside of Seattle that had a sign about the stream, that fifty years<br/> ago, during spawning season, the stream was filled with salmon bank to bank. Next<br/>
fall I’ll have to check out how few there are. And there was a metal statue of<br/>
the otter in the park. Now that it’s been sent off, I may work on it some more.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align: none;text-autospace:none"><br/></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:150%; mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:HelveticaNeue;color:#230F08">RUNNING WITH THE SALMON</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align: none;text-autospace:none"><br/></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:HelveticaNeue;color:#270E06">There is something about being close to running water that gives me the feeling that I am the water. I like that ideation, after all, we humans did come from water and it is where I spent thefirst 9 months of my life. Our bodies are 60% to 70% water, our brains, 72%.<br/> I’m more water than who I think I am. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><br/>
</span></span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:HelveticaNeue;color:#270E06">Even though I haven’t been a great swimmer and don’t spend too much time in water, I<br/> love rivers and streams. I love having that imagery of me actually being running water.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:HelveticaNeue;color:#270E06">My Indian name was “Running Water.” I liked that. I never thought of that being my<br/> name, but that is who I have been as a native person.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:HelveticaNeue;color:#270E06">I have a memory, maybe from a dream, of something I can’t remember ever doing,<br/> but something is in me, where I can see myself, running along the bank of a<br/>
small stream, watching thousands of salmon filling the stream from bank to<br/>
bank. It was a thrill to keep up with the salmon. I see myself getting ahead of<br/>
the salmon then I stop, turn, and watch them come towards me.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:HelveticaNeue;color:#270E06">Sometimes, in memory, I see an otter in the water fishing.</span></p>
<br/>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:HelveticaNeue;color:#270E06">Today I actually saw a mother otter with her baby standing on its hind legs. Baby<br/> otters face was so close to mother otters face, their whiskers were almost<br/>
touching. They were so real, well, they <i>were</i></span><span>f real, but metal, a sculpture, in a<br/>
park, with a stream, that once had, in another time, when there was more peace,<br/>
tons of salmon that filled the stream, as they came back to spawn, then die,<br/>
bringing peace to all realms.</span></p>Amazing Gracetag:www.zoobird.com,2010-01-12:2129360:BlogPost:228702010-01-12T01:16:22.000ZSh'mal Ellenberghttps://www.zoobird.com/profile/ShmalEllenberg
Bob Sh’mal Ellenberg<br />
908 NE 115th St.<br />
Seattle, Wa. 98125<br />
352-256-9279<br />
Shmal8@yahoo.com<br />
<br />
AMAZING GRACE<br />
<br />
The others left at 6:15 p.m. I came to the house to relieve Lynn for three hours while she went to a Buddhist meditation class and Mary, Bob’s daughter and her husband Tom were going out for something to eat. They would all be back around 9:00 or 9:30.<br />
I sat in the living room for fifteen minutes reading when it came to me I should be in the bedroom with Bob, who was in his last days. I along…
Bob Sh’mal Ellenberg<br />
908 NE 115th St.<br />
Seattle, Wa. 98125<br />
352-256-9279<br />
Shmal8@yahoo.com<br />
<br />
AMAZING GRACE<br />
<br />
The others left at 6:15 p.m. I came to the house to relieve Lynn for three hours while she went to a Buddhist meditation class and Mary, Bob’s daughter and her husband Tom were going out for something to eat. They would all be back around 9:00 or 9:30.<br />
I sat in the living room for fifteen minutes reading when it came to me I should be in the bedroom with Bob, who was in his last days. I along with three others had been Bob’s caregiver for the past year and we had midwifed him through some hard times; we all knew he had little time here. At 89 years, now down to half his 180 pounds, we were expecting his transition for many weeks.<br />
I went into his bedroom where Mary and Lynn, who was one of the other caregivers, had been helping make him comfortable just before I arrived at 6:00. As soon as I came into the house, Mary took my hand and asked me to come and say hello to Bob. Well, he was, we thought, asleep, so I said hello anyway and we all left his room.<br />
As I sat down next to him, at 6:30, looking at his emaciated face, his mouth hanging open as it had been while he slept for the past few weeks, it only took me a few moments to realize he had left his body. Even though, I had to keep checking him to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating, as I would keep seeing slight movement of the sheet over him. I even pulled the sheet off of him at one point to rest my hand on his chest; with the sheet off, I saw a slight pulsing just below the center point at the tip of his rib cage.<br />
When I was finally convinced he had left or actually was in the process of leaving his body, I felt it was my place to help him with this transition. I try to be comfortable with this stage of life, since I have been with a number of people just before, during, or just after they take their last breath. It‘s a gift I brought into this life.<br />
After being with so many, I should have a better grip on what is going on, but how can one. Some say we come alive when we leave this body as our spirit, soul, that part of us that remains alive after this body goes returns to source. Other are convinced that when you’re dead you’re dead: End of story. It’s a hard one to really be convinced of, on any score, since we only know, maybe, after we have left this plane.<br />
As I sat with Bob in those special moments, as I had done in the past, I tried to concentrate on helping clear away all the disturbing influences that were preventing him from having a peaceful dying. He was a tormented man, especially the last two weeks with screaming and yelling in his sleep, calling out for help. This had actually been going on, to a lesser degree, in his sleep, for months, but now his screaming was very intense. It wasn’t easy to hear a person we know, who is going to be dying, screaming out, yelling, “help me, help me.” Mary as well as her sister Kathy had both experienced these episodes, as I had, especially, on the weekend just prior to his last breath.<br />
There’s a Buddhist prayer for people who are leaving this plane, especially for those suffering, called Tonglen, which I had been doing for Bob off and on for those many months. Who knows how long he’s been suffering, maybe since he was on one of the ships bombed in Pearl Harbor during the bombings? I questioned if that was what his yelling and screaming was about, his calling for help, having imprints in his memory of helping pull men, boys really, out of the water, some dead some alive. I can only imagine or maybe, more real, can’t imagine what that was like.<br />
For months, in the morning of my two and three day a week, 24 hour shifts, I did what I could during my regular meditation, while he was in his bedroom right on the other side of a wall, me trying to help clear away some of the dark mist that I felt surrounded him, maybe inside and outside. In the end, it’s sad to say or think, it felt like demons were pursuing him, just as Buddhism teaches. I did what I could to take some of that misty darkness into myself and transpose it into light, sending it back to him.<br />
Now, here I was with his life force, soul, spirit, consciousness, actually leaving his body. I rubbed his crown chakra on the top of his head, a Hindu belief to help those energies leave the body from that point. With different practices I wasn’t confused; only wanting one thing: that he should be at peace.<br />
The very next day, I was with another man, doing my first 24 hour shift as I did with Bob. I totally lost myself or forgot Bob, in wanting to help this man on this first day. That evening, standing in this new man’s kitchen, (odd another Robert,) after I had just attached jangles to his walker for him to shake and wake me during the night to help him with a hand-help urinal, I heard bells. Bob, who had passed the night before, had Xmas bells on his walker for the same reason. I knew they didn’t sound the same, but immediately made a dash to Robert’s bedroom and saw him in deep sleep. I went back to the kitchen and again heard the bells and knew, believed, Bob was letting me know he still needed help. (In the morning I looked outside the kitchen window on the deck and saw no bells and heard them one more night, but never heard them again in my three weeks now at Robert’s house.)<br />
With no doubt in my mind, I went into the room I was going to be sleeping in and put on my prayer shawl and cap, the same ones I wore for a year during my meditations in what was Bob’s office, and sat and prayed, concentrated, meditated, being with Bob in spirit, where he was, where I was, again, doing what I could to ease his pain. I’ve done this sacred dance for a many, always a bit uncertain of what is the procedure, but yet knowing from what I have read, heard about, intuited. I felt I was with him. Imaginal thinking, who knows, but I trust in the higher parts of me, knowing that connections are made between people and other sentient beings on various levels from various distances while in the flesh. I know there is more. In the next few days I made different connections with Bob and then, at some point, those particular connections, began to diminish.<br />
Kathy and Mary, were doing the same, maybe the other caregivers, all four of us, including the hospice nurse, all have different spiritual practices. We caregivers weren’t hired by the agency that employed us because of our spiritual beliefs, I don’t think, but here we were with this man, helping him during a very difficult time of his long life.<br />
I sat with Bob for 90 minutes, when Mary and Tom returned. Mary came into the bedroom and I told her that her father had left this plane. She had some tears, only some, since so many had flowed off and on for months.<br />
I knew this man for just a little over a year, coming for my first visits right after Obama was elected and was taken aback that whenever Bob saw our new president on TV, he’d rant, vitriolic, “that’s not my president, impeach him, how can this be.” I kept my mouth shut, wanting to keep my work, to help him and his three daughters, two of which I worked with very closely for the next 12 months. Some months later, when he said he didn’t vote for Obama, I had to tell him “I did.” But now knowing him better and having to trust, I said, “Bob the times are different it’s 2009, look, even women are holding major offices.” He seemed to wanted to have a grasp of what was going on, but had other battles that took his mind off of the world.<br />
<br />
Notes on Bob<br />
<br />
11/10/09 Two weeks prior to Bob’s leaving this plane.<br />
Something happened in my meditation at Bob’s house this morning. I had an insight that when someone who I have been caring for dies, they take part of me with them into the afterlife. This came to me as I sat and contemplated Bob and his fragile condition and how close he was to dying.<br />
I questioned whether this is possible, also knowing that more goes on than I am certain and familiar with; if something of my being is with a dying person can they, if they choose, take that with them, bringing part of me or anyone into that realm? I looked a bit deeper into this as I sat, considering all those I have been close to who have left this plane and what my continued connection can possibly be with them.<br />
I am thinking, believing now that this is true. Not only is part of them remaining with me as I am living in this consciousness, but the consciousness of the departed one, maybe is exactly the same as on this plane, and they are maintaining some of what they experienced in human life.<br />
And now as I write, I realize I would do the same: Taking with me my thoughts of those I love and who have helped me. This is no brand new thinking, but I never really considered this as poignantly and as real as I am in these moments of writing.<br />
Bob is in bed almost next to me, only separated by a wall, him in the sleep state he goes to. He doesn’t share what his yelling is about, or what his nightmares are, but the caregivers, hear him making a variety of disturbing sounds during his sleep. He’s never shared with any of us, as far as I know, if he does travel over. He has been close for an extended period, or so it seems. When I suggested to him that Jesus is waiting for him, he gave me a classic Bob line, “he’ll have to wait.” Maybe he’s not so close. Maybe we are only perceiving him to be close to death, since in actuality, he hasn’t left this plane, even though everyone thinks he’s been on the edge of leaving. And he is, only the edge is a wide edge and his fear or uncertainty, is keeping him here.<br />
I suspect, there is more of what we don’t know about dying than what we do know, since, in fact, what do we know? Maybe Shahabuddin, a Sufi teacher, who will be leading a death and dying four day intensive workshop in ten days, will give more insight into this.<br />
I look at this whole process with Bob as something I was brought to, in order for me to learn something more about the dying process. I shared that with Bob’s daughters about this learning process we are in. I certainly have thought this, wrote this, and now can add another dimension to my understanding about death and what I am learning from being with the dying.<br />
Lately I have been viewing my self in space during my meditation sitting. The new insights I’m having blend with these views from above as I feel part of me outside of me. Nothing really new here, only seems more poignant, as I was preparing myself for Bob’s leaving.<br />
Having this insight this morning was good, but now, late at night, it disconcerts me a bit because if it’s true, than what I’ve believed about guardian angels and other beings with us, now I am understanding, believing, we are with those who have left this. It feels to me more real, a truth. It is in consciousness that we are all one.<br />
<br />
November 22, 2009 Two days before Bob leaves this plane.<br />
I’ve been doing my usual two 24 hour in a row shifts. Missed last weekend attending the death and dying seminar with Shahabuddin. We all feel that Bob could be, should be in his last days. He’s baffling even the hospice nurse, Bev, who has worked with, helped, hundreds pass on from this plane. I’m an ingénue compared to the work she has done. He is getting closer. Kathy told us she had a good talk with her father ten days ago about this, his condition, “not being the flu” and this opened Bob to talk about his feelings about leaving, him getting it, finally, and wanting to make sure his estate, house and monies were secure and to used for the grandchildren. And that someone will take care of Shadow his cat.<br />
Although the caregivers, daughters, the hospice nurse all knew for months Bob was getting closer and closer to leaving the plane, he kept telling us, “I can’t wait for this to be over.” Not that he would be dead, but back to his old self. Having been a controlling person for most of his life, he had hard time accepting he had little control over the dying process.<br />
So he only gets it somewhat. It’s momentary. Today, when I was helping Bob stand to pee in the hand held urinal, I pointed to his feet that are turning purple, asking him if he knew what that meant, he said, “I don’t want to know.” Two days away, with a sign he still wasn’t ready.<br />
I sat in his room two times today while he was awake, at one point, reminding him I was a minister. (I was finally feeling it was time to minister to him; to help him in this end or beginning, process.) He was laying down and his hands automatically went into a prayerful position. It gave me a good feeling since I honor the Alliance of Divine Love that helped put my consciousness into a framework of being called upon to do this work. I had been involved with dying before my ordination, but it took on a greater meaning after my ordination, especially in working with the homeless and being the chaplain for the HomeVan. A long other story.<br />
As he lay there with his hands in prayer over his chest, I told Bob he had nothing to fear. He said, maybe with sarcasm, “that’s good to know.” A few minutes earlier, when I was in the living room, he called out two times, “help, help me.” One time he may have had a dream. He wasn’t sure what had disturbed him, but this opened up for a brief talk about here and what follows. He said he had a fear, but wouldn’t say of what, that’s when I told him there was nothing to fear. That’s my belief.<br />
He’s been on more morphine; the nurse, stopped the percocet, for a stronger medicine to relieve the pain of his body and of his mind, which may be more disturbing to him than his body pain. Who knows? He’s not getting out of bed now. His legs are too weak to hold him up, although I helped him stand so he could pee easier with the hand-held urinal. Once I helped him to the potty chair, right close to his bed, although Kathy doesn’t think it’s safe. It’s all touchy. She doesn’t feel secure with his legs against the bed for support, his feet on the floor holding the urinal. I found this easier for him, but I’m a bit stronger than she is, so she had him sitting up in bed with the hospital bed supporting him and her holding the urinal, but at least then, he wasn’t able to urinate. His pee is so dark with so little fluids.<br />
This evening, I was trying to help him accept this transition that was so, so, close. Helping someone leave this life: Is it my business? Yes, it has been. He’s suffering; maybe afraid he will be suffering in the next life also. He wouldn’t talk about it, even though I left an opening for him if he needed too.<br />
Suffering, suffering. What can we do about all the suffering people experience in this life? Not much unless someone is ready. It is the way of the life. We all have our share in one form or another, but, as Buddha taught, there are ways to alleviate it by understanding the causes of suffering which have a lot to do with our attachment to life and our expectations. I put it in simple words to Bob this evening; he sort of acknowledges these truths, but hasn’t been much of a thinker regarding philosophical or spiritual teachings. On one hand I can’t stay out of it, because he is a man I’ve been helping for a whole year and I like him; love for another human being, someone I honored having been in war, Pearl Harbor, but I can’t be attached to his path. Amen. I do pray for him that he doesn’t have to continue suffering.<br />
Second rendering of my last 48 hours with Bob. During the time with Bob I was never able to fully understand what he was going through. He may not know himself and if he does he can’t get out the words about dying, regrets, forgiveness. When Kathy relieved me in the morning, and I told her what her dad was going through; it was uncomfortable to share his pain with his daughter as it’s been off and on with both Mary and Kathy. We’re all feeling it with him. I called Kathy later in the day to see how her father was doing. She told me he was going through the same things throughout the day, calling for help, making the same noises, telling her at one point he was falling. She’s told me how she kept busy when he was quiet straightening up the office room with all the hospice supplies. Maybe her dad’s room also. I suppose trying to get her mind off of his pain and his ordeal. When the nurse Bev visited that afternoon, they helped straighten up his bed, especially the folded sheet under Bob we use for helping him turn from side to side. Sometimes I’d use it and sometimes I’d gently put my arms around and under him and helping him to change positions, being careful not to cause him any discomfort. Everything felt hard to do and now in this moment, weeks later as I rewrite, I feel the sensation of his boney body as I gently helped turn him to his other side.<br />
I felt awkward part of the time with the care I was giving Bob unsure of what more I could do, feeling at times I wasn’t doing enough. Trying to make him physically comfortable; the other part of me trying to help with the transition from here to yon. It was sacred, that’s all I can say about it. I have gotten drawn right into the dying with him and the agony he’s going through.<br />
<br />
Nov. 9, 4:00 a.m. I’m up to help Bob to bathroom. When he was getting back in bed he said one of his favorite expressions: “oh, what a life we live.”<br />
I commented, “and you’re really stretching it out, Bob.”<br />
“Well, most people go through a process.”<br />
“Some leave tragically, like Larry, going real quick.” Larry, was a brother-in-law, 90 years-old, a very close friend and his wife, Vin, were killed a few weeks earlier in a car accident.<br />
“He was driving too fast at that curve. His foot probably slipped off the break onto the accelerator.”<br />
“You’re probably right on that one.”<br />
“I think about the after life. I think it’s pleasant.”<br />
“Go to the light.”<br />
“What?”<br />
“I’ve heard, that when someone dies and they see the light; go to it.”<br />
“There’s nothing to be afraid of. I hear it’s pleasant.”<br />
“I’ve heard you say you’re ready.”<br />
“I’m in the process.”<br />
“I think there’s a long line.”<br />
“Well I’m waiting.”<br />
“Good night Bob, sleep well.”<br />
“Thanks Bob.”Some more on the Ganja Boogie Band in Nogo Arkansastag:www.zoobird.com,2009-12-11:2129360:BlogPost:225612009-12-11T20:24:34.000ZSh'mal Ellenberghttps://www.zoobird.com/profile/ShmalEllenberg
BUILDING MY CABIN<br />
New Mexico was sort of our training ground for getting us into the frame of mind for what we wanted to do in Arkansas. In New Mexico the hippies had adobe models for building their homes, but in Nogo, like I said, we were freer in building our houses. I had never built anything before, hence some of what I built was pretty primitive and basic, but worked. At least when I, with some help from Eloise and Lance, built my cabin, no one could tell me it didn’t meet community…
BUILDING MY CABIN<br />
New Mexico was sort of our training ground for getting us into the frame of mind for what we wanted to do in Arkansas. In New Mexico the hippies had adobe models for building their homes, but in Nogo, like I said, we were freer in building our houses. I had never built anything before, hence some of what I built was pretty primitive and basic, but worked. At least when I, with some help from Eloise and Lance, built my cabin, no one could tell me it didn’t meet community standards, unlike some of the other building I did that were more for the community, but like is said, had to come down and be rebuilt.<br />
I decided early on where I wanted my cabin,<br />
Set in to the edge of the forest, West side of the five acre field.<br />
With the early morning sun to wake me,<br />
Have me close to what was to be our garden.<br />
Many windows all around especially facing east.<br />
For me and Miguel,<br />
Sometimes a guest.<br />
For a while Lance and Eloise, who helped build it.<br />
Small, 12 x 12; twelve feet high to the east looking out onto the field and morning Sun.<br />
Sloping to six feet on the west, looking out into the forest, up hillside from the creek where there was a 10 foot Magic Waterfall for bathing, playing.<br />
I cleared an area on the edge of the forest line,<br />
Brought some boulders about as round as my arms forming a circle, 6-8 inches thick;<br />
Heavy ─ took more then me to move them in place,<br />
Put them on the four corners.<br />
I saw how the old timers did it back in the day.<br />
Cut down some oaks girded with poison by Claudie MacDonald to clear land for more cows,<br />
Like a mule I dragged them down the hill to the site.<br />
Four heavier ones placed horizontally on the boulders for foundation. Simple.<br />
I was really making it simple since I had no plan on paper.<br />
Smaller trees for vertical supports on the corners,<br />
Standing on top of the boulders;<br />
More thinner trees tied in with the uprights for framing in the walls.<br />
Amazing: Had all the framing done with dying trees,<br />
Some recycled 2 x 4s framed the windows.<br />
Made my own windows on the north and south from plastic.<br />
Found old framed windows for the east and west.<br />
We drove to the saw mill in Donnie’s truck and filled it with bark covered slabs,<br />
Rough outs, they were called.<br />
Sliced from the sides of trees before the logs were sent off for further milling. We all did our siding with rough outs instead of vinyl.<br />
Made use of what would be otherwise burned.<br />
Used recycled boards from a house we took down for the floor.<br />
Used some old boards to build a door to fit snug,<br />
Figured out a latch using some rope that pulled a piece of wood that dropped in place behind a gizmo holding the door tight.<br />
I was really humming along with Lance and Eloise helping.<br />
Kenge too.<br />
Ken Dubie came up to me one day as we near finished:<br />
“Coach, I never thought I’d see a house here, but you did good.”<br />
He built one with paper plans.<br />
I never doubted I would have a shelter sanctuary.<br />
It was my second;<br />
The first was the tent Miguel and I lived in for six months,<br />
Right in front of the cabin site.<br />
Put a stump in there as a kind of alter, with candle, feather, sacred book. Did my first praying alone in that tent,<br />
Read my first spiritual books, Yogi Ramacharaka,<br />
We had a few of his, brought by Janga.<br />
Took afternoon breaks from working the garden,<br />
To rest and read,<br />
Beginning to feel a new inner presence.<br />
Something felt familiar with this study,<br />
This new way,<br />
But maybe –<br />
A re-emergence of what was always known.<br />
Finished the loft on the 12 foot east side with widows,<br />
To see the morning sun,<br />
The garden.<br />
Built a ladder with strong tree trunks to support the loft,<br />
And get me in my sleeping space.<br />
Chiseled in places to put in steps.<br />
Got a small wood stove,<br />
Set it by the six foot west side to send the heat up to the loft;<br />
Along side the stove I built a three by three table for wittlin and reading<br />
By kerosene lamp;<br />
Built a stool in an hour challenging myself,<br />
To see if I could do it.<br />
Did a lot of whittlin that winter,<br />
Carved small wood boxes with a hatchet and hammer,<br />
Utility knife.<br />
Slicing off pieces of wood from logs,<br />
Utility knife to form pieces right,<br />
Doweled the sides together.<br />
Thought I was something.<br />
A steep wooded slope down from my cabin to the creek,<br />
Right in back there,<br />
Magical Waterfall, about 10 feet, into a pool fifteen foot across.<br />
In the winter it took a lot of breathing to get in, but in warm weather,<br />
It was an ideal place for<br />
Solitude and contemplation of all that is.<br />
Or the little I knew of it at the time.<br />
Oh, My God, thank you for bringing me to this place.<br />
May I always be here; yes,<br />
That content.<br />
I wouldn’t pee, shit or masturbate near it.<br />
But had sex a time or two.<br />
Go figure my sacred standards.<br />
Long alone walks down the creek, around the mountain,<br />
To another creek, another waterfall,<br />
An overhang, we liked to call “The Cave.”<br />
You could crawl in about five feet,<br />
Look out to the creek.<br />
A place for more contemplation,<br />
Consider things.<br />
Emulating my new reading of the yogis,<br />
I went to the cave for two days.<br />
Do I really want to sleep here alone? Snakes? Bugs?<br />
Did some one leave a sleeping bag, blankets?<br />
No food with me, there was rice, pop corn, a pot for cooking.<br />
Left behind,<br />
Another seeker.<br />
Kenge for sure.<br />
Alone, no books, no person,<br />
Me with the forest trees,<br />
Running water.<br />
A rock put on rock,<br />
A sitting, meditation place.<br />
Yes, maybe I am on a spiritual journey,<br />
This is a beginning.<br />
Now what do I do?<br />
Look around, think, wonder,<br />
What am I doing, what do I want, where am I?<br />
Who am I?<br />
Where do I fit into the universal picture?<br />
Questions forever raised by many,<br />
Now in my solitude,<br />
Sharing the wonderment of the ages and the masters.<br />
Coach Ellenboogie, sitting alone, no one here, me and the<br />
Natural world.<br />
“Hey Coach?” I loved hearing Bobby’s voice calling me out of my aloneness, reverie; quitting my attempt at something that was beyond me.<br />
But no, I was in a new becoming.<br />
“What the hell you doing, Coach?”<br />
“I don’t know. Imaging what it would be like to be in a cave.”<br />
“You’re in a cave. When you coming back?”<br />
“Now.”<br />
We sat together, talked, smoked a dubie. Shared ourselves.<br />
When I first met Bobby in Santa Fe, he looked like the<br />
Consummate hippie. Maybe he thought I was.<br />
Short man, with an afro half as large has his head.<br />
A Brooklyn Jew. Who knew? A close brother for life.<br />
Earned a Ph.D in psychology,<br />
Laughing: For studying rats in a maze.<br />
“Come on down to the Community School, you and Trudy,<br />
We need teachers.”<br />
The story was beginning to unfold.<br />
That winter in Santa Fe, someone sent him a thin block of hashish,<br />
Our morning starter before off to school,<br />
To be with the kids.<br />
Even though, we taught, played, were responsible,<br />
We taught the children,<br />
What we were doing seriously.<br />
Rented two houses together in Arroyo Hondo outside of town.<br />
Other teachers moved in with us,<br />
One large house and a smaller cabin.<br />
Phyllis, came along from Ann Arbor,<br />
Became a teacher.<br />
Soon followed by Kenny, Lance, Carol.<br />
I was impressed by their activism for peace,<br />
It was all new to me.<br />
Ann Arbor, the hot bed of counter-culture.<br />
The School was our focal point for binding us together.<br />
We were also the counter-culture.<br />
All the hippies and others,<br />
Brought their kids to that school<br />
Making us the center of many lives.<br />
It was a time of seeking new ways to be.<br />
Thank you and God Bless,<br />
John Kimmey and Charlie Bently, may he rest in peace.<br />
For helping make that School happen.<br />
My Nogo cabin, it was funky rustic,<br />
Everything we built was the same.<br />
I figured it cost about $25. It was perfect.<br />
Till winter came. Forgot all about insulation,<br />
Or there was no money.<br />
Or I didn’t think I needed any,<br />
Being a tough,<br />
Semi-macho hippie.<br />
Froze my cahones off on some of those long cold lonely winter nights<br />
Waiting,<br />
Did a lot of waiting for the sun to join me in the morning.<br />
Finally, those first rays of light,<br />
I’d climb down the ladder,<br />
Go out in the cold to the shitter bucket I had,<br />
In a hole with boards over it,<br />
Right next to the cabin.<br />
Squatted, rinsed my hands and face<br />
With ice cold water from a jar I kept.<br />
Went to get Nadine for milking in the small milking shed we built.<br />
Ken Dubie was my teacher on this one too. Our farm guru.<br />
Carried the milk to the main house,<br />
Strained it,<br />
Set it in the spring box to keep fresh,<br />
Using the night’s before milk for breakfast.<br />
First skimming off the thick cream on top,<br />
Put that in a quart jar,<br />
Shake her up baby,<br />
Soon the whey separated from the cream and yup,<br />
There was butter.<br />
That easy.<br />
Looked at the dishes sometimes left over from the night before meal,<br />
Sitting in dirty water, with ice frozen over on top.<br />
Some nights they just didn’t get done.<br />
Taking out the ice,<br />
Finger tips frozen from the milking,<br />
The warm utters only partially thawing them,<br />
Carrying in the bucket of milk,<br />
Now the ice. Damn.<br />
Why am I doing this?<br />
Fired up the cook stove,<br />
Heated up dish water,<br />
Dumped out the last nights water,<br />
Put on some oatmeal, or millet meal, or mixed up batter for pancakes if we had a bunch of guests.<br />
Learned something about simple natural cooking in them years.<br />
Kept it up forever so far in this life.<br />
Miguel wanted to go to school,<br />
Not Jennie and Robin.<br />
Had to get him some breakfast,<br />
Drive him out to the main road,<br />
By the MacDonalds for the bus.<br />
He’d actually cry and carry on if<br />
It was Nogo on some of them winter mornings,<br />
When the mud and ice were baring our way out.<br />
Or the vehicles wouldn’t start,<br />
Or, sometimes I just didn’t want to do it.<br />
Not often, I honored his decision.<br />
He was a young troubled kid,<br />
My son,<br />
Mixed blood from his mother:<br />
Alcohol and drugs don’t run well,<br />
Through an umbilical cord.<br />
Had anger in him,<br />
Robin was his scapegoat,<br />
Or punching bag.<br />
It troubled me deeply,<br />
35 years later, I’m still troubled,<br />
His difficulty fitting in.<br />
I have mine, he has his.<br />
Doesn’t stop love from flowing to a son.<br />
<br />
THE MAIN HOUSE<br />
It had insulation.<br />
Collectivized use of limited resources.<br />
A big wood stove we all huddled around,<br />
Passing joints.<br />
Hour after hour in the cave room,<br />
Off from the kitchen,<br />
About 12 foot square, dark,<br />
Two small windows,<br />
Our large added on main room,<br />
Still being built that first winter.<br />
“Hey,” someone with sense, speaks over the stoned<br />
Chatter, laughter, music, singing,<br />
“We need to make a wood run.”<br />
I joke, “can’t we get a delivery?”<br />
“Yeah, Coach, you and Janga sit here and wait till you freeze.”<br />
Ten of us pile into the back of the big pick up,<br />
Wait, whose gonna drive?<br />
Some one gets out,<br />
Gets in front.<br />
Same truck we use for manure runs.<br />
Chain saws sharpened,<br />
Lubricating oil,<br />
Axes,<br />
Old fashioned two people saws,<br />
Files,<br />
Rope,<br />
What we needed and we’re off.<br />
A couple of hours of hard work,<br />
Keeping warm moving around,<br />
To keep warm later,<br />
Cook food.<br />
Back to the Dubie Plantation,<br />
Knowing some one would put a meal together.<br />
One team got the wood,<br />
Another does the meal.<br />
Seemed right.<br />
Unload the truck first.<br />
There was no meal ready,<br />
We needed wood for the meal. Dah.<br />
Using a line of people we move the wood from truck,<br />
Hand to hand stacking into the shed.<br />
Save some out for personal stoves;<br />
Most for the main house.<br />
The communal space.<br />
Almost like being downtown,<br />
Being that’s where all the action was.<br />
That 100 year old log cabin.<br />
I laughed more then once,<br />
Standing cooking at the cook stove,<br />
Watching snow flakes come through,<br />
The cracks in the walls.<br />
I guess it wasn’t worth tightening up.<br />
“It’s just snow,” some one said.<br />
“The cold comes right through the one-inch walls anyway.”<br />
Only the cave room was log.<br />
We talked about it anyway,<br />
More than once, twice,<br />
We were smart, some even college educated.<br />
Oh, yeah, we talked,<br />
Passed a joint watching the snow sizzle on the stove,<br />
As the beans and rice and chaptis and rutabaga cooked.<br />
“Rutabaga again?” some one always complained about our main vegetable stored in the root cellar.<br />
When the meal was considered close to being done,<br />
Some one took the conch shell,<br />
Went outside,<br />
Blew it loud and clear,<br />
To bring in the others from their living spaces, or from work projects.<br />
We’d wait ─ gathered together,<br />
Circle up, hold hands, shivering some,<br />
Warmed by looking into eyes across the circle,<br />
Our own eyes in another.<br />
Warmed knowing,<br />
We were experimenting with something,<br />
New and exciting and dynamic.<br />
Yes, Bobby reminds me still, we thought we would be there forever.<br />
Life will just go on like this. Idyllic.<br />
Long chanting, long om,<br />
A few moments of quiet as we felt our<br />
Collective center and oneness.<br />
Smelling the sweet aroma of the waiting feast.<br />
It was always feast no matter what<br />
We were eating.<br />
Janga brought back a large plastic dome,<br />
Aluminum frame.<br />
He must have put the whole thing together himself.<br />
It became our meal place,<br />
Carrying the meal in from the kitchen.<br />
Long tables, sitting on the floor,<br />
Small wood stove in there also.<br />
We knew: Compared to the rest of the world;<br />
To the Viet Nam village just bombed by our brothers,<br />
It was a thankful feast.let the white house knowtag:www.zoobird.com,2009-12-03:2129360:BlogPost:225212009-12-03T19:00:00.000ZSh'mal Ellenberghttps://www.zoobird.com/profile/ShmalEllenberg
Dear Friend,<br />
<br />
Somehow a top official from CropLife -- the powerful chemical industry<br />
trade group that went after Michelle Obama's organic garden -- has been<br />
nominated to serve as America's chief agricultural negotiator for<br />
international trade. If confirmed by the Senate, Isi Siddiqui, who has<br />
spent the last several years of his career fighting various restrictions<br />
and bans on environmentally hazardous pesticides, would bring that<br />
inappropriately aggressive stance on broadening pesticide use to…
Dear Friend,<br />
<br />
Somehow a top official from CropLife -- the powerful chemical industry<br />
trade group that went after Michelle Obama's organic garden -- has been<br />
nominated to serve as America's chief agricultural negotiator for<br />
international trade. If confirmed by the Senate, Isi Siddiqui, who has<br />
spent the last several years of his career fighting various restrictions<br />
and bans on environmentally hazardous pesticides, would bring that<br />
inappropriately aggressive stance on broadening pesticide use to the White<br />
House and influence trade negotiations with Europe and the developing<br />
world.<br />
<br />
I just signed a petition to ask President Obama to drop the nomination of<br />
Isi Siddiqui as chief agricultural negotiator in the Office of the United<br />
States Trade Representative. I hope you will, too. Please have a look and<br />
take action.Teachings of the Sufi Masterstag:www.zoobird.com,2009-11-07:2129360:BlogPost:222132009-11-07T00:29:53.000ZSh'mal Ellenberghttps://www.zoobird.com/profile/ShmalEllenberg
The Teachings of the Sufi Masters<br />
<br />
There must be an acceleration of a shift in consciousness so humans have a greater understanding of each of their roles on this planet. On the material plane there are so many areas of concern that each of us must be aware of. They all can be dealt with if the shift in consciousness takes place along with each of us doing our share in spreading the material plane work along with the cosmic work.<br />
