The Song Behind the World: The Nuns of Dharamsala

The Chicken Chronicles
Chapter Twenty
© 2010 by Alice Walker

Girls,

Today Mommy is planting okra in another country. As she presses the soil around the seedlings she is reminded of many things: of you, and how you would eat the seeds and the seedlings, if given the chance, and of her visit to Dharamsala to visit His Holiness the Dalai Lama. The waiting and conversing rooms in the Dalai Lama’s palace are very nice and spacious, not fancy, and the palace is on a hill; it is across from a temple with many sculptures of the Buddha. (Mommy thinks it should be called his house and not his palace because “palace” always makes Mommy think of feudalism, a condition to which she has no intention of returning). After a warm and cheerful visit with him which Mommy and Daddie and our friend Devaki enjoyed very much, we were taken down the hill to visit nuns who live in a very different part of Dharamsala. They live in the flatlands. Mommy was doing her usual thing of thinking: Oh, why are the women way down here? Hidden from view? Etc. The road down the hill was a long one, followed by a road to the convent that was fairly rough. But then, just at the end of this road, there stood the most exquisite monastery. Large, spacious, airy, with wonderful slate roofs at different levels, and cherry trees just beginning to bud. Inside, in addition to dormitory space, there was a library and classrooms. From the back windows of the library Mommy leaned into the beauty of lush and ample grounds with gardens, irrigated by what appeared to be a solar powered water system. Behind all this rose the majestic Himalayas. It was breathtaking. The soul of woman, the spirit of woman, could find peace here. Mommy was sure of it, and so happy to have her cynicism squashed.

Through the beautiful but empty hallways and rooms we went, until we were led to a huge door from behind which came a faint hum. Our guide gently opened this door, which liberated a tidal wave of sound. There before us were hundreds of nuns in dark red and ochre robes, seated at desks on the floor, chanting an ancient prayer. The sound of these nuns praying was like a billion bees buzzing. And best of all, they were not even attempting to pray in unison, but were chanting wherever they were on the page, which meant a dissonance that brought life and spontaneity to the words and urgency to the prayer. It was so powerful and unexpected it nearly floored Mommy. In fact, Mommy sat right down among the nuns and let herself be bathed in the sound of what felt like an ocean of prayer. If she could have lain down without offending anyone, she would have. She could have stayed there forever; she never wanted to leave.

She wanted to come back to you, though, even so!

Mommy had this realization: that behind the world, always, there is a song. That behind every country’s “leadership” and every country’s “citizenry” there is a song. Behind Tibet, behind the Spiritual “country” the Dalai Lama and Professor Rinpoche and the Tibetan Government in Exile have formed, there is the song of the nuns, which is the song of the feminine. Without this song there is no movement, no progress. It is this song that keeps it all going, though we may hear it infrequently or only by accident. For millennia and to our detriment, it has been deliberately drowned out. But it is there, nonetheless. Mommy was ecstatic to hear it.

It is the same with you, and with the other animals of the planet. You are the song behind the world human animals inhabit. “Awwwhohohohohoho….” This is the vocal song you sing as chickens, but each animal has its song in its very being: we are our songs embodied; it is the song of all of us that keeps our planet balanced.

What about extinction of any singer? What about missing, or mangled, notes?

For What It's Worth: Some Thoughts on War, Disappointment and Anger

©2010 by Alice Walker

I do not believe in war at all; although I am as capable of anger as anyone. To me war is something to be outgrown, recognized as immature, wasteful and so destructive to life that human beings should shun it as they shun Swine Flu, or HIV/AIDS or as they once shunned Bubonic Plague. If our species survives, and it may well not, it will be because we learn not to fight to kill each other, though some of us may continue to fight as an expression of our not yet controllable nature. It is painful to feel the war machine continuing in Iraq and Afghanistan and in all the other parts of the globe not covered by our media. It isn’t that I thought one man, a new president, could stop it overnight or in one year – it has been acceptable behavior for millennia – but it was my hope that there would be, out of Washington, an entirely new and different approach to what is essentially the failure of human beings to listen to each other; to teach and guide and share with one another. To see the best, even in “the enemy.” And where no “best” is discernable, to understand how what might have been good has become horribly twisted or destroyed. To think of small children who have no alternative, often, to growing up imprisoned in poisonous ideologies; there they stand in our missile sights, “terrorists” who never really had a chance.

