Tag: Inspiration

DRESSING FOR LOGISTICS

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

It didn’t take very long for my philosophy class in college to realize our professor was wearing the same outfit all the time – suit coat, tie, pants, and Hush Puppies. We wondered about the white shirt, his socks, and underwear, and presumed he was changing those. The second semester, he did the same thing, but with a different outfit. (This was the same teacher whose final the previous year had a single question, “Why?” – which led most students to write profusely in their blue books, hoping to somehow hit the answer by accident. A succinct “Why not?” turned out to be the B+ answer, while “Because” earned the A.) Maybe he was just too lost in thought to be concerned about attire. On the other hand, some in the class repeated rumors that he had a girlfriend in Sweden and was spending most of his income on long-distance bills. (Why not?)

When I’m grabbing the same set of clothes for, say, the third day in a row while getting ready to dash off to the office, that recollection flits through my mind. Sometimes the thought connects with the concept of Plain dress, too, and how we’ve made things more complicated by switching to the less tightly defined “simplicity.” For old Quakers, the question of “What will I wear today?” was much easier than it is for us.

Of course, Plain dress was also a uniform – a symbol of belonging, and belonging to a cause, at that. There are all kinds of uniforms, and not just for the military – mail carriers, retail clerks, priests, mechanics, utility workers, many of them today wearing embossed T-shirts. You know what to expect from them.

There are many reasons I’m not suggesting we return to Plain dress. For one thing, such a move would have to express a unified community; otherwise, we would just appear to be quirky along the lines of my philosophy prof. In addition, putting the focus on the outward appearance ignores what exists within. Still, such a move would be a public rejection of the fashion industry. And it was said that Friends who had taken up Plain dress became more aware of individuals at the fringes of society – and more responsive to their needs.

As for the philosophy prof, I guess the biggest lesson he taught me was the importance of questions in the logic of life. The dressing’s purely secondary.

GOING PUBLIC

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Writers and artists who work alone may know the feeling. It might even fit composers, playwrights, and screenwriters. A piece looks quite different in manuscript or the studio than it does in a small-press journal or small gallery. It looks different, again, in galley proofs for correction or an exhibition. And it’s altogether different in full-length book publication or a major museum.

We could even consider all of the varied emotions that accompany these stages.

When the published novel’s in my hand, I’m not even sure I’d recognize its having any commonality with the manuscript or drafts all those steps earlier.

I suspect the experience for performers – especially those in groups – goes another direction. The rehearsals build a teamwork that’s carried forward to an audience. Could there even be occasions when the finished result is less satisfactory than some points beforehand?

We talk about a creative process, but I’m left acknowledging there are many.

OCCASION OF CELEBRATION

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 3 Comments

As I posted in a poem back in April, spotting a hummingbird is an occasion of celebration. They’re so tiny and so fast you’re likely to dismiss one as a dragonfly or as some other large, speedy insect if you’re not paying attention. Sometimes you notice more the irregular angles of their zig-zag flight, the motions no other flyer can manage, rather than the bird itself, and then you start observing closely. And sometimes you just happen to look out when one’s hovering nearby, say at the blooming azalea in front of the bay window.

I hadn’t seen any this year until a few weeks ago, when I glimpsed out from our kitchen and noticed one working its way through our stand of burgundy-color bee balm. I called for my wife to come look, but by the time she came over, it had vanished behind the asparagus, and that was it. You have to be quick. And now those blossoms are gone by.

I’d also remarked that we hadn’t seen all that many goldfinches this summer. Sometimes we seem to have thousands, but these things can go in cycles, so I just figured it was an off year.

And then, late yesterday afternoon, I sat down in the far corner of our yard simply to enjoy a cold beer and regard our garden and house from that perspective. Since this is also the glorious time of year I consider high summer, what I viewed was a culmination of so much that had been building up. Everything was quite green and lush, of course, and the garden was punctuated by the red of tomatoes, the yellows of squashes and peppers, and the incredible purples of eggplants, even before I got to the flowers. As I settled in, after admitting to myself the grass needs to be mowed again, I realized this was dinner rush hour for the birds. Who knows why, but they do seem to eat in spurts, at least when it comes to populating our feeders. And here they were, far more than I could count (after all, they’re constantly flitting from one place to another). Not only that, but many of them were goldfinches, perhaps attracted by our sunflowers that have finally started blooming. Mourning doves landed in the grapevine and wild-rose covered branches of the black walnut tree before looping down to the ground under the main feeder, littered with birdseed as it is. Along the tree I could see just the gray flickers of squirrel tails as they raided the ripe nuts from the branches. In short, it was lovely. And the grass seemed to be just the right depth for many of the smaller birds to go grubbing.