Acknowledging that our breath is a universal breath, connected…
The Teachings of the Sufi Masters<br />
<br />
There must be an acceleration of a shift in consciousness so humans have a greater understanding of each of their roles on this planet. On the material plane there are so many areas of concern that each of us must be aware of. They all can be dealt with if the shift in consciousness takes place along with each of us doing our share in spreading the material plane work along with the cosmic work.<br />
Acknowledging that our breath is a universal breath, connected with all breath in the universe. Breathing in life’s energy not only through our nostrils, but through the pores of our body and sending out renewed energy to the immediate environment as well as far reaching around the planet with each exhalation. We can begin with small practices and expand those practices so we become more and more aware of the gift we have for healing. We have been given a Divine gift to share so all humans can participate evenly with this bounty.more on the Ganja Boogien Bandtag:www.zoobird.com,2009-11-07:2129360:BlogPost:222102009-11-07T00:26:36.000ZSh'mal Ellenberghttps://www.zoobird.com/profile/ShmalEllenberg
NEW MEXICO<br />
A NEW BEGINNING<br />
In the winter of 1970 a group of strangers migrated from cities to the Santa Fe Community School in Santa Fe, New Mexico where this odyssey began. If there can be a beginning for anything that happens in life, since now I know: Life is a smooth if sometimes irregular and uncertain ongoing creation story, from the big bang to this moment. We each brought with something with us that became a part of the whole.<br />
Like a spark of spirit.<br />
A simple spark inside that was being…
NEW MEXICO<br />
A NEW BEGINNING<br />
In the winter of 1970 a group of strangers migrated from cities to the Santa Fe Community School in Santa Fe, New Mexico where this odyssey began. If there can be a beginning for anything that happens in life, since now I know: Life is a smooth if sometimes irregular and uncertain ongoing creation story, from the big bang to this moment. We each brought with something with us that became a part of the whole.<br />
Like a spark of spirit.<br />
A simple spark inside that was being stoked;<br />
A soul seeking joy and freedom.<br />
Hippiedom, was going on in Santa Fe in the 60s. I was brought there by the stories I heard about a cultural revolution going on there. I was especially moved by a picture, on the cover of Look or Life magazine of a bearded man sitting on a mountain peak in a meditative pose. Inside the magazine, was a story of a holy man jam that occurred outside of Santa Fe. A gathering of holy men, yogis, meditation teachers. Something inspired me and I wanted to be part of the happening.<br />
After ten years of Los Angeles,<br />
I had had enough of big city.<br />
I knew something was out of place there,<br />
It was me.<br />
I was turning 30; 1969.<br />
Knew I could be trusted<br />
Even if the younger ones were saying,<br />
“Don’t trust anyone over 30.”<br />
Imagine that.<br />
I didn’t.<br />
Many of us serendipitously came together at the school, drawn to finding a new camaraderie in fellow seekers that eventually took us to Arkansas. John Jordan, (Janga Ganga), Ken Taylor (Ken Dubie) and Lorraine their kids, Jennie and Robin. Phyllis and Carol, Lance, Kenny to become Kenge, all from Ann Arbor, staunch, anti war activists; Robert national SDS leader and his wife Linda, Bobby and Trudy Dubie all from Austin, Donnie and Kathy, their son Aaron from Austin too. Independently, eight of the above were hired to work in this innovative, open classroom style grammar school. We worked cohesively together, with a serious intent of helping create a new style of education. All of us had some background in education, if not in working with young children, than at least getting our own education. I had worked in the Head Start program for three years near Long Beach, California, one year as a head teacher, so naturally, when I came to enroll Miguel, I was hired to work with the younger children. A year later I was voted by the parents to be vice principal a roll I didn’t quit know what to do with. When Bobby came, he and I teamed up working as shop and p.e. teachers. Bobby, from Brooklyn, began to call me “Coach” as we played ball with the kids. That nickname stayed with me through the commune years, and for decades after.<br />
Unbeknownst,<br />
Moved by powers beyond self-understanding,<br />
A synergy of light and love caught us in a web,<br />
Of personal and collective transformation.<br />
No one told us a thing about what was going on,<br />
Because no one knew anything,<br />
But something large was happening.<br />
When the school year was over we were all invited to move out on the land, to Apache Canyon, outside of Santa Fe. There, a man and his wife lived in a teepee with their five children who attended the school. We, the teachers, were invited to join their effort in farming, living together sharing a new dream for America ─ for our collective selves.<br />
The first day I ever saw Apache Canyon,<br />
Remains a standout day for seeing something beyond my dreams.<br />
Standing on the edge of the canyon,<br />
Looking down at the teepee,<br />
The slight meandering stream,<br />
Slowly moving through the narrow canyon,<br />
The garden fenced in from the small herd of goats;<br />
The most idyllic scene I had ever witnessed,<br />
Little did I know, soon I’d be living there.<br />
We had the invitation, but we had to provide our own shelters. A few had tents; Robert and Linda built a tree house, I did the simplest and least expensive thing I could do ─ bought a ten foot square piece of tarpaulin for me and Miguel to sleep under. I staked it to the ground in the back and raised the front with some branches, putting branches, leaves and twigs around the sides to protect us from ─ from what? I had no clue, from anything that wanted in, which certainly would have had no trouble squiggling through my strainer like barrier. I trusted it would be safe as well as dry, since it barely rained in Santa Fe. My first experience living primitively. It all felt natural, easy, right. For all of us ─ a year earlier, living in cities and now living as primitives; maybe there were recessed, genetic memories of being nomads.<br />
Bob Freeman and his wife, settlers of the land, wanted to share their dream of a collective hope. Unfortunately, they couldn’t share or reconcile their own dream together and in a few, brief, summer weeks, they separated and we were left with a red bearded, giant of man, set on being the master of the community. He had meetings weekly, or wanted them, in the teepee, reading the Tarot cards, or maybe reading I Ching, reading what the future was brining to us. Well, for me, only having my first taste of anything spiritual, it didn’t make any sense. And none of us planned on having some one tell us how we were to live our lives. We just wouldn’t have it that way. One day he pulled up all the dubie plants we planted together. He was being told by God, or the tarot cards, not to smoke pot any more. We knew then, we had to be getting on our way. We sat, watching, in stark other worldly amazement, as this righteous madman, bent on carrying out the word, someone’s word, carried the bundle of early harvested plants to a hastily built stone alter for a sacrifice. My previous sacrilegious joke that, “you can’t tell the alters from a pile of stones,” seemed appropriate, because the dubie didn’t burn ─ too green, the alter built too quickly.<br />
It’s not as if we didn’t want to be doing the thing there, like digging a well which only meant two of us going into a ten foot deep hole in the ground and shoveling wet mud into a bucket, while others pulled up the bucket with ropes, emptied it and sent the bucket back down. Sure, I’ll do that, put me at the top of the sign up list. We all had a new of experience doing that. Or making adobe bricks. I had a lot of training doing that in New Jersey and the others, as anti-war activists, it was part of the revolution. We were real good at making adobe bricks. Sometimes, eight or ten of us working all day, making less than a 100 bricks, almost as many at the 80 year old Mexican-American woman made by her self. Well, she wasn’t smoking dope or dancing and singing as she made her bricks. We had our priorities she had hers, yeah, like survival.<br />
When Big Red Beard pulled up the dubies, we figured it was time to get on with our lives. We discussed an alternative life style to this alternative life style. Time for a road trip, maybe buy land in Arkansas, beat the hippie rush to cheap virgin land. But being so certain, we also discussed finding a house to dismantle and rebuild it in Apache Canyon. I volunteered to drive the mountains around Taos which I loved anyway, looking for the rumored house. I left the next day and enjoyed driving aimlessly, asking people I happened to meet on rural dirt roads about a house. When I finally came up with a “maybe” I left, since in back of my mind I was wondering if this is what we really wanted to do, when we didn’t like Big Red Beard.<br />
When I got back to Apache Canyon, I was met with the certainty that everyone agreed to buy the bus, do the road trip and buy land in Arkansas. I was a bit dismayed, since I had just put out this effort, even knowing it may not mean much. I also had fallen in love, again, with Belle, and wanted to see her more, but with no pressure, I was asked, “are you on the bus or off?” Naturally I had Miguel to consider. I had my VW van which I had driven from Los Angels. I wasn’t sure, but decided on the road trip across country.<br />
But before we left, it was touchy with us being around Big Red Beard. There was some antagonism towards him in how he ran off his wife and kids, or how they ran off to get away from him. We were also angry at him for the dubie being pulled up and for wanting to be in charge. One afternoon, as we sat with him discussing the issues, our talk became heated and Kenge, 20 years old and slight build, stood up to the Beard, right in his face, and it almost became violent as Big Red Beard grabbed Kenge, but soon released him.<br />
Well, it was his place, although he didn’t own the land, but he had put a lot of time and energy into creating an almost ideal farm environment and we were learning from him, but didn’t want to be taking orders from anyone really. It didn’t take much to pull up our make-shift shelters, well, especially mine. We bought an old school bus, fixed it up and for a month we traveled across country, to return to New Mexico for the fall semester at the school, before leaving in the spring for Arkansas where land had been purchased by two couples, who split off from the caravan on their mission to Arkansas. They did good ─ forty acres for $4,000. Seemed like a good deal.<br />
Our caravan was a magical mystery trip ala Ken Kensy’s “Cool Aide Acid Trip,” in fact some one said the bus we bought had been his. We weren’t nearly that far out, but something was moving through us and we didn’t want to chicken out.<br />
Colorado was special, traveling through the enchanted Rocky Mountains. I remember being so surprised seeing hippies living in the most unassuming small villages. Why surprised, when in New Mexico, ex-city folks were living the same; small adobe houses throughout those desolate, dry, but pristine, mountains. Yeah, even under a piece of tarp in an isolated canyon.<br />
One night our caravan pulled over on the side of the road in order to cook spaghetti. I remember the menu. There was a rain storm; it was good time to stop. A dozen of us in the bus, our two other vehicles parked in front. One of the women, Phyllis, I believe, became concerned that there was a car in back of us with a few men standing in the rain outside their car. Maybe because I was the oldest, or “Coach,” or because I had a son with us, I got off the bus and went to see what they wanted. Soon, I was joined by Janga wearing his serape. In no uncertain words they told us they didn’t want any more hippies around, since some had burned down a barn where they were squatting. I explained, “we’re only cooking a meal and then we’ll be gone.” “No, you’re not going to cook the meal,” they told us, “leave now.” Since it wasn’t up for discussion and we didn’t entertain any confrontation, we took the spaghts off the stove, drove about ten miles to a state park. Seemed like a safe move.<br />
The next afternoon some of us went to town for supplies. When we returned to the camp we were followed by the same boys that ran us off the night before. Except now there were more. They got out of two cars, stood in the rear of the bus. Waiting. Since I had talked with them the night before and was the oldest, not by much, I followed through and went to the back door of the school bus and squatted down on the edge of the bus, and began my peace talk telling them what we were about. Soon after I began my pow wow, the Gange Boogie Band, my live back-up, lived up to its name, struck up some music. Janga could play the guitar and sing good ole country and western songs leading the others helping ease the tension of our confronters. Maybe they were curious, because soon they were less fearful, wanting to know more. I kept talking. Before long, some wine was offered to us, we in turn shared some of the early harvested dubie and a party ensued, with them feeling safe, getting the hint we were just having a good time, now assured, knowing we were soon on our way. They even drove to town to get more wine. As we danced I noticed a gun stuck in back of the man’s pants I had my conversation with. They were prepared ─ fortunately, kind words, maybe divine, since I didn’t know what I had to say; words just came through. Words worked better then confrontation which we had no inkling for anyway, although there were rifles on the bus.<br />
For those that came from anti war city protests, guns were part of the revolution more as a defense, against Texans or right wing supporters of the war. The few men who were interested every once in a while, did some target shooting; a bit of hunting. I have imprinted in my memory of Donnie and Bobby coming back to main house in Nogo, carrying frogs over their shoulders like big game hunter. Maybe it was my imagination, but I sensed, in their walk, a feeling of pride in having hunted successfully. Frogs? really boys. I never shot a gun. My father never did. It’s something.<br />
Colorado must have had its fill of hippies as rip-offs.<br />
We weren’t beyond that.<br />
In Santa Fe, I remember shoplifting some food,<br />
With food stamps in my pocket.<br />
We all did.<br />
I got over both quickly.<br />
Liberating goods for the common good was acceptable.<br />
A weak part of something revolutionary.<br />
In a small mountain town in Colorado, a grocery store, the proprietor knew what to expect from hippies and had a sign on the door:<br />
ONLY TWO HIPPIES AT A TIME.<br />
Naturally we all got off the bus,<br />
Walked in.<br />
Before long the sheriff showed up to escort us out.<br />
Men in tee shirts and worn jeans,<br />
Women in long printed skirts,<br />
Was a giveaway.<br />
We discussed paying more attention to our attire if confronted with this social discrimination in the future. I doubt if we ever followed through.<br />
We were paying for most of the trip with a credit card that was Lance’s. I assured him there was no debtors prison and we could use it and use it, till we couldn’t anymore. I’m not sure where in me that came from, but I had an anti-establishment mentality for many years. When I graduated from college a few years earlier, a gas company sent me a credit card. I mentally thanked them and I did the same as with Lances card, using it till it was taken away. We stayed in hotels, ate in their dinning rooms, paid for our gas. Once when we left a hotel in South Dakota, some one took two pillows, thinking they were ours since we had slept on them, or it was simply a gratuity from a hotel. Pillows, towels, wash rags, soap, weren’t they standard souvenirs for the guests? The hotel management didn’t think so and must have called the police who put out an all points bulletin, because the next day, while getting gas, a cop comes on the bus, no warrant, no judges order, taking the law into his own hands, and confiscates the pillows. Just came on the bus and took it. Imagine that; but not the too early harvested weed. That seemed fair to us considering the consequences if he had searched the bus. As bad as that weed was though, none one complained. Pillow for weed. Keep the weed, enjoy yourselves.<br />
In the fall we all returned to Santa Fe renting cabins in Tesuque, a small village outside of town, to teach again at the community school till early spring before going to Nogo. Bobby and Trudy were expecting their baby Sadie, Robert and Linda expecting their child. To get with the program, I continued to fall madly in love with Belle and moved in with her who was also pregnant. I had written to her once, a bit of a love note, since we really hadn’t spent any time together, except a casual date or two, but it seemed like we were both ready for a partner and she being pregnant could use the help and liked connected with our budding tribe.<br />
I had driven on to New Jersey where Miguel spent sometime with my parents and then drove back to Santa Fe on our own I had no clue where Miguel and I would be living. I went to see a women friend to be welcomed back to Santa Fe. We slept together. Like I said ─ something about eating Oreo cookies. The next night I was falling in love with Belle. This early love in my life was a disaster. We lived together that winter, me helping her through her pregnancy with Cybelle, who was the unclaimed daughter of a beat poet.<br />
That past school year the poet came to the Santa Fe Community School with friend Allen Ginsburg to do a reading to help raise money for the school. One afternoon, I happened to be alone in the school, when this man came storming into the school. He stared at me, maybe sizing me up, then pointed at me, asking me if I knew Belle. When I told him I knew her, her daughter Tasha was a student in the school, he in no uncertain terms told me to take care of her. Insisting that I do that. Well, at the time she was only one of the many school parents to me, although her beauty and aura had my attention for a while. Since he seemed like a bit of a madman I didn’t pay a whole lot of attention to him, but later on, whatever the course of human events are, I began to pay more attention to her, she to me, and such is life. But it didn’t work out. When our tribe, we were becoming a tribe, came together, she didn’t quite fit into our totally hippie world, being of another socio-economic class and couldn’t imagine moving with us to Nogo. Maybe she didn’t love me. Such is life. I say that simply, but in reality, in my heart, it totally devastated me that she didn’t want to continue our relationship. Well, later on I found out she was sharing herself with others, while I was totally moonstruck. I did enjoy helping her through her pregnancy and the birthing of Cybelle, who was the first of eight births I’ve witnessed.<br />
There was nothing that officially declared Santa Fe, or New Mexico itself, a “spiritual” gathering place, maybe Mecca, but things went on there that were out of the range of ordinary. And in looking deeper into the mystery of things, maybe because of the history of that region especially in regard to the Native American’s, there was something there that attracted seekers. The Native American’s had for centuries made this uninviting region, home. For centuries. They had many spiritual practices that attracted the youth of our country who were seeking greater understanding of life beyond the material plane that our cultural given us. In the 60s and early 70s many thousands of young seekers were coming to New Mexico, with Santa Fe being the hub where many people stopped off to see what was going on. Of course, Taos long an artists and seekers community, had the same experience, it was also the focal place of communes. I felt a it privilege, yes it was such, to have the opportunity to visit many of thecomune on a few occasions. In my impressionable mind, it was a mind altering experience to see people living collectively in the adobe houses under the harsh winter and summer conditions.<br />
The summer before, while still living in Apache Canyon a few of us piled into my VW van and drove around Taos, stopping in the hot springs, that were a common spot for the young to enjoy.<br />
One small spring was off the road,<br />
A walk up the hillside,<br />
There it was,<br />
Like a birthday surprise,<br />
Set in amongst hillside rock,<br />
Two or three small pools of hot water,<br />
Coming out of mountain rock.<br />
While in that pool we met a man, who called himself, Ulysses S. Grant, a pseudonym for a hippie who wanted to run for governor. At that time he was part of a commune and challenged us to play softball against his commune. We hadn’t adopted our Arkansas names, and were then, “The Right Life Way Baseball Team,” with me as “The Coach.” Right \life Way came to us through Big Red Beard, Bob Freeman, whose real name by the way was Bob Tricky. We all agreed it might be fun to go out and see what that commune was like, play a game, roast corn that he said was in the field waiting to be harvested. We went and beat them with me playing third base and putting the tag on ole Ulysses who would have been the winning run. Bobby used to love to relate that story, especially after what transpired.<br />
After the game he invited us for a corn feast. He took us out to a field where we picked away. There were only a few people around the commune and we wondered and asked where everyone was; whose corn was it? Who planted it? but Ulysses he didn’t have much to tell us. As we sat around the fire eating corn, a drunk Mexican-American came riding in on horseback, and begins yelling at Ulysses, cursing him, calling him names for having run off the other members of the commune. When he got off the horse he pulled a knife on Ulysses, right in front of us and we’re witnessing something we weren’t expecting. I mean, we’re,hanging, just eating someone else’s corn, that to tell truth was very sweet, but I wondered where were those who planted it. None of Ulysses few friends wanted to help, but finally someone gave him some rope and he managed to hog tie the Chicano. We left. Later on ole Ulysses, was wanted for two or three brutal murders around the area. So, much for commune peace and love.<br />
A digression here about my first commune experience.<br />
We made our way up to Taos where we spent a day and night at the Lama Foundation, then famous for the place where Ram Das wrote “Be Here Now,” not long before our visit. We all felt proud being able to buy the brown box that held the three part book, later put into one book, that became the spiritual guide, as he has become, for 10s of thousands, in the last 40 years. We were impressed by the flavor of their spiritual effort in making that place something special and could see on the material level they were accomplishing much. The Lama Foundation has continued for over four decades offering many spiritual workshops.<br />
Father George Hurd, ex-hippie turned priest, showered joy, gifts and guidance to many in Santa Fe. He set up a place, El Centro, for displaced hippies to have a room, get meals, pray together holding hands before eating. I had never experienced that before. My Jewish birth family didn’t say a prayer before eating, nor did we hold hand much. Father George did a lot of good for many with about 10-15 rooms for the lost and disenfranchised to sleep for a night or so. I found it a good place to hang out sometimes, meet travelers, help others with the little bit I knew about the area.<br />
<br />
PEYOTE MEETINGS WITH NATIVE AMERICANS<br />
Two times, our school community was honored to be invited to Native American Church Peyote Meetings. In both instances it was to pray for where we were: the first to help the Santa Fe Community School to carry on its mission, the other for Bob Freeman (Tricky) and his Apache Canyon community.<br />
It was an unexpected honor to be the guests of Native American elders and Roadman, as the leader of the meetings were called. I suppose the term “Roadman” is given for the help that person gives to the participants in making their way on the road of life. I found the meetings were a powerful healing medicine.<br />
After living in Los Angeles for 10 years I carried a lot of pain from a five year relationship with Miguel’s mother, Barbara; pain for her two abortions, her almost dying, her alcoholism, her too many children, being too poor. Peyote, new to me in a setting with Native American’s leading a meeting, drinking the tea, doing the prayer, playing the prayer drum, praying for Barbara, feeling something I never felt before for her, her pain, my pain, the anguished unleashing of to many unshed, locked in tears for Barbara’s pain, aborted children’s pain, her born children’s pain. As I broke down in a torrent of tears, The Roadman, threw sage or other herbs on the fire, stood waving a feather over the all night ongoing fire, moving healing smoke onto me. All night long there is prayer going on, prayers for all of us there, for the Santa Fe Community School, for the U.S. government, for the President, that we all will be led by the One God to know what is right. I was thankful to Father-Mother-Peyote and the NativeGanja Boogie Band More storiestag:www.zoobird.com,2009-09-29:2129360:BlogPost:210922009-09-29T02:28:46.000ZSh'mal Ellenberghttps://www.zoobird.com/profile/ShmalEllenberg
THE AUSTIN WOMEN<br />
Then “The Women” came. Some of us knew them from Austin. Not me, they weren’t my friends, but they were coming.<br />
A collective of lesbians,<br />
Came in pairs,<br />
Small groups,<br />
Left, came again.<br />
We helped them look for their own land,<br />
Bottom land, down by a river, beautiful place,<br />
With very difficult access. They bought it ─ I think,<br />
Who can remember?<br />
But never lived there.<br />
In the meantime they were there,<br />
With us,<br />
But on their own.<br />
Really there, living in the “monks cabin.”<br />
An old log…
THE AUSTIN WOMEN<br />
Then “The Women” came. Some of us knew them from Austin. Not me, they weren’t my friends, but they were coming.<br />
A collective of lesbians,<br />
Came in pairs,<br />
Small groups,<br />
Left, came again.<br />
We helped them look for their own land,<br />
Bottom land, down by a river, beautiful place,<br />
With very difficult access. They bought it ─ I think,<br />
Who can remember?<br />
But never lived there.<br />
In the meantime they were there,<br />
With us,<br />
But on their own.<br />
Really there, living in the “monks cabin.”<br />
An old log cabin barn, we had rebuilt Lincoln logs style, numbering each log so we knew where to fit them together. I wasn’t part of all that, my back was out and I wasn’t lifting, squatting, bending, working. Pete, Lance, Kenny, Bobby worked on removing the logs, loading the logs, moving them to the farm and bringing them to the site to do the rebuilding. I had to swallow my pride in not participating in that venture, which was reminiscent, like a lot of what we were doing, of times past. Yes, as I remind readers, that was it, we were trying to be throwbacks to the old ways. We felt we missed something and were regaining the past, but it was in our present, 1973. I don’t know if we could have made it if it was 1873, since the government didn’t issue food stamp.<br />
It wasn’t the monks cabin all the time. One night visitors from the Dreamers stayed in the loft, fucking next to me. I couldn’t very well interrupt them in the midst of coitus, ask them to take their orgasm into the woods. They didn’t ask anyone if they could fuck in the monks bunk, hippies were accustomed too fucking spontaneously, it happened all the time. Some one said it was like eating Oreo cookies, pop one in your mouth and another. Is this a clear picture? People are lonely, unhappy, lost, seeking, and here at the GBF we were going to help people find themselves, unless of course they were literally lost in the woods, which happened many times. We lost track after a while of adventurous visitors who went trekking into the woods to find themselves and got lost. We never heard from them again, till maybe they sent a post card or something from their hometown, having arrived there after spending days in the national forest, trying to find them selves, but coming out safely in another area never returning for more of our hospitality.<br />
I love the Dreamer folks, over 30 years later we’re still connected.<br />
We admitted, during one of our endless marathon meetings, that we couldn’t be everything to everyone who came to us for refuge, even if they were refuse, from the outside world, or even their own inner world. We discussed regularly about how to treat the visitors; “put them to work in the garden, send them for manure, let them see what the real world is like on the Dubie Plantation. We’re not just a bunch of lay-a-round the farm hillbilly hippies, we work and they will too.” And from now on, guests have to bring their own pot and beer.” That was agreed upon, but like most of what we agreed upon, it didn’t have to be carried out to the letter. We were learning to be flexible. If some one, even one of the most enmeshed members said they were going to be ready at a certain time for the garden, or building something or a town trip, it didn’t have to mean anything if they didn’t show up. No one had watches, and the sun wasn’t always reliable, especially with the two time a year changing of the clocks. After a while we did have a sun dial near the garden, but a lot of us couldn’t figure it out, even after Bobby Dubie the designer of the ancient time piece called a special meeting to indicate which direction we had to face to read it. Of course some wise guy, probably a visitor, wanted to know what to do if it was cloudy. I think Bobby ran him off.<br />
“I forgot,” was also an acceptable excuse for not showing up or doing what some one said they would do. I used to use that with my mother and it probably carried over into my early 30s, others were in their 20s, so they had even a better excuse for forgetting what they were going to do. Stuff got done though. I saw it happen before my eyes. In fact I took on many projects on my own, building this shed, or that wall, a chicken coop, and usually, before long, I was asked to take it down since it didn’t meet the standards of the community. This may be a surprise that we had standards. I didn’t, but others to my surprise did. Actually I did also, they were just lower than the others, so I adjusted, felt hurt, rejected, but carried on and did what the majority decided, benefiting by sticking with a job others assigned me to.<br />
One of more my memorable trips out from the farm was going to pick peaches from an abandoned peace orchard. One of our friends from Russelville turned us on to this orchard that belonged to the family of someone and we were free to pick as much as we wanted. We had long discussions about how many of us should go, what time to leave, what we needed to put the peaches in, gas money, what to do with the peaches when we brought them back, canning was the smartest, getting ball jars; there would be a canning crew. So, anyone can see, we weren’t just sitting around stoned, but had visions for the greater good, but it took concentration, agreements, acceptance of the other as almost yourself. Like good worker bees we agreed to leave at 7:00 a.m. after Nadine was milked; 8 pickers were to meet. Some were ready at 7:00, others showed up to explain what else had to be done before we left, including getting our lunch together. Lunch for 8 took some getting together. We didn’t understand why we had forgotten about the lunch the night before in our planning meeting. Some had suggested we just each peaches all day; we knew we could eat peaches all day, but some wanted more. Isn’t that just like people who have had everything they wanted all their lives and now having peaches, delicious, juicy ripe, large red and yellow organic peaches, some of us wanted more, like rice, vegies; so we put something together from the last nights meal, loaded the baskets for the peaches in, loaded the stoned in, and were off and running by 9:00 a.m.<br />
Back to “The Women.” I use quotation marks because, well, they were “The Women.” Eventually we had to have the serious talk about “The Women,” and the challenge they brought to us. For the most part we liked them, or maybe accepted them. Or didn’t accept them or even like them. They had been friends in Austin, of some ones of us, and were standoffish a bit, wanting their own place, taking food from the main house back to the monks cabin; some of them didn’t want to mix at all with majority of our community, the men, and I really can’t say how the women of the farm related to them. At some point the questioned was raised: How do we get rid of them? Mostly it was a men’s discussion since we were no longer in the monks cabin, and consequently, couldn’t be monks any more. I was back in my cabin, which I had temporarily abandoned not for monk hood, but due to a severe back problem, considered crippled, told to take break. A collective admonition I finally abided by. Ok, now the back was better, I was over my monk hood. Didn’t like it anyway, although my new spiritual teachings were having an effect one.<br />
“The Women,” we argued with ourselves, don’t even come to the main house for meals, they’re living here, took over part of our accommodations, but aren’t a part of what’s going on. Well, we have to be supportive of them. They’re friends from Austin, part of the movement against oppression, for revolution, sexual liberation. Accepting their lesbianism wasn’t such a stretch since we were accepting so much that was new to our culture. Women’s liberation; I was totally supportive. We all knew what the male machismo psyche had done to our planet, maybe women will do better. So are they allowed to oppress us? They say they won’t be here long; they have a plan to buy horses and ride back to Texas. Get outta here, horses? That’s what they told me personally when I volunteered to go down to their quarters, which used to be ours, to talk with, not to them, about their plans. So, for a few weeks we watched, waited, as they spent money they could have bought food for the “whole” community, but instead we now had horses grazing in our front yard, or was it the back yard. After the first year we lost track of which was which. Finally, one spring afternoon, we all stood there, in one of our yards, looking in amazement, six women on horses, saddle bags, sleeping roles, food, maybe a gun or two, who knew. They could have been something from a “Rawhide” episode that was never allowed on television. We waved them good-bye, not good riddance, we were too hippie for that, but no one complained. They made it, part of the way by horse truck, from the Texas-Arkansas border where they couldn’t cross on horseback, because of an old law on the books that if a woman crosses into Texas on horseback they have to ball the boarder guard and that was not happening; no way. Some sympathetic trucker, hoping for good luck, they were females after all, took them across without getting any.<br />
One afternoon I sat in meditative wonderment on a hillside of Claudie MacDonald’s looking out over the low ranging mountains. I was close to Claudies cow barn where we shoveled our first manure for our crops. There we were joyfully shoveling away when Claudie came out to watch us appreciating that he didn’t have to clean it out himself. After watching for a while with a questioning smile, he finally had to speak up pointing out that we were shoveling Arkansas red clay and not the well rotted manure. He told us how much he revered the red clay, but it wasn’t going to help our crops, showing us the difference between clay and manure. We were good students, committed to our endeavor; soon we became the best, most sought after, shit-shovelers in the county, actually, in two counties, being near the country line. Yes in deed, we had a reputation that makes a man proud. Scores of loads were gratefully shoveled onto the big truck. Have Truck – Will Shovel; we’d travel, sometimes close to Russelville, that’s thirty miles, but we much preferred to get the fertilizer from farms on the mountain. Not only was it closer to home, but we became more beholden to the local farmers. And they to us, getting messages of the appreciation the locals had for us that were sent our way when visitors stopped and asked for directions to our place.<br />
We became experts in assessing animal manure, by color, smell, texture, accessibility, preferring after all, old rotted cow, where we could pull the truck in close to the source and shovel away. We did go into some chicken houses if that was the only stuff available when we needed some, but after a few trips to those ten thousand layer factory farm houses, we stopped, seeing too many sick and tumored hens laying around. And once, only once, an old pig farm where the pigs were penned in small barely able to move crates one stacked on top of the other; their stuff was liquidy yuck, the piggies probably having diarrhea being nervous wrecks penned up like that for life. Something about the karma of pig shit also turned some of us off, especially the Jews, not that the chicken shit we shoveled came from kosher killed chicken, but we had to set standards. I remember though looking into the eyes of Claudies cattle one afternoon, seeing the sadness right there in front of me, and I knew that they knew about their future and wondered if any manure is good karma.<br />
