A plaintive note—keening and high—floating up into the sonic atmosphere and slamming heavily back down to earth, joyously expressing the deepest sorrow and inciting dance; foot-tapping rhythms. Backwoods sonatas of heartbreak and sadness—‘High Water Everywhere’. Highway 61 in a sweltering Mississippi summer walked tirelessly by vagabond music men with dime store guitars on their backs and visions of Memphis and Chicago in their world-tired eyes.

 

‘Hey, baby don’t you wanna go? To that land of milk and honey—sweet home, Chicago.’

 

Tales of crossroads at midnight and souls sold to ‘Legbah’, the Devil’s right hand man. Hwy. 61 drips of the legends, the men, the blues that made it famous. It is the ‘Blues Highway’; the road to salvation for many a blues man. Clarksdale, Friars’ Point, Stovall; the towns along the highway are like relics, the remnants of a blues historian’s dream as he counts down the miles from Greenville to Memphis, following the same path that B.B did back in '47. The tall, straight utility poles go clicking passed, providing the only break in a long, long procession of open fields ready for planting. And over there, just beyond your sight but always present, that big river flows on down to the sea. Muddy and wide, its presence is always felt in the Delta. This is the heart of it, where it all began; and the blues drips off the trees and swells up from the fertile ground.

 

This is the place where Eddie James ‘Son’ House decided to get religion and join the Baptist church. It’s where Charlie Patton rode his Stone Pony and Robert Johnson found his Little Queen of Spades. It’s the place where America started breathing after a long, hard, dark night. Where the sons and grandsons of slaves found release for their souls and the plantation men stood powerless against songs. It was the first thump of a back-beat being pounded out by feet on porch boards in a Cypress grove at night. The sweat, the booze, the pain and elation of a voice finding its song and a song finding its music.

 

Some people say that Rock and Roll was born in Memphis, but I don’t think so. It was born in the Mississippi Delta on a sweat drenched Saturday night, on the front steps of a drugstore in Clarksdale, and on the banks of that big river—so muddy, wide, and forbidding. It was born in the sound of back-beat foot stomps and syncopating guitars keeping time with the freight trains as they passed by in the dead of night.

 

‘The blues is a low-down aching chill. If you never had ‘em, well, I hope you never will.’

 

But if you haven’t had them, can you really understand them?

 

If you haven’t walked a mile in the shoes of those men who sang them so real, can you know what they’re saying?

 

You can.

 

You hear it in the notes, a sort of defiant sadness that is inexpressible in words. The music is thick with it. It flows under the words and notes—it gets under your skin until it itches and burns. It makes you want to dance joyously under the Delta moon and cry in your beer at the same time. It makes you drunk and angry. It hurts—but it feels good. It’s a cold steel blade that cuts the thick night with a keening, ringing cry. It’s the voice of a certain kind of suffering—the kind that says ‘You can beat me, rob me, do what you want, but you will not silence me’—that comes floating down through time and out of the speakers of your stereo; strangely timeless and arcane, archaic and new. It is the perfect expression of humanity concentrated into two minute sound bites played on beat-up guitars in time to back-beat feet stomping broken porch boards emanating from the ominous Delta of that big river.

 

‘I’m a stranger here, just got into town...’

 

But, there really are no strangers in the blues. It’s every man, woman, and child. It’s laughing in the face of sadness and kicking them when you’re down before they get a chance to kick you. I heard someone say: ‘The blues ain’t nothing but a good man feeling bad.’ I don’t know. I think maybe the blues ain’t nothing but good people just feeling.

 

Whatever it is; it’s real.

 

peace, wayf

I have been turning a few ideas over in my mind that may make good blog posts in the future, but as yet have not gotten far in any of them.

I have almost completed a rather lengthy story I began writing a few weeks ago (just need to do a few minor touch ups here and there) and it may appear on the blog (I still have not decided for sure if I will post it here.)

I have not been writing poetry much lately and have been focused on trying my hand at the essay. I rather like the essay form because it is pliable and can serve as a sort of long 'prose poem' if the writer is good enough to pull it off.

I can assure you that there will, in the very near future, be more explorations into Taoist philosophy, though I will be attempting to take it away from dull scholasticism into something more playful and musical.

So, in the mean time, I thought I'd drop a note in the 'stream to let anyone concerned know what was happening in my world. I am at one of those stages where there is simply too much cluttering up my brain and I am in desperate need of finding the 'flush' valve.

But, I digress... I just wanted to put a sign in the window to let everyone know I'm still alive and to leave you all a little reminder of the most important value: peace, wayf

“Peace demands the most heroic labor and the most difficult sacrifice. It demands greater heroism than war. It demands greater fidelity to the truth and a much more perfect purity of conscience.”

