It is Thanksgiving and I am waxing nostalgic as we are snow bound at home. Sunny and cold out today with the winter wonderland outside glistening, good for a walk to remember. Perhaps you were with us…

It was Thanksgiving 1972. And I am borrowing (without permission so I guess that is stealing) from an essay written by Jane’s Dad, Larry Dillon, two days later. The ceremony was scheduled at dawn. As we drove in darkness through the forest of pines it was raining, hard for the Northwest, and it was chilly. Just to the north were the snow capped Olympic mountains overlooking vast areas of untouched forests – the last area in the nation that remains as it was when man first arrived. One could only think this is as pure and majestic and as calm as the world will ever be again and it is a good day for a marriage. Janie had told me when I questioned her about the early hour “Our friends will be there” and they were. The small church was filled and many were standing perhaps a hundred friends had come to join their celebration. The friends were kindred spirits, symbolic beards, long hair, beads, long dresses and the always present jeans. Twink (Jane’s sister) was there – she had come from London, hitched hiked from New York across the southern route through Texas, Arizona, New Mexico (that would be about Route 66) and finally for forty-eight straight hours up the west coast to arrive in Seattle at 4:00 am the day before – to be at “the wedding.” It had a strange magic. Both Jane and John wore long robes with hoods and could have been first century Christians. Twink had sent Joe (Jane’s brother) a similar robe from Morocco and he wore it as he lit the alter candles to initiate the ceremony. He liked that. Basically the ceremony was one that John and Jane had compiled and was extremely simple. John’s brother (Jim) sang the Lord’s Prayer, the marriage vows were read by a Methodist minister and communion of the congregation was performed. This consisted of the entire congregation standing, joining hands in a large irregular circle, rather difficult in this small church, and repeating certain spiritual requests at the direction of a female minister of (Millie Purdue) “Unity.” As it all ended, in a atmosphere of general spiritual awareness I felt the marriage had been celebrated in a manner certainly fitting the personalities of these two people, serene, spiritual and simple. I looked out the huge east window across the wet green farmland toward an invisible Mt. Rainier and the equally invisible sun and knew it had dawned as scheduled; because we believe in the sun even when it rains.

For the many friends who came I was delighted and celebrated and still celebrate their friendship and love. For the family and relatives that came I apologized, I don’t know how many times over the years for having our wedding at such an ungodly hour and on Thanksgiving day. But now, after looking at pictures in our album and reading and re-reading and then writing out these words from Larry I am warmed to the core and so happy we did what we did. And after all these years, who would have thunk…. that Jane would put up with all my zaniness and crazy ways, that we are still together. And you are together with us as well.

Now we are planning and scheming how we can cross country ski into town to a restaurant on the waterfront for dinner.

So much to be thankful for. Friends, Family, many adventures, mountains, hiking, sharing silence and so much more. I know this sounds hurried as I don’t have time to sit with it and re-read it over and over to smooth it out as I must get it off to you before Jane finds me out or I change my mind. But one thing I won’t change my mind about is how thankful I am for life, for love and for you in my life.

Happy Thanksgiving, John

August in New York

New York. The Statue of Liberty rose above the grain elevator, out the west window as we visited our daughter Lianna & Billy and son Connor & Jenn in Brooklyn recently. Lady Liberty stood tall above the industrial park and commercial area of west Brooklyn with pulsing, throbbing energies of life, business and beneath 4^th Ave subways scream through the cacophony of it all. At the mouth of East River with ships, boats, barges, ferries, sailboats and cruise ships moving and resting all around her she beckons; bring me your poor, your weary and your broken hearted…. Reminding me of the preamble to the Constitution of the United States of America, which most people seem to forget these days:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

It is not for just a select few, nor for corporations but for the people, we the people of this Union.

Seems to me that the people who make the most noise and fuss about the Constitution these days know little of the context and the intention, to establish and insure a union based on freedom. And not on anger, limitation and exclusion. “Establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare and secure the blessings of Liberty.”

New York has all that and more. In the streets, subways and stops of the boroughs surge people in all shapes, appearances and orientations. Of which Walt Whitman sang: “Here is not merely a nation but a teeming nation of nations.” We rode the subways from Brooklyn to Manhattan and back many times, from downtown to uptown, from Union station to Harlem. Walking through Central Park we came upon a Shakespeare play, Twelfth Night, was a delight. We found our way to the Met, MOMA and Brooklyn Museum for such excellent art, preserved and set for all to see.