One time we went out to clean a cow barn that wasn’t very accessible, but we had checked it out and it was good composted shit. We had to fill a wheelbarrow, run the wheelbarrow up a board going up the back end of the truck, dump it and bring the wheelbarrow back down in into the barn. I went along, even though I was unable to work due to my bad back, but wanted to share the experience. While we (they) were shoveling away, with me watching, feigning supervision, the farm man came by to share with us the plight of his Ms Piggy whose piglets were stuck coming down the birth canal. Interesting, looking for help from mostly vegetarian hippies. Well, since I was just watching the shoveling, I told him I’d go have a look with him, after all I thought, I had seen two human birthing at that point. I figured that maybe my coming along had been for some other purpose. Like a divine appointment. Providence calling or something, or me just looking for another trippy experience. I followed him to where Ms Piggy was laying uncomfortably near the pig barn. I asked him what I could do. “Well,” he hesitated, once of twice, “sometimes we put our arm up there, you know where I’m talking about” he pointed to her vagina, “and try and extricate the one blocking the birth.” Well, yeah, sure, that’s what I thought you do. I hesitated too, but didn’t want to disappoint him, and have him spread rumors about hippies being shy of pig vagina. But first I respectfully asked Ms Piggy if she would allow me to help. She turned her head as much as she could, looked over her shoulder at me, and sort of winked, woman to man-like, giving me the, its okay look. I then rolled up my sleeve, left arm of course, my wiping hand, and reached in, up to my wrist, to my elbow, upper arm, way up inside Ms Piggy, who didn’t seem to mind, but in vain, I couldn’t reach far enough. I suggested a long pig extractor to the farmer, apologized and went back to what I knew better: shit shoveling supervision. A few days later the farm man came by to tell us that all the piglets came down fine thanking me for maybe loosening that one piglet up enough for them to all come down. Now, how about that? Unfortunately, he lost his sow. He kindly invited us over for a roast which we graciously declined.<br />
Sitting on that hillside of Claudies, I looked out in amazement, over those endless, glorious, foothills of the Ozarks. Something in me felt I had always been there and always would. A real feeling, a sense of belonging, like the hills were me, that I was them. Maybe my first large cosmic like experience of being one with all. What was that in me, in any of us, drawn to and trying this impossible dream? Something very basic I suppose, now in retrospect: living the good life. One had the feeling we were coming alive in a new way, living an ancient inbred genetic past, following the trek that humanity had been going on for eons, till villages turned into towns, towns into cities, cities into megopolices and people lost themselves in the materiality of culture. Lost the deep part of inner spirit, that which has always been, but the malls and things were beginning to take precedence over that which was abiding.<br />
Something was happening to thousands of young people, in the late 60s and 70s, all over the country yearning for that thing that was lost and was itching to be reborn in our collective unconsciousness. It’s been said that that generation, using psychedelics, needed a something of a material nature to open up a forgotten part our spiritual and ancestral heritage. We were weaned into a material culture and needed a thing, sugar cubes, clear light, window pane, to bring us to new spiritual awareness.<br />
Some of us allowed a spirituality to grow;<br />
Others hid behind themselves.<br />
Maybe inside.<br />
It came alive in me,<br />
Never died,<br />
Grew beyond who I was,<br />
Still, today, over 40 years later,<br />
Spirituality dominates this life of mine.<br />
Maybe it was living in the bible belt of this country of ours that helped. The locals invited us to their church meetings right away. The first weeks on the Plantation a formal invitation. I choose to stay at the farm as everyone else went to the Sunday service. All alone, surrounded by the forest, the fields not yet plowed, the shelters not yet built, the music not yet played, the lovers not yet lain with, wondering, “here I am now what will I become?” I chose to find something in me that wasn’t there ever before. I said my first prayers of thankfulness for bringing me to that place so that I may know more then I have known. As my brothers and sisters were praying in that local church, I was doing my praying in a way that was comfortable to me.<br />
Over time we attended many Sunday covered dishes at the local churches; some of us sang in the churches. One night we toked up and went to the local high school gym for an event. We were the featured entertainment; fifteen of us, walking out onto the basketball court to sing country spiritual songs we used to sing regularly in the main house. I wonder if anyone ever took that picture.<br />
The spirit grew in us because of our separation from the world we knew. That unknown thing inside was given space to be revealed. A library of spiritual books began to show up brought by one traveler or another. Right off, in the beginning we held hands and chanted prayers before eating.<br />
That first time,<br />
I remember so clearly,<br />
Holding hands in front of the main house,<br />
The dubie plants in the center.<br />
Uncomfortable with praying anything,<br />
We danced in a circle;<br />
Sang ring-a-round-the-rosey,<br />
Laughing uncertain at our selves,<br />
Uncertain of what we were trying to be.<br />
In time 10, 20, 30, sometimes 50 of us were holding hands,<br />
Chanting Hindu, Indian, hippie, prayers,<br />
Looking across the circle into eyes that were our own,<br />
Embedding, etched;<br />
Ourselves in each other;<br />
Creating a new brother-sisterhood.<br />
Maybe a new Humanhood.<br />
I knew when we left New Mexico,<br />
I knew for sure,<br />
We were beating the hippie rush to Arkansas.<br />
$4000 for forty acres.<br />
Couldn’t beat that with a stick.<br />
After a while, we began to get visitors who were looking for land. There was a bunch that came from Michigan, mostly educated, another bunch from New Orleans, roughnecks, working on the oil rigs, some deep sea divers. We were their guides and helpers in getting things going. We had experience. We initiated full moon work parties, going over to their places and working for the day then boogieing down for the evening, with food, music, sharing. We helped dig up gardens, chopped out roots, helped put up large army tent for the Michigan gang.<br />
Although the boys from New Orleans weren’t even close to people I had ever known I took a liking to them and one night went over to spend a couple of days with them. They appreciated our camaraderie. I enjoyed their different kind of way, but we all drank beer, smoked dubie, talked, shared. Not much different then our way, except they were the real macho guys, we were only faking it. They threw in logs onto their big fire place that were as big as my waist, which heated an old log cabin built with logs also wider than my torso. I tried to imagine how those pioneers ever got those logs in place. Ropes and pulley systems some suggested. An odd thing happened my night there, standing by the fire place with another man, drinking wine. I had this weird thought of him throwing his empty glass in the fire place. I asked myself what kind of thought that was, when impulsively, he threw his glass into the fire place. I realized at that moment that thoughts can travel, weren’t only my own; I had to be careful what I thought. Or did he think it first? No coincidence: the non-locality of mind.The Ganga Boogie Bandtag:www.zoobird.com,2009-08-19:2129360:BlogPost:201632009-08-19T03:00:26.000ZSh'mal Ellenberghttps://www.zoobird.com/profile/ShmalEllenberg
GANJA BOOGIE BAND<br />
<br />
<br />
I was driving my VW van, my seven year old son, Miguel, in the back, as our small, slow moving caravan of school bus, VW beetle and truck, labored up the dusty, dirt, Brown Mountain road to Nogo, Arkansas after a circuitous route, from Santa Fe, New Mexico to Austin, where others joined us to commence our adventure. This was the early contingent of sixteen hippies going to live on 40 acres on the edge of the national forest.<br />
I remember questioning, wondering, my uncertainty…
GANJA BOOGIE BAND<br />
<br />
<br />
I was driving my VW van, my seven year old son, Miguel, in the back, as our small, slow moving caravan of school bus, VW beetle and truck, labored up the dusty, dirt, Brown Mountain road to Nogo, Arkansas after a circuitous route, from Santa Fe, New Mexico to Austin, where others joined us to commence our adventure. This was the early contingent of sixteen hippies going to live on 40 acres on the edge of the national forest.<br />
I remember questioning, wondering, my uncertainty about our venture, more than once, asking myself, “what am doing?” It wasn’t just about me, I was bringing my son to something radically outrageous; to an experiment in life, an adventure to which I had no clue, and neither did any one else, as to how we would be living, or what was waiting for us.<br />
I don’t remember if we ever talked about money. I barely had any. There was some kind of trust going on that was moving this along, so, why question what was happening. Did it make any sense? Was it logical? No. Maybe someone assured me that someone amongst the 16 pioneers had money. Was it dangerous with a seven year old son? Danger never crossed my mind. I admit now, there might have been a tinge of fear in me, of this unknown, more than I ever felt before, but also, conversely, a trust of following something, that was calling. The trust obviously was taking precedence.<br />
If others had doubts, it was never expressed. Those last few miles up Brown Mountain, though, maybe were a telling, as the school bus kept overheating and we had to keep stopping so Janga, driver-mechanic, exquisite genius hippie, kept stopping, putting black pepper in the radiator, to stop up the leak. I wasn’t sure; I wondered about black pepper? Was he making soup in the radiator and was going to surprise us?<br />
There were two other children about Miguel’s age, Robin and Jennie, children of Ken and Loreen. These kids also went to the Santa Fe Community School where this odyssey had its genesis. Miguel would have friends.<br />
We were given a blessed gift that first day. Our closest neighbors, two miles from our farm, was MacDonald family. We had to drive on their driveway about fifty feet to get on the road to our place. We were a bit surprised when Claudie and his wife Loreen invited us all into their home, welcoming and letting us know his family was accepting us. The few of us who had bought the property, a year ago, had met the MacDonald’s and had already developed a relationship. They were a trusting, loving people welcoming us the way they did.<br />
From the very beginning, on our day of arrival, we were an odd mixture renouncing city living, fitting no description of anyone seen in those Ozark Mountains till that day. Although, maybe, we reminded some on that mountain of days long gone by when folks were making moonshine and hiding from the revenuers. We later on found out this was real live hillybilly country and many had no affection for the government or its rules. I give that MacDonald family a halo and points wherever those points are collected. And I have to say they may have been a bit more sophisticated than others on the mountain.<br />
Claudie, his wife and two sons, were always friendly, helping us with many of our challenges, including giving us a heads-up, when, after we were there for a year or so, the FBI began checking our mail. Over time the feds spent a lot of money checking on us to make sure we weren’t some kind of radical fringe group with revolutionary intentions. Well, fuckin a, excuse the slang, that we were─but without violence in our intentions and damn certain about our revolutionary intentions, at least there on the mountain. What we were doing, or going to be doing, was revolutionary, that I knew for sure and it was exciting; building all the time.<br />
The MacDonald’s were Arkansas hill folk; Claudie was a lumber man, hauling logs out of the forest. That first day I had a hard time knowing how to relate, but as we sat chatting, feeling comfortable with their welcoming hospitality, looking for something to say, I casually asked, “where’d the name Nogo come from?” He and his wife looked at each other, laughed a bit, and said, “you’ll find out in the winter when it rains, freezes, thaws a time or two, and the Arkansas red clay turns to deep mud. Basically, there is “Nogo, anyplace.”<br />
We all liked that, nogo anyplace. Coming out of urban living we wanted to see what it was like living in the woods and not having agendas that drove the majority culture.<br />
After a bit of time, we thanked them for their hospitality and drove down the road, anxious with anticipation to see what would be our home. The road was far and away the worst road I have ever been on, before and since, but it was passable, at least that day. There was only one building on our property; a 100 year old very worn out, log cabin to begin our adventure. I didn’t have any expectations; knowing there’d be no vinyl covered double wide, but seeing that log cabin sitting alone on the edge of a few acres field, initially left me a bit disappointed. Although I had no expectations, it wasn’t what I expected. The plot, the house, the land around, had been described to us from those who bought the land, but maybe I wasn’t entirely paying attention. I figured, if friends all felt good and right, that was enough for me. It looked stark, barren like something was missing. Maybe that was us. Almost immediately though, I dropped any misgivings that lurked in my mind, knowing I had to be firm and strong for what was ahead.<br />
That first night most slept in the cabin, a few on the bus, Miguel and me in the VW camper which belonged to my girl friend, Belle, from that past winter, who let me temporarily borrow it for this venture, while she remained living in Santa Fe. Actually, she was my expectation, that she would come and join us. That was one of my great disappointments when she didn’t.<br />
It was the beginning of April; we thought Spring was Spring, but not in the foothills of the Ozarks, still with a bit of winter, surprising us with a light snow that first morning. I enjoyed looking out the window of the camper and seeing the snow, a bit uncertain what we would do. Lance knew enough to gather wood and build an outdoor fire that we huddled around trying to keep warm as we cooked our first pot of oatmeal. That morning was one of scores of future mornings, when we ate oatmeal. In time, many of us accustomed ourselves to oatmeal, since sometimes our afternoon lunch was refried oatmeal with soy sauce, and occasionally, in the evening, refried-refried oatmeal, with soy sauce, onions and garlic. We learned to be creative with our oatmeal when food was scarce. Some of our folks, decades later, still won’t eat oatmeal.<br />
Later that first day I remember some of us hanging out on the school bus trying to keep warm in numbers, all of us taking turns going in and out of the log cabin trying to make it more homey, which consisted mainly of cleaning up the messes that had been left behind by decades of being used as a cabin during hunting season.<br />
The cold weather lasted a few days, with even a bit more snow that week, but soon, the spring sun began to shine and we were beginning to feel at home and trying to be ourselves, or find ourselves, or know ourselves. So much so, that one afternoon, when the sun was warming us up, Kenny and Lance had on skirts. I had to take a double take. It wasn’t my eyes: They were wearing skirts. I realized then and there we had no dress code. With a smile I mused to myself: “are they both gay? Does it matter to me?” I didn’t believe so, they were both my friends. A few months later when the summer sun began to percolate down on us, some of us reverted to less clothing the better. I was though taken aback a bit when I saw one of the woman walking out of the cabin wearing nothing but a leather belt with a knife in a sheath hanging off her hip. I wondered if she had seen that outfit in a movie or if that’s the way the dressed in West Texas where she and Ken came from, married as high school sweethearts. I wasn’t sure if the knife was for protection, or for utility purposes, but didn’t ask. It just looked odd, but then again —we were quickly going to accustom ourselves to living in the odd.<br />
As the summer heat pressed on, I adopted my own hot weather wear: a brown towel around my waist to above my knees held up with a cloth belt; wore it for two years, in warm weather. Made myself a pair of sandals cut from tire tubes, held on by cord strung through the sides, tied around my ankle. When I suggested sending a picture of me to Men’s Quarterly to help start a trend in simplified clothing for communes, the idea was turned down by our Committee on Commune Privacy. I complied, but thought the simplicity I was seeking might even be adopted in other settings. For me, my summer brown towel, was an acceptance of something of a primitive nature that had come to me, as maybe it had to many. I graduated college a few years previously, worked in L.A. for a few years as a social worker, and now, only a towel. More on our dress wear later on. We were an odd bunch.<br />
I can’t say for sure how any of this story unfolded. We know things happen in the universe; from the creative first atom, to the big bang, to the whole expanding material plane—as best as one can, you try and make your self a part of that happening. Collectively we were an energy with a cause from beyond; trying to be in the now.<br />
It was one of those first days that something in me felt we, I, had to begin our gardening: “Hey, Ken Dubie, it’s springtime, how do you plant potatoes.?” “Come on Coach, let’s go dig up some of the field and get ready to plant taters.”<br />
I don’t know where the gardening thing was bred in me, maybe having Miguel with me I figured I needed to do something productive, like try and provide food. Till the previous summer in New Mexico I had never gardened, but I got the gardening bug and gardened for the two years I was in Nogo, and ever after, till right now. It is one of my passions in life. As I got into gardening more and more during our time there, I realized it was similar to raising or working with children. It reminded me of the year I worked with kids in a Head Start program near Long Beach, California. Taking and caring for the plants and kid all required the same diligence and love. I fell in love with the earth, how it produced when cared for properly, and over the years have been diligent in my gardening.<br />
Ken and I went out to the five-acre field carrying our shovels; found a place he thought would be good and began digging. We didn’t get too far since the clayey soil was impossibly hard to break with shovels; we even tried a pick ax. It was still cold, dreary, and we weren’t sure what we were doing anyway, so left and found a fire someplace to get warm. I don’t know if we ever planted potatoes that spring, but eventually, we had a neighbor man, break up the sod for us with a tractor, so we could begin serious gardening.<br />
In order to get things going we needed everything. Our first meetings were forced upon us by this necessity. We had to discuss what we needed to begin. Supplies for everything. For many weeks, we took turns going to town, once, twice a week trips to Russelville, about 30 miles away, past Hector, with just a store or two, one filling station at the foot of Brown Mountain.<br />
Let there be light. We did need light, after all there was no electricity back there in the forest. Kerosene lanterns, kerosene, tools, nails, food, wood stoves, building supplies, chickens, a milk cow we named Nadine, buckets for milking and hauling water from the spring. Those town trips, and town lists were, in the beginning, endless. We all did our share in helping make things happen. I still don’t know from whose pockets that initial money was coming out of. But I am gracious and thankful.<br />
We fixed up the log cabin as the main collective house, while over the next six months some of us began building our own places, some simple shelters around the five-acre field, to be our vegetable garden, while others, put their shelters off in the woods. The vegetable garden became for me and a few others, a strong focus of time and energy in the community. Growing food: it was after all basic to life; if we were going to make any attempt at self-sufficiency, growing our own was part of that commitment. Whatever else in us that wanted to play, be free and unencumbered by societal convention, there was also something else that we intuitively knew, that growing food was a serious part of our lives. Not everyone took to this in the same way and at times it became a conflict as to how we were each participating in the experiment. But a few were committed; we loved our synergy together; loved each other. Sometimes after a gardening meeting, mostly led by Eloise, Kenny and Lance, me trying to learn from them, others sharing, as we walked out to the garden to do work we had just discussed, I felt so overjoyed with enthusiasm to be part of what was going on, I literally wanted to do cartwheels. But I couldn’t, never did, and will go through life never having done a cartwheel. I probably should have asked Eloise. Maybe I felt silly, a bit childish, wanting to do a cartwheel. Actually doing a cartwheel would have been the fulfillment of a life long dream.NATIVE HIPPIE WHEATtag:www.zoobird.com,2009-08-08:2129360:BlogPost:197812009-08-08T18:42:20.000ZSh'mal Ellenberghttps://www.zoobird.com/profile/ShmalEllenberg
NATIVE HIPPIE WHEAT<br />
By<br />
Sh’mal Ellenberg<br />
<br />
<br />
“Grow wheat?<br />
Kenge, what do you mean, grow wheat?”<br />
<br />
“We can grow wheat,” he tells me. “I know we can grow wheat.”<br />
Lance and Kenge were confident, convincing,<br />
While I wondered, “What do they know?”<br />
<br />
To plant: we ordered 100 pounds of organic wheat from the co-op.<br />
<br />
Till it comes,<br />
In the meantime,<br />
We will prepare.<br />
<br />
We organized a six person shit shoveling team.<br />
Early one morning, put together some food,<br />
Rolled a few Js,<br />
Pitch forks, shovels, wheelbarrow on…
NATIVE HIPPIE WHEAT<br />
By<br />
Sh’mal Ellenberg<br />
<br />
<br />
“Grow wheat?<br />
Kenge, what do you mean, grow wheat?”<br />
<br />
“We can grow wheat,” he tells me. “I know we can grow wheat.”<br />
Lance and Kenge were confident, convincing,<br />
While I wondered, “What do they know?”<br />
<br />
To plant: we ordered 100 pounds of organic wheat from the co-op.<br />
<br />
Till it comes,<br />
In the meantime,<br />
We will prepare.<br />
<br />
We organized a six person shit shoveling team.<br />
Early one morning, put together some food,<br />
Rolled a few Js,<br />
Pitch forks, shovels, wheelbarrow on the back of the truck.<br />
Mentally prepped, psyched for the ride down the winding, dirt, Brown Mountain Road, to the barns 10, 15 miles from Nogo.<br />
A long way to go for shit.<br />
It’s what we loved to do. A basic to life;<br />
Connecting us with the universal.<br />
<br />
Imagine getting excited about cleaning out old cow horse pig chicken barns. No wait, to be honest,<br />
we had our standards; pig shit way down low on the most wanted list. Chicken, potent for the garden was bad karma coming from those oppressive, hormonized, chicken houses.<br />
<br />
We’ll make many trips down Brown Mountain,<br />
Filling our really huge ass truck.<br />
“How many loads will it take,” we wonder to each other?<br />
“Till the field is covered.”<br />
<br />
It was hard work. We loved it, had a good time, shovel, shovel, shovel. Dubie break, lunch break, shovel some more. Dubie break. Snack time, more shoveling, dubie break.<br />
We loved them dubie breaks as the day gets more tired.<br />
<br />
We had our load,<br />
Laughing, tired, still stoned,<br />
Sweaty, dirty.<br />
Sun going down now. Sitting on the load looking up at the early evening colorful Arkansas Ozark Sky, the road dust flying up behind us as we slowly made our way back up the mountain to the Ganja Boogie Farm.<br />
<br />
It was being in love with everything and everyone.<br />
Life was fruitful,<br />
We were thankful.<br />
<br />
As anticipated, brothers and sisters waiting with a meal,<br />
The shovelers first go down to the spring box to “throw off.” Cold pails of water pumped into buckets; you do me, I’ll do you and we sort of get clean for our gracious meal.<br />
<br />
A circle, holding hands, chanting, smiling, looking into eyes forever etched in memory.<br />
<br />
Early next morning the truck is driven slowly across the field as those on the back broadcast manure on the field.<br />
Then back down the mountain for another, still another, we’re committed, more to come, till the field is covered.<br />
<br />
Scott up on the tractor tilling it in, breaking clods real good, working in the manure to be manna.<br />
<br />
Eloise, Garden Crew Earth Mother, gets out the Almanac,<br />
We talk planting, the time is right.<br />
<br />
Ten of us, line up across the field, ten feet between us, carrying bags filled with the scooped out seed.<br />
Chanting, yelling, singing, laughing, we move across the field, broadcasting seed.<br />
This is beyond life, but is real, I see us doing it.<br />
We are fucking doing it. Sowing grain.<br />
Joining history, maybe eternity.<br />
<br />
The field gets covered,<br />
Someone’s up on the tractor, lightly discing in the seed.<br />
<br />
That night, elated, tired, refreshed from being cleansed at the spring box.<br />
Everyone excited, meal done, dishes washed with wood stove heated water,<br />
Kerosene lamps lit,<br />
The drums come out, the beat begins,<br />
Dancing, singing, chanting, praying.<br />
The sound reverberates through the night,<br />
Up and down the hollars.<br />
<br />
This night we’re asking rain to come our way for the wheat.<br />
We’re gonna grow wheat. We are serious. Damn we are.<br />
Look what we have done.<br />
<br />
The rains come, we give thanks, soon the seeds sprout,<br />
The Winter Ozark Sun Shines, more rains come,<br />
Soon, light snow covers the emerging Winter Wheat Seedlings,<br />
Melts, warm rains return,<br />
Soon the field turns a new color,<br />
Becoming a field of green lushness,<br />
Our eyes take in a new vertical dimension as the stalks get higher,<br />
Upright and stronger. It’s joyous. It’s all looking good.<br />
<br />
Walking to my cabin I make a path through the field. It feels cosmic, part of something, again, beyond self.<br />
<br />
A few months more and wheat heads are forming on the top of the stalks. Almost hard to believe, I jump and down, in lieu of cartwheels.<br />
Pick off a few Kernels,<br />
I’m dumbfounded,<br />
It looks like a Wheat Kernel.<br />
I bite into it, yeah, it’s Wheat, soft, not ready to harvest, but according to Kenge and Lance they are getting ready as the heads get drier in the late Spring Sun.<br />
<br />
I wonder: how do they know these things? I don’t ask. My trust is beyond questions. It all runs deep. So far they’ve been right.<br />
We each know something about something. Actually, they read it in a book.<br />
<br />
Soon it is announced at a meal: The Wheat is ready for cutting.<br />
It’s gonna take all 20 of us for the harvest.<br />
We gather cycles, machetes, a scythe, anything that’ll cut.<br />
<br />
We stand together looking at the field.<br />
No ones quite sure what to do.<br />
Finally, awkwardly, Lance moves into the field cutting Wheat Stalks.<br />
Others follow.<br />
<br />
Others come behind picking up the cut Stalks.<br />
<br />
Soon a rhythm develops, like playing the drums at night.<br />
<br />
I can’t believe what I’m experiencing. We look like a communist revolution. We are a communist revolution.<br />
<br />
The right amount of Stalks are tied together in Sheaths.<br />
Then we’re stacking them up against each other in Shocks for drying, to be cured in the warm to come Summer Sun.<br />
<br />
We’re really doing it. Every step is miraculous.<br />
Like an energy beyond the parts is making it happen.<br />
<br />
It’s work we never knew about. Like living in a National Geographic Magazine. We’re being native. Native hippie. We’re something new that has never been before. Not in our time or place. A collective distant memory of what has been and is now regained.<br />
Was it always in us, born with us, or retrieved anew?<br />
We don’t know, don’t question, something is happening.<br />
<br />
The crew was 20 or so, now days later, still at it, down to the die hard garden regulars, sticking with it to the end,<br />
Finishing up the field.<br />
<br />
We stand back now and take a look.<br />
Hold hands,<br />
Give thanks,<br />
Looking at the Stacked Sheaths in Round Shocks on the edge of the cut field.<br />
<br />
It’s about as thrilling as life can get.<br />
<br />
But wait, there’s more.<br />
The fruits of labor.<br />
<br />
How long do we let it dry and cure?<br />
Till it’s ready; a few weeks.<br />
<br />
What about rain? Don’t worry, it’ll dry.<br />
The Sheaths laid on top protect the rest.<br />
Kenge knows, he built a thatch wikki up,<br />
Half way down the hollar by the Magical Waterfall.<br />
<br />
Okay, someone suggests it’s time. They’re dry. How do they know?<br />
I go out and check the Kernels, yeah, their hard, just like we get from the co-op. Damn, this is working.<br />
<br />
Again, like National Geographic.<br />
Take the Sheaths, put them on a tarp, bang them with sticks.<br />
Gotta get the Kernels off the Stalk and then the Hulls off the Kernels.<br />
In my everyday brown towel wrapped around my waist,<br />
I feel like primitive man. Maybe I am.<br />
<br />
Is this really how they do it?<br />
Yeah, man, look, it’s happening.<br />
Look again, it is happening.<br />
<br />
I feel the thrill of it all,<br />
Throwing the Kernels into the breeze winnowing away the Hulls.<br />
Whew! We have left real live Wheat Kernels. Almost the end product.<br />
<br />
I put them in the Corona hand grinding mill,<br />
Turn it hard with powerful arms,<br />
See more of the miracle,<br />
The Grain becomes what was intended: Flour.<br />
Incredible.<br />
<br />
Now I go ahead, following through with all this.<br />
I pump up some Spring Water,<br />
Mix it into the Flour,<br />
Add a bit of oil.<br />
<br />
Right there in my hands,<br />
Like making love to the whole universe.<br />
<br />
I can feel the energy of the collective effort:<br />
Of Brother’s and Sister’s,<br />
Of the Earth,<br />
Of the Elements,<br />
Of the Cosmos.<br />
Of the Divine Creator.<br />
<br />
I roll out the Dough, making a Chapatti.<br />
Lay it so gently on the wood stove grill.<br />
Not too hot.<br />
A simple Chapatti.<br />
<br />
Now, can you imagine eating that?<br />
<br />
At that moment, taking a bite, a whole New Human Being was born.ALONEtag:www.zoobird.com,2009-06-11:2129360:BlogPost:181012009-06-11T20:40:36.000ZSh'mal Ellenberghttps://www.zoobird.com/profile/ShmalEllenberg
Bob Sh’mal Ellenberg<br />
11319 8th Ave. NE #106<br />
Seattle, Wa. 98125<br />
shmal8@yahoo.com<br />
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ALONE<br />
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There was a time in my life when nothing stopped me from being with any woman who was willing to give herself to me. It was gratifying to be self-indulging. Something to do with, “As we have received, so shall we share.” I wanted to be as high on that feeling of giving as well as being on the receiving end. I tried to make it all fair.<br />
I didn’t know I had this quality in me that women would…
Bob Sh’mal Ellenberg<br />
11319 8th Ave. NE #106<br />
Seattle, Wa. 98125<br />
shmal8@yahoo.com<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
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ALONE<br />
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There was a time in my life when nothing stopped me from being with any woman who was willing to give herself to me. It was gratifying to be self-indulging. Something to do with, “As we have received, so shall we share.” I wanted to be as high on that feeling of giving as well as being on the receiving end. I tried to make it all fair.<br />
I didn’t know I had this quality in me that women would enjoy sharing, but once I let myself out of the bag I had put myself in, I didn’t want to close it again. I knew I wouldn’t go on indefinitely, nothing does, everything changes, but for the time being it was something that drew me into itself, into a world I had never known.<br />
I knew about womanizing, vicariously, earlier in my life, watching other men operate, and felt a lack in myself not being able to make that grade. Some how later in life it came upon me. It felt delicious being with different women.<br />
The kisses, touches, feelings, orgasms, tears, screams, passions all were something that I seemed to have been longing for most of my life. I was careful about the feelings of the women, and always tried to make it clear that I was on an odyssey of experience; wasn’t sure about commitment. It wasn’t easy for some, but I found others who were out for the same. Don’t ask if it was all lust and pleasure seeking. I might have to agree that I was confused with what was love and what was lust, but some thing in me was seeking intimacy. I admit–that the final act was usually something I was longing for; enjoying the passing of time with one or another in order to get into the bedroom and relish what I was seeking.<br />
Is that what they call a rake, womanizer? Don Juan shit? What can I say? I didn’t want to be taking advantage of anyone, and some wanted more of me than I was able to give, and some, less of me than what I wanted of them. I apologize to the former, many times, sorry for coming on so strong with my will for giving and receiving. Some were angry, one laughed, one cried and when I became carried away with one, asking her to marry me, she told me, “I just want to have sex with you.” Acceptance was part of the odyssey.<br />
My fucking had become at art of sorts, at least in my mind, and I was enjoying all the pleasure my body was able to soak up and give up. There was a new sense of self, which claimed me. In addition, I admit, a detachment from my state of mind that didn’t want to look at who and what I had become. Denial, a friend told me, was one of the strongest defense mechanisms.<br />
I finally began to look at what I was doing, realizing I wasn’t bringing into their lives the highest degree of love that I wanted to be giving to others. I also knew deep inside that I didn’t want to hurt anyone; if I was, than I was way off course and needed to straighten out my direction.<br />
It wasn’t easy. Once an action is in motion it is carried on by<br />
itself. I had to take charge of myself and took a look at what I was<br />
doing. I admitted there was a protective guard that didn’t allow me<br />
to look deeply into what I was doing and to those I was doing it to.<br />
All this went on for a few years until an awakening came about. I knew nothing was permanent, my sexual odyssey ended and I was able to move on.<br />
From this amazing high of sexual partying, drinking and some drugging, there was a natural downward spiral into a depression. I knew it was coming. I could feel it over my shoulder looking at me. Maybe it was death, or a guardian angel telling me to get off the merry-go-round, or you will spiral out of control. I was out of control. I didn’t want to let go though until I exhausted what it was in me that needed completion, and at some point I maxed out my life with others and hedonism; there was a saturation.<br />
I also didn’t want to go back to another time I remembered from my youth: that of loneliness. I was much different now, older, experienced, and was able to drop the feeling of loneliness. Many years earlier, I promised myself never to feel that again. What I needed was aloneness. I used women to help me overcome feeling of being lonely, now I wanted something near by, but different. It was like wanting to be with a part of me that was hard to be with, but now I was able to deal with myself in being alone.<br />
I don’t know for sure what I gained from those pleasure seeing, dissipative years, but I was ready to deal with me alone.<br />
It was an experiment with life and I was making myself the subject.<br />
Fortunately, I didn’t have to work since I was blessed with a small inheritance from my father’s brother who didn’t have any children and saw me as his own. This money carried me during the time of my, what should I call it, play therapy. Hedonism, dissipation, words that make me out to be other than who I believe I am, but it is what I was doing, so I faced my faults. Faults: Another word I don’t like in describing myself, but that’s what’s coming out of me so it has some relevance. Were they all faults, me wanting to experience life from a new slant? Was I using the women for my own experimentation in life? I never considered that was what I was doing.<br />
In looking closely at myself, I had to see what was motivating me. I knew what I did with women had gone on forever with humankind and something in my male genetic code programmed me to that experience. Not an excuse, life is here, and we are each a part of the whole.<br />
That’s it. I wanted, needed, to experience different parts of my whole, because that is who I am.<br />
Then I stopped all I was doing. Phone messages came in from some of the women I had dated and loved. To a few, those I felt closer to, I returned their messages, many I just couldn’t. The ones I called back, they heard in my voice I wasn’t the man they remembered so our conversations didn’t go on long. I said little, listened as they told me about their lives. When they asked about me, I was non-committal, evasive, generic, sidestepping direct answers, giving them nothing to hold onto about whom they had known. I was empty. My voice reflected that hollowness. I heard it. They did too, so after two calls, none ever called a third time, most never twice. A couple wanted to know if it was them, if I was seeing someone, why I changed so. The only answer was the true one: I was taking time for myself to find myself.<br />
Introspection became my way: I knew the path of life was riddled with many turns; I had made a wide one, allowing myself to stay in it for as long as I needed. I knew what I was doing wasn’t psychologically healthy, but I was into it, into myself and not having to depend on anyone for anything. I told myself, “the hell with psychology,” it never made any sense to me anyway. I have to follow my way and it has nothing to do with what preceded me into this moment of life. I was living as best I could in the present.<br />
<br />
I needed to make a break and a change.<br />
<br />
At first I mostly I sat in the park smiling, watching the birds flying in and out of trees, back and forth to nests. The squirrels too. Soon, though I began making popcorn at home filling a small bag and sat feeding the park animals. They’d gather around as if I was their mother, many I began to distinguish as regulars, somehow differentiating one squirrel or bird from another; seeing slight differences in color, size, even expressions. I know it sounds unlikely, but after a while it was obvious to me, some even came and sat on the bench with me. I thought of St. Francis of Assisi.<br />
