Despite the seclusion, I did venture out

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

From an unnumbered red cover stenographer book, mostly October 1972, which includes trips to New York City and Binghamton.

But first: Playing my violin with new bow gifted to me.

Said Swami: “Jnana, I just discovered something about you – you’re a delightfully violent lover!”

From seclusion into the depths of Gotham.

In NYC:

Stimulation overload. Disorientation. Discomfort.

Crazy lady, not yet 30, looks 45. Newsdealer says, “She’s been here 10 times in the last hour. I’m afraid she’ll damage something. Security’s afraid of itself, won’t do no thing.”

Her friend “balled Debbie and Donna in one night, they’re sisters; said he raped one because she was toying with him. He then split for Texas for three weeks.”

~*~

Return to Binghamton on Virgo/Libra cusp 1972, traveling as Swami Jnana, a very difficult trip: everyone asks so many questions, trying to rip apart the riddle, to find out why and what I am now. “You know I can’t go back there anymore,” Joni Mitchell on the stereo.

So difficult for them to call me “Swami,” it’s always the the name no longer relate to …

My trip up? For Len’s b’day?

Hitchhiking a good omen: my first ride a Cadillac [like so many others in my hitchhiking experiences]; from Geneva, Ohio, he commutes weekly from NYC to home, and back, the weekend: once got it down to seven hours …

The second a straight sophomore [meaning non-hippie] from East Stroudsburg State College; a Datsun with many cassette tapes; Iron Butterfly and Grand Funk in the shoebox; strong wind blows us like a boat on rough water; his hair once long (for the summer) this former high school football star telling me about long hair as he heads home to see girlfriend

Take side trip with him, all over Scranton, waving and honking at his friends; I’m dropped off at Clark’s Summit. Scott’s his name.

Third ride a cigar-smoking car dealer from Wilkes-Barre – he lost all business records etc. in the flood; on his way to Upper Cayuga Lake, where he has a large cruiser. A soft, gentle man, honest. I told him I had returned to school [as the ashram could be considered, rather than a commune]. Such a beautiful crisp September day, blue with wispy clouds tearing at me like the drive Vivienne and I took stoned or the September views from the window Len and I had on Hawley street. “There’s something out there you’re not getting,” it says. The driver, meanwhile, told me of a retired couple who had finally cleared themselves of debt had lost everything in the flood – they received government relief of $5,000 – nothing. I told him it was impossible to imagine the flooding, the pain. He nodded, said it is so. People were now fleeing the city, leaving mortgages behind. You have to have a receipt for everything or the government won’t pay, which means your own labor is worthless.

He then told me about the graves exploding as the water undercut the cemetery at Forty Fort; bodies washed away. I later read that some 1,800 bodies were still unaccounted for and heads and arms were being found in people’s backyards etc. Curiosity seekers descend on the towns on Sunday.

Zizi commented that I had met so many fucked-up people and how fortunate I was in getting away … including escaping the sad-trap Press …

Celeste said that when I speak now, it’s from experience, on and of a human plane, not from things I learned in books and of books. She also spoke of being called immoral by some of her housemates. (Immoral? See it as doing anything without love)

Len’s party so dull he and I took the 10-speed bicycles and flew through the streets, downtown running red lights and singing opera at the top of our lungs like birds flying to freedom. Me, seldom so wild and happy in so long.

Out there, a system of threats.

The Bronx funeral trip:

Three knifed to death Saturday night in Upper Bronx; no reason given, no theft; nothing in the news. The mother of one victim turns this into a party; has an autopsy despite Hebraic law; does nobody learn? A gang initiation, murdering a white? Or merely cheap thrills? Going for a walk in a better neighborhood and then being followed unknowingly.

Police call at 4 am – “Come now to lineup – see if we have the man” – and they’re so irritated if the victim’s companions are not immediately out of bed for the station. Sympathy?

Yesterday I was at Len and Ise’s, next day it was Brooklyn.  Such a strange place, the city. Heading to the Bronx, we drove through Harlem, stirring thoughts of Ise. We had left the ashram at night, as soon as I got back to the farm from Binghamton.

