Heal, heel!

The command tense of the verb "to heal" in Spanish is spelled "cure" (pronounced kyur-ay), and I, by Devil, do hereby command my heel to heal! Of course, I also commanded myself to jump over a wall on the Harbor Steps late Friday night after a bite and a drink in Pioneer Square - which resulted in a bruised bone of some sort in my right heel. Some of the most reckless incidents in my life have happened when hanging around with My Older Brother. Even as we become more aged, mellow and gentle this potential for crazy behaviour continues to tug at me like puppet strings - ah, but who is the Master Puppeteer?

The good news of course is that I am alive to tell the tale and have not hit the windshield of life going 70 miles per hour. My brother and I played some great tunes together, registering some long-held recognition of tenderness between us with our wives; musing on current affairs and politics (we stand politely on opposite sides of most of these issues). We were joined on the Friday night outing by our 3rd sibling and his wife - and all differences and similarities aside, what becomes some moment when held in fragile time will stand on its own, at least in my eyes. There is certainly an inclination to pick apart the past, fear the future and completely miss out on the present. On an energetic level, at least, we set those habits to rest and simply explored the sidewalk of evening. It is hard to do this - why?

Now on to what may seem an unrelated subject; the Weather Underground and why the youth of America today are so mild-mannered. Certainly the war in Iraq, the stealing of the presidential election in 2000, the insanity of the Bushites, combined with a growing online media that can effectively shout down the Fox crazies would lend itself to a roiling, dynamic, marching and screaming campus scene across our fair nation. One would think. But no. As the words of a song I wrote back in 1985 recall;

"Look away, look away, don't look, look away.

Keep carving out your life each day.

Look away, look away, don't look, look away.

Polish it perfect, your gold and silver.

Look away, look away, don't look, look away.

Line the pockets of your Masters.

Play it blind and deaf and dumb.

Drive to work and suck your thumb." (from "Look Away")

The wife brought home the documentary film of the Weather Underground this week and we got into watching last night, and then into a discussion about the value of violence as a means of protest. When I was about 18 my tastes started drifting toward bombing the power grid and towers surrounding and transporting electricity to and from nuclear reactors. It was a short-lived fantasy for me. Interestingly it corresponded very closely with when the Weather Underground were most active - but I was unaware and not plugged into the fabric of what real revolutionary protest looked like. Less than a year later I broke off a friendship with 2 guys who had replayed their story of destroying some large construction equipment to "show those creeps who not to f**k with". It just stopped making sense to me.

Do I hate what Uncle Sam does with a large percentage of my tax dollars? Hell yes! Do I keep paying my taxes every year? Again - yes. And keep paying into my Medicare and Social Security accounts which, if they have their way, the Republican Right will 'privatize' to the liking of their big business constituents and rip away from the middle and lower classes. No retirement, no health care because they are "run by the government" or some other lame-ass sound bite excuse for pushing the wealth into a smaller and smaller corner of our world.

The front line truly is the media. Fox News and associated network is the mind-numbing institution that puts us all to sleep and feeds us pablum to accept this continually diminishing return on our investment into the nation (thanks to Right Wing Values). What do you suppose would happen if there was an uprising of the folks being pushed down, beaten down and stepped on by these institutions of large insurance companies, large financial companies, large energy companies - similar to what happened in the late 1960's and early 1970's? The under-thumb class in this country is enormous and growing. Drug them, drop them out of school, keep them from crossing the borders all you want, but eventually something very large could break very loudly. Which side will you be on?

Yours,

B

Taking the heat.

It's a quarter to four and I can't sleep because of the heat. My mind keeps circling through songs, work strategies, family dynamics, plans for the future, ruminations on rebuilding the Jaguar engine and various remnants of procrastination. My program for the night is a sleepy version of Hitchcock's "Rear Window" meets Graham Nash's "Songs for Beginners" looping incandescent somnambulist ropes around my bulging waist, reminding me that exercise as a daily practice will help settle the dust of self-analysis - like mist from a hose at dawn.

