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They Tell Me Not to Write About Things Like This

My bedside altar
My bedside altar

Morning.
I’m aware.
Eyes not open.
No movement, body frozen,
but aware.
I am heavy. Not dead, but…
Remembering.
Why should I open my eyes on this world?
Why should I wake up, get up, do… anything,
but sleep.

I doze and then…
My eyelids flutter open.
An image, there, in my head
superimposed on my bedside altar.
(A paper pop-up Durga forms the background of my altar.
Kuan Yin , Jesus , the little Finnish Witch ,
the crow, and the beaded turtle
all sit in front to either side
where I can see them when I open my eyes.)
I close my eyes.
Still there.
There was no picture in the article,
but I can see her.
An eight-year-old Muslim girl.
Kidnapped. Raped. Bludgeoned to death by
two policemen and the caretaker of a Hindu temple.
Raped, beaten to death in the temple.

Why?
To try to scare her community off their land.
This innocent was tortured and killed for a piece of land.

“HOW COULD YOU ALLOW THIS?”
my head, my heart, my gut screams at Durga.

“I fight the demons,” she cried back.
“The men who did this see the people who get in the way of their greed
and call them demons.
They pray to me to fight them.
But their greed is the demon!
GREED IS THE DEMON!”

Kuan Yin, trapped in her tree trunk murmurs,
“I hear her cries. I listen, but I am bound here,
bound in the trunk of this tree
or in the helplessness of my womanhood.”
(Downstairs, Kuan Yin rides a dragon.
SURELY SOMEONE WHO RIDES A DRAGON CAN STOP THIS!)

I turn to Jesus.
“I’m bound, too,” he says.
“Bound in the convoluted misuse of my life –
and the things I said, and the things I didn’t say
that are written in my name.
I can’t protect this child.”

YOU SAID, “LET THE CHILDREN COME UNTO ME,”
I yell, but he just shakes his head.

And the Finnish witch?
“I’m small.
They’ll kill me, too.
After all, I’m a witch.”

Then the crow, front and center on the altar,
caws loudly and turns his beady eyes on me,
boring into me.

“I spit on the humans,” he shrieks.
“They kill each other and kill each other some more,
murdering children everywhere…
What’s new about Hindus killing Muslims when in Yemen Muslims kill Muslims,
and Americans help them?
When Muslims kill Christians and Christians kill even more Muslims,
(just as they killed indigenous peoples all over the earth,)
when one tribal group kills the members of another tribal group…”

(“And all of them call the people they’re killing, Demons,” murmured Durga.)

“When Buddhists kill the Rohingya,” continued the crow,
his wings lifting menacingly.
“Nazis kill Jews, and Israelis kill Palestinians,
And men everywhere kill women…”

CAW, CAW, CAW! He screeches.

“But the worse,” he paces back and forth in front of me,
“the worse is how they increase and increase,
creeping out and out upon the land,
stealing the livelihood of the wild things, killing the wild things,
millions of wild things,
and nothing, nothing,
not even the killing of each other,
stops them.
NOTHING STOPS THEM!”

He pauses and preens his feathers…
Preening until his heart stops beating so fiercely in his chest.

Then, staring coldly into my eyes,
he continues

“But I survive.
I have learned to live among you,
and I will outlive you all.
I WILL OUTLIVE YOU ALL”

I sigh and grope my way out of bed.

The beaded turtle, just moves,
step by step,
slowly on.

Was that a hopeful ending? I think so. I did, after all, get out of bed. I wrote it down, and posted it in hopes that the message – Durga’s message – “Greed is the Demon” – would go somewhere. Like the turtle, I’m moving slowly, step by step…

Greed keeps humans from the Dance of Life. That’s the message in The Earth Woman Tree Woman Quartet as well. The end is hopeful, too, — more hopeful than just getting out of bed — albeit known to be temporary. Humanity can come back to the dance, and stay there if the activists don’t let their guard down. Well, that’s hopeful… if exhausting.

You can take a break and read an enticing suspenseful metaphysical fantasy! The Earth Woman Tree Woman Quartet can be ordered in paperback from any independent bookstore and bought online as either a paperback or an ebook at Amazon or Barnes and Noble.

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Howling in the Night, an Eerie Wonder

Wouldn’t you like to leap, and spin around and over your friends, and end up out of breath in a mush pile, a laughing heap of beings? That’s what wolf pups do. The wolf is one of the animals that call to me, one of my Tla Twein.  (see my earlier post on the Tla Twein) 

I notice that many people love wolves. For some of my piano students, the stickers of wolves that I receive in the mail from conservation organizations are the first choice to put on a finished song.

Two conflicting ideas about wolves are prevalent: One is of the “lone wolf”, solitary, strong, but alone; the other about the close warm ties between the members of a wolf pack, working together to gather their food and raise their babies. Different members of the pack help out by babysitting the cubs while the mother is out hunting.