People? More wolves than men?

I began reading Moby-Dick on 17 October – great, original, and thoroughly American … such an intoxication, a swell of language …

First mentions of my planned Tibetan novel … “a novel should retain a dream-like entrancement/reality – distortion”

The Dolly Lama, as the kids called him.

“He needs me” is a kind of possession.

Hunter doesn’t accept advice or new ideas, except later. Rigid, has his own way to do a thing (as does Swami) … their (unexpressed) joy of wrestling.

A pipe organ recital program from Tuesday, March 28, St. John Chapel noon series at Columbia University: Reger, Seth Bingham, Jean Langlais premiere performance, Vierne, Dupre.

~*~

The Delaware Water Gap and smaller Wind Gap were major features in our horizon to the east. Here’s a typical view from the neighborhood. Image by Chuck Walsh via Wikimedia Commons.

~*~

From Spiralbound Yoga, with commentary from now.

Among the wonders of nature

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

When it comes to flowers, wild or cultivated, just consider …

  1. “Those who dwell, as scientists or laymen, among the beauties and mysteries of the earth, are never alone or weary of life.” — Rachel Carson
  2. “Everything that slows us down and forces patience, everything that sets us back into the slow circles of nature, is a help. Gardening is an instrument of grace.” — May Sarton
  3. “In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.” — Margaret Atwood
  4. “Just living is not enough. One must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.” — Hans Christian Andersen
  5. “Colors are the smiles of nature.” — Leigh Hunt
  6. “The earth laughs in flowers.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
  7. “The fairest thing in nature, a flower, still has its roots in earth and manure.” — D. H. Lawrence
  8. “Deep in their roots, all flowers keep the light.” — Theodore Roethke
  9. “The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do.” — Galileo Galilei
  10. “Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth.” — Henry David Thoreau

 

Maybe it all adds up

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

At a wedding party, Harmony got an offer: “I have an extra $300 lying around if you want to spend the night” – the bride’s father.

Mirrors aren’t windows …

How flattering to get a letter from a guest who found me too beautiful. Was told by Swami, “You must not look so pure and perfect before female guests: you must do something to look muddy and imperfect.” Be hard or mean? To be real?

In a small town, when children peddle products to your door, you buy even if you don’t want to.

“He’s tense as an E string on a fiddle,” said Uncle Emerson, who never played fiddle but knew the folk expression.

At one of my great-grandma’s funeral, a man in overalls, paintbrush in hand, showed up: “I can’t say I rightly remembered the woman, but I thought I’d pay my respects.” Small-town duty.

At Grandma’s funeral, so many woodwork relatives I didn’t know: “We should get together more often.”

Sez a sailor: there’s much time to read on a cruise / most seafaring men cannot swim / 86-foot waves in the Norwegian Sea / wear beard, smoke pipe, speak Anglo / Polaris Jack the dolphin who for 20 years piloted ships through treacherous Australian reefs [Wikipedia has Pelorus Jack, New Zealand, 1888-1912, 24 years]

Self-hate = masochism.

Yesterday, I led an old-style Lakshmy hatha class: was afraid I’d kill them but they thanked me, even those who couldn’t keep up.

Pre-Oct 14: while mimeographing, watched an oak tree change from fainting yellow into majestic gold, from morning to midafternoon: the seasons flee before our eyes.

In a Zen temple, a godo [the guy with the stick] / here, Swami Cedar.

Mer de
Merde

[Incinerated]

~*~

 From Spiralbound Yoga, with commentary from now.

Bang, bang, bang, and I’m a swami

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

ON MY RETURN FROM OHIO, Swami was talking to Mary Russell (a double Sagittarius), who asked, “When’s Jnana going to become a swami?”

“Oh, he’s got it all. He had to go through a long purification, though.”

Two hours later, as I was preparing brunch (guess that was in my tenure as head cook), Swami returned from a drive to the rock festival (we had set up tents the night before and fed the (200,000) freaks rice, soybeans), and asked, “Jnana, how’d you like to be a swami?’

To which I replied, “If it’s required.”