We visited a new friend at St. Bartholomew’s Church, which stands in marble elegance beside the Waldorf Astoria on Park Avenue. Yet they serve 600 homeless pilgrims a week and help countless others with clothing, education and guidance to find their way. A place of heart centered compassion that served as a triage center nine years ago in the aftermath of the 9/11 tragedies. It serves the walking wounded today.

We walked the Highline, a former elevated train track turned delightful walk-way by friends with fine landscaped architecture and art installations from West Village to Chelsea. Across the Hudson we could see the New Jersey shore. At the Hudson’s mouth stood the Statue of Liberty still. We ate foods of many of the diverse and delicious cultures. We shared stories.

New York is people, people who go there to find their dreams, people who live there to dream their lives, people who end up there to live. For whatever reasons, there are people in a crazy crush at every turn, on every street, stoop and corner. And there is a spirit that is surprisingly friendly and alive. Haw ya doin’! And we have all come to look for America, as the song goes. And Walt Whitman sang on; “Crowds of men and women attired in the usual costumes, how curious you are to me! Just as any of you is one of a living crowd, I was one of a crowd, What gods can exceed these that clasp me by the hand and with voices I love call be promptly and loudly by my nighest name as I approach? What is more subtle than this which ties me to the woman or man that looks in my face? Which fuses me into you now and pours my meaning into you?” Indeed Walt Whitman walked those shores and his spirit lingers there still.

And this morning, as I awoke in P.A., the full moon danced above the Olympic Mountains. Here is peace and here is beauty.

Peace, John

China 2

Echoes of China Part 2

It was a misty Sunday morning in May as we went to the Wall. North of Beijing, into the mountains, out beyond the flat basin where Beijing sits is the Mutianyu entrance to the Great Wall. The massive stonewall, after 2000 years of wall building, crawls along ridges for 2500 miles. This portion was built by Yongle the third Ming emperor, six hundred years ago. After climbing up and down along the Wall, Jane finds an inconspicuous place to sit and sketch while I enter a watchtower to play the flute. In the valley below a red hawk soars above the green forest, beneath the white misty sky. It is the same sky we all live beneath today.

Back in Beijing, dinner with Jing Jing’s family was delicious. Her step-father said something to me and seeing the empty-sky look on my face he said it again, only much slower with careful articulation of his Chinese words. This cracked us up; especially as Jeremy and Jing Jing, shared it with us, it was a hoot. How many times have people here in America spoken to foreigners who had no clue what was said, so the speaker repeats himself, speaking slower and louder? Being the foreigner in a restaurant in Beijing brought it all home.

We flew to Hangzhou, near Shanghai, took a bus to Tongziang City and pedicab to Wuzhen. Wuzhen is an ancient water town 1300 years old. The canals that run through the village provide a charming serenity with stone bridges and streets for visitors to walk, talk and relax. Shops allow crafts people to continue ancient arts of making fans, indigo print fabrics, shoes, wooden items, shadow puppets, water theater and a silk factory, which still demonstrates the process of making silk from cocoons to the looms for stunning silk items. A pagoda towers above the town, beside the Jinghang Grand Canal, the longest canal in the world. Nearby are a pavilion for Guan Yin and a Temple of Love.

A wild bus ride and taxi took us to the Hangzhou Xihu State Guesthouse on the banks of West Lake. This was a favorite get away for Mao, during his days as Imperial Ruler. In the morning we rode bicycles around the lake to the towering Leifeng Pagoda. Hangzhou was one of the eight capitals of China, around 893. Long ago a war-lord’s troops were storming the pagoda to capture it and the princess hiding inside. They tried to burn her out, but she turned into a white snake and chased them all away. I love legend and mythology. We went up to a mountainside tea plantation for delicious lunch and dined in an elegant place of peaceful beauty. To the other side of the mountain to Lingyin Temple, circa 326, with 340 carvings of Buddha in grottos along the“Peak Flying From Afar.” Incense flamed in caldrons between three halls leading up the mountain. Within the main hall sits the largest carved wooden gold-guilded statue of Buddha in China. As we entered the hall from the front, a procession of monks entered from the back, chanting sutras with percussion, incense, drums and gongs. A wonderful worship with the old Abbot leading prayers and even Kanzan and Jitoku walking about. Many people stood around the temples in reverent prayer. I found taxi and bus rides in south China to be great exercises in Zen meditation… being fully aware in the moment with no attachment to the outcome. It felt like being in a nascar race. Now and Zen.