But when we think of what draws us to the wolves, perhaps these two images are not so conflicting. Perhaps we yearn for the camaraderie, the playful closeness of the pack, and yet feel like the lone wolf who is seeking a pack. On the other hand, sometimes we need the solitary aloneness (but not lonely) of the “lone wolf”.  Sometimes we need to move away from the pull toward compliance of the pack. We need to find our own path.

The lone wolf doesn’t stay completely alone. Sometimes in the night the lone wolf howls. If others can hear them, they respond, and the song echoes back and forth across the miles. This howling in the night is an eerie wonder – wolves singing together reaching with their songs across long distances to lone wolves and other packs (and all the other species that can hear them). Strange dissonances send thrills up our spine, bring new ideas of harmony, new possibilities.

Solitary singing is good, but when we sing in a group there is something so powerful and breathtaking that happens that I, at least, can hardly contain the joy. And when a human composer brings in the forbidden dissonances we hear in the wolf songs, I tremble with some combination of fear and delight. It’s clear, when we watch videos of wolves howling, that this power of harmony and dissonance happens for the wolves, too.

I confess, when the husky down the street howls in her yard as my dogs and I go past, I cannot restrain myself from howling back. Sometimes if she isn’t howling, I’ll give a little howl and she joins me. What a thrill! I wish I dared throw my head back and howl with all my might. My little dogs don’t howl with the husky, only with the fire sirens. But when they howl, they sit up so straight, so earnest, so involved in the howl, that I know it’s a spiritual ritual, a solemn invocation of….?

What is it that I need to learn from the wolf as my Tla Twei? Perhaps it’s the cooperative bonding of the pack for the serious business of the hunt – in my case to take on the serious problems of the world – and the restful dance of playtime ending in the physical closeness of the mush pile.

And in the night, the ritual of singing in strange harmonies, reaching joyfully to my fellow humans on the other side of the valley or the world.

In my book, The Earth Woman Tree Woman Quartet, the Tla Twein are trying to bring humans back into the sacred Dance of Life, the Tsin Twei.  You can purchase print and ebook versions at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and order print versions from your local independent bookstore.

Want to explore your own Tla Twein? If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area you can attend a three hour workshop on April 28th in Oakland where we will move and sing, write and create art work in search of the reason our particular Tla Twein call us. The fee is “pay what you can”. Contact me at connie@deephum.com for more information.  Put Tla Twein Workshop in the subject line.

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Exploring Our Tla Twein (What’s that??)

Quartet EbookCoverDo you find yourself drawn to a particular animal – a spirit animal – or to certain mythological characters, a hero from a folk tale, or a real-life hero whose journey seems to call to you? A saint or a diety? Even a tree or flower? A tarot card?In my fantasy novel, The Earth Woman Tree Woman Quartet your Tla Twei is one of these – a mythological character whose form you must take in order to travel to Ninas Twei where the Tsin Twei, the Dance of Life takes place. Where all the species on earth dance together to ensure the continuance of life on earth.

Except humans.

Humans have lost their ability to join the dance.  But some humans can observe the dance by taking the form of their Tla Twei.  They are the ones working to bring humanity back to the Dance.

In thinking about the Tla Twein outside of their role in the novel I realized that we have many of these characters in our lives.  We even have cards and books designed to help us find which ones we are “like”.

But I want to take a different approach to the exploration of our Tla Twei.  Instead of pulling a card that tells me about my animal (or character from mythology, etc), I want to notice the animals and heroes, the characters that I’m drawn to, and find out why.

I stumbled on this approach one day as I danced in an InterPlay class and wondered why I’m so drawn to Harriet Tubman, a real-life hero.

Her courage frightens me.

How could she go alone down into the woods of the south, singing her spirituals so that the slaves would hear her, know she was there, and would gather their courage and follow her to freedom?  Alone.

How could she risk her life, risk being caught, being tortured, being returned to slavery? Alone.

There is bravery in numbers. Most of the time I’ve been brave I’ve been with others. But venturing out alone?

I came to an understanding.

I was drawn to Harriet Tubman because she had a quality I want.  She had the courage to strike out alone to do what is right. It still frightens me. I haven’t acquired this quality yet, but it sits there waiting for me.

And then there’s the other Tla Twein in my life. Why did I spend my childhood playing Robin Hood? What is it about wolves that draws me in – and so many others?  (I find wolf lovers everywhere I turn, including among my very young piano students.) Why do I feel that the oak trees of my childhood home were my mothers? Why am I so drawn to Kuan Yin? Is there a growing point for me behind my infatuation with each of these beings?

I am presenting a workshop where we can explore our Tla Twein using InterPlay forms and other arts to dig beneath the surface of our selves and find new growing points.  Are you interested? Let me know at connie@deephum.com.

The Earth Woman Tree Woman Quartet is now available in a paperback print version. You can order it at many independent bookstores or buy it at Amazon or Barnes and Noble.

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On attending an Art Response to Japanese Internment:

The dancing, the poems carried the message,
Viscerally.
In our muscles, our bones.

Words,
letters from the interned.
A connection –
tenuous but important
to those left behind.

A thousand tiny red origami cranes
moving with the hands of the dancers,
forming shapes,
a heart.