And, apparently, I didn’t even bat an eyelash.

That night, I worked nine hours heavily (no break) at Jerry’s Diner, washing dishes until 1:30 am … very pooped!

And now the responsibility. YOU MUST BE MORE HUMBLE THAN EVER BEFORE!

My yoga name written in Sanskrit.

 

FROM MARY’S READING of my astrological chart:

  • Greatness/genius
  • Strong editing
  • Quicksilver mind. Mercury one of my ruling planets (“mercurial” = intellectual, flexible, adaptive)
  • Very orthodox though I appear strange to many people; I enjoy coming off “freaky”
  • Strong intuitive inductions, leaps
  • Very attractive to women; will marry “the most perfect woman in the world,” perhaps an Aries.
  • “Honor” women: leads to strange expectations
  • Worry too much (worry denies God), a born worrier. “Let it go!”
  • In five years, money; but things MOVE before that. [Fostoria, Bloomington, and then Yakima as the five-year mark; not really money, but some security/comfort.]
  • Follow the royal road of the heart, not the mind
  • Ambition: be humble!
  • When you were 13, you were the fastest thing on wheels
  • Summer of ’70 brought the “dark hole of the night” when past karma came due

 

MEDITATION TECHNIQUES:

  • Concentrate on chakras, hold 3 long breaths on each point (21 minutes)
  • Do pranayama before or, as Buddhists do, during. Or count breaths.
  • Concentrate on flame.
  • Begin at top of head and pull light to heart and radiate
  • Recite mantra or chant silently
  • Concentrate on others
  • Mantra or biblical phrase or line from a hymn

And then sit tight.

 

As for Swami quotes?

To staff: “There’s only one person in the ashram who can pull himself around quickly when he’s down.”

Who’s that?

“Jnana-Devananda.”

You mean Levi-Devananda, don’t you?

“No, Jnana-Devananda.”

Reading my hand: “He’s so good-natured it almost hurts.”

And here I’d been feeling in a funk.

To me: “You’re giving out vibes now, but you must learn to receive them. I tried getting through to you last night, and you were like a brick wall.” (I was concentrating on my chakras, trying to get high. Don’t know how to accept them, tune in. Frustration!)

Yet on August 4, Swami imposed a two-week silence me – said she’s been watching me for two weeks, waiting for me to pull myself together. Been racing, withdrawing. Tired of guests seeking easy answers or asking questions, “Where’s the vacuum cleaner hose?” Too many words racing through my head: difficult to meditate.

 

OTHER BITS:

Eyes heavy: resentment.

Swami so obvious with Levi in front of guests.

Harmony loves clutter and noise.

Cedar so severe, rigid; sadomasochistic at times; fanatic’s eyes, yet at times wisdom from her lips

Levi is better dressed than the other swamis, always at her side. She is always asking what he thinks or if he will comment: in group wedding photo, he is betrayed: he looks only at Swami. Am surprised nobody picks up on it. Bhaktivananda did detect Swami’s worldly passions. He merely fingered the wrong one.

I would like to extend the silence, two months perhaps?

Sit in forest, on rock, quiet a long time. Start to move, see big black snake, neck and head upraised, alert / my own silent fear, sidestep quickly.

That movie: El Topo, the mole (underground man). Still haven’t seen it.

The newsletter: no wisdom. What Swami likes today, she’ll revile tomorrow; what’s too long, too heavy today is too short, too sugary tomorrow.

A spice rack as the arsenal of argument.

“Help me plant weeds,” Cedar tells the gardener.

When I’m speeding: don’t listen, don’t let people finish,

Why are people so self-destructive?

Because they want to be noticed, sez Swami.

The selfish man can never find happiness. Selfishness and happiness are mutually exclusive.

A caterpillar moves on middle legs, contracts the rear, and pushes / the front half of a caterpillar floats, doesn’t touch much, let’s the back half do the work / the strobic rhythm of fireflies / blips like the scratches on a worn cinema projection /

~*~

From Spiralbound Yoga, with commentary from now.