Back in Beijing, after Starbucks Leo takes us to The Birds’ Nest, a tight-rope walker is on the high wire atop the Olympic Stadium. At the Temple of Heaven, a Taoist Temple, I offered prayers for friends back home. The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests is where the Emperor would offer prayers and sacrifices for the year to come on winter solstices, until 1914. In the Tiantan Park surrounding the temple grounds of heaven and earth, musicians played classical Chinese instruments. Among old hutongs, on narrow alleys that have been the hub of Bejing life for 700 years, we found an ink brush factory, tea shop with Jasmine, Chrysanthemum teas, open markets and a vibrant pulse of humanity. The last dinner, a party with Jing Jing’s father, a composer and professor who spoke no English (and did not speak to me slower) and Shauzing, an ink brush artist and family. Wonderful food and sharing the last night.

Free Tiger Returns to Mountain was a new show at the Pace Gallery in “798”, paintings of tigers (a power symbol for China), of ash and water. Under shade trees and along canals we saw groups of men playing mahjong and card games. Horns honking, bicycle bells ringing, children playing, nannies walking their charges, workers continuously working, destroying old hutongs and building more tall buildings. I fly away with feelings of connection and appreciation for the people of the Middle Kingdom and the ancient civilization of China with its art, artifacts and vibrant humanity. I could feel in the depth of meditation, walking along canals and sitting in café’s a true connection with the human spirit there. And a strong feeling of the spiritual renewal in and through it all. We are one.

Now we can concentrate and work on peace. Be peaceful. Practice peaceful ways of communicating and working things out.

Peace.

China

Echoes of China Part I.

We flew around the Pacific Rim; over P.A., Vancouver Island and many other Canadian Islands, Alaska, Far East Russia, Sakhalin, Manchuria, mountains that resemble the Bad Lands, then farms, rivers and into Beijing. Met with open heart by our son we eased into the fourth ring. The sounds in the city, honking horns, construction and many millions of people join in a cacophony like a symphony tuning before a concert. The food we shared was marvelous, from the first night at a North Asian Fusion Restaurant featuring Max, a chef from New Orleans.

One of the eye opening places, to me, was the art district called “798”. It was a factory site for munitions, textiles and electric products, built in the 50’s with help from East German engineers and equipment. Now it is the home of art galleries, studios, shops, cafes and coffee shops. Beautiful creative use of space. Artists, curators and gallery owners and people just like us.

Went to the Palace Museum after lunch at Ho Hi along one of the many canals connecting the country with the capital. A crush of people poured in and out of the Forbidden City as we wove our way through the fascinating maze of walls, gates, gardens and halls of stone and wood. Hall of Supreme Harmony, Hall of Persevering Harmony, Gate and Palace of Heavenly Purity, built with sacred geometry for the emperor who was deemed Son of Heaven. The Purple City has been the center piece of political cosmology since its inception 600 years ago. Outside the east gate we found Courtyard Gallery, infamous haunt of art dealers here and there. At the Tiananmen Gate, Gate of Heavenly Peace, we paused for pics with Mao whose portrait adorns the massive red wall. Across Tiananmen square we found rest and refreshment in a Starbucks with familiar songs of Rosemary Clooney.

Bicycles, tricycles, rickshaws, pedicabs and bikes used like pickups with beds to haul just about anything they could manage, crowd the streets and squares. The jingling of bike bells and horns fill the air as we walk in the city. Into a classic Chinese noodle café where we are greeted with a startling shout in our ears, which occurred each time new customers entered the place… ‘hey, here we have another one…” Good food.

Back to “798” to read and relax while Jane sat and sketched colorful scenes. Then to the Dirt Market, in west Beijing where merchants and traders have brought antiques and statues to sell for centuries, originally some dug up from graves, now mostly things for locals and tourists, the sounds were wonderful. I thought I heard Paul Horn echoing in the throng.