 

“The whole idea of compassion is based on a keen awareness of the interdependence of all these living beings, which are all part of one another, and all involved in one another.”

 

-Thomas Merton

Mrs. W received this in her e-mail and forwarded it to my box. I thought it was great!

SUMMARY OF THE PAST YEAR e-mails:

I must send my thanks to whoever sent me the one about rat poop in the glue on envelopes because I now use a wet towel with every envelope that needs sealing.

Also, now I scrub the top of every can I open for the same reason.

I no longer have any savings because I gave it to a sick girl (Penny Brown) who is about to die in the hospital for the 1,387,258th time.

I no longer have any money at all, but that will change once I receive the $15,000 that Bill Gates/Microsoft and AOL are sending me for participating in their special e-mail program.

I no longer worry about my soul because I have 363,214 angels looking out for me, and St. Theresa's novena has granted my every wish.

I no longer eat KFC because their chickens are actually horrible mutant freaks with no beaks, eyes or feathers.

I no longer use cancer-causing deodorants even though I smell like a water buffalo on a hot day.

I have learned that my prayers only get answered if I forward an email to seven of my friends and make a wish within five minutes.

I no longer drink Coca Cola because I've learned that it can remove toilet stains.

I no longer buy gasoline without taking someone along to watch the car so a serial killer won't crawl in my back seat when I'm pumping gas.

I no longer drink Pepsi or Dr. Pepper since the people who make these products are atheists who refuse to put "Under God" on their cans.

I no longer use Saran wrap in the microwave because it causes cancer.

I now know that I can't boil a cup of water in the microwave anymore because it will blow up in my face... disfiguring me for life.

I no longer check the coin return on pay phones because I could be pricked with a needle infected with AIDS.

I no longer go to shopping malls because someone will drug me with a perfume sample and rob me.

I no longer receive packages from UPS or FedEx since they are actually Al Qaeda in disguise.

I no longer shop at Target since they are French and don't support our American troops or the Salvation Army.

I no longer answer the phone because someone will ask me to dial a number for which I will get a phone bill with calls to Jamaica, Uganda, Singapore, and Uzbekistan.

I no longer have any sneakers -- but that will change once I receive my free replacement pair from Nike.

I no longer buy expensive cookies from Neiman Marcus since I now have their recipe.

Thanks to my many internet friends, I can't use anyone's toilet but mine because a big brown African spider is lurking under the seat to cause me instant death when it bites my butt.

And thanks to the great advice, I will never pick up a$5.00 bill in the parking lot because it probably was placed there by a sex molester waiting underneath my car to grab my leg.

If you don't send this e-mail to at least 144,00 people in the next 70 minutes, a large dove with diarrhea will land on your head at 5:00 PM this afternoon and the fleas from 12
camels will infest your back, causing you to grow a hairy hump. I know this will occur because it actually happened to a friend of my next door neighbor's ex-mother-in-law's second husband's cousin's beautician...

Have a wonderful day....

PS: A South American scientist from Argentina , after a lengthy study, has discovered that people with insufficient brain and sexual activity read their e-mail with their hand on
the mouse.

Don't bother taking it off now, it's too late.

peace, wayf

‘Returning is the motion of Tao’-Tao Te Ching

 

Out with the old, in with the new…

 

The seasons have come full circle once again, and the New Year comes kicking and screaming from the proverbial womb, fresh and supple; ready to bend to our wills in any way we see fit to bend it.

 

The New Year celebration is one of death and rebirth; the acknowledgement that the never ending cycle spins and spins, constantly in rotation.

 

Out with the old, in with the new…

 

But, is it really ‘new’? Does the cycle represent an actual ‘newness’, or just the recycling of the old? Ecclesiastical wisdom tells us that there really is nothing new under the sun, but yet, we still celebrate this freshness and newness every year with a fervor and joviality that often surpasses even our independence celebrations. Perhaps, unconsciously, this fervor for the New Year is symbolic of our desire to beat death. Perhaps, when the new lunar cycle comes rising from the ashes of the old like a phoenix, it lights in our imaginations the possibilities of rebirth and drives us to celebrate this ‘cheating of death’. Maybe it is just all a charade, and we are attempting to trick ourselves into believing that death can be cheated.

 

In Taoist thought, time is thought of as cyclical, not linear as in most western conceptualizations. In a cyclical time frame, there can be no end, physically, because time just revolves around and comes back on itself; an endless circle. In Chinese society, the New Year is one of the most celebrated holidays because it is rich in symbolic meaning. The New Year is at once the end and the beginning of the cycle. So, in essence, it is not really a ‘New Year’ at all, but merely another revolution on the wheel of time. The New Year, in a purely Taoist outlook, could be seen as the completion of the Yin/Yang cycle.

