TRIANGULATIONS

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

As I said at the time …

So you’re moving out – congratulations! For one thing, it puts you on much firmer ground when you do commit to a live-in relationship – rather than jumping from your parents’ care into the care of another. Yes, your parents are much more liberal than mine were, but I too was forced to spend my first year-and-a-half of college at a local commuter school (fortunately, it had an excellent English department) and to live at home – something that deeply stunted my emotional growth. Getting away to Bloomington was a lifesaver, even if I wound up in political science and urban studies instead.

Well, I have another reading coming up Tuesday, same venue. This time, plan to read one poem – a longpoem in thirty-seven sections. Should take just under an hour. A piece that was nearly published by a highly regarded press twenty years ago – and was withdrawn because of deep cutbacks in federal funding for the arts. When I began to submit sections to journals a couple of years back, acceptances quickly followed. Now, to get the full piece out!

So here I am, wishing you could be with me in that smoke-filled room – have you on as the next reader, in fact, unless I gallantly step aside to let you wow them with an extended reading of your own. Or, more intriguing yet, share the stage, alternating pieces. Yes, I like that!

Oh, yes, you start to apologize about talking so much about him and that love poison. But I wonder, unless we are blessed enough to have a fulfilling life with our initial childhood sweetheart, whether a great deal about any current affair is actually an attempt to work out the failings of the previous hot fling. For one thing, we really do become attuned to the other person’s touch, timing, interests, movement – everything that makes him or her distinct. Nicolas Mosley, an English novelist, has argued that every coupling is actually a triangle – or more accurately, two triangles, with each partner having a side affair, a past, a demanding career, or whatever attached here. I’d agree.

Now, if you decide to hop on that bus and head off to some escape, what can I do to lure you here? (Just phone ahead, to make sure I’m not seriously involved with a very jealous girlfriend by then.) As I was saying, how do you like your coffee? Ever gone contradancing or English country dancing? And you wouldn’t be the only person in this neck of the woods dressed in black and stainless steel or exhibiting striking jewelry piercings, unlike New Orleans. In fact, a number of years ago, Donald Hall once wrote that there’s something Gothic about New England. I was living in the desert of Washington State when I read that, and it intrigued. Even more so, now that I’m living here. But that’s another conversation.

Well, it’s my turn to be up way too late – and to write disjointed stuff. Hope it makes sense. Now, for me, off to engage in, hopefully, some sensual and sensational dreams of my own. Care to bet if you’re starring?

Keep sizzling!

~*~

Olympus 1For a free copy of the complete American Olympus, click here.

A QUESTION OF INTEGRITY IN THEORY AND PRACTICE

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

The New Hampshire Republican Party’s recent reiterations claiming the centrality of integrity have me looking at the party’s record of the past few decades in national elections.

Just where does integrity fit in the win-at-all-costs school of politics manifested by Karl Rove and his kind? And where has it been thrown overboard, especially?

Put another way, and not just with politics: Where do words and actions converge? And just where do they diverge?

Integrity, of course, demands convergence – of the head, hands, and heart, as well. Here’s hoping …

SNOBBERY, ALL THE SAME

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 3 Comments

To see the old meetinghouse at China, Maine, as it’s been turned into a Friends Camp arts studio (a messy one, at that) is a pointed symbol of the tensions many of us encounter as we attempt to live out our faith – and not just on the cultural front. (For the record, I am, after all, a published poet and novelist, a professional journalist, an avid contradancer, gallery-goer, foreign film buff, occasional violinist and harmony singer, and a lover of opera and classical music – all of which can raise eyebrows in various spiritual circles, and most of which would have been forbidden in traditional Quaker discipline – all this even before we turn to the struggles of the workplace, families, neighbors, or politics. Call me a snob, if you will.) The fact remains that the Society of Friends today is filled with many artists pursuing every imaginable medium. Dover Meeting is not alone in its range of talent.

A while back, I spoke of practice as something that’s ongoing and never finished, in contrast, say, to a performance or even a rehearsal. Practice as something done more for its own exploration and pursuit of a discipline than for any finished product. Practice as being part of a bigger encounter: the practice of prayer, practice of poetry, practicing musical scales, play practice, football practice, even medical practice. Something done with care, and if freedom follows in critical situations, as we often hear in interviews after a Patriots’ game, then all the better. Weeding and composting, I suppose, are part of the practice of gardening, apart from any harvest.