Snow fell low down the northern slope of the Olympics this first week of May. Strong winds blew off the northern Pacific, above the rollers, with a brisk chill as if this first week of May were the Ides of March. Yet looking around we see the flowers still in bloom, apple, cherry and other blossoms fall like snow in orchards, gardens and lawns. And looking farther we see the floods around Nashville, twisters in other areas of the South and other tragic things happening, both natural and man made disasters, such as the gulf oil and coal mines and we realize how blessed we are.

Birds are singing stronger and sweeter with the sunshine warming their bodies and stimulating their souls. Children are playing outside in the loop. All of life is busy being alive.

We honor mothers everywhere for their goodness. With love, respect and gratitude we think of all the contributions our mothers have made in our lives and in our world. As we all know, we wouldn’t be here without our mothers. The same with birds and all the rest of the flying, walking, swimming and crawling critters.

Thank you Mothers, my Mom, my wife and all the rest of the best kind of people in my life and in our world. From our hearts to your hearts, thank you.

Earth Day

The Olympic Spring is in resonance with the Appalachian Spring in a symphony of colors and shimmering sounds. Many hues of green in the leafing trees and bushes sing out as notes from the woodwinds. Blossoms of dogwood extend out of the forest as oboes singing their solitary songs, or sometimes as a spray of a fountain in blossom. While the red of stripping madrona and red cedar feel like the bassoon playing their lonely notes. Winter wrens, song sparrows, swainson’s thrush and red wing black birds sing from the branches of the forest and marsh. Frogs provide the bass. Some unknown bird in the forest sings a sonata for clarinet. A symphony of simple elegance and beauty. Spring. The earth is alive and beautiful. Trillium and periwinkle dance about the forest floor.

Around the neighborhood the azaleas and rhododendrons are beginning to bloom. Cherry blossoms are giving way to apples blossoms, daffodils have given way to tulips. Lilacs are bursting from what were recently bare twigs.

East of the mountains the apple orchards are in blossom and the vineyards show thumbs pointing up for the new crops to come. The high desert plateau along the Columbia blushes green with desert flowers sounding their solos like violins in the clear, clean air.

The earth is alive, beautiful and sacred. We have been placed here to care for the earth and serve all of life, and not just ourselves. One of the key practices of spiritual living is to be of service, to other people and to other living things, such as birds, plants, animals, mammals, et al. For it is then that the principle of love is put in motion, in giving is the receiving, as we give, so we receive. And not, we get, so then we can give.

Every day is Earth Day and a good time to remember to practice giving and receiving with the earth. Give life enhancing nutrients to the earth and not harmful things, products and actions. I remember the first Earth Day, just weeks before I graduated from college 40 years ago. Then I didn’t really understand the significance of standing for the earth, rather than just on the earth, but I stood anyway. In the years following that day legislation provided protection for the earth, air, water and endangered species; environmental protection agencies and ecology. Even though we had to endure the 80’s and 2000’s when it was attempted to dismantle or disguise our intentions to care for the earth with economic and expedient overrides, we have endured.

As the First Nations Brother prayed years ago in the Mission San Luis Obispo, during a Thanksgiving service we conducted: “Take care of the water, you may have to drink it, take care of the air, you may have to breathe it, care for the earth, you may have to live on it.”

As I was returning home from my walk along a country road, enjoying trillium, dogwood and other songs of spring, I met a neighbor who was heading for a bus stop, a mile away. He told me that Dr. Masaru Emoto, (Messages from Water), was in Olympia to do a ceremony at the artesian well, downtown. So we jumped in my car and drove to the well. It was so exciting for me, and such an honor to be there and participate in a ceremony of blessing the waters. And with Dr. Emoto was a host of First Nations people to welcome him and all of us and they spoke and sang some sacred songs for the healing of the waters.

The first thing that Dr. Emoto had us do and the First Nations elders, including a wise Grandmother, was to get us to ask the waters of the earth to forgive us for all the damage we’ve done. Indeed! Forgive us, sacred Mother. Then we shared in speaking what he called the Grand Invocation. First in Japanese, then in English we recited this three times:

Daidangen The Grand Invocation;

“Uchu no Mugen no Chikara ga Korikotte

Makoto no Daiwas no Miyo ga Naninatta”

The Eternal Power of Universe has gathered itself

to create a world with true and grand harmony”

Now is the time for us to think, speak and do what we can to make this world a better place and to allow the earth to heal. Join me in picking up trash along the road - you do your road - I'll do mine; when you go out for your walks, help make it clean.