I didn’t want to be attracting anyone to me, but before long people began to arrive. The popcorn became snack time. Because I looked homeless, other homeless came and sat, offered me sips from bottles out of their pockets that I refused, but didn’t mind sharing the popcorn. I was forced to make more. After while, seeing the interest, or maybe the need in the popped corn, I began to fill a large shopping bag then two bags, knowing that the more I had the more people I’d draw to me. They, the homeless, the birds, the squirrels were without, so it was the least I could do. It took time making so much, filling the shopping bags, but what is life if we don’t follow what is moving us, appreciating that time was a gift given to me.<br />
I didn’t intentionally want to group the humans with the park critters, but in truth, they all were the same to me. A hologram of life blended into this one living organism. I’d sit with the bags as this march of beings came around wanting popcorn. It was this blend of life into one holographic, interbeing picture, not distinguishing anything being separate from anything else. Me included. The animals got to know me as closely as the humans and after while as I walked into the park I could to feel the swarm of life forms coming around me. Ants too. I know it’s a hard to believe, but I sat at the same bench all the time, and as soon as I sat, the ants came around waiting for popcorn droppings. I began to scatter some for them as well.<br />
It became weird beyond what I had anticipated of only giving to the birds and squirrels, but soon my bench would have five, six people squeezed into it, when three or four was comfortable. Some carried over another bench and put it adjacent to the one I used. Soon, another bench and more birds and ants all around us. What had begun as simple act, turned into a park circus. It was likes attracting likes: Jugglers who frequented the park, unicycle riders, a fire eater, clowns, a sword swallower, musicians found the atmosphere a perfect place to display their talents; large bubble makers, all of which attracted mothers and nannies and aunties, with carriages and toddlers who passed close by, stopped to see what was going on, skate boarders, roller bladers. Even when the popcorn was long gone, this section of the park became like a day event. Other vendors cashed in on the new scene in the park: ice cream, Italian ices, balloons, kit flyers, artists doing portraits, pickpockets, panhandlers, drug dealers.<br />
Very few people knew why they were there, except there was this festive happening and they wanted to be part of it.<br />
It didn’t take long for me to realize that it all snowballed out of my control by forces beyond what I understood. I watched, as thousands of ants were squished by people, and soon, the birds and squirrels left when it became more than they wanted.<br />
I soon realized I couldn’t deal with environment I helped create either and after two weeks of the circus atmosphere I stopped going to that area and sat across the park watching the festivities, with only a small bag of popcorn as I had begun. My new bench was behind some bushes–I could observe but not be seen so easily.<br />
I was thankful I didn’t have to work. I was blessed, maybe chosen, knowing that it was a gift, from my uncle, my father, their immigrant parents, from a greater power I didn’t understand, and this gift needed to be handled properly so others would benefit. I tried– popcorn<br />
Neither what I had been doing previously in my life, nor what I was currently doing gave me an answer. The word “balance” kept popping up, like kernels of corn, inside of my thought process. It was undeniable in my mind that an opportunity was given to me to find that balance and do something of meaning.<br />
I didn’t have any answers when these thoughts came to mind and again I began looking for something to climb under or into. Part of me wanted to hide. My reality self knew that was impossible and thankfully, my self-preservation instinct took charge and I never did anything outrageous. The challenge seemed too severe for one who had no claim on doing or being, but going to jail was not an alternative; keeping close to reality was maintained best as possible.<br />
I read an article about a man who went into the underground tunnels in New York City to do a documentary on people living down under and ended living there for a couple of years after he completed his documentary. He found that way of life was liveable. I read about men, women too, living homeless in the woods on the outskirts of communities. I laughed to myself, realizing I even knew many in the park. Many had chosen this way of life because they saw society fucked anyway, and didn’t want to, or know how to be part of it.<br />
Most of us recognize that we need some kind of autonomy in life. To be ourselves–not be shackled by the mundane yoke the world of work puts on us. Most give it up in order to be responsible, acceptable and agreeable, to fit in where we believe we belong. Mostly becoming a conditioned reflex to life.<br />
There were others though, I see them around me all the time, wounded in life from personal traumas or those upon the world. They end up not caring what happens, so they give it up, living as best they can off the streets, out of dumpsters, panhandling, flying a sign, day labor, making it anyway they can without having their lives caught up in humdrum.<br />
Being fortunate as a low-level heir, I was saved from giving up my life entirely to the streets. Being close by, near the edge, flirting with total disregard for anything I knew about a “decent” way of living. However I was living, it is what was happening. I also recognized, I didn’t have to change anything. Life was comfortable. It may not sound like it was, but having lived 50 years in the world, I knew comfort compared to how I saw others.<br />
Sitting on the park bench, away from the small park throng, which had dispersed itself in time, I found very satisfying. Something in me felt akin to the wild free life of the squirrels and birds and yes, the homeless. Sitting and watching, eyes open, but not particularly seeing, but taking in everything without judging, evaluating, assessing; a neutral observer of life was suiting my nature. Is this the way to spend a lifetime? It didn’t have to be lifetime; it was for the now, although the “now,” I understood was all there was. So, this I accepted, surrendered to, it was what I was doing with this moment of eternity.<br />
I considered, that this man, me, was under no obligation to do any more then what was happening in the moment. The bench was comfortable, my clothes were warm as winter approached, my apartment, although more like a cave, was enough, food was plentiful when one, being blessed, had money.<br />
The park was a daily part of my life. With that came the homeless who didn’t take long to find my new bench with the birds and squirrels. I became familiar with a few, although did my best to not get any more friendly then necessary in passing out some popcorn. I also didn’t bring any more than a brown paper sandwich bag, which I folded, put away, to be reused. More than one wanted to know why I wasn’t making more, as I had done previously. Part of me felt I didn’t owe any explanation since it was only my business; another part of me knew some of them didn’t get regular meals and the afternoon snack I provided for those few weeks, until it turned into a happening, was more then welcome. Since some felt I was one of them, at least partially so, looking the part, and for me, actually feeling it, they felt I was being disloyal, not caring, and being stoned or drunk, whatever explanation I gave went no where.<br />
Then one day: “Hey mon,” one outspoken, dreadlocked Jamaican man belittled, “you don’t care about us, feeding the fookin birds and shit, but not people. Who are you mon, what you about? You one of us or not?”<br />
I had already given explanations to others, and was getting irritated at the insistence that I make popcorn for the hungry of the park. I didn’t want to be rude. He heard my explanation earlier in the afternoon, when others sat around asking for popcorn. Now he was standing in front of me, maybe his nerve strengthened by alcohol, wavering back and forth as if he might fall on top of me or backward. I didn’t feel I needed to tell him anything again. I looked away from him. Looked back, “I don’t have any more.”<br />
“Make more mon, you can make more, we poor and hungry,” he raised his voice a couple of octaves, which got the attention of passer-bys, who had their mind distracted from where they were going as happens in the park. To those pushing strollers or walking with toddlers, any little diversion seemed welcome from their day to day life, although, being protective, his raised voice only produced a turned head, as they continued on, stopping a way off to see what was happening. So even his one-line, caught their attention for the potential of a park event.<br />
Two teenagers on skateboards stopped and stood right next to my inquisitor, unabashed, like they were part of the issue.<br />
“Hey man, you’re the dude who gave out the popcorn and started that park party over there,” turning and pointing across the field.<br />
“How come you don’t have the big shopping bag any more? That was pretty cool.”<br />
I was alone, on the bench, expected to relate, looking at the three of them. Did I need to say anything?<br />
“Yeah, mon what’s up with you and that shit. You start a feeding program and then take it away. You like the fookin government.”<br />
A guy without legs, about my age, came by on one of those small boards with rollers under it. He had a long beard, almost to his chest; wore blocks of wood strapped on his knuckles for pushing himself. He stopped alongside the skate boarders, who called him, Slide. “What’s up boys, this old man giving any trouble. I saw him the other day only feeding the squirrels and wondered how come he wasn’t taking care of the hungry people.” His voice was very deep and gravely. I could see scars and stitches where he had surgery on his throat. I quickly wondered if he was a Viet Nam victim, while I was in Canada for ten years. The thought came to me: I could be him if life was different. I felt something sad for him.<br />
Something deep inside of me was feeling compelled to explain myself, another part of me didn’t owe anyone anything. I tried to stand up. The Rastafarian, or whoever he was, put a finger to my chest. “Whoa cuz, we askin something! You too good to talk with us?”<br />
I sat back down. “No man,” I finally answered. I’m tired of this. I just come to the park to feed the birds and squirrels and everyone all of a sudden thinks I’m a feeding program. It ain’t that way.”<br />
“Where’s the big fuckin bag man,” Slide putting in his two?<br />
“That big fuckin bag started that whole fuckin party across the way. That’s not why I came to the park. I told this shit to you people for the past week. What more do ya want to know?” As my words came out I knew I should have been cooler.<br />
Slide jumped right on it. “You people, you people,” his gravely voice was harsh, angry. It didn’t take much to incite some one in the park. “Who you talkin about: you people? Little guys without legs with fucked up voices? You talking about me man?”<br />
I sat looking at them, uncertain why this was happening; what it was going to turn into. Rasta man was six feet, thin, wiry strong, stood still right in front of me with his legs spread. The alcohol smell sprayed out of his mouth when he talked; he was feeling confident with support around him.<br />
“Hey young brother,” he said to one of the white boys holding their skateboards, “let me hold your skateboard, in case I have to whack this sucker in the head.”<br />
Both kids reflexively pulled their boards away just a bit, but Rasta man instinctively reached fast, grabbed one and the kid let go. Rasta held the board in both hands in front of him. Than he began raising it in the air a bit with his right hand, hitting the other large, open palmed hand, with it, like some one does with a bat before they are about to use it on some one’s head.<br />
Damn, I knew I had to do something. Only one thing to do: “Okay, guys, tomorrow I bring the big bag of popcorn. In fact, I’ll bring two big bags.”<br />
Slide scooted a bit closer to my knees. “How we know you gonna do this cuz? You could cut outa here and we never see your sorry ass again. We like the way you make popcorn. How we know you comin back with two bags?”<br />
“I’m telling you. I did it before and I’ll do it again. I liked doing it until it turned into a fuckin circus. That’s when I came over here. Look, this is more out of the way. I didn’t think it’d attract so much attention. I’m a private guy. You know what I mean, I didn’t want a lot of people around me. It got crazy. Too much for me. I got my own problems.” I was talking fast, feeling some panic, fear, uncertain what was going to happen.<br />
“I just wanted to feed the animals and a few people, but it got out of hand. You know what I mean? Look, I’m in the park too. Everyday. I’ll be here tomorrow.” I wanted to stand up, but Slide was still at my knees and Rasta man towering above him and me, still threatening, holding the board.<br />
“Hey,” one of the kids interrupted, “I don’t care one way of the other. Gimme my fucking board back, man. I think he’ll be here tomorrow. Maybe he’ll bring three bags, I don’t give a shit. Hey Scamp, let’s get out of here. This is weird over popcorn.” He reached for the skateboard, but Rasta pulled it back, away from the stretched out hand.<br />
“Whoa, young rollerboard man. You trust this sucker? How come you trust him? Whacha know about this dude?”<br />
“Nothing. I don’t know nothing about him.” There was irritation in the kids voice. “And I don’t give a shit. You guys work it out with him. Give me back my fuckin board, you don’t need it to do what you want to him.”<br />
Rasta man looked at the kid, looked back at me. He looked down at Slide, his only compatriot. “What you think Slide? Should we trust this white sucka to bring us our food tomorrow?”<br />
Slide backed away from me a couple of feet and leaned his head back up at Rasta. “I don’t like this guy, man, didn’t like what he said about me and my people. Give the kid his fuckin board, you and me follow this dude to his crib so we know where to find him if he don’t show up.”<br />
“Hey Slide, you thinking now. Here kid get the fuck outta here. You white and eat good, not like us. We need the popcorn.” Rasta handed the kid his board and the two of them didn’t wait a second before they rolled away, one calling over his shoulder, “asshole.”<br />
Rasta turned back to me: “Okay, man get up and take us to where you stay. If it looks better then the shelter you may have a couple of guests.”<br />
I slowly stood and began to walk. I didn’t say anything. Slide went in front, Rasta and me a little behind. I sort of felt I was being marched, guarded, so that I couldn’t escape.<br />
Popcorn? I kept asking myself: Is this over popcorn? How do things happen this way? Damn, I thought to myself, I’m never going to take them to my apartment. I lived about ten blocks from the park. We had to cross a lot of streets. I knew, or thought I could outrun Rasta, and Slide, well, he was what he was.<br />
The streets were pretty heavy with traffic and I was judging when to make my move; to break across the street just before a long line of cars. I wasn’t sure if Rasta man would go after me alone and leave Slide at the curb, or if Slide would try and scoot across the street after me, which would be stupid. The light in our direction turned red for us to stop. We all stayed close together at the curb, Rasta holding onto my arm. His grip was loose, I guess thinking I wasn’t going to try anything, or the alcohol was taking charge. When I saw a long line of cars, three abreast, coming down the street, I pulled my arm away from Rasta, and bolted across the street. Some of the cars were pretty close and had to stop short. I didn’t look back right away to see what happened, but I heard the scream then crashing of cars. When I was across the street, still running I turned my head and saw Slide’s paddle board skidding down the street. I kept on running.<br />
I jogged most of the way home, looking over my shoulder at each corner. When I got into my apartment I slumped into a stuffed chair and slowed my breathing, exhausted and dumbfounded. All I could think about was what might have happened to Slide. Damn, it was my fault. It didn’t seem to fit: Like Buddha, not wanting to hurt anyone, my actions, or non-action, may have killed Slide. I thought if I had kept bringing the popcorn, none of this would have occurred. Or, if I stayed going out with women, but no, I knew I needed something else. But not this. I wondered if I was selfish in stopping the feeding program, retreating from the happening around the benches where it all started giving out the snacks. I thought how I didn’t want any of that anyway; just feeding my pets; now confused, tired, scared and unsure what would be next. I said some prayers for Slide for Rasta man too: what the hell. I had to move out of the neighborhood, maybe out of the city, reconsider what I was about, up to, and what I should do with my life. Finally sleep took over.<br />
Waking up my immediate thought was Slide; right away I again said a prayer out loud for him, apologizing for what I had done, knowing it wasn’t all on me. It was his energy and mine, Rasta too, popcorn, the bench, the park, all of it, coming together at that moment in that place may have done him in. A karma thing. He didn’t have to get into it with me. Popcorn? He was killed over popcorn. Maybe he wasn’t killed. I didn’t understand life or what makes thing happen the way they do. I knew God was playing this out as with everything. Everything happens for a reason. Maybe for him it was his time, and for me, maybe there was a message behind all this. I had to look and seek.<br />
I knew I had time. No one from the park knew where I lived, but I resolved that the next day I’d take my pack and move out. I’d cut and shave my beard, cut my hair, get some clean clothes. I didn’t want to go back to what I had been doing with myself, but something in me knew that I was only playing another role in life that still wasn’t who I was. I was irritated at myself for being myself and unable to fit in like a normal man. I thought of the businessmen all over New York City with their dark, pressed, suits wearing ties that were to me like a hanging noose. I thought about being raised to be that; what was it in me that rebelled against that way. I argued with myself about why I couldn’t just give into that and not have this life long pursuit of needing to know. It was conflictual. All life was a conflict, but within that, I knew, I knew, something was deeper, meaningful. Something in me wanted to find out what that was.<br />
I decided I’d take a bus to Santa Fe New Mexico. I always loved the pictures of that part of the country. There was something about the mountains, desert, high altitude, long views, adobe houses, that fascinated me, but I was never close to anything place like that. I wanted to find something out about me and that environment seemed a perfect place. I heard about the mountains there and mysterious mystical forces at work. I wondered if they would be any different than giving out popcorn in the park.criss crossed circuitstag:www.zoobird.com,2009-05-22:2129360:BlogPost:176412009-05-22T18:47:51.000ZSh'mal Ellenberghttps://www.zoobird.com/profile/ShmalEllenberg
CRISS CROSSED CIRCUITS<br />
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My brain. My poor brain. Why is it suffering so? What’s been going on inside of it now that they have opened it up and done something to it to keep it working? Damn, how am I supposed to keep going when they do all these weird things to it? It’s keeping me alive; but what’s the point? I have to go anyway, but they felt they had to do what they were trained to do; cutting into it and then cutting again into it. I know I’m fading, fading away, deeper and deeper into some…
CRISS CROSSED CIRCUITS<br />
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My brain. My poor brain. Why is it suffering so? What’s been going on inside of it now that they have opened it up and done something to it to keep it working? Damn, how am I supposed to keep going when they do all these weird things to it? It’s keeping me alive; but what’s the point? I have to go anyway, but they felt they had to do what they were trained to do; cutting into it and then cutting again into it. I know I’m fading, fading away, deeper and deeper into some other place. I can feel my total being changing and becoming some thing or someone else. Not what I used to be, or who I used to be. My choice; what was the option? Let it just go and rot or who knows what, but who knows what anyway? They didn’t know what they were doing anyway.<br />
Practicing ⎯ it was all just practice. When are they going to be professionals and really know what they are doing; something that is lasting so I can be me again? They explained it all to me, but I only heard part of it and understood less, but they had my permission and my wife. I had to go along with it all for her and the kids, but it’s my brain and they went ahead and drew lines on it and opened it up and did what they had to do and then I wasn’t any better and they explained that they had to go in again and put something else inside so I could be me again. I’m not sure if I’m ever going to be me again, but what else was there?<br />
Laying here and laying there day after day half asleep, half awake, some other place of consciousness, half here and half someplace else. I couldn’t remember how long or know day or night; all just a fuzzy blur. I wish I could see clearly, but my eyes, eyes only half open, feeling sleepy, tired, all the time, not here, not there, someplace in between, in between here and no place.<br />
She hugs me a lot. I can feel her, but don’t know what’s going on. How long; what is there anymore? There is no time, only this laying in bed, in the hospital, or is it? She hugs and kisses me and tells me she loves me. I love her. I love the little girls; but where are they? She told me they were someplace, someplace with some one else, not with her and not with me. I remember them. I miss them. I wonder what they are doing? Am I going to see them again? Ever. Will they come to see me? Will I know them? Will they know me? I wonder if I’m ever going to be the same person again?<br />
God, I love her so. But here I lay, like a lump, waiting for time to change so we can go back to the way it was. Will it ever be that way? I can’t even fight it, whatever it is, I don’t even know how to fight it; I don’t even know what it is, or who I am. What’s going on anyway?<br />
I have to get a grip. But I don’t even know what to get a grip on; it’s as if everything that was, that is, is all uncertain. Am I still me, or have they done something that is making who I was into something, someone else? They were trying to help, help me, help themselves, help, help. I can’t even call for help because I’m not sure what kind of help I need. I need to be myself again. I liked the way I was, who I was, who we were, who we all were with the girls and her and everything we used to do. There were others too, a lot of us and we used to do so much together; had fun, played, took walks, laughed, ran.<br />
It was all fun, so much fun, play and laughter. Can I still laugh? I don’t think I can laugh. I haven’t laughed. What’s there to laugh about? Look at me. Who would look at me? Do I want anyone to look at me? They will laugh at me, not me laughing anymore. My laughing muscles aren’t working; I can barely smile. What’s there to laugh about; smile about? Just a blob of protoplasm. Yeah, that’s me.<br />
Is she really going to stay with me through all this? She has too. What will she do? She has to be with me; we were so good together. We had so much; our kids; our life. I’m still alive. I now I’m still alive. She was here. She may be here now. I can barely see anything; blurry; it’s all fuzzy, but I think I can sense her here with me. Sometimes. She’s an angel; a real live angel, with me, for me, me for her still, in this life and now. I’m not sure if I’m here or not, or if I ever was. All memories, all I have are these thoughts of what was, if anything ever was. Am I here now, or is it all dreams of something that was. Or never was? Or will be, still to come. I can’t do anything to make it better or change anything. Just laying here waiting for them to do something to make me better, or are they making me worse or just fucking with my brain. Into my brain: How can they just go into me that way and screw around with what was in me? Or, maybe what was me.<br />
Music. I want to hear music like I used to hear music. I remember music, how we used to love and sit together and listen to music and dance and sing under the stars, by the full moon, around the fire with others, singing and dancing and yelling and chanting and praying.<br />
Prayer. All my prayers what did it all mean? because here I am, just like a nothing, a used to be something, and now not being anymore. There was a time; I remember time, something, and what used to be, but is that all real or is it all imagination from a time I never knew, but is coming to me from some place inside of me. If all this is me. I don’t even know if I am anything anymore or ever was. Music. I feel like I am hearing some of the music we used to have together and with others. I wish I could focus on the music and hear it inside of my head again: humming singing, playing drums in the open fields with trees all around, in the cool night air, around the fire, taking our clothes off running and playing and sharing ourselves with each other. Touch, touching, being close, in each other on top of each other, around in a circle holding hands and going around and around and loving and laughing ad crying in each others arms; holding and kissing, touching and being as we were. What was all that? Was all that for real, or again, from something only coming out of my head now? Is it coming out of my head or from outside of me and now into me from some other place, from some other being or time, that is trying to get in me?<br />
Should I be frightened with all this or just let it come and go and allow what is ever happening to me to just happen and there isn’t really any problem or am I the problem?<br />
How long is this going to go on? Will it go on forever and ever? Nothing ever changing. I’m locked into some time warp that was created out of them going into my brain to get rid of the disease they said was there. They could have let it all go and than maybe it would have gone away. They said they could get rid of it, but instead they got rid of part of me. It was the best part; the me part, the part that I knew; was how I was, but now I’m not sure of anything, except her, my wife, yes, my wife, is with me most of the time. I can tell, she doesn’t leave me for very long, she comes back always with something for me, for us to share, with each other, with the kids.<br />
Time will mean something with all this. Time is the factor here. I’m young, was young, must still be young; was strong, vital, able. Now I’m what? Who knows? But not me anymore, but I can be that again; she doesn’t give up on me, so how can I give up on me. The kids; I have to make it for the kids. And her. She’s doing it all of us, so I have to do it too. It’s like going crazy, wondering if all this can change and is going to be like it was. If I can be whole again? That’s the key issue here: Being whole. I don’t want to be half or part. I’ve been that, half, part, for a long time now, whatever that means, time, but have to work on becoming whole again.<br />
The prayer thing, with friends, doing our ritual still in the woods; praying to the Gods, all of them, whoever they are; what they can be and do, whoever, forever, they are forever, and the angels, whatever they can do, I knew them, I know them; they are around, waiting and doing their help for me, for us. They’ve been there before, before I got this, so they must still be around, maybe they brought all this on so I could be tested in my belief in them. Don’t worry you guys; I’m counting on you helping me through all this. I know you’re out there waiting in the wings, funny “in the wings,” in their wings, winging it, waiting for their cue, so the can come into me, into our lives and help make us whole again. I want to feel the part of everything that I have felt in my life, knowing that I am one with the trees, with the birds, flowers, all nature. It is all me. I am one with all that is, ever was. I’ll come back. My essence. That’s it. What I’m missing: My essence. Oh, come back, my essential who I am. God, oh, dear one, I’m screaming out to thee. Hear my call.<br />
This disease has me feeling separate from everything except her and the kids. I shouldn’t say this, but sometimes I forget her name and the kid’s names, which one is which. What do I call her? I don’t use her name. I can’t remember. Maybe she knows something big time is going on with me; that I’m on the verge of not making it.<br />
No wait, that’s not true. She doesn’t believe that. I’ve always been into true. Truth. God is truth. Love is truth. The truth is love. I remember some of that. How I used to think. I used to think, know, that truth was the highest and now, something comes to me from deep in me telling me that the truth is that I’m getting past this. I’m on the verge of totally making it, and being who I was again. I can feel it in me, getting whole again, I won’t dwell on the negative, only focus on the positive so that is all that will happen. Enough negative has happened.<br />
Maybe I’m like the Jesus King taking on all the suffering of others so they don’t have to suffer. Why me? What have I got that makes Him think ⎯ does he think that I can deal with all this? Who am I to take on other people’s suffering? No, this is mine. I own it for now, not forever. Not forever. That’s me: knowing this isn’t forever. It’s okay; I can do it. I’ve been doing it.<br />
No one can go through all this without feeling crazy. It is crazy. I was just usual and all this happened. Brain cancer. That’s what they told us it was; just as they told us it could be; it was. They showed it to us on the screens; a major university teaching hospital with their big giant color monitors with my brain; the inside of my brain with this thing growing in it that didn’t belong there; it wasn’t in a good place they told me and it would kill me for sure, in time; short time, pressing on places that could slow me down, make me dizzy, slow, weak, then slower and weaker, a year, two years at the most they said if they didn’t do anything. They told us; two years it wouldn’t be much fun. It’s been longer then that now she tells me, three years, four, I’m not sure what she told me the last time she told me, but its longer and I’m still here, but they did do all this stuff to me, overdid some of it they told us too. Too much ⎯ they killed off a good part of me, but now it feels like it can still stop, will stop, and I can be me again.<br />
Yeah, I’ll remember and become me like I used to be with her and the kids. The little girls are so patient with me, they seem to know I’m not me, but only of part of me is there. She’ll help make them strong, like she is, so they can deal with all this. It isn’t easy for them; poor little girls; two and four or maybe three and five, or, or, I forget their ages, just little bitty things, but they know love, they are love, they came from love and will be love. I know nothing can go wrong when everything is so right. When love is there then things have to work out for the best: For the girls and her and for me. I haven’t been able to be a father to them, or a husband. Sometimes I look at them and don’t even see them. I look past them or through them as if they aren’t there. They must think their daddy being a strange one, but maybe they just know; she tells them that I’m getting better, that time doesn’t stand still, keeps on moving, going in a right direction and that in another time things will be different for daddy and he will play with you and take you to the park and make you happy and they tell her they are happy and that they pray for daddy every night when they go to bed and when they wake up that daddy will be whole again. We used to teach them to pray for all the ones they loved and that nothing bad can happen to them even if we think something bad happened or it looks like something bad, it can really be something good because sometimes what’s bad is really the beginning of something good. Like this, which looks so bad from how I see it, but it’s happening to me, and even I lost the positive, I know that I know something that I sometimes can’t remember, but it is in me, deep in me, in places that even the cancer can’t touch. It can’t touch the place of love because love is stronger than whatever it is that invaded my brain and that’s another thing: How did it get in there in the first place? It chose me as a host to live in and try and grow so it could take me over. That’s what it wanted to do; take me over and live in me, so it could act through me, but we are beating it, I know we are beating the shit out of it and when it’s all gone, I, we, all of us, the kids, and her and the docs will celebrate. I don’t think we could have done it without them. I didn’t think much of any of them before all this happened, but they did it, I know that they beat the devil-like thing that was taking me over. Jesus, Lord Krishna, Buddha, Mohammad and all the rest of those really high beings, they must have been here with their Love for me to kick the shit out of that sneaky viper that invaded my body, my brain, of all places to attack me when there are so many parts of me and how so many get attacked in different parts of their bodies, but me, it went right for the jugular, that part of me that is the most important part of me, trying to kill me is what this was all about, but we’ve beat them, I know we’ve beat them, all of us working together, beat them; those who wanted me, for who knows what reason, but it’s not now, nor later, because we have the good and love on our side, the right, the time is ours and now it all will change around I will be different; will be the one that was for my girls and her. They will know me as they knew me and I will know myself as I have known me and my brain, that special part of me that allows me all this will be whole and all of me will be whole and with her and our two little ones our wholeness will be forever. My eyes will see, my brain be clear and we will again dance by the light of the moon, drums will boom, the fire high, with all the others, coming out praising the goodness that prevailed and brought me into and with and forever more in this place and what ever other place there is to be in and on and into. I know this.<br />
I knew this was going to end with me being in victory over those forces that are beyond our vision, but that attack us within and from without. They creep into us when we are unguarded, unprotected, unwary and begin to eat away at our organs until we are nothing and then they, like crazy beings, die as their host dies, but not this time, because this host has been sustained whilst they have been vanquished by, medicine, technology and the cutting knife.<br />
It was more though, I know this, much more, because I was a goner, way gone, in a fog, dazed, crazed, blinded, blood, pus, vomit, all the vileness coming out of me, I can remember it all when it was the worst, tubes coming in, tubes coming out, a protoplasmic lump. Not me. It was more than the medical and the cutting, much more, they gave up on me, I know it, I could hear them talking sometimes when telling her about me that they didn’t know what more to do. They really didn’t. Try this; try that. See if it works. We’re sorry ma’am, we don’t know anymore. They really didn’t know, but she did, the ones close to us knew something they didn’t know. The dancing around the fire, the drums, the chanting the prayers, all their hands on me, oh, their glorious hands and feet, lips, arms, touching healing, their love and kindness and everything good that is in them, they were putting in me so we could get past all this. Was all that nothing in this victory over the creeping growing dark forces that was unknown and unseen in our eyes, but to the microscopic vision of their technology we learned something, she saw where it was and were able to work with our loved ones and the evolved One and the many Beloved ones whoever, wherever they are, so in our dance and in our healings we were able to have a picture of what we were up against and where and how we were able to place our hands and hearts and send our energies inside of me to the places the docs thought only they had the power to overcome these insidious ones. But they didn’t know all and we didn’t know all either, but something miraculous happened and now as the light begins to shine into my being from higher places, from celestial spheres beyond time and space. Something is transforming in me that will allow that total Love that came to me and allowed me to be whole again, so I can help others, for Our Mother who came through me and to me in our dance.<br />
And I will be back for my Kriss, Sarah, Sadie.eat a pig???tag:www.zoobird.com,2009-04-26:2129360:BlogPost:167062009-04-26T02:47:26.000ZSh'mal Ellenberghttps://www.zoobird.com/profile/ShmalEllenberg
'I found it synchronistic or apropos, that the same week there was publicity about bacon becoming the new food ingredient in many foods. there is an alert for swine flu. Pigs, maybe we kill to many pigs, eat to many pigs; If anyone visits a pig farm, they would never ear pig again. It's totally inhumane treatment. Now what, a potential pandemic of swine flu. Seems like a karmic payback to humanity for mistreating what many say is a smart animal. Maybe they are and we aren't. Sh'mal
'I found it synchronistic or apropos, that the same week there was publicity about bacon becoming the new food ingredient in many foods. there is an alert for swine flu. Pigs, maybe we kill to many pigs, eat to many pigs; If anyone visits a pig farm, they would never ear pig again. It's totally inhumane treatment. Now what, a potential pandemic of swine flu. Seems like a karmic payback to humanity for mistreating what many say is a smart animal. Maybe they are and we aren't. Sh'malBob Sh’mal Ellenberg
11329 8th Ave. NE Apt 106
Seattle, Wa 98125
Sh’mal@zoobird
HESTER’S LAST SMILE
AND CAN OF ROLLING TOBACCO
In the nursing home where I work people dying is go…tag:www.zoobird.com,2009-04-16:2129360:BlogPost:160032009-04-16T18:11:17.000ZSh'mal Ellenberghttps://www.zoobird.com/profile/ShmalEllenberg
Bob Sh’mal Ellenberg<br />
11329 8th Ave. NE Apt 106<br />