From yoga to Zen, though not in the route I took

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Sanskrit Dhyana was corrupted into Chinese Ch’an and thence, in Japan, into Zen.

The sixth patriarch insisted there would be an awakening in prajna (transcendental wisdom) rather than in mere absorption of quiet sitting …

~*~

My name, Jnana, also appears transliterated from Sanskrit as Gyana, meaning the “wise use of knowledge,” among other nuances Here, in an image by Yulem via Wikimedia Commons, is an Indian hook hanger made of bronze with rudraksha beads showing one of the most frequently used hand positions, or mudras, during the practice of pranayama and meditation to symbolize the movement of human consciousness toward holy light.

 

Stirring up other troubles

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

The next spiralbound notebook covers summer ’72, ashram, and well into autumn.

As I inscribed in the inside cover:
More tracings in the water 
into Sannasyn, 8:VII:72 11:45 am

Much of the following was from a trip home for the funeral of my grandmother.

Regarding my mother: she slapped me when I stood up to her / “We are poor,” she kept saying / “Don’t touch girls” /

SHAME / too thin and ill-dressed in hand-me-down clothes or my three-a-year new too-short trousers

She was inwardly jealous of each girlfriend, waited up for her 22-year-old son, furious when I came home at 3 am …

Resented me, says I nearly drove her insane: two years all alone with me while Dad was working / an interference with her own depending on her own dad: her insecurities as a conceived out of wedlock and therefore overly protected child

Mom makes herself so unhappy: nobody is better / does more / has less / she thinks too much of herself, “How poor!”

I cannot return home: there’s no room to grow

In high school, R.R. so sexy / at 22, a skinny mother, so sexless.

Even the green beans become heavy and dull in their passions .

The one-eyed pacifier (TV).

(My diatribes) Trying to comprehend the outside world.

The Christian suffers constantly because he can never be as good as Jesus.

The silent grace of Hap and Pauline Moon, a meditation so strong in one minute a rush, you don’t know what hit you.

Everybody on 3rd street walks as if under a burden: dead and unhappy, unlike New Yorkers who exhibit style and confidence. Such a shock to discover I prefer New York.

Virginia at the Journal-Herald was into yoga with Mishra and Vitaldas 20 years ago, takes another drag on her cigarette and is cool.

Surprised by this entry of meeting with Jim Millikin, at this point assistant managing editor at JH.

“I didn’t recognize your face (the long hair etc.) but I recognized your eyes.” 400 applications on file & he said, “Look me up when you leave the ashram. If I can’t help you, I may know somebody who can. There are so few sensitive, creative people in the business.”

“Yeah, that’s why I came in to see you!”

“When a man if 50 is willing to uproot, he’s usually a wino or something.” (Many [more] desk jobs than reportorial [open].)

Down (very) on Gannett, where we both had worked. And his own “lame” desk as well as the “flak” reported rather than “story.”

Kathy Hoerstein (leo/virgo cusp): “Oh, I just read some of your letters!”

Grandpa: “And he had nine children and 42 grandchildren, just a regular army of (offensive term now deleted).”

Clifton Gorge: such a piddly canyon “But it’s all we got”

Rundown house in Yellow Springs, windows open, no screens / artifacts carefree & lazy / memories of Olaf and D-Man in our ghetto summer stoned in the mountains.

This constant drive to do more / never satisfied to rest, to be / ambition is a hunger that devours the host / an inner fire.

Midwestern women trained to be sweet, smiling, o my! Tight curls and cut, print dresses. Do the right thing and worry about neighbors.

On this trip] find girls looking at me with desire – a free, long-haired fantasy of unfathomable sensitivity

So difficult to be alone and not lonely

The attraction of HIGH art etc / genius /

Mother of myself

The attraction and repulsion of pornography

The women in my life get more beautiful.

Keep demons
in place
under rocks

~*~

The farmlands around us retained a Pennsylvania Dutch character, though not necessarily of a Plain identity. The Delaware Water Gap and higher Wind Gap were dominant features in the horizon to our east. Photo by Chuck Walsh via Wikimedia Commons.

~*~

From Spiralbound Yoga, with commentary from now.

