Business, one way or another

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

I COME INTO A MEETING of two black-robed Buddhists. A dark office, maybe. They’re discussing something. Turns out one of them is an accountant, the other an investor or banker. They are about to foreclose on the Ashram. They are debating whether it should be done immediately, on notice, or whether the one should visit for a week and pull the trigger slowly. They turn to me for my opinion, realizing as a former resident I might have some insight. I lean forward slowly.

 

I RETURN TO OAKDALE and Mom starts telling me that – she didn’t actually know him – had barged in, looking for something from the office, so he said. (At the office, all I knew was he had left at noon, for the day.) Stereo and computer wires, disarrayed, parts broken.

“Did you call the police?”

“No, what good would that do?”
Unwanted intruder, for starters. Restitution, too.

 

PLAYING CARDS WITH A GROUP of coworkers. J.T. pulls out a pack he bought cheap at some outlet store. “Here, let’s use my deck,” he says, proud of his purchase. He deals. As we pick up our hands, we notice the face or number crossed out and a rubber stamp replacement ALL CAPS with the new assignment – QUEEN OF SPADES or TEN OF HEARTS, for instance.

You couldn’t play a game with cards like that! I started laughing in my sleep.

Among the reasons for Quaker decline, let me suggest

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Relocation to the West, especially, wasn’t the only reason Dover Friends Meeting in New Hampshire declined in the 1800s. Here are a few other factors.

  1. Being Quaker can be hard work. Not just a Sunday thing. Things like honesty.
  2. Tightening of personal discipline in the mid-1700s. The marriage restrictions definitely cut into membership.
  3. Plainness in clothing, design, and possessions. That is, personal expression.
  4. Employment and other business ethics. Refusal to take oaths kept Friends out of some professions, such as the law, and bankruptcy was a disownable offense.
  5. No “vain entertainments.” And thus, no music, dancing, fiction, theater, paintings, card playing, horse racing, or gambling.
  6. Pacifism during the Revolutionary and Civil wars, plus withdrawal from political offices in the 1760s.
  7. The separations that split the Society of Friends into factions from the 1820s on.
  8. Aversion to emotion, starting with anger.
  9. Emerging restrictions on alcohol and tobacco. Being “disguised by hard liquor” was a big problem on the frontier.
  10. Even the appearance of wrongdoing could be an offense. And all that led to deadly quaintness.

Not that these quite apply today. Still, they could prompt a book in themselves. For now, you’ll have to consider Quaking Dover for the story. Order your copy at your favorite bookstore. Or request it at your public library.

The persecution wasn’t consistent

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Had the Puritan persecution of dissidents been consistent, the Quakers and Baptists likely wouldn’t have survived. Instead, it came in waves aimed more at the traveling missionaries as well as to constrain the political and business prowess of resident Friends.

Further, there were relatively few congregations or ministers in New England. Despite required attendance at worship on the Sabbath, the buildings couldn’t hold them all, had they showed up.

Who was keeping attendance rolls, anyway?

In the end she was as ephemeral as a dream

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Made love, and made love.
Sweet wine, candlelight twilight.
Mattress on the floor.

Maybe you remember.

 

ONCE SO DISTURBING, AWAKENING ME. Are we still living together in the big bungalow? Cooking and kissing together?

Then we’re at a meeting in a big house (a rival’s, ours is across town). Her dad I don’t recognize, think it’s her brother.

She leaves, I change my mind, run after but can’t catch up.

They drive off, somehow I’m in pursuit.

 

IN ANOTHER BIG OLD HOUSE, we’re moving in – Greek Temple revival? – repair it? A leak on our sleeping bags – a group of four, is my sister one?

My Beloved: “It doesn’t have to be this way,” meaning us, as I nuzzle an ear.

Somebody we know (a friend of her father?) (or mother?) is getting married.

“They’re so close [naming another couple] won’t even get them a present.”

 

LATER, HIKING IN THE WOODS – toward Centerville? – a Corvette stops, she halts and talks, wasn’t even going all the way.

 

BUYING HER A CORSET OR BUSTIER for her birthday.

“Black?”

“No, peach!” And then, “It wouldn’t be for me – it would be YOUR birthday present!”

How lovely, desirable, in one or the other.

Black flies, little black flies

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Spring in Maine can be a very short season, marked first by mud season and then the black flies that descend from late April into July.

My introduction came one year in a brief stop to investigate a stunning waterfall, interrupted by a large swarm of what I thought were mosquitos. The second enlightenment came at a stop along the Airline Highway en route to Eastport. A wall of flying insects would be a diluted version.

Also known as buffalo gnats, turkey gnats, or white socks (not of the Chicago baseball kind), black flies are more than the defenders of wilderness. Take a look.

  1. They don’t seem to be a problem on windy days or along the ocean.
  2. There are actually more than 2,200 species of them, not that the ones I’ve seen ever look black.
  3. Their bites are particularly nasty or, at the least, a nuisance. Some even spread the disease river blindness.
  4. They’re found far beyond Maine. Scotland, northern Ontario, and Minnesota weigh in heavily, though Pennsylvania has been active in the battle against them.
  5. The eggs are laid in running water and are extremely sensitive to pollution.
  6. Bites are most often found on the face, hairline, neck, and back, though the pests are attracted to breathing and, thus, can enter the nose or mouth. Don’t overlook the ankles, either.
  7. They’re attracted to dark colors.
  8. They stretch the skin and then make shallow cuts with blade-like sections of their mouth before sucking blood.
  9. They’re most active for a few hours after sunrise and a few hours before sunset but totally inactive through the night.
  10. Folksinger Bill Staines made a hit of the logging camp song written by Canadian Wade Hesmworth. The line, “I’ll die with a blackfly pickin’ my bones,” rings especially true.