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Sh’mal@zoobird<br />
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In the nursing home where I work people dying is going on regularly; it’s nothing new to me, but now people are being admitted, in their forties and fifties, who are terminally ill with one critical illnesses or another. All are destitute; that’s why they’re in the nursing home where work, because we’ll take in America’s poorest of the poor. Don’t…
Bob Sh’mal Ellenberg<br />
11329 8th Ave. NE Apt 106<br />
Seattle, Wa 98125<br />
Sh’mal@zoobird<br />
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In the nursing home where I work people dying is going on regularly; it’s nothing new to me, but now people are being admitted, in their forties and fifties, who are terminally ill with one critical illnesses or another. All are destitute; that’s why they’re in the nursing home where work, because we’ll take in America’s poorest of the poor. Don’t get misled though, we aren’t taking them because of some idealist humanitarian concern, the fact is we are the oldest, least sought after home in town, so those who other nursing homes won’t accept, we do. And although we’re very close to a major southern university, with scores of students waiting on our corner for the bus, crack addicts, hookers are passing by our doors every day and sometimes come in and visit.<br />
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In many cases what brought these younger folks into a nursing home is some of their own doing. We could lay their problem on poor decision making. Sure we’re told we all have free will. But when life doesn’t get us off in the right direction, many times, life can go astray, and never get back on track. We tend to blame the person for living a poor lifestyle, making wrong decisions. Ha! Not ha, funny, but a laugh of derision for the inequities that life thrusts on so many. Maybe, in their entire lives, they never had the opportunity to know what right decision making was. Sure, we’re all responsible for our own lives, but what if some one was never able to get a decent life going because of abuse, how they were raised, poverty, mental instability, etc. And now they are too far gone for me or anyone to shake them and tell them to wake up and get their lives on track, because now the only track is chronic illness, which may be leading them to death. So here they are, at an early, end of life stage.<br />
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As the social worker, I’m given the opportunity to offer some last ditch effort of help. But help with what? Getting the social services is usually easy, sometimes tricky, considering the Draconian system that has been devised for all those in need, but that kind of help I’m really good at. But now I’ve been thrust into an environment where I can help people die: if that is something any of us can really do for another.<br />
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I have been learning to give emotional love and support. I try and access those energies during my breathing practices, meditation and prayers, from all the seen and unseen beings who I think (who really knows for sure?) are with me, helping me receive and send love: the primary healing ingredient. This is what I try and send out to those whose lives are now connected with mine at this stage of our lives.<br />
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Hester in her mid fifties is dying of cancer. She was more or less a street woman; had a place to stay off and on, but knew people at the local shelter (not far from the nursing home) where she was known for needing a meal or a place to stay occasionally. As a younger woman, she worked, had a marriage and children. Now she only knows one 18 year old daughter who has been coming to visit. I asked Hester about the other three; “when did you see them last?” She tries to whisper something to me, then can’t get the words out because her tracheotomy is clogged with mucous. She puts up 10 thin fingers, makes a fist and holds them up again. “Twenty years?” I ask her and she smiles and nods. As I’m saying to her, “that’s a long time not to know where your children are.“ She tells me the Hospice social worker is going to try and track down the other children. I think to myself that the chances are slim, given such short notice, and not much information about where they are.<br />
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I’ve taken to Hester because she reminds me of a woman I went with many years ago as a young man. Both were alcoholics. The woman I knew died at 50, of general dissipation, Hester has throat cancer, now metastasizing throughout her abdomen putting her in excruciating pain that is being helped some by strong doses of pain medications ordered by her Hospice nurse and doctor. None of it seems enough to deaden the pain, but maybe by tomorrow she will have i.v. morphine ordered by Hospice that she will be able to administer with a self regulating pump. It will most likely be enough to deaden all her pain and eventually relieve her of this life.<br />
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Hester is tiny; 90 pounds. I walk to her room, which happens to be right next to my office and find her, sitting on her bed, head down towards her stomach, legs crunched up under her as she tries to find a position that is comfortable; that lessens the pain. Of all the dying people I have worked with, I don’t think I have wanted to help any one as much as I want to ease Hester’s dying process. I can do a little; touch her hand, rub her head or neck, invite a student massage therapist to very, very gently work on her. It’s more human work, than social work.<br />
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I take her hand and cup it in mine. I sit with her, on her bed, as she tries to explain something to me. The tracheotomy is constantly dripping thick, stringy, yellow mucous that she wipes with tissues that collect on her bed, or gather in a pile on the floor till some one picks them up. The Hospice nurse calls it bronchitis that antibiotics will help lessen. When she can’t talk due to the mucous, she asks for her notebook and she tries to write messages with her uneducated spelling. Her own phonetic language: some words almost unintelligible. But she writes, she even seems to like the writing. I think of suggesting she do more, except now, with only a few weeks to go, she is barely able to hold the pen.<br />
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This is her second time coming to the nursing home. She was previously with us a few months ago for only a few weeks then returned to her apartment trying to make a go of it on her own and with friends helping. She walked in the second time as she did the first. But this time, after two weeks, she was only able to walk holding on to the back of a wheelchair for support, pushing it where she wanted to go. And than, sooner then any one thought, after only a few days more, she needed to sit in the wheelchair and be pushed onto the patio so she could have another cigarette.<br />
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She came into the home carrying two large cans of a cheap rolling tobacco, one tucked under each arm. This was a picture, which is only in my head. I pointed at her coming down the hall and gave her a friendly welcome laugh; she laughing back knowing she was a different kind of picture. Due to her confusion of coming into the nursing home and her weakened condition, she misplaced one can the second day back. I happened to find it in the staff break room and she agreed for me to secure her security in my office.<br />
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What am I to do for her? Get down on my hands and knees and pray that she doesn’t have too much pain. The morphine will take care of that. Should I ask God to help her go fast, or that she be miraculously be healed. I don’t think that’s what’s up for her. She’s on her way from this life. She told me a few times she’s ready to die, especially with all the pain. I don’t want her to have the pain. I don’t want her to suffer. I want her to have a chance, but I’m not sure a chance at what. A chance that when she dies and she sees a hundred hungry and deceitful demons she confronted in life and who will be pursuing her in death, she can allow them to pass her by so she can see some of the light and she can make amends and come back around with some opportunity to live a decent life.<br />
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Is that what I want for her? This isn’t what she believes. I’m not sure if it’s what I believe. What do I really know about dying except what I read of the Buddhists teachings, the Jewish teachers, the Christian teachings and others. I have no clue in my own memories. I wonder at time, were those really mystical teachings that were passed on, or did those mystics make stuff up.<br />
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And what is this decent life that I’m supposing she will have, or didn’t have? This is about her and what she wants for herself. I try and keep myself out of it and only reflect back to her what clues she gives me. I intuit a latent spirituality, so I bring up God and she tries to explain something, but then reaches for the notebook and writes about God, and how three years ago found herself seeking. She looks in my eyes, shrugs her bony, thin-skinned shoulders. Her nightgown comes away exposing her flattened, wrinkled breasts. When I cover her she smiles, shrugs, knowing it makes no difference. Maybe she’s lived a fulfilled life and doesn’t have to come back for any more turns in human existence. I suggest that if she sees the light, after, she should try and go with it. She nods understanding a little. Maybe one needn’t be a saintly person, maybe she experienced more of life then any one need to see and she learned and knows something about life that can carry her to the light. My work: I try and draw something out of her that can give her solace as she prepares to enter the other side of life.<br />
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I wonder if I’ll ever see her smile again. Her head was hanging low, down to her abdomen as she nodded, eyes closed, in a stupor on the strong pain meds. She was sitting outside on the patio with the other smokers limply holding a long ashed cigarette in her emaciated fingers. Her breathing gargled through her tracheotomy. I looked at her too much wrinkled face, like her breasts, more of a 70 year-old then someone in her fifties.<br />
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Her few teeth, what are left, black and rotten. Still, her smile, it was bright and frequent and I wonder: will I ever see it again? I’ve gotten attached to her. I can’t breath any more life into her then what I have and it won’t be enough. It will be slow and painful. I’m promised by the Hospice nurse Hester will soon be on the morphine pump and she’ll be able to give herself as much as she can take. It won’t constant, due to its censor, which gives ten minute breaks, so she can’t overdose, but it will be enough to deaden much of the pain.<br />
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The Hospice social worker and I agreed we should make arrangements with a local mortuary for her requested cremation. It won’t cost Hester anything. I asked her if she wants me to spread her out on the Paynes Prairie; the 1000s of acres of natural, pristine Florida, with many birds, alligators, giant turtles, herons, mushrooms, deer, transplanted buffalo, wild horses, right down the road from the nursing home. She nodded she did. I think about her turning to ash, which is more like gritty rough sand. Unburned bone. Now here she sits in front of me, but some time soon, all that will be left of her physical being, will be, unburned bone.<br />
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I laugh to myself: Am I a crazed man, waiting and helping and being with her. In less then three years I have already been with dozens of dying. My work. Creator’s work given to me. My choice to do this for Creator since Life, I have reckoned, is Me, and Me is Life, and Hester, is also a part of That, and I am going to dispose of what is left of her body when she can no longer breath in the life force.<br />
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What do I know that she doesn’t? All my praying and studying and meditating makes me someone much different then who she is, but we are all part of that One and we were brought together so I can do something for her, to help her along. I still wonder if any one really needs to be helped along in their dying. Oh yes, according to the “Tibetan Book of Living and Dying” there is work to be done with helping the dying along, but will she get any of it that I have learned? Just being with her and supporting her, praying for her, and letting her know she won’t be alone. I don’t want her to be alone and I even told her that today. I wondered how will I know when she is about to die. What if I’m home? I could tell the staff to call me if they have a feel for her last hour, her last moments. Sometimes we know. I’ve known.<br />
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Frequently, the staff gets sensitive to that moment; tell one another; it gets passed around so those who care can go in the room and spend a few last sacred moments with some one they worked with, helped along, in and out of bed, administered medication, changed dressings, spoon fed, cleaned up, the shit and piss, vomit, mucous.<br />
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The thought of a madman: I’m sitting on her bed doing like I’ve seen junkies do; tying off my arm and melting down heroin and taking a syringe and watching the white grey liquid going up into it and clenching my fist so a nice vein pops up real good and shooting up with her as she pumped the morphine into her and nodding off together. I thought of the two bottles of vodka in my office desk that I took out of Hester’s dresser after a nurse told me about them. I asked Hester about them and she told me to take them, that they weren’t her’s but belonged to a friend. What am I supposed to believe? so I ask her, “are you going through any alcohol withdrawal, do you needs these bottles close to you?” She looks at me surprised that I would question her about this, and denies that alcohol was the problem, as she brings two fingers to her mouth mimicking taking a puff of a cigarette.<br />
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She’s has done her share of drinking. Her good friend, Jo Ann, comes to see her regularly to give Hester a bath. Only two weeks ago, Hester was getting into Jo Ann’s pick-up and going back to her apartment to complete some things there. Jo Ann tells me Hester really enjoyed the vodka, even putting some in her coffee in the morning to get her day going. Jo Ann who knows Hester for two years, tells me that Hester owes nothing to live, that she lived it fully. I know nothing about vodka, but I think of Hester’s bottles, wondering if her friend, if there really is a friend, doesn’t come for the bottles, should I indulge myself and drink up the innocent looking, throat burning liquid, in commemoration to Hester after she dies. Odd thinking this way. Heroin and vodka. It’s never been my way, but never have I felt this way about some one.<br />
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Will she be the last dying person I care for in the nursing home? Will I quit after this is over with Hester, and agree with myself that this has been enough; I’ve done the Work that had been given to me; enough is enough and let me get on with some work that is fun. Let me have another lighter way to go for the remainder of my work days. I don’t keep track how many times I have had this thought. Six decades of life, more then half of them as a social worker. What more is there for me to do? How many lives must I help along the Way, in trying to bring an easier path. Easier then what? Then my own life? Have I been cheating, not suffering as much as the many who I have helped? Is this, some kind of personal, or universal guilt trip my life has been on, atoning for known and unknown malevolence in this life of ours.<br />
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My life though, has been mostly benevolent living. For what ever the reason, I was brought to do the Work of being a giver and a helper. One day a few years ago, while riding to work to see an abused, emotionally disturbed adolescent girl I had been working with for a couple of years, I realized I was like a modern day Shaman, going from home to home, town to town, program to program, agency to agency, visiting with, and ministering in the guise of a social worker. Odd thinking of all the times I spent berating myself for not making more money, not being something else, or doing this or that, not being successful, while all along, I was doing the Great Work. Who knew? No one told me when I began on this Path, that I was even on one, that it would be my Life’s Path. It was the Great Work, not a business, with all the scheming and conniving. I used to think that business was the hardball league, one I didn’t fit into. So feeling more comfortable helping others, I chose that path of helper. It always made or felt like more sense, slow pitching, not having to try and compete or get over on some one as in a business arrangement. Traveling the Shaman path, going out listening, talking, being with, and trying to figure out how to make some one else’s life trip less traumatic, easing pain, softening the burdens, but accepting there may never be solutions. I understood that from my own life; life was relentless, constantly coming at you, working through it all was part of the trip, it is the life. As a middle aged retarded man told me, “life is life.” Through his small vision of life there was a bit of simple, but grand wisdom. There is no getting away from it.<br />
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For now, I am still there with Hester. A few days later, she’s very morphined out. She can barely sit up, barely taking anything to drink; hasn’t really eaten much in the four weeks she’s been with us, her eyes closed most of the time, occasional tremors, grimaces on her face, no smiles, except a very slight, corner of the mouth smile, when the Hospice nurse got real close to her face and made a joke.<br />
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A homeless waif, Carolyn, that knew Hester in the St. Francis House homeless shelter is sitting next to the bed as the Hospice nurse and I talk with Hester. Carolyn, has been coming in and spending her days with Hester. She bargains with the nursing home staff; a couple of nights of sleep on an empty bed next to Hester and some meals. But soon she began demanding from us: regular meals, a nightly bed. We had to let her know she can’t be spending nights there and we don’t feed people. She quickly became an irritant to the staff, as she wanted to know how come we don’t have a feeding tube in Hester and how come we’re not trying to feed her more and how can we save her, how come this, how come that. The Hospice staff and myself have gone over and over it with her, but she doesn’t seem to get it that Hester can’t make it at this point. It’s obvious to the staff that Carolyn has some serious emotional problems, and her own needs may be more the priority then Hester’s. I am hoping that she will understand we are doing our best to make it right for Hester.<br />
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But Carolyn doesn’t get what’s going on with Hester, and has been whispering to Hester that she should have a feeding tube and i’v. liquids so she will live. When I come into work one morning, a nurse tells me she had to call Hospice to tell them that Hester wants those heroic measures. None of us can believe that Hester really would do that, but we would have to if that’s what she asks for. I go into Hester’s room and Carolyn is sitting there. She won’t look at me, or answer when I say good morning. Later she completely ignored me when I asked her how she was doing. I make my own call to the Hospice nurse leaving a message that she has to come in and have a talk with Hester. Late in the morning she comes in and I discuss with her the situation. I allow her to go in alone and see Hester. Carolyn walks out going past my doorway still ignoring me when I call her name. Later I hear she threatened to call the state elder abuse hot line to report the nursing home. It’s like a little extra drama added to an already delicate situation.<br />
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Hester’s 18 year old daughter, Leola, is in the room with Hester. She has been spending a lot of time with Hester the past two days. She had signed the “do not resuscitate order” two days earlier, at the behest of Hester. If her heart stops she does not want cpr. Leola is very much out of her element; nursing home; dying mother; signing papers, trying to have power of attorney over Hester’s measly bank account, problems with Carolyn. She is though a strong young woman, dealing with things, maybe making up for time they didn’t spend together. I talked with her a day earlier needing to know about the relationship she had with her mother. She tells me she was taken away from her Hester by the state and put in foster homes when she was 11 because of Hester’s drinking. She spent some time with her father after the foster homes, but never lived with Hester again. Actually, they had only seen each other a few times in the ensuing years, but are really into loving each other from what I can see of the attention they are sharing. Leola also has a two year old son who Hester is enjoying having around her room.<br />
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The Hospice nurse is in the room for about 20 minutes before I go to see how things are going. I caught the tail end of the nurse explaining to Hester and Leola, that because of her very weak condition if the feeding tubes were put in, her body might react by the lungs getting clogged with liquids and she would aspirate. She also said that because of her weak condition a doctor wouldn’t want to put her under anesthesia and that the feeding tube surgery may be too much for her. There didn’t seem to be any benefit for those procedures. Fortunately, Hester has been more alert this morning then all week. I was really surprised earlier that some one had left her sitting in a wheelchair outside my office. When I asked her if she wanted to go out onto the patio, she nodded, yes, so I pushed her out there where she sat for a while, surprisingly, with no cigarette. Now, with the nurse explaining, she was understanding, shaking her head, “no,” about the feeding tubes<br />
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For two days in a row, Hester has been more alert, sitting up. enjoying the time with Leola and her grandson. Her body getting used to the morphine. I was able to joke with her about missing her own Baptism. It happened while she was mostly in a sleepy, drugged state, after being introduced to the morphine pump that she was constantly pressing. She had previously indicated she wanted to be Baptized and a Catholic priest came in and performed the sacred ritual, answering all the questions he put to Hester himself. I had never seen this ritual before but wondered how he can answer for someone else about whether they are rejecting Satan, and accepting God. It was later explained to me that’s how it’s done, so even people in coma can be saved. I am satisfied with myself that I don’t judge too harshly.<br />
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Hester’s only drinking a bit of the nutritional supplements we keep offering to her, and a bit of water now and then. She can’t go on for too long. Each day when I spend time with her, she keeps asking me, “when, how much longer?” and I tell her what I told another friend who was dying, “you just have to wait your turn. There’s others ahead of you.” I was a bit surprised as she looked deeply into my eyes, nodding that she understood. The eye connection we are having is leaving a deep, and I know, forever, lasting impression on me. I can feel the imprinting going on as we do it. And now, in this moment, I have this realization, that so many of those that I work with in the nursing home, and have been with, and for all of us, whoever we are with, becomes us, we them, as our life is literally transformed from each and every experience we are having in this life and we’re becoming all that has been in our lives.<br />
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I would spend more time with Hester if I had it, but there are 90 other residents in this nursing home and I’m the only social worker. I walk out of Hester’s room and talk with Judy, 58, who is going through a long, slow cancerous process;. Nelson, 56, out on the back patio smoking as usual. I’ve appreciated myself for what I have done for this once homeless man, helping him get on disability and Medicaid, then cataract surgery, dentures and a spinal operation after all his limbs were becoming numb. I hesitate, hoping I’m not jumping ahead of things, but as we’re talking, I offer him the last can of Hester’s rolling tobacco I’ve kept in my office. I tell him to come to my office later.<br />
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I sat in Hester’s room yesterday watching her twitch and wiggle around a bit. She looked very pitifully weak and done with this life. Off and on she would open her eyes a crack, and look at me, but she wasn’t able, nor was it necessary for her to acknowledge my presence. I patted her on the hand, rested my hand on her forehead for a few moment, brushed back her hair with my fingers, whispered to her that it didn’t look like it was going to be much longer. There was no response, except when I asked her if she wanted a blanket or sheet on her and she mouthed, “sheet.” I covered her, almost feeling I needed to cover her face; that she was getting that close. I wished her the best, hoping she didn’t have to continue the ordeal much longer.<br />
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When I came to work this morning, 15 minutes late, the mortician was wheeling her past my office. Just in time to say one last good-bye. Leola, will be taking her remains to a place that Hester would have liked. I take the vodka to a party and don’t drink a drop.<br />
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XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXA CLOSE ENCOUNTER WITH CHARLIE MANSONtag:www.zoobird.com,2009-04-16:2129360:BlogPost:160012009-04-16T17:30:00.000ZSh'mal Ellenberghttps://www.zoobird.com/profile/ShmalEllenberg
A CLOSE ENCOUNTER WITH CHARLIE MANSON<br />
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While my 12 year-old son and I were waiting for our flight from Miami to Los Angeles I was browsing a magazine rack and came across a article about Charlie Manson and his perennial parole problems. My mind immediately flew to that ominous afternoon I spent at his Topanga Canyon commune outside of Los Angeles. The picture, indelibly imprinted on my consciousness, of Manson jumping back into an attack mode crouch, his fists clenched, wanting to fight…
A CLOSE ENCOUNTER WITH CHARLIE MANSON<br />
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While my 12 year-old son and I were waiting for our flight from Miami to Los Angeles I was browsing a magazine rack and came across a article about Charlie Manson and his perennial parole problems. My mind immediately flew to that ominous afternoon I spent at his Topanga Canyon commune outside of Los Angeles. The picture, indelibly imprinted on my consciousness, of Manson jumping back into an attack mode crouch, his fists clenched, wanting to fight me.<br />
This same man was convicted of the 1971 of seven counts of murder. This conviction and his death sentence (later changed to life in prison when California abolished the death penalty) were the result of his mind control over homeless and disenfranchised adolescents in committing the August 9, 1968 senseless and brutal Hollywood murders of pregnant actress Sharon Tate and her four friends. Two night later the Manson’s automatons, murdered an innocent older, the La Bianca’s couple, who happened to live next door to where the Manson “Family” partied and tripped on LSD. All the victims were unknown to their mindless, uncaring, puppet-like killers. Manson and his puppets were also implicated in another half dozen to three dozen killings. Many of these victims were somewhat associated with the “Family” as Manson and his friends referred to themselves. Not the kind of family you want to have dinner with.<br />
Unbelievable! And the man wants parole.<br />
Leaving the Los Angeles Airport later that day I was reminded again of Manson, as we passed a poster with his picture on it. The caption: “if society can provide housing for a man like this, can’t we do more for the homeless.” It was signed by the Coalition for the Homeless, with a New York phone number.<br />
I hadn’t been in L.A. for 20 years, leaving in part because of the viciousness of those murders and how many people were freaked out over what had happened. And although, at the time, I didn’t know the man I encountered in Topango Canyon was Manson, the incident also made me question whether 10 years in L.A. was enough. Now, in coming back for a short visit, in one day, in two different cities on opposite sides of the continent, two reminders, of this misguided human being. I explained briefly to my son Jacob about the man in the poster, also telling him my story.<br />
After telling Jacob my story, I had this other disturbing thought: What if I had been told when I met Charlie Manson what he would be doing in the future and some one gave me a gun telling me I could save the lives those others if I shot an killed him?<br />
Having lived my life as a gentle soul, as peace maker, never even have shot a gun, I sit in this moment wondering still how I would have dealt with that imaginary moral proposal. I will always believe that we can touch people’s lives in way that can change them. Certainly not always and not everyone and not in ways we may think best for them, but there ways to reach people. Sometimes on their vibrational level, deep down, beyond the physical. My confrontation with Manson that afternoon resolved itself by me simply walking away from him and not wanting to buy into his violent energy. This was obviously not an option for many others who were seemingly as innocent as I was, but yet they were murdered by him or his proxies. For now, I’ll let this moral dilemma lie and come back to it at the end of my story.<br />
While in L.A. I spent some time visiting with an old friend, Bert, and we reminisced about the old days I Hollywood. Naturally we talked about our good friend Phil. Again, I couldn’t think of Phil without remembering the menacing day in went to visit Phil at Charlie Manson’s Topanga Canyon commune.<br />
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I first heard of Charlie from Phil when he was stationed, well, not exactly stationed, but incarcerated in Terminal Island Prison near Long Beach, California. Phil wasn’t a real criminal, but was a real character. He had been arrested from trying to smuggle marijuana in this country, jumped bail and went to Europe where he was having a good old time till he was arrested for smuggling the same herbal remedy again and was sent back to the States to pay his dues.<br />
Because I lived close to Long Beach in 1967, I visited Phil occasionally at his Terminal Island abode and he would talk about his friend Charlie the guitar player, song writer who he was spending time with in prison. Phil was a Hollywood kind of guy who worked in and around the industry and had a eye for talent, but obviously, not for character.<br />
Phil was always looking for a good time and apparently Charlie, even in prison, offered that with his music, stories and charisma. Phil told me about songs Charlie had written which has some social significance. Yeah, right. When Charlie got out of jail he told Phil to look him up, that he’d be in the Hollywood area. Well, Phil was into promoting talent I suspect he thought there was someone who he could help make record and they could make money together.<br />
When Phil was paroled he went to stay in Topanga Canyon where Charlie was living with his “family.” Phil would come down into Hollywood at times and tell his friends about what it was like living on this commune where Charlie and the head honcho and some of the woman were his concubine. He didn’t describe in too much detail about what was going on, except that there was sex, LSD, pot, rock and roll, and it was all free, including that Charlie shared his concubine with others.<br />
I don’t think Phil was so much into the “family” aspect of the scene, but it was a cool place to hang out and since he was just out of jail, and it offered all the things a guy like him enjoyed. On one of Phil’s visits to Hollywood, he again invited me to come out there and even drew me a map, so I figured it was time to check out what commune life was like.<br />
I was certainly into sex, had tried LSD, smoked pot, but still, there was something about the trip there that didn’t feel quite right. Maybe I was just uptight and thought it was time to liberate myself. It was 1968, I was going to be 30 soon, and even thought the young hippies said not to trust anyone over 30, I knew I was hip enough to visit a hippie commune and find out what was going on with that way of living. It was a important time for social change and learning; I was into liberal politics, felt an affinity to turn on, tune in and drop out, wanted to be trusted and be a part of what was happening. So, one day I finally decided to take a ride out there and see for myself what was going on. What could I loose?<br />
At the time I was working as a community organizer with a Head Start Program I a small Chicano barrio, called Hawaiian Gardens, near Long Beach. My job was to organize a Welfare Rights Organization so the low income families of the Head Start children would have an advocate to help them get what they were entitled from the welfare department. WRO was also a good tool for empowering low income families. It felt good working with people who were having hard times and I could manifest my new but growing political and social values that came alive seeing the burning of Watts during the riots and the burning of Viet Nam villages on television. I knew that these values were shared by the hippie generation, so although a bit older, I felt a camaraderie. Having made my decision to visit that commune I thought I’d be sharing those values with kindred spirits. Little did I know.<br />
It was a long ride on those endless Southern California freeways from Seal Beach, where I had a comfortable apartment two blocks from the beach, to Topanga Canyon. I was enjoying the ride, looking ahead to seeing what commune living was about, thinking I could share my ideas about the work I was doing. I was looking forward to seeing Phil and meeting his friend Charlie.<br />
When I finally got to Topanga Canyon I couldn’t make out the directions Phil had give me, lost on those winding roads, I finally asked a couple walking on the road if they knew where Charlie place was. Stoned hippies, I swear, pointing in two different directions. I was on my own, but wasn’t going to turn back since I had come that far.<br />
I finally arrived at what looked like a commune, with a dozen or so people hanging around, a school bus, males and females all with long hair, shoeless, shirtless, a couple of women with no tops on, all hanging around an old beat up house with a couple of cars parked near by. Seems like the place I mused to myself.<br />
I got out of my van, and as cool as I could be approached a couple of young men who were walking directly to me. “Hi, I’m Bob how you doing. I’m looking for my friend Phil. Is he around?” Right off they appeared a bit irritated or angry that I was asking. Did I imagine their facial and body language?<br />
Right off: “Oh, you’re another one.” And then the told me in a way that made me feel real uncomfortable being there, that, “we ran Phil off today for inviting too many people up here.”<br />
Sure, here I was trying to be cool, but feeling uptight about coming there at all, and this is what I’m met with. Maybe that should have been my cue to leave, but I guess I was still curious about what was going on there. This was commune, here I was, maybe I could still make the most of it. I told the two guys that I used to visit Phil in prison and he had mentioned Charlie. “Is Charlie around, I’d like to meet him?”<br />
I really thought, quickly, that mentioning I had heard about Charlie while visiting Phil in prison, would be an in. As if they gave a shit. I figured if they really wanted me to leave they could tell me to go.<br />
“He’ll be back soon. I should wait.” I wondered what they meant, “I should wait,” not you can or could wait if you wanted. Simple paranoia, let go and relax.<br />
After a bit Charlie showed up. It was sort of odd, I didn’t see a car pull up, or where he came from. Just sort of appeared.<br />
“I hear you’re looking for me. I’m Charlie.”<br />
Right off he had my attention. He looked wild, strange, different, not just his clothes, which were leather, buckskin or something. I never had seen anyone in leather. But it was his eyes, actually his whole countenance. I had the uncomfortable feeling he was looking right through me, seeing something like what I was feeling, or thinking. I figured it was a lot of LSD. Who knew?<br />
As I told him my name, I extended my hand. He didn’t take it. What should I do, put them in pockets?<br />
“You’re a friend of Phil’s, huh,” he said. I liked Phil in prison when I met him, but he couldn’t get his old way or his friends out of his life. We’re different here, we’re not like you guys in the city. I told him to stop inviting people like you up here, but you keep coming anyway. So he had to go.”<br />
Should I apologize or what? My mind was thinking, I had to say something. “Well, man, I didn’t know. He said it was cool to come visit and see him. I used to visit him in Terminal Island and he told me about you. You want me to split. That’s cool. I’ll go.”<br />
“No man, you’re here already, you can stay a while. We’ll see what you’re about.”<br />
He sounded a little annoyed but not hostile or anything and he still wasn’t telling me to leave so I figured everything as okay. I wondered what he meant though, “we’ll see what you’re about.” In my mind I had come to see what he, or they were about. I wasn’t feeling real comfortable considering the circumstances. He didn’t shake my hand. I didn’t like that. He eyes: just too invasive into me, as if he was seeing more of me than I was seeing of him. It was a peculiar situation.<br />
