So we were settling in.

our orchard tenant shack here
like Snyder’s place in Dharma Bums
out back of a holy family’s
out toward the birds
and simple
like the long-legged house
of Wendell Berry’s uncle
close to nature
beside the river

Noz [our black cat, half-Siamese] goes berserk when we’re not home: rolled a geode across the floor and ripping caulking from the windows …

Noted on 15:VIII:77: Kitty received notice of her in-state status today. Next up, $50 in the mail to Central.

A week later: With Celeste over Saturday night.

And then we to Seattle Sunday: dinner at Costas [my delight at souvlaki?}, then a movie house of 99 seats, lobby three times larger than the viewing room …

In the morning, my wishing Kitty would say something profound rather than weeping over a slender girl or some fine threads …

Back in our desert orchard:

Tarts baked in stars

So hot that apples sunburn

and I’d thought Ivar’ was joking

~*~

From Spiralbound Cascadia with commentary.

 

In the morning, beside the fire, Kitty said if we were still in Indiana, we’d be at Meeting right now, which spurred thoughts of friends and places. Then Carol Grow phoned, to say the Dolphs had friends/guests coming from Oregon and we’d meet at 8 — no potluck, just what turned out to be good, deep energy.”

Was this Smitty Young Bear?

Ivar noting “something strange” in the Valley, the lack in most of it of older, well-maintained structures — instead, the use of trailers, storefronts, a “boom town” attitude … we were also into a deep drought.

The Scotts, of Ellensburg, home from sabbatical … they’re highly regarded and outgoing … but their son is dying, something that returns them to Friends after backing off for years — burned too often, too much standing up for conscience, let somebody else do it …

In short, the Quaker gathering was becoming the center of our social world.

 As I noted 6:III:

Meeting growing closer, deeper, with strong, invisible bonds … a beautiful, loving communion … speaking initiated by Louie’s strange, deep, loving, and troubling speaking … our next meeting will be at their place … where I would pick up what I thought was a curious white, striated and very heavy rock from their mantelpiece only to be told it was a mastodon tooth …

On 17 apr:

Meeting in E’burg, in the morning, at Joe and Myrtle Wilkening’s … they can’t come Sunday nights but mornings or Saturdays are good … also got the address for another place to meet here, through them …

Later, we stopped at the Dolphs’ on our way back from a salmon bake in Toppenish we couldn’t find. Cut asparagus along the canal banks. Learned their little tenant shack is up for rent. Now, trying to find the courage to move in there … smaller but much, much cheaper …

At home, finding an ad in Crossroads, another couple sitting for Meeting … called them and learned of two other couples. So our Quaker circle here, in a single day, has grown by half again, if we arrange ourselves …

~*~

Ten days later, we were half-moved into the little house … and trying to cut back to fit into it …

So the move took place at the end of April? I would have placed it a month a letter, from memory.

The move put us much closer to the earth and agriculture that were so essential to the existence of the county. It would also spur much of the action in my novel, Nearly Canaan. It brought me closer to the culture and ecology of our environment.

~*~

From Spiralbound Cascadia with commentary.

 

On the 12^th, received two pieces of mail. The first, a list of local Friends and their addresses from University Meeting in Seattle.

The second, a letter from Swami urging me to stop procrastinating and return to the ashram.

A perplexing, even symbolic, clash but neither to be taken lightly. Especially a message from one’s guru stated directly and forcibly. Yet my guru-of-gurus, my heart, is not there. I am not ready to answer beck-and-call, to go back to a single trunk, to do no personal writing (or submissions). I have taken on responsibilities and opportunities here and perceive a need for Yoga/Quaker alternative to fundamentalist jangling, even before considering possibilities Native poets and others offer to my outlook.

Then yesterday received a challenging, derogatory rejection from Loon, as if to say, “Why are you bothering to write?”

24:X:76

Cold, damp, in a Binghamton mood / my aura dark gray, the one who has known God and is now out-of-light yet sitting in the morning, lifting me away …

And then a strange call from Tacoma Friends … me sounding phony yet happy to hear from another …

The 2^nd Yakima Quaker gathering, my first, came after 17:XI … the phone number and directions for Tom and Carol’s …

Out Summitview to 74^th, turn right up a grade with orchard on right, straight to end and take a left, West Lincoln going west a half-mile, starts to up over irrigation canal, a T go left, PRIVATE DRIVE DO NOT ENTER, around crush rock, past house under construction, the only house on left, go up to 2^nd driveway, park on (?)

The Meeting here started worshipping in September, as if by my prayer … once a month, initially, with potluck and children …

21:XI:76 … got a letter from Tacoma Meeting and a call from Seattle Sunday night (arranging to be there).

Continuing 21:XI:76, first mention of Zenny and Bloom, who stayed over at our place … she was happy to have a shower, since they have neither a shower nor electricity yet on their blackberry farm … the house was uninhabited 11 years, in the woods with a wood-stove …

Kitty realized, from talking to them, how middle-class we’ve become — she’d been wondering (from her coworkers) if we were really strange

Extended talks with Zenny, and his Buddhist background, explored fronts of reconciliation between Yoga/Zen and Quaker traditions, “Eastern paths Quaker stumbled onto by fits and starts but without full knowledge of what it had discovered”

Also, how much wasted time in becoming convinced! How much unnecessary agony! How many fall away who could be helped by clearer direction?

So much bad information / misinformation is floating around out there!

Also raises matters of theatrics or colors rather than heart-essence. All around. (For Friends, the thees and thous or Quaker Oats figure.)

Already, I was glimpsing how the “Christ trap,” as I saw it, as Lord and Savior leads into “salvation” and “sinners” and the shallowness of “I’ve found it!” In this line of thinking, Friends were left vulnerable to the Methodist/Baptist pickings, depleting Quaker ranks.

Many seekers in Christian veins have been turned away by verbose non-answers (Fox: how they turn upon themselves), shallowness, lack of compassion, exploitation of man and nature (including persecution of others), and self-righteousness.

Yes, Jesus was divine. But what about others, too? “If I understand Friends correctly, all men are divine,” including women and children. (Today I would add that many turn their backs on it and despise it.)

Quaker faith is Christian and more. Sitting in silence returns us to our own hearts, our truest guru.

I do not mean book learning but rather the practice between a teacher and student, leading to an awareness within the student of his own God-nature, regardless of whether the term “God” enters into it (in many ways, the Quaker term “Light” is far better — no images of the Sunday School

[Today I’m surprised how closely these early observations develop into LightSeedTruth.]

29 nov, note another letter from Swami Lakshmy, for money (again) and questioning increasingly deeply …

Need for sacrifices, even though we are not making it financially — in fact, most of my pay steps from Fostoria have gone into rent (from $50 a month to $135 ti $275) and then into art supplies, food, and clothing … the car still the same …

4:XII:76 still bummed out by Swami’s (increasingly) harsh/strident letters, because I was already in the midst of a what-am-I-doing-here contemplation in the weeks before and been suffering root rot regarding writing — a dry, dryest of hearts: loss of laughter) …

~*~

From Spiralbound Cascadia with commentary.