That’s when I caught the distinctive flight of the hummingbird, which then did something I’d never before seen: it actually landed on one of those branches, where it quickly became a camouflaged bump on the distant limb. Soon there were two, and I don’t ever remember seeing two at once. (Well, maybe once in Maine, at a friends’ feeder outside their kitchen slider door?) Still, a first, as far as our yard and garden go.

Minutes later, I spotted one working its way through the zinnias about a dozen feet from me. How meticulously it hovering above a single flower and vacuumed each petal. Next thing I knew, it was gone and then one followed by a second came shooting inches past my head, even as I ducked instinctively. Well, that was the second … and third … time in my life I’ve had to dodge that bullet! They certainly seemed to having fun, as birds and bees are said to do.

It’s been said that meditation may have originated in the art of hunting. That is, in learning to sit very still for extended periods of time and just let the wildlife come to you, if you’re worthy. So I sat very still, the way I would in Quaker meeting for worship or in a half-lotus position on my meditation cushion. Over time, I saw at least four hummingbirds working their way around the yard, swooping from the trees to the Joe Pye weeds, the sunflowers, the zinnias and cosmos, and somewhere behind me, before landing repeatedly in the trees.

All of what was happening could be considered as an epiphany, those special moments when the Holy One appears or becomes manifest in an individual’s life. No, I’m not suggesting that the hummingbirds are divine or even angelic, but this was clearly a reminder of the times and ways we are blessed. You can’t just go looking for it and expect it to happen. You can only be receptive and grateful when it does. You also have to know what you’re seeing and be able to name it, knowing how rare and wonderful it is. Along with the simple pleasures of having everything momentarily perfect. Isn’t that a definition of miracle?

Soon, of course, the hummingbird sightings became fewer and fewer. The ones in the yard were probably already migrating from further north and bulking up for their long flight in a few weeks across the Gulf of Mexico. Their season here is nearly over. The finches, meanwhile, will be around longer before donning their gray traveling cloaks, as one friend says, and then heading south.

On our part, all this was soon followed by our own time for dinner with its fresh sweetcorn, tomatoes, and basil eaten al fresco in the golden rays of the setting sun.

What was I saying about an occasion of celebration? Indeed.

BACK FROM SESSIONS

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

The 353rd annual sessions of New England Yearly Meeting of Friends were held last week, and it was wonderful to be among the hundreds of Quakers of all ages who gathered at Bryant University in Rhode Island for the six-day gathering.

Since the regional yearly meetings are the top level of the Quaker system of church government, their decisions affect all of their constituent local congregations – in New England, that’s about 100, ranging from rural or small to large and urban. And since our group decisions are reached without ever taking a vote, resolving our differences when it comes to joint action can be quite an exercise. (We had several of those.)

One of the issues we did unite on was to publicly renounce what’s known as the Doctrine of Discovery, which originated in papal pronouncements that lands held by native non-Christian peoples could be claimed by Christians – a perspective that was later extended into American law. Native peoples of New England told us our support is important in their attempts to change current policies for more just outcomes, and we agreed to continue working with them on this concern.

The Bible half-hours each morning were led by Michael Birkel of Earlham College who used quotations from early Quakers to show how scriptural language shaped their thinking and tender communications to each other. What emerged was an awareness of the depth and intimacy of their experiences in times of great turmoil, even before they speak to us as well. His loving and often humorous examination of the texts and their wider meanings earns him my nomination to be the leading Quaker rabbi, if we acknowledged such.

There’s much more to yearly meeting than the sessions each summer. Throughout the year, committees meet and work, special programs are presented, youth retreats (especially) are conducted, and local meetings are visited.

But it’s always delightful to be among so many kindred souls, reconnecting with people I’ve known for decades and establishing new friendships, too. We get to meet and know visiting Friends from around the world – this time including Bolivians, Cubans, and Kenyans, who add much to our worship and global awareness. I suspect that much of the most important business occurs in informal one-on-one conversations over meals, while just sitting along the pathways through the campus, or during late nights in the dorm lounges. We’re also surrounded by children and teens, many of them zooming around on scooters or bicycles in their free time. It’s all high-energy.

Parting is always sweet sorrow, but we’re already anticipating next year’s sessions, which will be held in Vermont.

SINGING WHERE WE LIVE

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

Like all of the arts, poetry has a long tradition of speaking for the marginalized and disenfranchised. Just look at a lot of the Psalms (even those attributed to David the King!) or Isaiah, for starters. That, as well as the court poets throughout antiquity. Or Wallace Stevens, the insurance executive. We sing where we live.