“Come on, we’ll go talk on the side of the cabin,” he said as he led to where we sat on a hillside. I thought I was going to learn something bout him. Maybe I did. He did talk about himself and how everything they had here, the cabin, their food, a bus, other vehicles, even money had been given to him. “No one works here,” he said. “There’s so much shit and money in the city people were just dying (famous last words) for folks to give it to. And her e\i am man, just waiting to take it from them. He laughed and gave me this stare that I felt right inside of me. People were being generous to him and his friends he said, because, “I’m different man, and that turns them on, because their afraid to be different. I have a message to bring to them, but I don’t want to be part of their society.”<br />
It seemed like people were revering rebels, him, with or without a cause. Maybe he had one and I’d find out. I was still curious and wanted to know more.<br />
As he talked I thought about what he said, how people gave him everything. I felt a bit secure knowing I didn’t have much he could get from me. I did look over to my van and was still where I parked it. Then he began to admire a wood bead necklace two high school girls had given me.<br />
“That’s a groovy necklace you’re wearing. Can I see it?” Hey, that’s cool, he likes my necklace. I like it too. I reluctantly took it off and handed it to him. What’s he up to I wondered. He put it on, then asked, “can I have it?”<br />
Maybe that’s how he got everything, just asked, and if people weren’t too attached, he got what he wanted. So I gave it to him, even though I was attached. I wondered why I gave it to him. I didn’t like being taken, but he asked, didn’t say he was just going to keep it. Maybe there was something special about this guy and it never hurt to be nice to some one else. Actually I was feeling a bit paranoid with the whole scene and didn’t want to cause any more bad vibes. I kept thinking of Phil and why they really “ran him off.”<br />
After a while he said, “lets’ go inside and see what’s happening in there.” We went into the cabin, sat down and someone passed a joint.<br />
There weren’t too many windows in the cabin so it was dark, feeling semi-woodsy, not really comfortable because it was noting I was used to. It made me feel a bit uneasy, but what the hell, this was the first back to nature hippy-commune living I had seen. We smoked a bit more, people were sort of quiet. I was sitting next to Charlie, with six or eight others, men and women around the room. It wasn’t a big room, but it was still hard to see any clearly in the dim light. I could hear their voices, although there was also whispering going on that I couldn’t hear. I wondered why they why whispering.<br />
Young women with loose fitting skirts and blouses with babies on their hips walked in and out of the house. I wondered if they were his women, his kids, but didn’t ask.<br />
It all felt odd; I was definitely out of my element, but something about it felt fright, like this is the way people should be living, sharing living together. (Little did I know that less than two years later I would be living similarly, but even more primitively.) After a while, Charlie began to play a bongo drum. We talked a little about the war in Viet Nam, his “Family,” and what it was like living with a group of people. I was trying to feel a part of what was going on, but felt I was missing apart.<br />
Then the vibes took a definite change as Charlie began questioning me about my work. This is where I thought he would see I was okay, as I told him about working with poor, minority families, organizing and helping them get a little share of the pie. That I was doing my share, empowering, political education, for the social and political changes that had to occur.<br />
“What the fuck you doing taking care of those niggers and spics for,” he said? I beg your pardon. Did I hear right? He shocked the shit out of me. He didn’t think I was doing good work?<br />
“All that good fuckin money going to them and guys like you when I’m needing it for what I have to do.” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Wasn’t this a peace and love scene?<br />
I told him my feelings about the racist society and that the minorities had to have their share. I said, “they need people to advocate for them. The while know how to get what they want, look all you have here. Without even working. I’m doing good, work man. I like what I’m doing. I think it’s important that we involve ourselves in help where we can. At least that’s how I feel.” He didn’t want to hear any of my argument.<br />
Then he said the scary thing, “you sound like a smart ass, rich, Jewish college boy.”<br />
What the hell does this guy know, my dad worked in a brewery for 27 years. I worked all through college. What is he some kind of nazi? Phil where are you? He’s Jewish too.<br />
“What college did you go to man?” I knew if didn’t matter. All of a sudden, what I had thought was a casual conversation was picking up momentum of more hostility. I felt on trial or something. I again defended my work, my working through college, the plight of the poor, wondering I was digging a deeper hole.<br />
He let me have it telling me, “you don’t know shit man. I lived with those mother-fuckin niggers for years in jail. I know what they’re like.”<br />
I felt foolish. It was obvious he wasn’t interested in my view on anything. Totally different frequency about all this. He had a perspective and I had mine. Listening to him get angry at me over what I thought was a none issue made me think the guy was crazy. I wondered why I was there and why Phil hadn’t prepared me for any of this.<br />
Then I became scared when I man across the room, from a dark corner, in a unfriendly hostile voice said, “who invited him here anyway?” I was the only stranger.<br />
I knew it was time for me to go. But how? It fleetingly crossed my mind if I would be able to go. Shit, what happened to Phil? With some anxiousness, I said, “I have to go.” What could I say, thanks for everything, I’ve enjoyed the visit? He had my necklace and I was insulted. These weren’t the regular pot smoking hippies I knew from the Griffith Park Love-Ins or from living in Hollywood the past 8 years. Racists, Nazis? Who the hell knew? Was I in trouble?<br />
With slight uncertainty of getting out I stood up to leave and was surprised when everyone in the room followed me out the door. I was trying to ignore the dude, but Charlie was right behind me still arguing in my ear about the racial thing and “what the fuck do you know college boy?”<br />
When I got outside the sun was bright, hurting my eyes after being in the dark cabin. I had a bit of a hard time focusing and getting my bearings being stoned. It seemed surreal, out of time and place of anything I was used to.<br />
There was now a black school in the yard with about 20 people hanging around. As I began to walk across the yard to my van, Charlie was still right behind me, loud enough that his friends heard his voice, felt the tension and they call came together, encircling the two of us, blocking my way to my van. Shit, what’s going on here?<br />
I stopped walking. I couldn’t go any further, my way was blocked. I felt his eyes boring into me. I turned to talk to him, still right behind me. I just wanted to clear things up. I wasn’t there to make enemies; weren’t we all part of the same revolution? When I turned he jumped back into a crouch and put his fits in an attack mode. I couldn’t believe what he was doing. Over what? He was ready to fight. I wasn’t a fighter, even if I was, there was nothing to fight over. If anything I was there to see what this free love Phil had talked about; not fight.<br />
I didn’t think what to say or do, but instinctual self-preservation prevailed: “Hey man, I just came here for a peaceful visit. I don’t want to fight with you.” That’s all I said; what else was there? I turned and walked away hoping, praying, he wasn’t going to attack me from behind. His friends, thankfully, opened a gap in the circle. It was like the river parting; maybe being Jewish helped. In retrospect, over the years, it came to me that God was watching over me in those moments, parting the “Family” and leading me to my Volkswagen van. I got in, never looked back, and drove away.<br />
The ride home was one of wonderment about what I had experienced; totally, unable to explain to myself what had gone on. Who was this man? What was going on there? For some reason I felt out of a picture that I still wanted to know more about, but also knew I didn’t belong in that frame. I wanted to know more about hippie-dom, but that certainly wasn’t what I was eventually guided to.<br />
When I saw Phil sometime later and told him what had happened to me, he didn’t have much to say about it, except he was ready to leave when they told him to go and that they were prone to violence. Thanks for telling me pal.<br />
It wasn’t till later that year when the murders happened and Charlie and his “Family” were all arrested for the killings in Hollywood. A year after that while I was living in New Mexico, Bert came to visit me and told me that the man I had met was none other than Charlie Manson. According to the book “Helter Skelter” Charlie or his friends had done some killing before my visit, either at that place, or else where. I got away with my life that afternoon. For some reason none of what happened, or could have happened, freaked me out. It wasn’t my time or my karma to go that way; living in Hollywood for 8 years, I think, prepared me for anything.<br />
My connection with him though, didn’t entirely end there. While living in Santa Fe, I knew a hippie couple with five kids, from the Community School where I taught who were part of the “Family.” They were caring for one of Charlie’s toddlers whose name they kept changing so he wouldn’t get accustomed to one name. It was strange, this couple feeling so close to such a deranged man. The wife even went back to California to see Charlie in prison. I had to ask them how they could feel close to this man, and they said you really have to know him to understand what he was really about. Yeah, sure. I guess that’s what charisma is all about. What was even more odd, this I really liked this family, they were good folks, mother and father. I hope, 35 years later their lives and the lives of their kids went well.THE LEGACY OF ROSE PEARLtag:www.zoobird.com,2009-04-16:2129360:BlogPost:159842009-04-16T01:37:15.000ZSh'mal Ellenberghttps://www.zoobird.com/profile/ShmalEllenberg
THE LEGACY OF ROSE PEARL<br />
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I’m always amazed, how after committing to an action out of love, we never know how the re-actions will reverberate through our life. This story is an instance of that reverberation.<br />
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Rose Pearl called me, reaching out by telephone, making a connection to tell me she was dying. She made it clear it wouldn’t be that very moment, but in the near future. Rose said she was calling because she needed some one to take care of her affairs after she passed on. Till that…
THE LEGACY OF ROSE PEARL<br />
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I’m always amazed, how after committing to an action out of love, we never know how the re-actions will reverberate through our life. This story is an instance of that reverberation.<br />
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Rose Pearl called me, reaching out by telephone, making a connection to tell me she was dying. She made it clear it wouldn’t be that very moment, but in the near future. Rose said she was calling because she needed some one to take care of her affairs after she passed on. Till that moment, we didn’t know each other, had never met, at least, not in any way we remembered. What I do know, is that phone call, from a “stranger,” changed my life.<br />
Rose said she found my name in the Barter Network Newsletter in our town. The BNN was around for a couple of years and I hadn’t known what to put in as my specialty to share in exchange with the community. I finally decided to share my experience and expertise in working with the elderly, the sick and the dying.<br />
By putting out my best, my most sacred part, I received some one in my life who had the most to give.<br />
After her introduction, and telling me a bit more about who she was, she asked me about myself. I told her I was working as the Director of Social Services for a nursing home and had worked with the elderly for 20 years. As I was listening to myself talk and hearing what she told me, I was trying to grasp whether I was talking with some one who was mentally stable. Her voice, soft and confident, enabled me to trust what she was saying, even as she discussed her dying with a complete stranger.<br />
She went on to tell me she was 82 years old, moving to Florida a few years previously to marry a 40 year-old black man who was in the worst prison in Florida. Rose said they met through the mail, after she began corresponding with prisoners when she became slightly disabled due to arthritis in her legs. I had to ask her to repeat their ages, so I was clear about what I heard. I heard right, and cautioned myself, whether I was mistaken about how sane this woman was. My doubts dissipated when she said she had studied the works of Rudolph Steiner, for fifty years. Steiner was the founder of Antroposophy, a philosophy I hadn’t studied, but I knew of him as one of the deepest, most profound thinkers of our time, with primary and secondary schools, in many countries, Waldorf Schools, that espouse his teachings. Rose had a whole library of his books and needed to make plans for them when she died. She told me she had two nieces who weren’t interested in any of her things, but were close to her, although living in other states.<br />
I had helped many dying people, and she didn’t sound like some one dying soon. I hesitated a bit, then, in a soft, kindly voice, “you don’t sound like you are dying.” There was a pause, she laughed, I breathed easier, “my niece in Chicago tells me I’ve been saying that for ten years.” I pursued it a bit more, “so are you dying soon?” She said she thought so, but for now she wanted to meet me and get to know me better.<br />
Visiting with a living angel is always a good visit. Rose was a plump, cherub like woman who lived in a small, subsidized apartment; two rooms, kitchenette, bathroom. She came to the door in a wheelchair, but immediately excused herself and climbed back in a hospital bed explaining she was more comfortable in bed since her legs bothered her from arthritis.<br />
Wrapping a soft, white, shawl around her shoulders, she made herself comfortable and we talked. Right off she smiled broadly, had an easy way of making herself known with little ambiguity in what she said.<br />
“I moved here to be closer to my husband Sylvester. We were writing to each other for five years and something special transpired between us. We fell in love and decided to get married. It’s difficult living so close to him though and not being able to visit.”<br />
She lived simply, receiving some help, food and personal care from an agency that served the elderly. Rose said she wasn’t eating much any more, living on vegetarian foods for decades and now mostly Ensure. I appreciated sharing with her I was also a long time vegetarian. We spent about two hours sharing together, me mostly listening to her talk about her life as a Waldorf teacher, weaver, book store owner, traveler, wife three times over, before marrying Sylvester. She was so honest and pure in her conversation I didn’t judge her for following her heart and spirit in marrying this man who was so totally different, on the physical plane, then she was.<br />
She told me again that she met Sylvester after answering an ad in the Sojourner Magazine, for prisoner seeking pen pals. “After my arthritis progressed, and I couldn’t get out and be active in a community, I needed something worthwhile to do, and began corresponding with prisoners.” Rose showed me a copy of the book, “Doing time Together,” that was a published version of the first two years of the letters she and Sylvester wrote to each other. “We didn’t make much money from the book, but it did get some notoriety due to the uniqueness of our coming together and our subsequent marriage.”<br />
Rose eventually talked about the ongoing problems Sylvester had in prison, especially the brutality he encountered. She became an outspoken advocate for prison reform and because of her activism, was barred from seeing her husband, who was also in and out of solitary confinement. Rose gave me the book to take home, her last copy, which I found to be a revealing book about prison life and the spiritual transformation of Sylvester.<br />
After this visit she mailed me a letter giving me instructions on what I was to do when she died, with names and addresses of everyone I needed to contact.<br />
I was a taken aback getting such a serious letter from someone I barely knew, so I called and asked again, “aren’t you jumping the gun a bit about your death being so imminent?” She laughed, “I still feel it’s close. I need to cover all bases.”<br />
It felt a bit awkward taking on the life’s possessions and work of this new friend, but since God had plucked me out, choose me to be Rose’s friend and aide, who was I to question this course of life.<br />
In reading their book, there was a letter Rose wrote in early June 1989, assuring Sylvester not to worry about her dying soon. “I have about 10 more years,” she told him. Rose contacted me in early May of 1999 and died on June 2 1999.<br />
On May 23 Rose had a near fatal stroke leaving her almost totally paralyzed. She could smile, move her eyes and her left arm, which for the ten days in Hospice House, off and on, she waved around over her head, to let us know she was still alive.<br />
When notified of her stroke, I went see Rose in the intensive care unit of a local hospital where she was hooked up to life support. She struggled so much against these encumbrances, they strapped her arms to the bed rails. With a dear friend of mine, Eleanor, we stood helplessly by the bed, knowing we needed to do something to free her of hospital technologies. We didn’t have long to wait – as a Hospice nurse I knew, as if called my us, showed up to see a patient of his. I wasted no time telling him about Rose and her wishes to die without feeding tube, oxygen, or I.V. liquids. Since we weren’t family, the nurse agreed to call Rose’s niece in Chicago who confirmed her aunt’s wishes. By grace, there was an empty bed at the Hospice House, and that same day she was moved.<br />
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What, I asked myself, was I to learn from Rose? Something came to me one night, as I stood by her bedside in Hospice House, searching myself for what exactly to say to her. Much of the time I simply stood and smiled, kept her company, but at times I wanted to talk with her. Her eyes kept shining, her mouth with an occasional smile, her left arm in constant motion when she was awake. As she looked up at me, in her eyes questioning - why was this happening? “I guess you just have to wait your turn, there’s a long line ahead of you and it’s going slow.” I never had this thought before, even with all those I helped with dying in the nursing home, but it seemed an appropriate assessment. Bombs were dropping in Kosovo, children were shooting children in Columbine High School in Colorado; she had to wait.<br />
Maybe Rose’s dance, for those ten days, my whole purpose in meeting her, were to help me understand, to be even less fearful of death. For ten days she was only partially there, dozing off regularly, but when awake she knew I was with her. She didn’t go the way she planned: that deep, middle of night kind of death, but I helped in a way she appreciated and gained something myself.<br />
As with other dying people I was with, I mostly prayed for her to be at peace, passing on the same feeling of peacefulness she spent most of her life radiating to others. It wasn’t hard or easy being that close to death with a special person; it just was. And for her part, I supposed she was being a good sport, knowing God prepared her well for this time.<br />
All along I was appreciating gift I was given by Rose - being plucked out of my day to day to be with her as she waited patiently for her last breath?<br />
On her last night, her breathing became labored, alternating between 30 seconds of slow breathing and increasing into a heavy breathing, then decreasing back to the slow quiet breathing, almost stopping. I could feel she was getting within hours or minutes of her last breath. I left at 10:00 p.m. and she took her last breaths at 2:00 a.m. After Rose passed on, I spent many days and nights going through some of the boxes of copied letters to Sylvester, she expressing, love to him, and teaching of a new way for him to see life. His letters, forever thankful she was in his life with her special love for him, and depicting life in infamous Florida State Prison.<br />
Rose suffered, reading about the cruelty the men were subjected to, but she also felt the conflict knowing they had been perpetrators themselves. She also wrote about her global understanding, that many had been victims as children, taking it out on others and consequently, suffering societies punishment.<br />
Rose had not come from a cloistered world by any means, but her life never knowingly connected with criminals. Then, turning 70, unable to do all her favorite activities anymore, she looked around into the world, way outside anything she had known before, and chose to write to those who were the least socially acceptable in America. They are the lepers of our time. Maybe she took the lead from St. Francis who chose to work with them, because none else would. She had books of many great humanitarians: Christ, her teacher; The Peace Pilgrim, Albert Schweitzer, Gandhi, Ruldolf Steiner and other great or common walkers of the peace path. Her collection of books, notes, filled with pictures of angels and saints, speak for themselves about who she followed in life. She was being pulled ahead of herself by forces she little understood, believing all along, in the righteousness and sacredness of life.BEING ON WITH THE OTHERtag:www.zoobird.com,2009-04-16:2129360:BlogPost:159832009-04-16T01:27:11.000ZSh'mal Ellenberghttps://www.zoobird.com/profile/ShmalEllenberg
Bob Sh’mal Ellenberg<br />
725 NE 3rd St.<br />
Gainesville, Fl. 32601<br />
352-378-8735<br />
cityofpeace@citizencircle.com<br />
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BEING ONE WITH THE OTHER<br />
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STORIES OF BEING WITH THE HOMELESS<br />
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Harry was on the ground half conscious with about 15 people, mostly men, uncomfortably standing around looking down at him; the Listerine bottle knocked over on the stone table, its distinct odor wafted around the immediate space, while a thin stream of blood seeped from the gash on his head after it bounced off the…
Bob Sh’mal Ellenberg<br />
725 NE 3rd St.<br />
Gainesville, Fl. 32601<br />
352-378-8735<br />
cityofpeace@citizencircle.com<br />
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BEING ONE WITH THE OTHER<br />
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STORIES OF BEING WITH THE HOMELESS<br />
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Harry was on the ground half conscious with about 15 people, mostly men, uncomfortably standing around looking down at him; the Listerine bottle knocked over on the stone table, its distinct odor wafted around the immediate space, while a thin stream of blood seeped from the gash on his head after it bounced off the table as he toppled before his body hit the concrete.<br />
In wavering uncertainty, an alcoholic’s old voice, one of the homeless spoke, “look what happened to Harry. Why’d he drink so much of that stuff? What should we do?”<br />
“Nothing,” was mumbled, “here come the cops.”<br />
A slight tension, curiosity, as heads turned to see the twenty-something cops coming on bicycles. Both wore trimmed mustaches making them look thirty, otherwise, clean-shaven, short hair, guns, mace, cuffs, night sticks on their hips, bulging gym arms, under black summer tee shirts. They leaned their bikes against the black metal railing that went around the three concrete tables and benches in the Downtown Plaza.<br />
The two uniforms stood over Harry for a few seconds, till one knelt, getting as close to his face as he dared, “hey man, can you hear me?” gently shaking the numbed body by the shoulder, then a bit more forcefully when there was no response. When no eye opened or sounds were made, the cop looked over his shoulder, “anyone know his name?”<br />
“Harry,” three voices out of harmony.<br />
“Harry,” still crouched, the cop tried again close to the face, shaking the shoulder. “Hey Harry can you hear me?” Finally, Harry weakly opened his eyes, barely focusing, saw who was asking, mumbled, “oh no,” scrunched his face, closed his eyes going back to a preferred state of consciousness.<br />
“Anybody see what happened,” the standing cop asked the passive faced group of about twenty downtown regulars?<br />
Some one pointed to the Listerine bottle on the table the cops might have seen when they came around. The odor too. What else did anyone know?<br />
“I’ll call the paramedics,” the standing uniform spoke, while the other asked if anyone knew Harry’s last name. No one answered.<br />
“Has this happened before?” His voice sounded sincere, wanting to help.<br />
“Yeah, a few times,” came a voice from the back of the group.<br />
A harsh voice admonished the speaker: “what the hell you tell them that for?”<br />
“Fuck off, what’s the difference? He’s trying to kill himself. I don’t give a shit, but let them know. He needs help.”<br />
“Never tell the police nothin.”<br />
“Fuck off. You tell them nothin; I do what I want.”<br />
“Hey guys, knock it off. The more information we give the paramedics, maybe the more they can do for him. Sounds like he’s a regular Listerine drinker. Not a good way to go.”<br />
Some of the homeless slowly began to walk away going across the Plaza to get some soup and sandwiches from the HomeVan that was making its regular Thursday night feeding. A few others remained, stood nearby, some sat down on the stone benches. It was dusk, cool shadows from the County building across the street were beginning to cover the Plaza. Nothing unusual.<br />
The cops stood near Harry, waiting for the ambulance. “Anybody know if he has family,” one asked no one in particular of the few still sitting on the benches? There was an air of civility or concern the police were trying to give, maybe having been in-serviced by a human relations trainer or the deputy chief, who promised the attorney-advocate for the homeless he’d talk to his patrol people about treating the homeless as humans. It was an innovative idea that apparently hadn’t been one of the prerequisites to get the job. No one answered the family question. There were no prizes for answering.<br />
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A few weeks earlier, not far from downtown, near apartments for college students and yuppies, a cop chased a dumpster diver into the woods where homeless people camp, spread out in a number of campsites. It’s known as the Sweetwater Camp being on Sweetwater Branch that winds through the town, picking up garbage, rain run-off and the accompanying toxins off city streets and chemical sprayed lawns. In town, sometimes, small posted signs are near the creek letting any one who can read know the water is poison and not to bath or drink it, but in the camps, no signs, where some use it for bathing and washing clothes, but don’t drink it. Maybe some do - who knows for sure when it’s hot and you’re thirsty?<br />
The cop ran mindless, chasing after the garbage thief into one of the camps. No one was there except Smoothie the camp dog and one man sleeping in a tent. Protecting her turf, Smoothie might have made a move towards the cop; he shot once, wounding her. The guy in the tent came out right away to see the cop looking shocked at what he had done. They fixed eyes for a moment. No on ever knew for sure how it went down since the cop was the only witness to the shooting. He broke his concentration with the tent man, called the deputy chief who came out right away along with a street sergeant.<br />
Maybe it was a good cop, bad cop routine because the street sergeant got his cookies off making a series of derogatory, demeaning, remarks to some of the men from other sites, who came down to see what happened. He emptied his verbal pistol telling them they all had to be out of the camp the next day; empty words coming from an empty man. There was too much of both. The shooter in the meantime stood aside, remained an expression of remorse at what he had done, showing tears and pain for his impulsive act. We could wonder what he was doing chasing a homeless dumpster diver into the woods anyway? Ah, maybe protecting the apartment complex occupants from having their garbage reused, orders from high up the police or city government chain, after complaints that the tenants didn’t want others using their waste. Noble thought. Did the cop think it would win him an accommodation? now instead, a young man, with new pain, after shooting some one’s pet. Odd, how things turn out.<br />
The deputy chief, played good cop, was more conciliatory, telling the campers he would look into the incident and get back to their community. He took Smoothie to the vet school at the university, where she died two days later after some extensive surgery.<br />
When homeless advocates heard about the shooting their reflex was to descend on the police station to protest the shooting of Smoothie who was loved by all. The attorney-advocate for the homeless, an immediate man, talked with the police, arranging a meeting at the Sweetwater Camp, with the homeless. There, the deputy chief made verbal amends acknowledging a mistake, and a deal - the City would pay the fees at the vet school, $350, and give $200 to the owner of the dog. The shooter was there. He continued his apologies, with real tears to Smoothies owners. This was when the deputy chief promised in-service sessions for his men and women about how to work with, approach, talk to, behave, towards the homeless. A simple course in human relations. Maybe it was working, since lately, none of the homeless had complained to the advocates about police harassment, although no one thought anything would change since there were ongoing differences - actually a wide chasm between the downtown business people, city officials and the advocates about what to do with those without regular addresses. Some of the business people were adamant that the homeless had no place in the Downtown Plaza, while one of the City Commissioners said they had no place in society. He probably has no place on the Commission or maybe in the human race.<br />
Everyone knew there was no easy answer. Does everyone need a standard home? Tents might be fine if there was food, showers, places to wash clothes, cold night shelters, no harassment. Society needs to make exceptions for those that don’t fit the Jell-o mold of what is expected as a member of the community.<br />
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The first time I went into the woods with the HomeVan it was to the SouthCamp, to pass out sandwiches, fruit, soup, and if needed, clothing, blankets, tents. Some of the campers come off the road, traveling, but most are local people, loosing jobs, disabled, Viet Nam vets, mental illness, the stories have been public for years. That first moment, walking the path in, I thought I was in another world. It was. I could never imagine a few acres of beer cans strewn throughout the woods, like a ground cover. Interspersed were small campsites with tree and shrub privacy between them. There were about twenty or thirty men and women in the various camps, some campfires with grates for cooking. One man was too drunk, could barely stand or carry a conversation, others though, sober, intelligent, employed, friendly, many a beer in hand. Hard times for some, others there by choice - why pay bills and live that standard life when being in the woods might be easier on the spirit?<br />
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As I stood talking with the campers, my first day out, looking at the creek passing by the tents, I thought of my own two years living in the woods in Arkansas, six months of it in a tent, the other months in a $24 cabin I built from rough pine bark slabs hauled from the lumber mill, dying trees I used for corner posts and ceiling beams, scraps I gathered from the junk yard. I understood the desire to not be part of the mainstream style of society, to live simply in the woods.<br />
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I was humbled, weakened, uncertain of what I was doing with new friends committed to “feed the homeless,” questioning myself how I was going to relate to them, simply relate, to know the men and women I mostly assumed were different then who I was, or how I saw myself, or.... It felt a little weird.<br />
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I’ve learned from life that if I take a step in a positive direction, there’s always another one ahead of me. Simple. Having been a community based social worker off and on most of my adult life, I learned something about others and trusting in a Divine presence I have no fear of the unknown. Coming to help the homeless was new to me, although those that don’t fit the mainstream paradigm have been around since for all time. Who takes care of them is the issue many cities are facing, especially as the numbers increase and human services decrease?<br />
I am an older adult, been around a bit, I figured it wouldn’t be hard to do something, maybe anything, to help the other. I remembered in the late 60s, working in downtown Los Angeles, seeing raggedy men in alleys, sitting in Pershin Square Park, walking the streets thinking I was somehow them. Weird for a college graduate. When I was starting college someone asked me what I wanted to be and I responded, “an educated bum.” I can’t say where that came from, but in these new moments in my life, forty- years later, I continued going out on the regular Thursday night run of the HomeVan, first stop to the camps, next to the downtown plaza. Even with their idiosyncrasies drawing them to alcohol, I became familiar with a number of the men, one man, a Viet Nam vet, part Native American, living with a woman who was too overweight, too hurting, too drunk to move from the woods to ask for help, even when she was close to death. When Johnny found out I was a minister, he asked me to marry them on his upcoming birthday, but that never happened because of her condition, or his.<br />
Johnny, couldn’t take it any more seeing her so debilitated, finally called the paramedics who took her to the hospital where she was diagnosed with advanced cirrhosis and a critical spinal problem. A few days prior, anticipating the hospital, some of the HomeVan women initiated a bath for Esther, getting help from women of the camp who hauled pails of water from Sweetwater Branch so at least she was clean, even if the water wasn’t Clear Mountain Springtime in Florida Water. In the hospital she was told, what she knew already, that due to a deteriorating spinal disease she was literally taking her last steps, and if she wanted to live she couldn’t go back to the camp or keep drinking. A doctor friend passed this information to the HomeVaners.<br />
Having a background working in nursing homes and hospitals, I made calls, did some talking, and helped her get into a nursing home that was within walking distance of the SouthCamp. She knew the deal, it was nothing new to her, but whatever impulses moved her, she left one day on a pass when Johnny came to visit going back out to the camp where they got too drunk and she was carried out by her fellow campers, who again called an ambulance. That episode convinced her the nursing home was her new home. She stopped drinking and soon Johnny stopped visiting.<br />
After the incidents with the paramedics coming out, the SouthCampers were prodded by the HomeVan cadre to clean up the camp, which might help keep the police away. With everyone’s help 640 trash bags were filled with beer cans and assorted debris. Someone, even managed to get a city garbage truck to pick up the bags. The HomeVan cadre knew it was only a minor victory, but substantial in the moment. It didn’t last long as beer cans began to appear and accumulate and soon the police were making regular stops at the camp, checking id’s, lying about looking for some one. A couple of weeks passed, then a concerted campaign as wise guy cops started threatening the campers that they had to get out since the place was going to be bulldozed for housing. It was lies - a local merchant had threatened the Home Van, “I’ll have them gone in two months.” Which happened. After a few threats, they made one final call on the camp telling campers that if they weren’t out the following day, they would be arrested – it was trespassing. With no choice they all moved onto other wooded locations, hoping it would be satisfactory to the police.<br />
The main SouthCamp people we were helping told the HomeVan cadre where they were located and we made our drop-off of food and tents at the new site. We all appreciated and complimented the new location, building camaraderie with them, and trying to hold up their spirits. The following week the police came by giving another move out or get arrested message. They moved up stream along the Sweetwater Branch, this time across the creek. When we made our next visit, the campers walked across the creek calf deep in water, to get their food bags. Two weeks later they told us the cops came out telling them they had two days to move someplace else. One of their tents was slashed, attributed to the wise ass redneck cop who was the most verbally abusive. They were told by one cop where they should go, not too far from where they were - out of the City into the County, where the sheriff can take care of the problem.<br />
Johnny stood in the woods crying drunk about the harassment they were getting. “Where are we to go, what should we do? I served my country and want to be left alone. I don’t bother anyone, just want to live in the woods.” Soft gentle voice and spirit, no criminal type, not causing anyone harm, no weapons, no drugs, but too much state sanctioned alcohol. We told them we would do what we could, not having any clue how we could help them. We shook hands, gave friendly hugs, all feeling some kind of newfound friendship.<br />