Is there no way to reach our enemies other than by killing them? Do we “win” in this way? I cannot believe it. Rather I believe killing other human beings is not about winning, but about failure. Winning would be to begin to train our military to do what it also does wonderfully well: look after the inhabitants of the planet. It has been such a relief to see our soldiers stepping in to help earthquake victims in Haiti and elsewhere; to see their self-assurance and can-do spirit as they tackle the problems of crumbled buildings, trapped children, pain crazed persons who, having lost homes and possessions, have nowhere to go. This is when I have felt most proud of our military. And it has been easy to see that this is where our soldiers have felt most proud of themselves.

There is much anger at our president from the community of pacifists and anti-war activists to which I belong. There is so much disappointment and rage. I share some of this; what I mostly feel, however, is not anger or rage, but grief. Eisenhower was right to warn us about the burgeoning power of the Military Industrial Complex, as he termed it. That it was quite capable of taking over the country, and the president with it. That we are in the hands of a war machine that doesn’t really care who is elected to run the country; it’s aim is plunder, destruction, conquest and exploitation. Taking whatever its creators want by force. All in the name of “defense.” Looking in our own families we can see how we are connected to this machine: the jobs, the pensions, the chance to learn a trade or go to school. Many people’s fear is that if the military stopped its machinations around the globe millions of people would have no place, and no work.

And that is why what we must insist on, I believe, is transformation of the Military. Though what use can be found for our obsolete missiles and weapons of mass destruction I cannot, myself, imagine. But my faith is that someone can imagine this; that we can make something useful out of things like old fighter planes and bomb casings. The way the earth is shaking so many of us out of bed in the middle of the night with no shelter left to our names, perhaps we should put our architects and builders to the task of designing and creating housing out of them. Humans are very clever, as we know. No more clever humans exist – along with some who are abysmally not clever – than in the United States.

In these times it is easy to see why war is obsolete. Nature has taken it on herself to show us how destructive unanticipated and uncontrollable violence is. And that nothing humans can ever do on the battlefield is a match for her power. After an earthquake, especially after earthquakes like the recent ones in Haiti and Chile, how can humanity permit our governments to cause similar devastation, with our money, deliberately?

Recently I was in Cairo, attempting to cross into Gaza with the courageous women of CODE PINK. This organization had worked for nearly a year to collect about 2 million dollars worth of aid for the people of Gaza. They had also invited fourteen hundred people from around the world to join in a Freedom March inside Gaza, in protest of the imprisonment of 1.5 million Palestinians, in Gaza, by the Israeli government. The Egyptian government, apparently under the control of Israel and the United States, refused to permit us entry. Perhaps its leader feared losing the large amount of aid the U.S. gives Egypt every year.

In any case, on my third day in Cairo I found myself traveling with Jodie Evans, co-founder of CODE PINK, to pay a visit to the Red Crescent, similar to the Red Cross. We were escorted into the office of a large, kindly man who seemed to want to help us. Jodie Evans, wearing a lot of pink, had come armed with her cell phone and her computer. At each point of questioning from the kindly but cautious Egyptian, she used these tools to connect with her base of information. There was not a single question put to her that she did not, sitting there in all her glorious pink, answer politely, firmly and conclusively. She explained about the 1400 citizens from around the world who were outside, some camping in front of Embassies, some battling police in the Cairo streets. She talked about the 2 million dollars worth of aid. Milk and cheese and bread and beans. Water. Chocolate. School supplies. Medicine.

I had arrived in Cairo ill; speaking brought on a spell of coughing; I was sorry to be of so little help. However I did have one question:

“Have you ever been to Gaza?” I asked our host, when Jodie Evans took a moment to catch her breath.

“No,” he said. “But I hear it’s better than when you were there last year.”

More people dead? I wondered. Or did he mean more rubble cleared?

But then Jodie Evans was back on the case. To every question, she found an answer.

At last, the kindly man, someone’s uncle or father or brother or son, allowed the possibility of 65 people being allowed entry into Gaza. 65 out of 1400. Jodie Evans tried to increase the number, speaking again of the hardship many had suffered to be able to come so far. Maybe two buses? And what of the aid? There was now given to us a long list of all that could not be carried into Gaza. Milk was out, for starters. It was a liquid.

This haggling went on for some time. As people who had visited Gaza a year ago, both she and I would be denied entry this time.

And so forth.