I am trying to be good you know. My history, habits, and influences weigh in against me at times and attempt to dislodge these wheels of good fortune from the track they are on. My daughter reminded me this evening to pray for my enemies - that, in my case, begins with me. Because enmity truly is a point of view, an illusion in many cases, a choice I make rather than something that is imposed upon me. I have a weakness for it and paradoxically have come to understand through the grace of You-Know-Who that it is one of those things in my life that I can change.

It reminds of a line from a song: "Don't want to wake up in bed with the Christian Right". There is this prevalence we have as a culture to square off the round edges, line up across the field from each other with sword and shield, take a cue from the generals and run full speed toward collision with nothing else in mind but how wrong the other side is. It delights an old Devil like me to see how taking personal responsibility is still rather unpopular, perhaps becoming less so as the world crowds up, heats up, tenses up. It's been almost two years since this nation took an unprecedented step toward what has been referred to as Hope - and currently every possible way of mocking, tearing down and reversing that decision is being thrown into the mix by politicians, big media companies, sociopaths marching as representatives of the Common Man, flat-earthers, birthers and bigots.

No wonder I can't sleep. There is so much work to do!

Yours,
B

Practice, practice!

From the apartment above the predictable Friday evening piano lesson is heard. Some of the old familiar childhood songs, as my mother (who do you suppose my mother is?) began teaching me piano at age 7 and for 2 years was my teacher. Then I was shuffled off to some other matron, gifted perhaps in technique but unable to deal with my selfish, persnickety and sullen outbursts. Those days were numbered to less than a year and from then on I had to teach myself to play.

What do "Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star" and "When the Saints Come Marching In" have in common? They annoy the Hell out of someone who has not had the experience of falling deeply in love with a repetitive tinkling of fingers on ivory and the trance state one can achieve through this process. I of course do not fall into that category. I am a Master of trance, spiritual transport, ecstasy through absorption in sensual touch, sound, intrigue and delight in entirely captivating activities unrelated to what keep the wheels of life greased.

Give me an instrument to play, a floor to spin and twirl upon! Lend me your attention and I'll press myself to the brink of heart attack to impress and delight you; perhaps even seduce you. I have ripened to the age where I understand that discipline is inevitable if one commits themselves to the river of creative flow. Practice then I shall upon your devilish keys of ivory, ebony, ringing and pounding against the tightly wound brass and steel strings. All of that tension; all of that promise and fragile, breaking, bleeding hope to find a moment where the muse delivers her wide open appreciation and bends the rules of life to enable some glimpse into immortality.

You at this point may be thinking that immortality is not really a matter of doubt for one who refers to themselves as The Devil. Well think again. Thomas Merton, Pema Chodron, Aldous Huxley, Jesus Christ etc etc etc. We all have our time of teaching and our time of reflection and our time of passing. Practice!

Yours,
B

Metal Pedal

Experience teaches us that in spite of our best efforts to come around to "the good red road" there is almost always a mistake to be made lying in wait around the next corner.

Case in point; driving the old Jaguar across Montana in 100 degree heat with wife and son, camping gear, music loud, really loud, taking the hills at 90+ mph when all of the sudden the oil pressure drops to zero and we are stranded - cooking and derailed. Major engine damage is likely, this was an expensive lapse.

A much as I want to hate myself and drive the stake of failure deep into the heart of the vacation experience, somehow we manage to dust off our boots and make lemonade, gallons of it, continuing on our way as if these kinds of interruptions are part of what makes us human.

You see I am a human being after all; the books may speak of some kind of fall from heaven, some manner of angel imitating man, but the reality is cleaner, deeper, fundamentally more difficult to dodge; like a good flood in a Wyoming gully.

Human beings all are we, that little part of me in all of you; that suffering, broken, hopeful part of you that is in me. I am more than a weather vane on the temperament plateau with thin scars of removable wings singing at my shoulder blades. I am no less than forever and no bigger than your smallest hope.

Yours,
B