I call it ‘picking up after the kids’. Let’s join together and do what we can with love and gratitude to make this holy earth whole again.

Miracle Song (sung by a woman from the desert which I caught)

Eh, yo, yo, eh; Eh, yo, yo, eh; Eh, yo, yo, eh; Eh, yo.

Eh, yo, yo, eh; Eh, yo, yo, eh; Eh, yo, yo, eh; Eh, yo.

Peace, John

Easter

Trillium are rising out of the ground, I saw some today, walking in the rain. Daffodils have been dancing on the earth for weeks now, about to bow down to the flurry of tulips and iris that are bounding out of the garden ground. The earth is alive. We are alive!

It’s Easter! Easter comes to us every year as a celebration of life coming back, beginning again after long, cold, lonely winters, as they sing. Easter was derived from Eostre, a Germanic goddess of spring. The date for current day Easter was set in 325 C.E. at the Council of Nicaea as the first Sunday after the first full moon following the spring equinox.

Easter is a religious holiday observing the resurrection of the living Christ. What is more important than that? To acknowledge the living Christ resurrecting our lives. It happened, not only two millennia ago, but it has happened many times in the lives of so many people who have failed and begun again, people who have lost it all, even their entire families, but carried on and found happiness.

It has happened to me and to you perhaps as we awaken to life within as a spiritual and deeply personal experience, and not just what happens on the outside. It happens when we experience change that is an aspect of transformation, as we morph from earth bound caterpillars to spirit bound butterflies. Or, you pick your own image, be it a bumblebee or honey bee, a hummingbird or hawk, heron or eagle, a bear, wolf or whale, dolphin or turtle.

Easter is a wonderful time in which we gather together to remember that what happened as Jesus Christ walked through the barrier of death to reveal much grander and more vast dimensions of life in this universe than mankind had ever imagined or believed. It’s time to take a leap in joy, just as the trillium, leaping out of the ground to proclaim, “I’m alive!!!”

Buds are beginning to burst on trees. Alder and others in the forest are beginning to offer their seedpods and pouches of pollen. Branches and limbs that have been naked are beginning to restore their color and vibrancy again. In our back garden the Japanese plum is pushing its bold pink blossoms through the branches’ hard shell covers there to protect them from the cold. Cold is gone today. Heather is blooming in the neighborhood and a tree is starting to unfold its tulip like petals, while crocus are pushing up through the earth’s surface.

While some people have been wondering what Punxsutawney Phil saw this morning, in other cultures it’s Imbolc in the Celtic Calendar, which marks the first day of spring. Imbolc is the mid-mark between winter solstice and spring equinox. It is the time when ewes begin to birth their little wooly jumpers on the moors of Yorkshire and other regions where the wild heather is still green, waiting to bloom in the summer.

Imbolc is also the time of Brigid or Brigit, the Celtic goddess of fertility, Maiden of Spring. Fascinating legend about Brigid is that she grew up daughter of Daghda, the “Great God”, of the Tuatha de Danaan. She was a Woman of Wisdom whom poets wrote of and lore of healing and regeneration were wound about. Then she experienced a transformation, experiencing the Living Christ, she became a Nun and started her own order, a sisterhood of compassion and light. Saint Brigid or Saint Bride, is one of Compassion and Light. Outside her convent in Kildare, Ireland, the followers of Brigid’s sisterhood had a fire burning for over 500 years. Friends went there several years ago and stood in the now dormant fire pit, over eight feet deep. Holders of Light. Winter can still be harsh around the British Isles and across the Continent, just as here at home and across Asia. Yet we have glimpses and hope of spring to see us through.

We have this opportunity, to hold and carry light. In our work, in our families, in our homes, wherever we go. Holding the light, to me, means being patient and compassionate in how we think, speak, and act, in whatever we do regarding others or ourselves. We don’t have to convert to anything or turn away from anything to hold the light. We only have to be ourselves.

Interesting that the medieval Catholic Church turned Imbolc into Candlemas, though it is still a celebration of light. In Celtic tradition it remains a sacred time when the doors between the worlds remain open and miraculous and magical events can happen. A baby, full of love, giggles and laughs. A bird, a Winter Wren, fills the forest with song. Buds turn to blossoms of beauty, breaking the spell of winter.

It’s good to be alive!