As for the review, remember: being a writer requires a thick skin when it comes to criticism – and, as Gertie Stein said, every writer wants to be told how good he is, how good he is, how good he is. Now, let’s look at the depth of this “criticism”: adjectives like dumbest, dumb, dumb … how many times? To say “I didn’t like this” is not criticism, O Wondrous Publisher, but the lowest form of consumerism.

Much of the most powerful art we find unlikable in our initial encounters – only through repeated exposure and exploration do we finally begin to see it open in its fullness and awe, and to appreciate its scope. (Not that everything that’s unlikable is great art, or even art, mind you – just that candy in and of itself can leave one seriously malnourished.) So don’t invite this cad to the opera, Shakespeare or Shaw, the symphony, art museum, jazz, a wine-tasting or brewpub, wilderness camping/backpacking, or your next edition. I once counseled a photographer I know in the Pacific Northwest to go beyond the obvious, superficial beauty there and to instead capture the real nature of the landscape.

Last time we talked, he said his work had taken on a breathtaking intensity, but that none of the galleries would touch it – because they didn’t believe it was real! It isn’t what the owners and collectors think they see in the outdoors – it’s the reality, in its naked majesty, instead. That’s what art is about! Or should be.

Or, as Gary Snyder once argued, all poetry is nature poetry – even if the closest the poet comes to nature is his old lady’s queynt.

Another thing to remember when it comes to publishing: not everyone will like everything. Back when Doonesbury was the “hot” comic strip, one newspaper was astonished to find in a survey that the strip was both its most popular – and the most hated! Please the latter subscribers and you might not be selling copies to the former; but please the former, and the latter will still be onboard, to get whatever it is that they like. Or. if a restaurant removed every item that any of its clientele found objectionable, there would be no menu. Even McDonald’s has detractors.

Of course you’re going to tinker with each edition! Every poem is different, too – or should be. (I could name some writers who are repeating the same formula they struck upon ten or twenty years ago, but that’s not for me – Eskimo artists, I’ve heard, will do a subject only once and then move on to another. Good model, methinks, although the “once” might mean a work within a series of sixty to a hundred poems – kind of like a novel, I guess.)

Maybe you’ll even have a stretch where the personal life and upheaval and discovery and adventures quiet down, and you feel it’s time to do a mostly-poetry issue – go for that, too!

Right now, what’s singing where I live is the mockingbird. Ever so gloriously, with a song that’s rarely the same.

FREQUENCY OF ATTENDANCE

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

Every week? Every other week? Once a month? How often do you come to worship?

It’s a question that’s nagged at me ever since participating in my first Friends community. There I noticed a number of people who seemed to come every other week, meaning in practice we had two largely separate circles of people. A few years earlier, as part of a monastic practice, I had experienced what group mediation twice every day could do, how the energy would build up and the experience, deepen.

Early Quakers were much more insistent on attendance, including the Midweek Meeting. The Amish, on the other hand, gather every other week, using the off week to visit at a distance. In fairness, on many weekends we do have multiple activities scheduled, and three or four hours in the meetinghouse on Sunday is not uncommon.

Still, we must wonder. Are our lives so busy we haven’t enough time for worship? Or do we need a Sabbath from the labors of Meeting? My views have changed over the years. Yes, Sunday often becomes a time of catching up. But miss worship for a few weeks straight, and getting back into the rhythm and focus of Meeting becomes difficult – it’s easy to slip away. What I do know, often more in theory than practice, is the importance of Sabbath rest – especially the kind that helps us rediscover family and joyous playfulness. Something that’s quite distinct from leisure. Or even thank you and please come again. “There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from his own work.” Let that remain our invitation and refreshment.

FOLLOWING THE LINE

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 3 Comments

As I said at the time: Who am I writing to? Right now, me. A conversation with myself. Not that I want it to remain that way. In time, it may be you, the invisible reader wandering around my mind or heart. The kindred spirit. Or perhaps, as prayer, as confession to God. Who already knows the outcome. And who would cheat God? Yes, the ubiquitous “you” in contemporary American poetry may well be God as much as one’s lover.

In my experience, I really do need to get that first overview drafted, to see in part where my thoughts and heart are leading. At that point, I can begin to ask what else needs to be said about you or me, the family, faith, our part of the world (now I think of a friend who painted a much different picture of Maine than the coastal postcards most people imagine), and so on. (And don’t overlook the lessons from the convent, I tell her.)