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It wasn’t just their crisis, their lives weren’t only their lives, we knew that, where one body appears to stop, spirit energy keeps spreading, love energy emanates, we helpers become invested with the other, lines disappeared between us and them. We admitted - we took the dilemma home discussing what we could do.<br />
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Tom, the ever reliable attorney-advocate, talked to the deputy chief who told him that the campers didn’t have to leave that site right away, but they may have to move on since there were complaints from the student-yuppie complex across the road - same one where they don’t want their garbage reused.<br />
Knowing how important it was, I volunteered to go out to the camp to pass along the message.<br />
It was late morning as I drove out to the camp, remembering my mother telling me as a child to not go near the Hobo camps where I went with friends to pick blackberries. “Look at me now ma from whatever plane you’re on. I promise it’s okay, I’m doing good.” And she, “you’re always trying to help others Robert, take care of yourself, that’s who’s important.” “You never understood mom, I am.”<br />
The winter sun was warm. I talked with myself about what exactly was my place in what I was doing - my simple, ethical dilemma - whether I should cross the creek like they did. I could take off my shoes, socks. They just walked, shoes and socks, pants getting wet. Was I different than they were? They were drunk when they stumbled across the creek, I wasn’t drunk, so I knew, after all, I wasn’t going to walk through the creek. It’s okay Sh’mal, you are you.<br />
Walking through the woods, a narrow path along the creek, coming to the spot where I could see the camp, standing on the creeks edge, surrounded by the forest, in what felt like a surreal episode of life, I yelled for Johnny who I could see asleep across the creek in a lounge chair. I asked myself again, if I didn’t see them, would I cross the creek to their tents. I told my thinking, monkey mind to shut up. Louis was standing near by, “Hey, Louis.” He was the oldest in the camp, in his sixties, another case of alcohol cirrhosis, but still drinking, attended to by his camping brothers and sisters, “wake Johnny up, I have to tell him something.” He looked at me, not hearing clearly, not computing, maybe not believing some one was calling his name in the woods. As he peered in my direction, I took a few steps closer along the bank, called out louder, clearer, getting slight acknowledgment as he shook Johnny till he roused and sat up. I could see Louis point towards me. Slowly getting up from the lounge chair, shaggy beard, dark hair to his shoulders, he staggered along his side of the creek till he was right across from me: “hey Johnny, brother, you don’t have to leave for another week.” He looked at me, trying to clear his eyes and head from being hung over, not quite comprehending my message.<br />
“Johnny, you don’t have to leave. It’s cool, Tom, the attorney, talked with the police, you all can stay here for a couple more weeks.” Getting the message, he smiled, put his hands to his heart, bowed namaste, Buddhist prayer honoring the divine in the other. I did the same to him. “Thank you brother, thank you Sh’mal,” he softly responded across the creek with a caught tear in his voice. For me, maybe for him, a timeless moment between humans brought together by life’s circumstances, choices we make that are made beyond our knowing, beyond self.<br />
Two weeks later Johnny, the unofficial camp captain, moved his small group of friends to the Sweetwater Camp; it was his dog that later was killed. They were some of the first we knew going there, although there were signs that camping had been going on there for many, many years back. It, like SouthCamp, were truly, venerable, homeless archeological sites, with debris scattered, some half buried in the ground. Being along the creek, we can be sure some other time in history, native people inhabited these same spots, sacred pow wows, fishing, hunting, as many arrow heads come into the hands of those living there.<br />
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Tonight, in the downtown Plaza, the paramedics showed up after a short while attending to Henry.<br />
Johnny was standing near by, I hadn’t seen him earlier. I walked up to him, “hey Johnny, did you go to the hospital about your ear bleeding?” A week earlier he took tissue out of his ear, showing me the blood.<br />
“Yeah, man,” as always, a soft hurt voice coming to me, “they said I need brain surgery again. I told you, I had it done three years ago and swore I wouldn’t do it again. I don’t know what to do.” With tears he stood there, not drunk this time, just hurting from what life had done to him, what maybe becoming a Viet Nam killer had done to him. He talked about it only once, some time ago, pulling me off to the side so others couldn’t hear, yeah, drunk, tears, hurting, confiding some of the deepest secrets he carried from yet another war gone bad, a story told too many times by too many.<br />
Again I stood, not sure what counsel to give, or if he needed, wanted any, it was his call. “Sorry bro you going through this again. I’ll come visit and be with you. We all will. You know. Let us know when you’re going in. I’ll take you if you want.”<br />
“Come here, Sh’mal,” he said, as he pulled lightly on my sleeve. We walked off a bit from the paramedics as they were lifting Harry on to stretcher to take him away. He was deep into my eyes, maybe deeper. I felt that look when he told me about Nam, deeper in some ways then any eyes I’ve ever looked into. There it was, pain, hurt, confusion, loves lost, some of life. It’s all I can say in words, but something else was there, a timeless look, a look about what life had been to him, with an unknowing about where it was going. “I’m scared, Sh’mal. Real scared. They told me I could die from another surgery. I could die from no surgery. I don’t know what to do. Keep praying for me.”<br />
“You know I will. I don’t know either Johnny. I don’t know and the hang up is no one can tell you. It’s you, maybe you and Barbara.” Barbara his new woman after the other went to the nursing home. As the unofficial leader of the camp an alone woman in the woods or the streets, latch on to him for limited security. Barbara had her face all scraped and bruised recently from “walking into a tree at night.” Since there were no door jams in the woods as excuses for causing facial bruises, trees served well. She had been a nurse not too many years back, way back in place, now she administered to Jerry and he to her, she sometimes getting belligerent and punched by whose ever face she was in. She was reported to be dying from who knew what besides the alcohol, something in life. Not even close to doing good. Smiled to me the other night telling me, “I’m doing as good as I can.”<br />
“Barbara, that’s all any of us can do.” What could I tell her? It felt like maybe soon there could be a double funereal. I didn’t want to project, but that was what I saw in front of me, only what could be. They both seemed beyond saving in this lifetime. Good souls, good hearts, I don’t know, poor timing. It can break some one up thinking about lives gone down a hard bumpy road with no way to smooth it out except with loving concern and whatever else one can give.<br />
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I stop by Bob and Arupa’s house across from the community garden, where Bob and I grow most of our vegetables, which we’ve begun to share for the soups Arupa makes for the homeless, or taking greens out to some of the camps. Arupa started all this HomeVan ministry after she got fed up volunteering in the homeless shelter a few blocks from their home. It came as a vision in seeking another way to serve the homeless, driving around to where they are bringing them what they need. And soon, as life will do us, some one donated an old luxury van to her and the oddesey continued, becoming substantial. She reached out to a creative community: attorneys, artists, writers, counselors, teachers, students, an occasional doctor, even, to come join her in a quest to equalize our gifts with others.<br />
The floor of the living room of their old, small, wood frame home, was cluttered with boxes, bags, clothes, food, the porch the same, shelves built recently filled with canned foods, three stacks of white cotton blankets for next winter on the porch dropped off by a faith based group who had more of them donated then they could use, knowing we shared a mission. Bags of dog food for the camp dogs, big bags of the finest bread in town given away from a yuppie bakery way across town, two bags of some of the worst donuts from coffee shops maybe good for one more day before they’d get composted.<br />
“Sh’mal,” Arupa welcomed, “it’s you, good, we’ve been non-stop today with people ringing the doorbell for food. Everyday it blows my mind how many mothers are coming here with kids looking for food. They’ve getting thrown off of food stamps for one reason or another. I don’t understand what’s going on.”<br />
“Yeah, we do, bombs not food. It’s so simple: the priorities of government. It’s fucked up, but we keep on doing.”<br />
“Oh, hey, by the way, Bob and I have to stop the clothes in our house. It’s too much. Look,” as she points to what I can see and have thought about wondered how much I would accept in my own apartment. How much would I?<br />
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Six months ago, in the middle of the winter, granted, it’s northern Florida winter, we found a 19 year old seven months pregnant girl-woman living in a tent in the woods with a boyfriend. We didn’t think she belonged there, but where did she belong? The next week she was in my spare bedroom. I asked myself, “is this cool, who is she, what do I know?” Others told me the same. I trusted my instincts. They’ve served me well in many situations. HomeVaners were working on getting her birth certificate from Arkansas so she could get into Arbor House, the home for pregnant women without homes, services from the health department, food stamps were soon to appear. I know the system, it could take time, but I’ll be okay. I had no illusions of what to expect from her. A foster kid most of her life, I knew she had seen scores of people like me, I wasn’t going to make big changes in her life - give her a room, the one with the T.V. I seldom watched, “she won’t be here long,” I assured myself.<br />
For three weeks she spent most of the time in the bedroom watching the T.V., eating, sleeping, hanging with her boyfriend. I allowed him two nights when the temperature dropped below freezing. I didn’t particularly like him, another failed, humane attempt, of foster care programs. I know though, it’s starts before the foster program, and society can only do so much after a kid is wrecked, whacked, whittled away to almost not human by parents who were intended to give them the most of love, but instead...... I worked with foster kids for a few years as part of my social worker career and knew their life is not easy, I can give slack, but there are limits.<br />
“Hey, you two, clean up the dishes if you’re going to be staying here. This is my apartment, you are guests.” I finally had to raise my voice after a day of dishes gathering in the sink. She did it. In time, dishes and silverware began to disappear. I assumed out to the woods with boyfriend, I never asked it didn’t matter, I had more. After three weeks, with still no opening at Arbor House, a woman I know offered a home to June. I didn’t mind. Finally Arbor House had room. I assisted getting her in, which she abandoned after two weeks, unable to follow the rules, had her baby in the hospital, which was taken by the state since she had no home, except again, a tent in the woods.<br />
Same question again: how much would I accept in my apartment? Four months after June left, I begin to think of one of the homeless men who is sober, smart, communicative, drawn to help with homeless issues. He was once a pastor and can’t stop helping. I asked myself whether I should offer him my spare bedroom. One of the HomeVan cadre tell me right away, “Sh’mal don’t do that.” “Thanks, I’ll think on it.” The next day, Nelson asks me, “hey Sh’mal would you consider me for a housemate?”<br />
It’s been almost a month, it’s working out. Nelson found all my dishes and silverware in dresser drawers where I never thought to look. Dirty, crusty. June made it easy on herself. Nelson is waiting to find out about a disability hearing he had recently that’ll give him a low monthly income but a large government settlement on checks he should have been getting since he originally applied for the disability three years ago. Unfortunately, or fortunately for him, he is denied disability, and will have to rely on his own inner resources to get his life on track. He has many capabilities beyond the average homeless man and should make his way in the world.<br />
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Arupa and Bob have boxes of food, clothes, etc., people coming by daily, and I take a couple of people into my house. Others have also. It’s true, some of us are loosing the boundaries between us and them. It’s okay though. None of us are alone in this world, each a part of the other and this homeless business will be an ongoing dilemma as some look for solutions, others help them where they are without judging, while others continue to debase our world by whatever moves them.<br />
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“Everyday,” I tell Arupa and Bob, “I ask myself - how much can you guys deal with? I know about burnout, and thought it was getting to that point. You need your house back, at least some of it.”<br />
“Thanks for thinking of us,” Arupa tells me. “Laura is going to take clothes to her house, in a garage, and bring them out in her truck on Tuesdays when she comes out with the HomeVan.”<br />
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Arupa’s become sort of our local Mother Theresa. Naturally she doesn’t think of herself that way, and maybe it’s a stretch from Calcutta to Gainesville, Florida, but something awoke in Arupa to do something new and it’s spreading. Articles by her, about her, my own, by newspaper reporters with pictures, have been appearing for the past six months making the whole community more aware of the HomeVan and the endless homeless problem. She feels she’s oddly gotten back to her long forgotten Catholic roots as many of those on the Home Van are also volunteers with various Catholic charitable organizations. She does her big share while others pick up here and there to make the effort equitable. Arupa and Bob are finally convinced to put a sign on their door, “HomeVan Closed, Come Back Later.” It’s working, no more boxes of clothes taking up sparse living room space, and now, they can sit at home and not have to answer what becomes, at times, an annoying doorbell. Nobody wants that from their own doorbell.<br />
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One of the County Commissioners took a ride to Sweetwater with the HomeVan on its regular Thursday night run. A handsome young black man with a care for the community, invited by Tom our attorney. It was a revelatory experience for all of us that day going further into the woods, on old logging trails, into the camps where no one, who doesn’t know what’s going on, even know they exist. They are homeless, by usual community standards, but it is a community of friend’s, strangers, acquaintances, caring something for the other, in the small camp sites off the road a bit, but most not hidden. Two of the men were our tour guides, as we walked, pointing out whose camp was whose, passing others on the path, some joining up with us. One young women, in short shorts, halter, Daisy Mae type, recognized the commissioner from when she worked in town, he knew her by name, said she used to work in a dry cleaner, but wanted the good life so now she has it after the drugs and alcohol wore her out. She began dancing around in front of us, loudly singing, praising Jesus to protect her, from some unknown fear that the commissioner was out looking for her, while he felt bad for her ending up in the woods, obviously needing psychotropic medication, which was also told us by one our guides. He a Viet Nam vet, told me he was on those meds for years, but living in the woods, having a community, as it is, not dealing with the world outside, he’s making it without the medications.<br />
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Suddenly I’m not on this path, but on the trails in the woods in Arkansas where I was living on 40 acres surrounded by the national forest, with a community of 20-30 friends, acquaintances, strangers, since we also had no clue sometimes who was coming down that road to live with us. It all felt like a normal way for people to be living. Couldn’t get no judgment from me, although the commissioner at one point, musing and impressed, compassionate with what he sees, asks no in particular, I’m next to him, “what can we do to bring them back into society?” I was surprised at his naiveté, saying back that “some of them can’t and some don’t want that,” which he acknowledged with, “yeah, I guess you’re right.”<br />
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There’s a shift again, and I imagine the Native American’s in these woods, I imagine some are still hiding in the brush, behind large 150 year old live oaks watching the new interlopers with their tents and cars coming up the road to be fixed or to drop off one of the new ones living there. I image up what they would be wearing, feathers in the hair, leather loin cloths, sandals, bows and arrows ready to shoot us if they are seen.<br />
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I’m back to present hearing how these men and a few women manage the sites if problems come up, running off thieving crack addicts that took too much too often from the camps. We’re told they come sneaking back in though, staying in places out of sight, away from the main road, doing their bad when the time is right. The now four residents walking with us point out who lives where, showing us how one camp is kept neat, while beer cans, cardboard beer carriers, discarded plastic shopping bags, clothes laying around, cigarette and other food wrappers strewn about another. The tell us how they deal with heavy winds, rain storms, the cold winter nights now passed as the spring brings colors, smells, less clothes, easier time for a while. We see large rain tarps secured up in the trees some covering two tents below. The two main interpreters of the camps are proud of what they have here, how order is maintained as best as possible with no formal rules, no hierarchy, except maybe, by longevity of time spent, maybe size, strength of a man, wisdom if another will listen.<br />
As we’re completing the 45 minute circular walk, coming out where the van is parked the commissioner wonders out loud about the others on the commission coming out, but lets that go into the wind, but would like to have a dumpster brought out and set aside for their trash, ideally, a mobile medical unit to make visits, some one suggests a port-a-potty to him. He isn’t sure what can be done to help, but he’ll never forget what he’s seen.<br />
It was about a two hour walk, slow and tedious finding all the camps; a few camps, neither the cops nor Tom and I knew about but we were led to them by others. Some of the campers looked at me with this “what should I do now?” expression, but we had little to suggest, except the place across the street, back on city property, where apparently the owner there had given permission for some one, one person to camp there. No one was sure how he’d feel about 20.<br />
The good cop was considerate when telling the people at each site when they had to leave, but, he included, “if you’re showing signs you’re moving, but don’t have everything gone, I’ll give you another day or so.”<br />
I was surprised, but I guess because they had no options, except jail- all the sites were empty during the next three days. I’m not sure how they did it, carrying all their stuff out, maybe an ally with a truck helped drive it out. Some went across the street, others to places they didn’t want to tell us about fearing with the HomeVan coming in their site would make it more known.<br />
No one told us it was going to happen. The police promised they would let us know, if, more likely, when, they were going to take action about all the people living in Sweetwater Camp. It wasn’t an attack, maybe an assault against the dignity of those there. Police cars along with a helicopter visited the camps one afternoon telling the residents they had to be gone in five days. They made two arrests for outstanding warrants, but didn’t hassle one campers with obvious drug paraphernalia.<br />
Homies heard about it later that day when some of the campers came into town spreading the word about their world changing again. Now it was the Sheriff’s department telling them to leave, this apparently based on a complaint from the owner when he found out about his property was turning into a campground for homeless.<br />
Attorney Tom, made an appeal to the Sheriff’s department for a few more days and surprisingly two weeks was granted. The police wanted to go out sooner to let them know what was the deal. Tom was asked to go and he asked me to go along too. I felt proud being able to help out these guys who don’t have a voice in our society.<br />
When Tom and I arrived at the area we were told by the police who were already waiting for us that the plan had changed. They all had to be out in three days. Tom and I were a bit stunned, personally felt betrayed, but also that we had betrayed the campers who had already received the news that they had two weeks. We sort of weakly bantered back and forth with a good cop bad cop team, but eventually accepted we would accompany them through the woods as they passed the news.<br />
This was another one of those Kafkaesque events in life, unsure of what one was doing walking through the woods with police, going camp to camp telling people you know, who you are trying to help, that they have to change their plans. Hopeless and hapless. It felt like a weird trip, no, it was weirder, deeper then feeling, down to ones essential being, standing there, now with the local television station along putting the camera right in the faces of the soon to be displaced campers. Some were angry, especially those who had been living there for years, hassle free till more kept moving in, and those told by the City Police to move there. After all, if the police drop you off someplace, you figure it’ cool. It was for a while, now their lives have been altered again.<br />
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Pete has been living in the woods for ten to 20 years depending on when he tells his story. Not in these woods all the time, but he’s been around for a long time. Just turned 60, another Viet Nam vet, he isn’t well, getting thinner and thinner weekly as we try and bring him nutritional supplement s to drink, but we can’t get them all the time due to expense and shortage of donated money. We can all see he’s fading away. He has his camp site away from the others, closer to the paved road we come in on with the van to bring food and other essentials as well as services. He isn’t interested in living near the others, but won’t chase anyone from his area if they set up camp. One person has been near by for most of the year, a transgender person, but he/she isn’t around a whole lot, and Pete, now is staying mostly alone close to his camp. He’s set up good, right near the creek, satisfied with the tent he sleeps in, small transitory radio with country and western playing when we come out, a TV with a two inch screen he can get local football and weather, Blackie his cat near by, two storage tents, a rifle is always leaning against his sleeping tent. Of all the homeless sites, his is the only one with a displayed weapon, although some carry knives in sheaths on their hips.<br />
We informally discuss his situation as we do about others we’re concerned about wondering if there’s anything more we feel morally drawn to do in order to help without imposing outside values. We all love Pete, so in some ways, he’s a special case.<br />
Pete agrees to see our doctor, who Arupa brings to his campsite. Pete has been getting worse, spitting up blood, having a hard time swallowing; a lump in his throat, voice getting weaker. None good signs. The doctor left a prescription for antibiotics, which I filled, brought out to him, which he took, felt better, still with lump. No one is calling it a tumor although we question cancer. He is still not swallowing easy. He finally agrees, again, at our suggestion, to an appointment at the hospital. I was going to be the escort.<br />
Driving down to get him I see him stopped on a main street leaning on his bike, smoking. I make a ueee, “Pete, what you doing?” I call at him, pulling along side. “You’re supposed to be going to the hospital for the exam. I came to take you.”<br />
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. Thanks for coming to get me, I’m feeling much better, can talk now, no blood. Them pills the doc sent out really got rid of the problem.”<br />
I don’t try and persuade only, encourage, but Pete is set in what he wants for himself, been telling us for a while, he would rather die right there in the woods where he’s lived for so long, or, see a horse doctor.<br />
“I was all set to go and then thought about hospitals and changed my mind, as quick as that.” He thanks me a few times for coming to get him, but no thanks when it comes to hospital procedures. “Sorry you had to come looking for me, but I don’t want to swallow that stuff, don’t want them looking in me with nuclear devices, if that’s what they planning on doing.”<br />
“I don’t know what they were going to do, but I’m okay, if you’re okay, Pete, I’ll see you on Thursday,” as I drive off with him weakly smiling and waving.<br />
Pete knows he’s getting weaker and I and others persuade him to apply for an apartment in a low income senior building. He agrees. I have taken Pete on as friend and someone maybe we can help. I get the papers to apply for him to put on a waiting list and have meetings with the management. Rod, one of our Homies , with some connections in the building is also advocating for Pete. When the application is filled out I take him for an appointment with the management and he is shown the apartment. He has constant smile of appreciation on face as he looks around the one room efficiency apartment.<br />
“Pete,” I say to him, “you should have done this years ago.”<br />
“You’re right Sh’mal, I’m getting too old for the woods.”<br />
This is a refrain he’s been chanting lately. Not too old, just too weak, too debilitated.<br />
Pete’s barely coming out of his tent, and when he does he’s literally crawling. We’ve talked with him a number of times about going to the er, but he’s refused. One day he tells us to come get him on Saturday. Arupa and I agree to take him to the hospital on Saturday. Why Saturday we don’t know, but he choose the day.<br />
At the emergency room they have us bypass the waiting room and he is put directly in an examining room. It’s a five hour ordeal, but he hangs in. Arupa and I encourage him to wait and be patient. I bring him coffee, he goes out for a cigarette or two every hour or so. Before we got to the hospital he had us stop at the convenience store to get a carton of cigarettes, limping in himself when he couldn’t think of the brand he wanted. He’s a two to three pack a day smoker, been smoking since he was an adolescent. He also drinks a least two six packs a day. If he gets admitted to the hospital I wonder about delirium tremens for both of his addictions. We’ll see how he manages.<br />
One doctor comes in to see him. Does an exam, feels the tumors on his neck: “Pete you know what they might be,” he asks? Pete doesn’t respond. The doctor questions him twice more, but Pete is acting dumb, or afraid to respond. I talked with him more than once about the possibility of cancer. Either he forget, or doesn’t want to say the word.<br />
The young doctor blurts it out: “It’s probably cancer and it’ll probably kill you.” That’s it, perfect bedside manner to a poor homeless man on medicaid. Would he have been so callous to a paid patient in suit?<br />
At one point I get an Advanced Directive form which is needed so he can tell the hospital what interventions he doesn’t want done. He is very clear that he doesn’t want any invasive treatments, assigning Arupa and me to his health care surrogates, allowing us to make decisions for him, but we also witnessed the form, making the form not legal, so I discard it, figuring once admitted the hospital staff will have him fill one out. Unfortunately this is never done.<br />
When he gets admitted we leave, but I come back in the evening to talk with him, questioning him in front of a nurse about what his wishes are in case he needs invasive treatment. He remains adamant: he wants none of the hospital technology. His nurse promises to put this in his notes so a doctor can sign an order to that effect.<br />
The next morning I get a call from the hospital, that Pete had aspirated, choking on some pureed foods they gave him and he is now on a respirator, a breathing machine. I’m flipped, and quickly get irritated expressing my ire to the nurse, who is only the messenger, and I apologize, telling her I’ll be there shortly.<br />
Before going to see him I stop in the volunteer office at the hospital where I report when I volunteer once month as a hospital chaplain. Constance, the volunteer coordinator, is extremely supportive when I tell her the situation and she calls the patient representative who hears the story and accompanies me to the MICU where Pete is bedded.<br />
When I go into the Medical Intensive Care unit I find Pete with a breathing tube down his throat, a feeding tube down his nose, (a nasal gastric, ng, tube) catheterized, with six bags of fluids going into him. His hands are tied to the bed rails because he was pulling on the tubes. My friend Pete, who didn’t want anything done to him, is getting everything modern medical technology can offer to keep him alive.<br />
I’m irate, telling a doctor, nurses, social worker what the nurse heard the night before. “How come this wasn’t in the chart?” They have no clue, but want to know who the nurse was. I describe him, but they can’t do anything in the moment, but will find out what happened. I rant a bit, “how come no one filled the Advanced Directives for him?” They all know this is standard upon admission, but it wasn’t done. I’m feeling guilty that I didn’t take more time with getting it filled out myself. I contain myself knowing there is absolutely nothing that can be done. I visit with Pete but he’s sedated and asleep. I stand over him, agonizing that here he is, having done to him what he was not wanting. My fault? The hospitals fault? Divine intervention? I am feeling totally shitty.<br />
That night I return and the nurse who heard him state his wishes the night before is on duty. I don’t wait for him to say anything. “What the hell happened? You heard him last night. I’m pissed.”<br />
“I’m pissed too.” He’s pissed? He tells me, “I talked with Pete after you left and he told me the same thing again. I had a tech in with me so we had two witnesses. I paged the doctor a few times for him to come up and sign the order, but he was busy on another emergency and never came up to sign the order. I knew this was going to happen if it didn’t get signed.”<br />
We spend time standing next to Pete, who is still in a drugged state. The nurse is remorseful, but it was beyond him. I spend an hour standing at the foot of Pete’s bed looking at him, sending him loving, energy, unable to rationalize what I didn’t do, what wasn’t done, trying to understand what is going on with Pete. Two days ago, in a tent in the woods, now this. Something out of harmony, but I’m not sure what it is.<br />
The next morning I return and am told that Pete was awake when the doctor was in and when Pete was asked if he wanted to breathing tube removed he said “no.” The nurse told me she asked him a few times. He never changed his mind. It occurred to me that out of context, signing a living will not wanting heroic measures is one thing, but once some one is hooked up and they have to make the decision to end their life it’s another. I can’t stop asking myself about not being more attentive to the Advanced Directives. “What did I do?”<br />
The hospital business for Pete went on for ten days. I had many talks with doctors, nurses, social workers. It was hard for me to deal with some of this, but being a veteran of hospital worker I wove myself through it all being as best an advocate as I could.<br />
Pete came somewhat alert on his second day. I was able to joke with him a bit about his circumstance, “Pete if I showed you a picture of what you would look like today before we left the camp would you have come in? He gave me an expected hard shake of the head no.<br />
For those two days the most I could do was visit with Pete while he slept. I mainly stood at the foot of his bed praying and trying to ease his discomfort. I did a Buddhist meditation, Tonglen, for those who are dying or in distress, taking in all the dark that might be surrounding him, like a cloud of black smoke into my own heart, sending back light for his comfort. This was easy for me since I daily do meditations on taking in light and sending it out to the world, sometimes into distressed places on the planet.<br />
In the discussions I had with the doctors they advised taking out the breathing tube and putting a tracheotomy in his throat. I was able to have this discussion with the doctors while Pete was somewhat alert and explained it all to him, letting him know he would be more comfortable with the tube out of his throat and that the trach surgery was minimal, a small slit in this throat. He agrees. This was done the following day.<br />
One doctor, his attending, the man in charge, gave me good advise, suggesting we do things step by step. The next was taking out the nasal gastric tube and putting in a feeding tube directly into his stomach.<br />
By the fourth day Pete was completely restrained, from first his wrists, to now, arms, legs, shoulders with a posy chest restraint. This was all done because he was constantly pulling the ng tube out of his nose, irritating his throat even worse. No amount of pleading by myself or the nurses were able to stop his annoyance of the ng tube. Even mostly restrained, he managed to wiggle his body into a position to get out the tube, till finally he was totally restrained. My friend who lived in the woods, on his own, no constraints, drinking beer and smoking cigarettes now what do I see, how does he feel? I can only know my part.<br />
I talked with him about the gastric feeding tube, explaining it all to him and he agreed. Since he now wanted to live I told him this would work and he wouldn’t have to remain in the hospital. I told him I could get him into a nursing home where I worked for three years as the Director of Social Services, and he could smoke and maybe even have a beer to two a day. I wasn’t sure, but I knew in the past this was allowed for alcoholics.<br />
After the gastric tube was placed he was in a bit of pain for the next two days, but helped with morphine.<br />
A day or so later, he was discharged from the medical intensive care unit to regular room. He was now feeling much better, more at ease, was able to talk a bit by putting his finger over the hole of the trach. What was annoying was the constant drip of mucous from the hole, slopping down his chest. He was reminded to wipe it, but always wiped his nose, thinking it<br />
was coming out of there, but soon, sort of got the hang of things.<br />
Seeing him stabilized, I began talks with the social worker at the hospital to get him discharged. I had met her previously through her husband who I knew for many years, going way back to when I worked in a mental health center working with his brother who was a favorite client of mine. I told the social worker that I already called hospice and they will take the referral when he is in the nursing home. She said she’d take care of the discharge to the nursing home I suggested.<br />
Because his throat cancer was now the issue to deal with the doctors were suggesting radiation and chemo therapy. I knew this would weaken him more then he needed. One of the nurses even confided it would probably kill him. I thought this myself since he was so thin and debilitated it wouldn’t take much to take him over the line. I discussed it with him and he was adamant about not wanting either treatment, telling me he wasn’t going for it even before I brought it up. Rather then have him transported by ambulance, I drove him to the nursing home. I knew some of the staff which would help with his care and it was the closest to where most of his friends lived, including myself and Arupa, who along with another friend was visiting him in the hospital.<br />
I had been visiting two times a day most of the time he was hospitalized. Odd how all this was playing out. He would have been dead if not for the mistake by hospital staff, and myself. So, again, God, the nature of things, worked out a plan for Pete to have more time on this earth. We’ll have to see.<br />
When he was admitted to the nursing home, I went a bit ballistic in talking with staff that I knew, and others I didn’t, giving them information about his previous life style and the care I thought he needed. I annoyed the doctor while she was busy, trying to make sure she knew his situation. I called her a few times still she told me to stop calling her, but when she finally did see him she wrote orders for morphine as needed, beer if requested.<br />
The next day I brought in a friend, Valarie, who does Rekei healing, which is basically an energy healing similar to laying on of hands, but with special training that teaches the practitioner to direct heavenly energy through her hands to the patient. She also brought in some fresh carrot and beet juice which he drank but it ran out of his trach tube. This red mixture poured down is chest, squirted out of his tube onto the floor. The staff panicked thinking he was bleeding from the throat, but we eased their concern. Valarie worked on his back when he complained of pain. He brushed her away as he threw a pillow on the ground, crawled to the floor as we watched questioning what he was doing. He simply wanted to be prone and more comfortable. Valarie continued to work on him while he rested on the ground.<br />