 

Newfoundland is really out there

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

It’s a remote land of icebergs, northern lights, puffins, and moose, the easternmost part of Canada. Now, for a few details.

  1. Although the province also includes Labrador, making it larger than California, the usual focus is on the island itself, the world’s 16th largest, ahead of Cuba, Iceland, or Ireland. The island aka “The Rock” sits at the mouth of the St. Lawrence River, creating the world’s largest estuary.
  2. It has the only verified Viking settlement in North America, around the year 1001, possibly with Leif Erikson. The UNESCO World Heritage Site is on the northern tip of the island and includes restored sod buildings; for a sense of the size of the island, it’s an 11-hour, 20-minute drive from St. John’s. Legend has Irish Monk St. Brendan arriving in the 6th century, and Englishman John Cabot may have landed in 1497. Portuguese fishermen were also prominent explorers.
  3. Newfoundland was an independent country before joining the Canadian confederation in 1949. It’s one reason it’s not considered a Maritime Province like Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island.
  4. It has its own time zone, a half-hour ahead of Atlantic, although, strangely, it appears a half-hour later, as in “9 a.m. Atlantic, 9:30 Newfoundland.”
  5. Getting there can be convoluted. Flying from the U.S., for instance, generally takes nine hours; driving, 36. There are two ferry routes from Nova Scotia – the shorter one runs six- to seven-hours; the longer one, 16 hours.
  6. Just 12 miles away, off the southwestern coast of Newfoundland, are the islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon, technically part of France and a vestige of what was once New France.
  7. The Newfoundland dog and Newfoundland pony are symbols of the province.
  8. As for those striking North American puffins, 95 percent of them live in Newfoundland and Labrador, a good reason it’s the official bird of the province.
  9. Between 400 and 800 icebergs a year typically get as far south as St. John’s. Hamlets further north, such as Twilingate, get even more.
  10. It’s pronounced NEW-fundlund. Its people, informally, are Newfies – and Canadians second.

While we’re at it, do note that the Rock has some eye-raising town names. Here’s a sampling, without explanation or commentary:

  1. Dildo.
  2. Goobies.
  3. Tickle Cove.
  4. Blow Me Down.
  5. Come by Chance.
  6. Witless Bay.
  7. Cow Head.
  8. Gander.
  9. Placentia.
  10. Botwood.

St. John’s, the provincial capital and largest city, is not to be confused with St. John, New Brunswick. Both are significant seaports.

 

Surviving another hard winter and more

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

The next volume, beginning Winter ’72, begins with our first week-long intensive seminar. Some really bizarre group action, both from the guests and the staff.

The volume also includes my trip to Ohio for Grandma’s funeral; she died June 21. 1972.

~*~

Afterward, reading my seminar notes aloud to Swami, Cedar flipped out. “You just kind of pass through my life, but from your reading, I realize I’ve had you completely wrong.”

Now I know why I write: it’s the way I can be me, release my inner voice.

In mid-February, Swami announced she was closing the place, sending us into a tizzy. On the 17th, I recorded: Swami sez I have so much hate. [My unspoken reaction, I’m guessing.] It is necessary energy arising from saturation, frustration; I am different, and anyone who tries to make me like them is desexing me, perverting my love.

On the 22nd, I noted a Binghamton trip, believe it was my first of manicotti (when I wanted pizza) and spending the night with Celeste. Among other things, she said she cannot kiss someone she cannot look in the eyes and know she’s communicating with. (She is so much more than her body, which is where I too often stop communicating.)

In bed, to me: “and we will never marry,” in a positive voice. “Sometimes I think you’re too self-critical.”

I TRY TO POSSESS BECAUSE I AM INSECURE

24 February went to Philadelphia with Swami to sell her diamond wedding ring. “Everybody is so slow (unlike NYC), but dead eyes, no smiles except a fleeting twinge …

In meditation: WE ARE ALL LITTLE FISHES IN A VAST OCEAN OF AIR.

“Truth can be reached only through a comprehension of opposites.”

Swami Sivananda was a fruitcake.