“The new chapters in your letters have good energy,” I continued. “They move along well, keeping eyes open for details and heart for insight. A good direction!” Having just finished the ninth or tenth draft of one manuscript, retitled again, I acknowledged stages of writing and revision my own process entails. The first draft is essentially for myself: to see where the material leads. The next several revisions tend to round out the logic, support my leaps, provide background for the reader; in this stage, the work becomes wordy, by necessity and is written for others, rather than myself. Then comes the “sponge stage,” where the work begins to soak up more and more new material quotes, references, new insights; it must reach saturation point. Sometime around here, the work needs to be restructured or reblocked: the original outline or roadmap no longer leads the material through the best route. (A chronological approach, for instance, may be jettisoned at this stage.) Eventually, what I really need to say emerges, and that leads to some heavy copy editing, to make the light and dark contrasts stronger. This is when the thesaurus and the search/replace get heavy usage, too, punching up the diction, largely to expand repeated concepts and terms. In a long work, I always find a handful of overworked terms; maybe they reflect the central issues, but left untouched, they become tedious.

ONLY THE BEST

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Often, the lessons appear when least expected.

One my thoughts returns frequently to a conversation I overheard on a Saturday afternoon in Baltimore’s Little Italy. A couple, recently back from New York City, was trying to impress the restaurant owner that everyone they had talked to was raving about the establishment, saying it was clearly the best in Little Italy. Finally, the owner was able to thank them, with this rejoinder: “Anyone who doesn’t think he’s the best in this neighborhood shouldn’t be down here.”

I admire that sense of upholding your own pursuit of excellence. No excuses. And I admire that esteem for the standards of others doing the same. Rivals. And yet colleagues.

I don’t want to hear a salesman slam the competition, or a priest short selling another denomination or congregation, except in this light.

My work is the best. And so is yours! And, yes, we can both do better!

Humbly yours, forever.

BOTTLE FARM

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

Among those dim memories from childhood are Sunday afternoon drives, including one on a dull rainy day as we approached Farmersville. As Dad slowed the car, I heard an eerie panorama of tinkling glass and looked out over a seeming junkyard with large, black figures shaped from roofing tin, I suppose – witches, Indians on horseback, perhaps cowboys and the like – and many poles “like cornstalks,” as some have described, but with bottles instead of leaves. Plus, as I’ve read, a number of old church bells mounted somewhere, in addition to the bells of grazing sheep.

Yes, it was the chorus of sound that lingered strongest in my mind.

By the time we got a chance to go back, it had all been razed, declared a public health hazard, I remember hearing, because of the broken glass caused by vandals. Other stories suggested the orgies of motorcycle gangs instead.

One history I’d heard, that this was a relative of the late comedian Jonathan Winters, proved erroneous. The owner’s name was not Zero Winters, but Winter Zellar (Zero) Swartsel (1876-1953), an eccentric who turned his 22 acres into artwork fashioned from discards such as old bedframes and twisted wire. What I retain from that one day is far more cluttered than the clean photographs taken by Edward Weston.

It’s all lost, of course. How much it could have been an installation in some gallery will forever remain conjectural, but Winter was way ahead of his time on his multi-sensual approach to creation.

DANCING IN THE WORK

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

In his volume of essays, Life Work, Donald Hall draws distinctions among jobs, chores, and work. The first is done for the pay, the second because it must, while the third arises as a passion, a calling, often an avocation – and is ultimately energizing and life-affirming. Lucky, he says, is the person whose work is also a paying job. So for income, where do we turn? Retreat into farming? Farmers aren’t surviving.

Wendell Berry speaks of two Muses. In Standing by Words, North Point Press, San Francisco, 1983, highly recommended, he writes: “There are, it seems, two Muses: the Muse of Inspiration, who gives us inarticulate visions and desires, and the Muse of Realization, who returns again and again to say, ‘It is yet more difficult than you thought.’ This is the muse of form.

“The first muse is the one mainly listened to in a cheap energy civilization, in which `economic health’ depends on the assumption that everything desirable lies within easy reach of anyone. It is the willingness to hear the second muse that keeps us cheerful in our work. To hear only the first is to live in the bitterness of disappointment.”

Here, then, is yet another slant on work from an unabashedly Christian poet and essayist.

Robert Bly once said that to write a line of poetry requires two hours. Not so much for the actual writing. Not even for the inspiration. Certainly for the revision.

And revision. And revision. His estimate, it seems, is quite optimistic.

In the practice, I keep asking: Are my facts right? Is this the most appropriate detail? How will the piece open and what structure will it assume? What is unique and most meaningful here? For whom? Does it boogie?

All of this to guard against shoddy workmanship; anything lazy, even deceitful; the artiste and the counterfeit.