Pete has stabilized more in the home. He is smoking to his heart’s content. He was getting beer, but with the morphine, he seemed to have lost the taste and wasn’t even smoking so much. The hospice social worker, who I knew for many years, assured me he is doing fine, but that he probably has cancer throughout his body and they will oversee the treatment from the nursing home staff.<br />
Pete’s been in the nursing home for a couple of weeks now and is still smiling, still smoking a bit, but is getting thinner and weaker. His legs and arms look like twigs. I don’t ask if they’re weighing him since it doesn’t matter much. He tells me he’s drinking the Ensure, but I don’t ask since anyone it doesn’t make much difference either. He laughed when I remind him how he tricked us in he woods telling us he was drinking it, but was putting it in his storage tent. We eventually gave out all he saved to others, just as a supplement since most are undernourished, although most look well fed even being without homes.<br />
I’m seeing him every other day, spend about half an hour sitting near his bed, sometimes on it since he doesn’t go outside when I show up. He isn’t going out much, satisfied with the bed, the morphine, which he requested when I was there today. I asked the nurse about it as she was passing out meds and soon, she gave him some drops and a tablespoon in a small paper cup. He’s never been a drug user, but is making the most of the morphine, admitting he doesn’t want the pain. I assure him it’s the right thing, “you had enough pain in this life.” He smiled nodding his head.<br />
His trach tube is constantly dripping mucous that he wipes, coughs up, acts annoyed at it all, shakes his head angrily, acting the same way if his papers and cards won’t go in his wallet easily, or his drawer won’t open, or this or that. He gave me his ATM card two days ago to get money for him and some cigarettes. I bought a carton of the cheapest, leaving him with five packs and taking the others home till he might need them.<br />
I don’t know why, but it’s not hard for me. Maybe only seeing him infrequently for short times isn’t weighing on me as much as when I worked there, helping others through this stage as I did regularly when the call was there to help the dying. Valarie brought her new dog by to see him and he smiled when I asked him about her doing that. Valarie thinks he only has a couple of weeks. Maybe so. Odd, I haven’t given it much thought how long he has, knowing though there isn’t much time left. Maybe I’m used to this, even though it’s sacred, I’m taking death in stride knowing how life is.<br />
I had to ask him the other day what he wanted done when he died, “cremation or burial?”<br />
“Cremation,” he gurgled.<br />
“And your remains, should we spread them around your camp?”<br />
“No! No memories.” He raised his hands in the air, giving the impression he just wanted to go up in smoke and that was fine.<br />
“Should I just leave them with the mortuary?” He shrugged.<br />
When I asked him about his thoughts on what’s next, he shrugged again, “when we go, were just gone.”<br />
Because there are no relatives we can get in touch with, I already tried reaching his two sons, I told him he may have to sign something that cremation is what he wants since we just went through this with another man who died in the woods and County Social Services wouldn’t do a cremation without family consent. That man had a girlfriend who cared for him to the end, but it was a no go, and he was buried against his fervent desire. It was hard for his friend, but she finally accepted what couldn’t be altered. I called the social worker from Hospice who said she’d have a document made up for Pete to sign that’ll have places for witnesses. Hopefully that will satisfy the bureaucracy. It seems like in the past family would show up after the fact creating conflict about where their family member was buried.<br />
The following day I saw Pete twice, once in the morning when I met with Liz, attorney from HomeVan, wife of the other HomeVan Attorney, and another woman who was a notary, to sign the request for cremation and the Durable Power of Attorney making me legally able to access his account. Tomorrow I’ll go to the bank and see what’s up there. In the evening I brought him some cheap wine he requested in the morning, MD 20 20. Mad Dog? I don’t know. He still had a barely sipped beer in his nightstand drawer. I stood praying by his bed this evening, hadn’t done that in a while, since he could be getting close, being down to probably 75 pounds. Amazing, living on life’s energy that is still coming through to him, enough, to keep him going. Maybe appropriately, Arupa has at times jokingly referred to him as a Sadhu, the word for renunicates in India. Who knows who any of us have been, as we work on trying to know who we are in this life? He’s always so appreciative of my stopping by and sitting on his bed, talking, bringing him what he requests, thanking me for coming by to see him. His time is getting closer.<br />
I get a call late two nights later that he fell going to the bathroom. They don’t have to send him out to the hospital since he’s not hurt. They call again early the next morning to tell me he pulled out the trac tube. My friend, a saint of a nurse, tells me I should come in, which I do immediately. I spend the morning with him, watching him twist and turn, maneuvering his body into any position that might get him comfortable, but no position works.<br />
“Pete, it’s getting close. Try and relax, get comfortable. It’s all going to be okay.”<br />
At time he nods, sometimes not. “It’s going to be okay, here, have a sip of beer,” which he takes with a straw.” Barely any, no strength to even sip. We hold the can together, he takes out the straw and tries sipping, as it spills down his chest. I clean it up, as he pushes the beer away into my hands.<br />
I get the nurse and ask here when he gets his morphine, which she brings him a few minutes later. It does little good as he continues looking for a comfortable position. All morning staff that found him a likable resident are coming in and out being with him, talking with me some remembering when I worked there, one resident coming in telling me a story she heard about me. I don’t want to feel flattered, since this is my life work, I have no choice when I’m helping like this.<br />
I look for words that might work, “close your eyes Pete, get ready, when you go, go to the light. It’s all I know Pete, what I heard about the next plane. Go to the light.” He closes his eyes for a few seconds, opens them, it’s agony for him trying to get comfortable. “It’s close Pete.” He waves, like a good-bye. I know in that moment, it’s a wave I’ll never forget. I wonder if he also knows its getting that close. Nurses and aides come in and fix his sheets, adjust the back of the bed so he sitting up. I rearrange a pillow behind his back. Nothing is making much difference. There is no comfort before dying if one hasn’t prepared.<br />
I go home eat, take a nap, read from the “Tibetan Book of Living and Dying,” a section called Tonglen, about taking in the dark uncomfortable feelings of pain and sending him light. There are four stages, I try and go through them all as I visualize Pete, where he is, what he’s going through, what I know, what I don’t know. I’m gone for three hours. When I return, he has passed from here, his body is lying inert. I rub the top of his head as I’ve done with others, trying to help his spirit leave through the crown chakra. I pray for him that he is now comfortable, at peace, that he needn’t return looking for more beer and cigarettes, hopefully having had his fill in this lifetime.<br />
<br />
I’m always in wonderment about how when we take on one thing as a good thing to do, we never know where it’s going to bring us, what effect it’s going to have on our life, or the life of another. The interbeingness of the Buddhist philosophy is incorporated into my life because I feel in me what they have to say, as I read what the Sufis have to say, what Judaism, my birth religion has to say about all this trying to make my path somehow in harmony with all paths, especially when a friend is at the end of this path going on to endless distances beyond our knowing.<br />
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XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXA MEETING ON THE TRAINtag:www.zoobird.com,2009-04-15:2129360:BlogPost:159422009-04-15T03:05:00.000ZSh'mal Ellenberghttps://www.zoobird.com/profile/ShmalEllenberg
A MEETING ON THE TRAIN<br />
<br />
<br />
There is always a potential romantic adventure, however slight and passing, when one is open and allowing life to unfold for us.<br />
I watched attentively as a woman, one among many, but a particular woman, walked down the isle of the train I was on. I casually watched as she put her baggage on the overhead rack, with a sigh, signifying, “well, this is it, it’s all okay,” then sat across from where I was sitting on the Amtrak train from Buffalo to NYC. My male ego, or is it…
A MEETING ON THE TRAIN<br />
<br />
<br />
There is always a potential romantic adventure, however slight and passing, when one is open and allowing life to unfold for us.<br />
I watched attentively as a woman, one among many, but a particular woman, walked down the isle of the train I was on. I casually watched as she put her baggage on the overhead rack, with a sigh, signifying, “well, this is it, it’s all okay,” then sat across from where I was sitting on the Amtrak train from Buffalo to NYC. My male ego, or is it my soul, always yearning for connections, or simply, my thinking mind, wonders why she didn’t sit in the open seat next to me. I laughed inside myself, thinking she had a similar thought, as she looked, briefly, in my direction.<br />
After sitting a while, she walked towards the dinning car, coming back with a cardboard tray with a light repast, and soon after, when the young girl sitting by the window seat left, the woman took that seat. Later I see her doing some writing; like journal notes or poetry. Tired, she briefly tried an awkward full body stretch, an attempt to get<br />
comfortable on the partially reclining train seat. My eyes see her stretched out body trying to relax; my mind though, is reminded of her body as a sexual pose. She sat up, tried some reading, but soon put her head down on the fold-out tray and rests. None of her attempts at finding comfort looked satisfying.<br />
It’s a long train ride; I don’t stare, only occasional glances in her direction, passing time, having imaginal thoughts. Why not? She is interesting; exuding an energy that suggests her being thoughtful, educated. She’s dressed casual, is nice looking, well figured, portraying a particular persona that feels familiar, as if we have something in common; more than our being human, of the opposite sex.<br />
Later on she gets my attention again, only by what she is doing, not intentionally seeking it, or was she? She’s not even facing me, but is looking out the window with her elbows on the pull-out tray, thoughtfully, contemplatively, considering the grey, cut away rock wall, alongside the rail tracks. I felt she was in wonderment, as I have been, about how this mountainside was sculpted away, with, I’m supposing, dynamite and jackhammers, large earth and rock moving machines, breaking and cracking through part of a mountain so the train tracks could be lain where they are, along the Hudson river. There is beauty to this stretch of the ride, compared to the wasted industrial cities the train passed through to the north.<br />
And of course, I realistically considered, she may have only been looking at the ragged, jagged rock wall, while thinking about a child at home, or a sick grandmother.<br />
I have no idea if she’s paying attention to me, it didn’t appear so, or matter. It’s my mind playing my own games,<br />
even to the extent of thinking about getting to meet her after, when we were off the train, inviting her to have coffee together.<br />
When the train stopped at Penn Station, the end of the line, I quickly rose, volunteering, to take off of the overhead rack the luggage of the student girl who was now sitting on the isle, next to the focus of my attention. I glanced briefly at my new friend, as she smiled toward my glance seeing me being chivalrous. I immediately was reminded of the bumper sticker about “random acts of kindness.”<br />
As my friend took her pack off the overhead rack, she made a light comment to herself indicating a slight struggle going on in her life. Me standing near to her, getting my own bags, comment, “have things been hard?” and she said, “yes, a bit. I’ve been working a lot the past week in Albany.” I give her some words of encouragement that things will get better. She smiles, thanking me for acknowledging her difficult time. I tell her, “changing ones energy, makes things better.” She repeats with a smile to me, “yeah, the energy,” acknowledging an understanding of how energy works.<br />
I ask her what kind of work she does and she tells me, “I’m an organizer, working with businesses and communities and I had a lot of meetings this week.” I tell her, “I’m a social worker and have been in many community meetings. They get draining.”<br />
“Ah,” She responds,” you’ve probably seen a lot more of difficult times then I have.”<br />
“Yes, maybe,” I reply back as we walk away from the train. We smile, suggestive of a connection, a friendship that is brief and in passing, as we bid each other, “good-bye,” I choosing not to make any more of this passing interlude, since my life is full, I’m only visiting New York, and I’m not sure of the schedule of the Metro North train to Katonah, where my love, Batina, is awaiting me.<br />
<br />
<br />
A lot of crazy zig zag river lines,<br />
40,000 feet below,<br />
Plane flight over snow covered Montana.<br />
Must be higher altitude than earlier Iowa,<br />
As earlier I saw below sporadic small white lines of snow on flat farm parcels.<br />
Sunset to the west heading to Seattle, is bright orange out of my plane window seat.<br />
Blue western sky above<br />
With streaks and steaks of lines of light colored clouds<br />
Reflecting the setting sun, now, as it will do, moment to moment, changing colors as the grays begin to dominate the horizon from 40,000 feet.A bit more about Zoobirdtag:www.zoobird.com,2008-11-21:2129360:BlogPost:81472008-11-21T18:01:23.000ZSh'mal Ellenberghttps://www.zoobird.com/profile/ShmalEllenberg
In thinking about all the different areas that are being covered in Zoobird it came to mind that this web site, it is a web site? is adding a very important communication vehicle to our community. We have in Gainesville about as creative and aware group of interactors, motivators, and shakers, healers, hmm, what to call us? as any place on the planet. Now, that's a pretty outrageous statement, but after living here for the past 23 years, I can attest to what I know. Not trying to be cocky ego,…
In thinking about all the different areas that are being covered in Zoobird it came to mind that this web site, it is a web site? is adding a very important communication vehicle to our community. We have in Gainesville about as creative and aware group of interactors, motivators, and shakers, healers, hmm, what to call us? as any place on the planet. Now, that's a pretty outrageous statement, but after living here for the past 23 years, I can attest to what I know. Not trying to be cocky ego, just reviewing one person's experience on this community. It feels like this Zoobird vehicle of communication, can help, is helping already, to bring many ideas and people together in a way that can move us all along beyond what we believe. We needn't be tied to what we believe since what we believe is not what is really happening; it is only our limited perspective, but valid from that standpoint. It is an important time; we all know this; if we don't do it now, it may not ever get done. This is a big deal; so, just some added random thoughts from a Gainesville, somewhat ex-patriate, although I'm not quite banishing myself, just moved along for now, by grandfatherly and parental love.A Path in the Woodstag:www.zoobird.com,2008-11-11:2129360:BlogPost:77212008-11-11T18:48:48.000ZSh'mal Ellenberghttps://www.zoobird.com/profile/ShmalEllenberg
Michael: Well, that's not entirely true. The man who I modeled Pepe on was a real live guy, who wasn't Native American, who was dying of a tumor and who I did bring out a six pack so we could know each other better. Eventually, Arupa and I brought him to the er where he was admitted, told in the er "you have cancer and it'll probably kill you." Nice huh. Anyway, a longer drama till he died in a nursing home where I used to work. I'll take a look, maybe I wrote his true story and will post it.…
Michael: Well, that's not entirely true. The man who I modeled Pepe on was a real live guy, who wasn't Native American, who was dying of a tumor and who I did bring out a six pack so we could know each other better. Eventually, Arupa and I brought him to the er where he was admitted, told in the er "you have cancer and it'll probably kill you." Nice huh. Anyway, a longer drama till he died in a nursing home where I used to work. I'll take a look, maybe I wrote his true story and will post it. Love to all, Sh'malA PATH IN THE WOODStag:www.zoobird.com,2008-11-09:2129360:BlogPost:76062008-11-09T19:57:11.000ZSh'mal Ellenberghttps://www.zoobird.com/profile/ShmalEllenberg
A PATH IN THE WOODS<br />
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Pepe was almost always with a smile, a friendly hello, an ever present cigarette between his dirty and stained fingers with a beer in an insulated styrofoam jacket in his other hand, sitting on his swinging chaise lounge near his tents. Sitting firmly on his head was his felt western style hat, the brim curved above his ears with Spanish moss running around the raised brim, a small stuffed snoopy dog sitting on top with an American Flag on one side with a peace sign…
A PATH IN THE WOODS<br />
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Pepe was almost always with a smile, a friendly hello, an ever present cigarette between his dirty and stained fingers with a beer in an insulated styrofoam jacket in his other hand, sitting on his swinging chaise lounge near his tents. Sitting firmly on his head was his felt western style hat, the brim curved above his ears with Spanish moss running around the raised brim, a small stuffed snoopy dog sitting on top with an American Flag on one side with a peace sign painted over it and a Hooter’s emblem on the front. Under the hat, a long brown pony tail, dark skin, Native American high cheek bones, broad strong nose, wise cracking language that kept whoever was around smiling and joining in.<br />
After being introduced to Pepe at his squatters camp, I walked over to the creek that passed ten feet from his tent. I knew the creek; it was the Sweetwater Branch that ran lazily through town picking up pollutants along the way as it meandered out to Paynes Prairie loosing itself in a sink hole.<br />
“Hey Pepe, how come you have three tents?”<br />
As he pointed, Pepe said he slept in one tent and had two others for supplies. When I casually asked what supplies he kept he looked at me like a flash of lightening with dark staring eyes, turned away without answering. He didn’t say another word to me, or look at me again that visit. When we came out the following week, passing out food to the homeless, he didn’t acknowledge me, even when I said “hey, Pepe, how you doin?” Some of the others from the HomeVan, our volunteer cadre, said I should be patient, he’ll come around.<br />
Okay, it wasn’t my business what he had in the tents. I wasn’t prying just being curious friendly. He kept things that way for the next few visits to his camp. I felt lousy standing there with two or three others who were always talking and laughing together with him. I noticed right off that Pepe preferred talking with Lucille who was a thirty something graduate student at the university where I was a math professor.<br />
I tried to be present, but standing in his camp I felt envious of his rebel way of life. It took me a while to admit it to myself, but it was true. My kids were grown, I lived alone in a small apartment, and there wasn’t much that interested me in our culture anymore. I lived in it for years mostly because of my kids, was an involved parent, but now I wasn’t sure. I had a good enough life, work wise, income, but something was missing for me to get involved helping those at the bottom of the social ladder. Listening to Pepe getting along with Lucille and Ken who was also a student, I felt out of a loop. Pepe was my age, late 50s, been living in the woods for a decade or two is what I heard about him. He seemed content. Unlike many, he didn’t have to panhandle; some kind of military pension gave him freedom to do what he wanted, which was mostly smoking and drinking beer.<br />
One week when the others went off in another direction to bring the food to camps further in the woods I was left to bring Pepe his food. It really wasn’t much we brought out to them but they appreciated it: A sandwich, apple, banana, bottled water, snack, whatever donated food we had that week. As I walked on the path to his camp I called his name, then yelled out, “HomeVan coming in,” as we usually did when we approached any of the campsites. Walking in alone, old fears of the woods swelled up in me; it was dusk, the sun back near the end of the day spreading moving shadows through the trees. I admitted this was all new to me, the woods, those I was meeting, doing this sacred work. I saw Pepe’a camp, the tent flap closed, the swinging lounge seat with him not in it. In my six weeks going out, he was always sitting there at this time, waiting. I slowed my walk as I got closer, “Pepe, you around?” I wasn’t sure what to do with the bag of food, not having been told anything about leaving them if no one’s around.<br />
Then a freak out, as I felt a hand on my shoulder, “hey you, boo!” I dropped the bag, reflexively swung my other arm around at the hand on my shoulder, which was easily grabbed in Pepe’s iron grasp, as he slowly, almost too slowly, brought me to the ground. “Got you now doctor.”<br />
I looked up at him, knowing he could have killed me if he wanted, but there was no reason to kill me as there was no reason to freak me out or put me down on the ground.<br />
“What the hell. What was that for?” I looked up at his broad brown toothed smile. “Just wanted to scare you doctor.”<br />
“I’m not a doctor. A professor, I’m a professor of math.”<br />
“Good at figures, huh, I bet you’d like to work with that Lucille, she has a nice figure.”<br />
“Yeah, I’ve seen the way you like spending time with her when we drop off your food. She’s a little young for us.”<br />
“Well, doctor, maybe too young for you, but I still got my Seminole juices flowing in me. You want a beer?”<br />
Not once since I began this volunteer work did any one offer a beer. In most of the camps there was a lot of drinking going on. It was part of their culture, well, shoot, it was a part of the whole culture.<br />
“Sure, if you got a spare one. I may not have much time if the others finish dropping off bags up the hill.”<br />
“I wouldn’t offer you one if I didn’t have one for you. You got time, I hear there’s a bunch of them moving in, setting up camps, further back up that trail. They won’t be back for ten fifteen minutes. You got time, relax.”<br />
He handed me the beer, “thanks. Seminole, you’re native ?”<br />
“No Scottish,” as he popped the lid on his, smiling.<br />
“Grow up on a reservation?”<br />
“You still want to know what’s in my storage tent?”<br />
“Hey Pepe, I didn’t mean anything by that. If you want an apology you got it. Just curious.”<br />
“You know what happened to the cat?”<br />
“Cat, what cat?”<br />
“The curious cat, George.”<br />
“Yeah, like George. I used to read it to my kids.” I sipped the beer and walked over to the creek, enjoying looking at the running water. “I like your camp Pepe, being close to the creek. Reminds me of some place I must have been but can’t remember. It feels relaxed here.”<br />
“Not in the winter. It’s Florida, but in the winter it gets cold out here.”<br />
“Yeah, I know, I’ve been here for years. How long you been here?<br />
“Here, a few years. Been in the woods for close to twenty.”<br />
I sipped my beer, with the thought of living in the woods. “I don’t think I could do this.”<br />
“Probably not.”<br />
“I think I hear them coming down the hill. Thanks for the beer.” I took some long swallows finishing it off. “I’ll return the favor.”<br />
“Yeah, come out and bring some with you. You’re okay doctor.”<br />
Odd having a conversation with a Seminole. It was the first time in my life I had spoken to a Native American. An odd way to go, living out here in the woods, but choosing not to be close to the twenty or thirty homeless men and women back up the hill. They had homes though, just not like most of the rest of us. Homes without solid walls, but maybe better off. No bills, no car, no fuel needs, no electricity, no phone calls to make or receive. I also knew it wasn’t easy, with little money, scrambling for food, no good hygiene, weather to deal with, walking or biking most places. I wondered what it was in my nature that made me think this was a better way. Something primal I hadn’t explored.<br />
The next couple of weeks I didn’t go out with the HomeVan having something to do on those nights, but a Saturday afternoon, with nothing to do I went to the convenience store near the woods by Sweetwater camp to get a six pack to bring to Pepe. There he was standing by a bicycle outside the store with a 12 pack under one arm and a carton of cheap cigarettes under the other.<br />
“Hey doctor,” he spoke first.<br />
“Hey Pepe, you beat me to the brew, I was comin to see ya.”<br />
“That’s cool, get you some and follow me out. I’m on my bike.”<br />
“Start going,” I told him, “I’ll meet you on your path. Hey, throw the beer in the back of the truck, or hell, put the bike back there, I’ll drive you.” He waved me off, putting the 12 pack with the carton in bike basket, peddling off with a raised hand, finger pointing in the direction of the camp.<br />
As he bicycled away I asked myself again what I was doing choosing to associate with an alcoholic, homeless, Native American. I knew though: it was everything about who he was that fascinated me, something inside, deep down, wanted to know more about the life style of those really on the edge. It wasn’t curiosity, not voyeurism. I began volunteering helping feed the homeless after reading about their plight for years. I had time. My kids were on their own, no girl friend, so what is life all about if not giving and helping others? It wasn’t the way I was raised, but it was the way I adopted for my life. Reading many spiritual books about compassion made changes in me since those childhood teachings that espoused taking care of yourself and your own.<br />
Over the years I had lost the boundaries between my own and everyone else. It seemed to make sense that we were all one and this guy, Pepe, a Seminole had come into my life. I wasn’t necessarily a bleeding heart liberal, a math professor for 25 years, my life was mostly into books and numbers, academia, students, but along life’s road, my thinking changed, broadened. I cared about the Native American and what’s been done to them. Other than those obvious reasons there was something else happening inside of me, something moving me beyond me. As I passed Pepe a few blocks from the thick wooded area where the homeless camps were, I beeped my horn, he waved and a few minutes later he pulled his bike next to my pick up.<br />
“You got a 12 pack Pepe, me a six, that should be enough for a couple of sittings.”<br />
“It’s my daily supply,” he said, “been doing this for oh, damn, I don’t know how long, since I got out of the Army, in 69.”<br />
“That’s almost 35 years, you must be pretty well pickled. You should have opened your own brewery, could have saved some money.”<br />
I was happy he didn’t take my remark as a putdown. You’re right man, you’re educated, a math man, figured them years real quick. You know about us redmen. We drink. I can’t stop the drinking, smoking, or looking after women, although for years now, living in the woods I don’t meet many.”<br />
“Hey, can I ask you something?”<br />
“What you wanna know?” As he answered he opened two cans of beer. “Here start on this.”<br />
“Well, I’m still curious, not about your tent, I really don’t care, but why you’ve been living this way. You’re smart, strong, but choosing this as a path.”<br />
“Yeah a path, my path, away from the white world, as much as I can. And away from my own tradition too. I’m sad about that. I like people, love people really, but something about the way the world is wasn’t what I wanted. I knew it doctor, as soon as I got out of Nam, but I did the white man’s thing anyway, trying to fit in, as part of society, job, married, kids, car, house, the whole deal, but when my wife got into drugs, took my kids, man, I didn’t want any more of it.”<br />
“Your kids; you see them?”<br />
“Haven’t in years. Don’t know where they are. It hurts, I loved them, but she disappeared and I was too drunk to even begin looking for them.”<br />
“I’m sorry. It’s a big loss in life.”<br />
“Yeah. You’re right, it’s not our way.” He was silent as he dragged on another cigarette, opened another beer, while I still nursed mine. “You ready for another one?”<br />
“No, I’m cool.”<br />
“Hey, doctor, let me ask you something. I got this bump in my throat, on the side here that keeps hurting, Gettin a little bigger. Whad ya think?”<br />
I moved closer to look at it. “Yeah, I see the little protrusion. How long has it been there?” I touched it lightly and he pulled away fast. “Hurts so easily.”<br />
“Yeah it does. Don’t know, a couple of months I guess, maybe three, four. One morning I spit up some blood. Maybe two mornings. Sometimes I can’t swallow so good.”<br />
“That no good.”<br />
“No shit. What do you think it is?”<br />
“I don’t know. Don’t forget: math, not medicine. Swollen glands, infection, maybe.” I hesitated, “maybe cancer. You know, smoking, drinking, anything can happen.”<br />
“Yeah I know.”<br />
“Go to a clinic man, you have VA benefits. Get it tested.”<br />
“Hell no. Not the VA. Maybe a horse doctor like used to see us on the rez.”<br />
“They don’t do woods visits anymore.”<br />
“No shit man, thanks for telling me.”<br />
That was the first time he mentioned the bump to anyone, but over the next six months it continued to get larger, making it more and more difficult for Pepe to swallow solid food. We began to bring him cans of nutritional supplements to drink.<br />
“Yeah, I like that stuff, keep on bringing it,” he assured us, but I never saw one in his hand, only beer, and never saw any empty cans in his trash pile, next to his tent.<br />
He was getting thinner fast, weak too, spending more time in his tent, sometimes not even coming out to see us when we’d drop off the supplement and a gallon of filtered water.<br />
“Pepe, I yelled as I walked into camp, “Sh’mal and Pat. HomeVan coming in.” No answer. Pat yelled, “hey Pepe,” then, only a faint, “come on along, I’m here.”<br />
“What’s up good buddy,” I asked, peering through the mildewed window screen of his tent? Pat knelt beside me as we watched him turn out of his sleeping bag, reminding us both of those pictures of the starving. Pat called in, “hey Pepe, it’s Pat how you doin?” Pat knew him for years.<br />
“Hey Pat. I haven’t been out of the tent for two days.” His voice by now was almost gone due I suspected to the growing tumor, pressing on his vocal cords. There was a lot of gurgling, mucous in his voice. I knelled close to the screen to hear him.<br />
“Pepe, maybe it’s getting time to go into the emergency room.”<br />
“Yeah, come back on Saturday.”<br />
“Saturday,” I questioned?<br />
“That’s in two days right?”<br />
I was surprised he knew the day. “Sure Pepe, Saturday, 10:00 in the morning. I’ll be here, maybe with some one else.”<br />
He only said “good, see ya Saturday,” way unable to be his old self.<br />
The HomeVan regulars talked often about Pepe’s condition and what we should do. Since he was aware of his situation, had told us many times he didn’t like hospitals, didn’t like medical intervention in his life, we backed away, but recently, we all felt morally compelled to offer him something. On the other hand we also talked about him maybe wanting to die right where he was. He said that more then once. I was surprised how easily he agreed to go.<br />
I came out Saturday by myself, others were on another call from some one needing services. As I walked to his camp I smelled smoke, a small fire come into view near his tent. “Pepe, Sh’mal here, coming in.”<br />
There was no answer, but I saw him sitting on the ground near the fire. He looked up, waved for me to come.<br />
“What’s going on Pepe?”<br />
He motioned with his hand for me to sit by the fire. I sat only a couple of feet from him to be able to hear him better. He had a small stack of kindling near the fire. I never saw him with a fire before. I knew it wasn’t for cooking. He had placed small rocks around the pit, a beer next to him, pack of cigarettes on the ground by his knee. A sweet smell hung in the air around the fire.<br />
“You’re doing some kind of ritual.” He nodded.<br />
In his cracked gurgling voice he told me he hadn’t done these rituals for a thousand years.<br />
“A thousand years,” I asked smiling?<br />
He smiled back, shrugged. “I remember, when I was a kid, ten or so, my grandfather before he died sitting by a fire chanting, saying prayers, asking that he be welcome into the land of the grandparents. It was all in Indian language I only understood a little. After he joined the ancestors, a few days later, my father translated.” He stopped, sipped, swallowed, breathed in gurgling, looked into the fire, recalling more.<br />
“I never knew how to be a good scout, everything of the white man’s culture took me in. You know,” he looked right into my eyes, “it was all inviting. Alluring.”<br />
“Alluring. I use that word too.”<br />
“Yeah, you know man, it sucked me in and sucked me dry of my culture. Living in the woods, here, other places too, was the only thing I could finally do to get back to where my ancestors were.” He took a drag, coughed, gurgled, took a sip of beer. My people lived near here, Micanopy, he was the chief, Payne, another chief. I read about them. Their names are still here.”<br />
“I know, Paynes Prairie, the town of Micanopy.”<br />
“Yeah, you know too. I’m asking my ancestors what I should do. Go to the hospital or stay right here?”<br />
“You getting anyway answers?”<br />
“Not yet. Have a beer. In the tent.”<br />
I crawled to his tent, reached in and took one. Sat back close to him, rolled a cigarette. This was my ritual too. Whatever it was that had brought me to Pepe, a latent, primitive, nature, felt akin to what was going on. “It’s funny, not funny, odd Pepe, here I am a Jewish man from New Jersey sitting with you doing this. It all feels familiar though. I felt for years a close tie to your people, to the old ways.”<br />
He nodded, smiled broadly, with the few darkened teeth from smoking, not brushing, turned back to the fire and began chanting in another language. I listened, a bit mesmerized, that he remembered something of that language. Seldom did he mentioned anything about his Native American ways, here I was though, sharing in his solemn ritual. He went on, occasionally throwing some sweet smelling leaves on the fire, picking up a few kindling sticks to keep the small fire alive. He stopped chanting, was quiet, sipping from the beer, lighting another cigarette, dropping more leaves into the fire. Me wondering where he found the leaves, what they meant, what was I supposed to do?<br />
We kept sitting. I had time. It was his. He very slowly crawled to the tent getting himself another beer, looked over at me with another in his hand, but I shook my head no. He shrugged, crawled back to his place. “Even crawling hurts all over. My voice is going.” He let the fire dwindle down, smoldering coals simmered as he dropped in last of his leaves. “Somehow I remembered some of the old chants. I don’t know what all the words mean, but something is coming through so I’m letting it happen.”<br />
It was quiet, except for the creek running fast and high after a recent rain, the leaves of the trees whispering in the light breeze. Like he heard my thoughts he continued, “I listen to the leaves, the creek. It runs into the Prairie. My ancestors used to hunt there, here, maybe camped right here. I think so, they come to me in my dreams, but I’m not getting any messages this morning. Yet.”<br />
I looked at him, smiled that I understood remaining silent.<br />
“White man’s magic,” he mumbled.<br />
“What’s that mean?”<br />
“The hospital, its all white man’s magic. I never understood it. You know.”<br />
Yes, I knew that. I told him, “never for my kids or myself did I buy into that way. I learned about alternative healing and was blessed that my kids and me were free of western medicine. So, what’s next for you?”<br />
He smiled, shrugged uncertain, picked up a stick he was using to stir the fire, now only a few coals remaining.<br />
He sipped his beer as I rolled another of my American Spirit tobacco, thinking two already and it’s not even noon, throwing off my schedule of usually smoking only three a day.<br />
“Only one beer left. Would you get me another 12 pack? I’ll give you money.”<br />
“Does that mean no hospital today?”<br />
He smiled, nodded his head affirming my question.<br />
I stood, told him he I had money, brought back a 12 pack, sat and had another with him, smoked another cigarette and left telling him I’d see him the next day. There was no next day for Pepe, at least not on this plane. He was bent over near where I had left him by the fire, his head down to the ground, still sort of sitting. He had gathered more twigs and leaves for his small fire that was rekindled with slight coals still red. He wasn’t dead long.<br />
I left Pepe there and drove out bringing back some of our friends from the HomeVan. I re-lit the fire from the coals with the kindling he left and put the leaves in, as we did some of our own prayers, drank the remainder of the 12 pack, used a cell phone to call the police, who came out and called a mortuary, as we waited. His hat had fallen on the ground near him. I asked the others if they thought it cool if I took it as reminder. They agreed.<br />
At the funeral home, I told them Pepe wanted a cremation and back at his camp our small cadre spread his remains doing as sacred a ceremony as we knew.<br />
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