We must remember that music is more than sound and clamor; it is rest, the silence between notes.
I suppose it’s a bit of a fallow time for me, creatively. I continue to plug away at my daily poems – and share them here, albeit not in order – and practice the sitar. I sing my arias, and pluck harp and dulcimer strings – although not as often as I feel that I should.
Sometimes the shoulds tire me out.
I haven’t had a long-form expository ramble for a while, so let this serve as an impromptu substitute. It strikes me that reaction fuels so much of my creativity. Some of my best poems are spun from political crises, for example, and my theological explorations often flower from sharp edges of disagreement, in the same way the broken ground of compost or roadside nurtures wildflowers and rogue squashes.
Here’s an inconvenient truth: sharp edges hone our insight and sharpen our song. Their hard wires lace the cage that allows our creations to vine up. There’s a temptation – for artists and mystics alike, I think – to chase from pain to pain or crisis to crisis because you need that pen sharp to pull the ink across the page.
Which is why artists tend to lead disastrous lives.
I’ve learned not to court bad stars because they’ll arise in their own time, thanks to the fragile nature of mortal life, the realities of entropy and decay, the mud of moral complexity, and the seemingly irresistible urge to list things in threes that I am currently attempting to resist.
If I need to react against something to fuel art, maybe I should cast an eye on my own ruts … such as the thing with threes. I mean, there’s Indo-European and then there’s just tired.
It’s our aikido-versary!
In the spirit of non-reactivity, let’s catch up.
I’ve chosen to stick with aikido, judging my existential crisis to be, in part, (yet another) reaction to what happened to me last fall at my old place. I find that certain amygdala-related aftershocks only emerge when matters start to settle, probably because you finally have the space to do that last bit of processing.
And I needed to sit with things to find my own moral clarity. My take: If I want to turn a sword into a garden spade, no one can stop me. I will not give my consent to hurt or terrify or to be intentionally hurt or terrified ever again – and if I find myself in such circumstances, I will permit myself to leave … because love is that which permits.
So, I am embarking on my ninth year of the Art of Peace (not subtracting the pandemic period; it’s probably closer to seven and a half, practically speaking) with some seminars both this weekend and next. I’ll probably get rugburn this Sunday, but it will be fun rugburn.
Outside of aikido, there’s a garden that will be planted next month (with plants, not seeds, because the chipmunks eat everything). Drum circles and choir and Irish lessons. Busy work-time and a clouded-out eclipse that was still fun because large groups of humans with telescopes and silly glasses are fun.
Books I’m reading and want to read. The first Deep Forest album on repeat because I finally picked it up on CD; I used to have it on a cassette tape that I wore out with repeated listens. Worship associate stuff and discussion groups at church. My usual rituals and dreams.
Twinkies, man.
Yeah, I should plan summer vacation. I should record some more music and figure out the next album or something. I should find someplace to send poems, although my half-ass publication attempts look like a blind man playing darts.
I’ve had some more ideas about partnership society and how we view children, and some vague concerns about all those people who have ended up reading my post on Gnosticism because Twitter seems to have been involved in some way, which is always suspect.
So, if you’re here because of some right-wing dude’s weird-ass screed that everything left of actual Naziism is some kind of Gnostic “death cult” …. Well, I invite you to stick around and learn stuff, but do realize that I am a peace and love hippie who believes that diversity and human dignity make up the whole Ring Ding.* And I will totally respect your identity, use your pronouns and all that because really, it’s not that hard to respect people’s personhood.
*I almost said Twinkie, but I admit that my acceptance of diversity ends at Twinkies.** Twinkies are gross, although not as gross as Hostess Snowballs. Something that survives a nuclear holocaust looking and tasting the same is an abomination that means you harm.
** Okay, there are a lot of foods I find gross. What’s the deal with marshmallows? And those creepy-looking Easter lamb cakes. Oatmeal is great for breakfast and shit for cookies, unless you’re eating cookies for breakfast, which I have been known to do. My apologies: I suppose I need to work on my food intolerance.
The goofiness that is self-compassion
So, back to the update.
I’ve been working on a return to normalcy in running, although I still struggle with weird muscle spasms that seem brain-related, since they are also in the uninjured leg.
But progress! I aim for 20 miles a week, and made it to 19 as of now; maybe in a week or two, I’ll be at the full 20. While I still run a fair amount on the grass – I tolerate it better on both legs – I did yesterday’s entire 5-mile run on the pavement, except when I was trying to get around a dog. I won’t time myself yet, since I know I am slower than I like to be, but that will probably be the last thing to come back.
Part of my physical healing, oddly enough, is self-compassion. Rather than berating myself for not meeting performance targets, I have been praising that recovering leg: “Good job, quads! Great going, glutes! You didn’t let a little rain stop you. But you earned a rest, since we’re going to do yoga tomorrow.”
Self-compassion might seem silly … but it works. Goofy is good. Dare to be dorky, friend – a word that comes from *priya, beloved. If you’re going to love your neighbor as yourself, that implies that you’re tasked with loving yourself, too.
The Proto-Indo-European root *prī gives rise to the Old English frēon: both “to love” and “to set free.” It’s connected with the Germanic *frithu, or peace.
I turn the shining gems of these words over in my heart: prī, priya, frēon, frithu, connected with the Germanic goddesses Freya and Frigga, the Indic Parvati, the gods Frey and Priapus (ooo-la-la!). Love, beloved, friend, free, peace.
Scholars who reconstruct the Proto-Indo-European pantheon have theorized a love goddess that we’ll call Priya because *PriHyéh₂, while undoubtedly meaningful to linguists, looks like a computer password and is probably pronounced something like Priya anyway.
Priya, the Goddess of the Garden.
Love sets you free, love brings peace, love is the friend of our seeking.
And it starts with yourself, in your fallow times. Those times when you’re still stumbling and aching, those times when you just want to check out with a book or join the eclipse party, those times when you don’t really have much to say. There’s a poem in that, too.
Just not Twinkies, though. Those things are gross.
White Cat Grove 