(2 days later: all of us here but Swami are fruitcakes)

Beware of the vegetables.

Ria (and others) said they like my hatha classes “because you give long rests”; tonight I gave a hold-the-position (once) class, and she (and they) said “you were like a drill master.”

25:III:72, after one of our spring break seminars, Swami laid it on me heavy; Levi said he felt apologetic in asking me to do anything – a reading fast, for one thing …

Sometime later, Swami: “Jnana, he’s solid. He doesn’t always look it, when he’s walking around here, looking like he’s not doing anything, but he’s like Levi. Don’t worry about it. Also, he can’t say what he’s thinking. What’s in his head is very beautiful, but it just comes out different. His tongue gets him in trouble. As I said, he’s solid and as much a part of the ashram as the stone. He won’t collapse until the stone does.”

Harmony talked about her being pimped experiences.

Cedar: Can’t you accept the idea that someone might be superior to you?”

“Very difficult.”

Swami: loud, crass, crude: nouveau riche. Wants to be a big shot. And we are her playthings.

A dream of climbing up a glacier (or frozen stream/gorge like Buttermilk Falls / years before Rainier! – one of our party slips and lands far below, not dead: Rainbow, nude, as usual. Johnny Cash comes up behind her, singing …

This photo by Doug Kerr via Wikimedia Commons shows Interstate 80 rammed through the Delaware Water Gap, where the Delaware River cleaves the long ridge along the edge of the border between Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The gap was the route between us and New York City, the route for many of our visitors .

 

As it was seen by artist Granville Perkins and engraver Robert Hinshelwood, via Wikimedia Commons.

~*~

To continue:

Since we lowered our rates, the people who used to come and stay free (because “we have no money”) now pay; so now we probably come out about the same as before, except now everybody contributes.

36 people for brunch after everyone had left from a crowded weekend

On my trip to Grandma’s funeral, I slipped off to Quaker Meeting in Yellow Springs: such a high!

The members look weak and shaky, nervous and overly intellectual, almost ineffectual: but also strong in their vibrations!

“The other day, a 7-year-old Quaker came in the house and asked her mother, ‘Do we Quakers believe in God?’ After hemming and hawing a few minutes and saying essentially yes, the mother asked what brought this question on. ‘Oh, my pal at the playground says they don’t believe in God, they believe in revolution”

(Ten minutes or later:) Mention of a vigil at Wright-Pat the previous day and how a mocking bird singing from within the base reminded her of a verse about how out of the mud and mire a song always rises.

Next message: how many woes arise out of either/or thinking. There are so many more alternatives.

And finally: “Our Father! I am grateful for the world the way it is! For all of its riches, and for all of the problems we can apply ourselves to. Let us use our goods and riches for others, to make the best use of them, to share and multiply them. Bless our fellowship and interaction!”

Girl afterward: “I had given up on religion. I had tried everything, including Bahai, then last week I went to Meeting. I feel like I just smoked marijuana.” (Yep!) She thought I was in yoga; the straight back, closed eyes.

Nikki assumed art to be religion … were it so, artists would not be so fucked up, so neurotic and selfish! (Malcolm Frager’s wife told him his work as a pianist is no greater than anyone else’s work, including the janitor; that deflated him, until he saw its wisdom.)

Fay? “Kissin’ F, the Witch Goddess, the Lid … she stood me up the night before I left for IU …

Norman O. Brown: negation begins with the denial of being born, separated from the womb …

Mistake of many: the Good Life depends on things.

Susan Sontag: “Of course, a writer’s journal must not be judged by the standards of a diary. The notebooks of a writer have a very special function; in them he builds up, piece by piece, the identity of a writer to himself. … The journal is where a writer is heroic to himself. In it he exists solely as a perceiving, suffering, struggling being. … Solitariness is the indispensable metaphor of the modern writer’s consciousness.”

Paradox of self-hate: you can’t decide to get rid of it, that leads you to hate yourself for hating yourself. You must accept the self-hate. By loving it and yourself, you no longer hate yourself.

[Incinerated]

~*~

From Spiralbound Yoga, with commentary from now.