 

I have discussed the significance of the Yin/Yang as it relates to the change of seasons at length on this blog before, but for clarity, here is a simplified explanation. Yin represents the black side of the circle; it is passive, dark, night, death. Yang is the white side; active, light, day, life. The proper view of the Yin/Yang is with Yang on the left and rising, while Yin is on the right and always descending. This symbolizes the idea that energy flows in a clockwise motion, and also that light, or heat, rises, while darkness, or coolness, settles. Now, if you can visualize this in your mind, it should be easy for you to conceptualize the change of seasons as they relate to the Yin/Yang. There are four stages of the cycle: full Yin, Yin into Yang, full Yang, and Yang into Yin. The correlating seasons for those stages are, respectively, Winter, Spring, Summer, & Fall. Each season, each phase of the cycle is merely a stage of the previous season as well as the following season; no one phase, or season, stands independently on its own in the cycle, as each contains seeds of the one before it and the one after it (these ‘seeds’ are the ‘eyes’ seen in each half of the symbol). Looked at in this light, it should be easy to discern the feasibility of seeing every day as New Year’s day, and, hence, a day for celebration.

 

The Zen Buddhist monk and author Thich Nhat Hanh once wrote: ‘Waking up this morning, I smile. Twenty-four brand new hours are before me. I vow to live fully in each moment and to look at all beings with eyes of compassion.’ As we sit poised on the threshold of the year 2007, we have so many ‘brand new’ moments before us; it is my sincerest hope that we can find it within us to make the vow that Thich Nhat Han set out for us, and look upon the entire world with eyes of compassion. It is, I believe, in doing this that we will find the true reason to celebrate. Not ‘celebration’ in the sense that we usually think of it, but the type of celebration that Thomas Merton spoke of in his essay ‘The Street is for Celebration*’, where he said:

 

‘But celebration is not for the alone.

 

To pull down the blind and empty the bottle and lie on the floor in a stupor: this may help you forget the street for awhile, but it is surrender. It is the crowning submission, the acceptance of powerlessness, willingness to admit you are a nothing. The alienated city isolates men from one another in despair, lovelessness, defeat. It is crowded with people who are not present to each other: it is like a desert, although it is full of people.

 

Celebration is not noise. It is not a spinning head. It is not just individual kicks.

 

It is the creation of a common identity, a common consciousness.

 

Celebration is everybody making joy.

 

Not as duty (you can’t manufacture joy out of the duty to have fun.)

 

Celebration is when we let joy make itself out of our love.

 

We like to be together. We like to dance together. We like to make pretty and amusing things. We like to laugh at what we have made. We like to put bright colors on the walls—more bright colors on ourselves. We like our pictures, they are crazy. Celebration is crazy: the craziness of our not submitting even though “they”, “the others”, the ones who make life impossible, seem to have all the power. Celebration is the beginning of confidence, therefore of power.

 

When we laugh at them, when we celebrate, when we make our lives beautiful, when we give one another joy by loving, by sharing, then we manifest a power they cannot touch. We can be the artisans of a joy they never imagined.

 

We can build a fire of happiness in this city that will put them to shame.

 

They with their gold have turned our lives into rubble. But we with love will set our lives on fire and turn the rubble back into gold. This time the gold will have real worth. It will not be just crap that came out of the earth. It will be the infinite value of human identity flaming up in a heart that is confident in loving. That is the beginning of power. That is the beginning of the transformation. One day, you’ll see!’

 

So, as we see in the New Year, I will not make the usual un-kept resolutions, but a solemn vow. I will vow to view each day, indeed each moment, as at once a victory and  a defeat, as a birth and a death, an opportunity gained and an opportunity missed. I vow to be fully aware in each moment of the rise and fall of the Yin and Yang, and to see all beings through new eyes of compassion. I vow to be a vehicle for peace, compassion, and love, and to celebrate life. I will strive to be a constant reminder to all that their value is more than that of ‘worldly’ goods, for their value is life which is born of love.  I will celebrate you and your value. I will strive for that day when we can all come together and adorn the walls and ourselves with bright colors, laughing crazily in pure joy and love. I will strive to be a constant reminder to you, my friends, my family, that we must not submit to those who would render us powerless and that our power lays in our capacity to love. And finally, I vow to do my best to imbue you with a new reason to celebrate the New Year.

 

Not as a celebration of cheating death, but as a celebration of living fully.

 

And I will carry with me always the hope that Merton was right when he said: ‘One day, you’ll see!’ because I dearly want to.

 

peace, wayf

 

* ‘The Street is for Celebration’ appears in the posthumously published book ‘Love and Living’, © 1979 by the Trustees of the Merton Legacy Trust

 

Happy New Year, one and all!