When I think about qualities that mark Quaker artists, I would tentatively suggest: placing the ongoing work ahead of themselves; “cool” rather than “hot”; a sense of experience and discovery rather than make-believe or escape; honesty rather than pretense; wonder rather than irony; humility rather than egotism or arrogance; candor rather than flamboyance; a preference for simplicity over complexity; directness rather than confusion; economy rather than extravagance; calmness rather than shrillness; curiosity and listening rather than dogma or bombast.

We might also turn the old Quaker views toward a critique of today’s cult of celebrities (almost universally entertainment/professional sports figures) and their exorbitant incomes – a situation that I believe accompanies a lessening of power within our communities. To that we could add the ways the arts are often used as a secular religion to sanctify public occasions. As for the Oscars?

But maybe that’s just another part of our unfolding spiritual awareness.

THE BIG TREES

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

I still miss the Douglas firs and the Western red cedars. In their maturity, they stand tall – not quite to redwood stature but still impressive, especially when they’re massed together or the clouds roll through the branches.

Close your eyes and let the aroma present another unforgettable impression.

Maybe off in the distance of night you’ll hear the singing.

~*~

Mountain 1

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OH, THE SONG OF THE WEARY

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

At our yearly meeting sessions each summer, one night features an all-ages coffee house organized by the teens. It’s a great release for the adults, who have been hunkered down in joint business agendas that often run three hours at a shot. Still, in a week filled with those plus organized discussions and workshops, committee reports and tables, social issues documentaries, casual conversations, and much more, the live amateur entertainment can be a bit much, no matter how excellent many of the acts are.

So it was for me one year when I decided to skip the event – perhaps even go to bed early for a switch.

As I wandered down a hallway, I came across a half-dozen or so Friends gathered around an upright piano and singing four-part music. Great! I jumped right in and was delighted when we turned to a Stephen Foster piece that’s also in the repertoire of my choir. We were just getting it down for ourselves when the announcement came: “You’re on in five!”

What?

My plans had just changed.

So there we were, all adults, lining up for the stage, marching up, finding our places in a semi-circle facing the audience, and being introduced by an enthusiastic high school senior. What was supposed to be “the Hard-Timers,” after the piece we were to sing, came out of her mouth as “the Old-Timers.” Instead of being offended, though, I was grateful it hadn’t come out “the Alzheimers.” Ahem.

If you’re not yet there, be warned: This getting older does have a lot of unanticipated turns. Don’t you forget it. And don’t forget to smile.

TWO ENDS OF THE SAME BUMPER

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 3 Comments

At the left side of the bumper was the sticker
SUPPORT OUR TROOPS.

On the right side
TAX IT ALL

presumably as a protest.

I doubt the driver made the connection – and these two are closely related – that the overwhelming preponderance of federal debt and tax money goes to the military for current and past expenditures. I just wish those who support the first connect it to the second. That awareness would cut through a lot of political rhetoric and posturing and maybe lead to some real reductions.

Think it will ever happen?

CANYONS OF DESIRE

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Follow the rivers, then. Some lead into the mountains and form the “passes” to the high breaks in the crest line. Others lead out the other way.

You can also follow the currents of your passions.

~*~

Having come to the desert, we now know the fuller value of water. Something simple, essential. No one can live without it. The list of necessities is a short one; the possibilities of embellishment, endless.

There are rivers on every map you rely on. Sometimes when I walk out into the expanse, I encounter one. Sometimes, one deep enough to block my way. And then I turn to the page for a bridge.

Or, better yet, call out for my buddy, Kokopelli.

~*~

Kokopelli 1For a free copy of my newest novel, click here.

 

ADAPTING TO THE MODERN FAMILY

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Finding adequate terms to define someone in a contemporary family relationship can be elusive.

I don’t mean the euphemistic police blotter application of “live-in girlfriend” to the mother of the suspect’s latest child or its transformation to “his fiancee” after the birth of their second or third.

What I’m thinking would fit situations like “my wife’s ex-father-in-law” when he’s still on very good terms, unlike his son, the ex. While still roundabout, calling him “my kids’ grandfather” turns into the most direct description, though it takes a few seconds to register.

Then there are the extensions. Consider the favorite sister-in-law of a favorite brother-in-law, when she’s part of the active scene you share. Have we ever had terms that fit there? Now try “my ex-brother-in-law’s ex-wife” before twisting it further into “ex-wife’s new husband.”

When families scatter across today’s continent or the world, keeping track of even first-cousins can be vaporous. That’s largely ancient history.

Genealogists have charts to assist in determining third-cousins from fourth- or fifth-, along with the “times removed.” Anyone ready to tackle something similar for today’s all-too-fluid familial connections?