The presence of people
black, brown, white
so warm and right.
All one
together.

Japanese Internment.
Immigrant Detention.
Incarceration of minor drug offenders.
Genocide of Jews, of Armenians,
Indigenous Peoples,
Africans on slave ships.
Apartheid.
Segregation.

The pain of separation
one group from the rest
is a ripping pain,
ripping
our Selves
apart.
No longer whole.

For the oppressed side
immediate,
horrendous
pain,
their very lives threatened.

The oppressors
hide,
numb themselves
to the pain
eating them
from the inside out,
killing them, too,
soul dead.

We cannot be whole without all of us present.
When I left the Art Response I carried with me a desire to never again be in a gathering without everyone there, every race, religion, culture, age, gender.

All the living and non-living things in the Universe are One Being emerging from one singularity. All pain belongs to all of us. When we hide ourselves from the ugliness of the pain we have caused, deny the pain, it becomes a disease eating us from the inside.

We are oblivious to it and it will destroy us all.

Never again.  Never again.  NEVER AGAIN!

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FIRE ROARS IN ME

Insights from an InterPlay Class

“Play with fire,” she said.

I wanted to dance
about an elder who leaves home,
who goes wandering.

Not fire.

I craved the wandering,
the letting go,
the peace.

But I was supposed to dance with fire.

I moved.
I spun.
Empty mind
spinning.
Letting go.
Peace…

Images came.
Words came.
Filling the void.
Understanding
the wish
to leave
because…

THERE IS A FIRE ROARING IN ME

A fire tamped down
again and again.
Sometimes discharging
a small flame of
carefully controlled passion
in words on the page.

But still it growls
in my chest,
in my belly,
wanting to be released.

I have been water
flowing down the easiest slope.

Not a pounding wave
or a flood.
Just a stream flowing.

Water is good.
Without pure water
no people
no species
no life.

Water helps things to mix
forming new things.

I’ve been the flow
that lets people mix
recognizing,
celebrating their cultural differences.
Forming new cultures.
World fusion!

I have been air
reaching into atmospheric intellect.
In rare moments of outrage
I am wind,
but never hurricane.

And yes, I have been nurturing earth
helping my students
my friends
my family to grow
(and sometimes
just being the ground beneath their feet)

BUT NOW FIRE ROARS IN ME
wiping out the tangling undergrowth.
Wind howls a path through the thickets of my mind.
Deluge pounds the dry hard earth beneath my feet,
tenderizing the soil,
making a place for the seeds of change to grow.

Let it be so.

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The Silencing

I am posting this because I think perhaps we all feel silenced, no matter how much real time we get to tell our stories.  I raged because I felt silenced, and then realized how privileged I am in being able to tell so much.
Others are far more silenced than I am.

This is the story:

Anna walks in silence
Walks and walks and walks
It used to be the tiny dog followed, running after her.
But the dog died
And now she walks alone.
She doesn’t talk
except to nod, say my name,
and keep on walking.

One day she saw me standing in witness
Staring as a police officer put handcuffs
On a young black man with beautiful dreadlocks,
A pretty, sweet looking young man.
Bobby, who was working on a car right there at the curb
Right beside where the police car sat in the street
Right behind the young man’s car
where another officer searched the trunk,
Bobby said to me, “I ain’t saying nothing.”
He was frightened.

I was frightened, too,
even though I’m not black,
I hadn’t done anything…
(Maybe the young man hadn’t done anything either –
He wasn’t arrested…
But he was handcuffed, standing in the middle of the street,
Not moving,
Not offering any resistance.)

Anna saw me standing in witness
As she walked by
with quick glances at the police
at me.

The next day she spoke,
“You know that boy you watched yesterday?”
(She called him a boy.
I thought him a boy, too, young, vulnerable,
but by law he was a grown man)
I nodded.
“He was shot, killed.  Yesterday, later.”*

I felt my eyes open wide.
Frozen.
How… how…
(But that’s how I know he wasn’t arrested.
If he’d been arrested, he wouldn’t have been shot.)

She nodded and kept on walking.

One day I wanted to tell this story,
But I was silenced.
It was not really a good time to tell the story.
It was not an inappropriate silencing.
I knew that.
(And maybe I can tell this story so much better here, on paper,
than stumbling bumbling though the verbal)
But still, a rage welled up in me.
Silenced, I thought.
It feels like I’m always silenced.

I danced my rage,
my rage about myself
about my being silenced…
and something else happened.
Something much more important.

In the midst of my rage at being silenced
Another rage erupted
Coming from deep down
A volcano of rage.
I recognized how much more silenced
The people of my neighborhood are.
I saw how privileged I am.
I have the money to host a blog.
I have the time and the education to write books,
To post on Facebook, on Twitter.

I realized that Anna
That thin stark figure who walks and walks
Anna has been truly silenced,
Bound, shackled by our society
much like her ancestors were shackled.
Listen
Listen
As Anna walks in silence, she talks.
Listen
Her body tells the story.

* Just to be clear, this was not a police involved shooting.