But here is what the feeling was: We were begging to be allowed to help desperate people, many of them slowly starving to death. Begging. I will not forget this feeling as long as I live; because it was not right. And yes, I longed to have a government behind me that would have made it unnecessary for us to beg; I yearned for a government whose leaders would go with us into Gaza. Shoulder to shoulder with us. Because until our leaders go with us to try to understand and right the wrongs our nations have caused, what chance as a planet do we have? And yet, ironically, this encounter, where we felt we had nothing officially supportive at our backs, is where I saw the Goddess in Jodie Evans. Even though this was begging, she never lost her dignity, her resolve, her commitment to the people of Gaza who are suffering. I witnessed something I never expected to experience that day: that to beg for the good of others is noble. I saw this nobility, very strong, in her. That moment was worth the trip.

When the disastrous earthquake hit Haiti, even Israel sent a shipment of aid. But why not send such a shipment to Gaza, where Israel has done the damage? Looking at a collapsed school in Port –au- Prince it seemed almost identical to the American School in Palestine in whose rubble, a year ago, I spent part of a morning. America sent aid, but why had it not helped the Haitians (over decades) as their capsized boats filled with impoverished people headed toward survival in the US, floundered and were drowned by the waves. Not to mention the atrocious colonial treatment of Haiti, for centuries.

I have said many times that my caring for Barack Obama and his family is unconditional; this is the only kind of caring that makes sense to me. Within that caring, held just as unshakably, is my disagreement with some of his choices. War cannot be stopped by killing more people; there has to be another way. What is it? Nuclear power is treacherous; is there no faith that Americans can consume less of everything, especially the rapaciously pursued “energy?”

And so on.

Talking some of this over with a friend, I asked her to make a list of all the good things Barack Obama has done in his first year. Within minutes she had a list of about a hundred things. This was a great relief, because sometimes the rhetoric against his leadership is so condemning it is as if he’s done nothing at all. What is the blindness and anger that causes this unfairness? How can it become more balanced? Not for Obama’s sake, he seems to be weathering his storms as well as one could, but for the sake of those of us who like to think of ourselves as people of ethics, fairness, balance. Some of us call ourselves “spiritual progressives.”

At the end of some of the more virulent blasts against Obama there is the threat of punishment: Wait until the next election! Can we learn to disagree with someone without instantly attempting to punish them? What is this but a stirring up of one’s inner war? War without a military, but violence just the same. And who do we have in mind as a replacement? With our luck we will find ourselves stuck with another Bush, or worse, though our dream might be Dennis Kucinich whose belief that the United States should have a Department of Peace is one with which most of us resonate. Anger makes us lose our ability to think clearly, to strategize, to plan. It is useless at this point in humanity’s distress. We are headed over a cliff of our own making; blaming anyone without at the same time blaming ourselves is a waste of the time we could at least spend dancing.

Can we learn to care about our leaders in ways that support their ability to move forward as we would wish them to? Is our only mode of behavior instant rage and blame if someone cannot deconstruct in one year what has taken five hundred years to build? Can we sit with ourselves and the truth of our crisis as humans long enough to see where we ourselves must lead and change?

Before traveling to Cairo I spent a few days in Dharamsala calling on the Spiritual and Political leaders of Tibet in Exile. These are people who obviously know a thing or two about life, about conflict, about inner discipline and care of the personal and the planetary soul. At a dinner with the political head of Tibet in Exile, Professor Rinpoche, along with six of his ministers, we found ourselves talking about what it feels like to be up against enemies who might be a billion times larger than you. Which is pretty much the case of China vs. Tibet. Talking together we soon realized that everyone in the room was working hard for the same things: feeding and clothing and teaching and healing our people and our communities. Finally, in the face of all attempts to stop us from doing what we feel we must, someone raised a glass to toast “the enemy.”

“Thank you,” I said, raising my glass in return: “They (our enemies) have their job and we have ours.”

That is also how I feel about every US administration I have ever known; none of them as morally intelligent and responsive to regular Americans as the one we have now, for all its limitations. They have their job, whatever it might be. But I have mine. Mine is to work for the world that I want, in the belief that it can only be just, fair, balanced and dedicated to peace, if I am.

Alice Walker is author of the children’s book: WHY WAR IS NEVER A GOOD IDEA.

Photo by Lhamo Tsering. Garrett Larson and Alice Walker in the parliament of the Tibetan Government in Exile, Dharamsala, India. December 2009.

St. Michael, Lover of Animals and Children

The Chicken Chronicles
Chapter Nineteen
©2010 by Alice Walker

That you offered
your light
while you were
too young
to comprehend
our darkness:

We promise, St. Michael
to learn from you.

That you were
injured in spirit
while still
a child
& that you
presented your
joy
regardless
of hurt:

We promise, St. Michael
to learn from you.

That you knew
you were love
loving itself
in those you
adored:

We promise, St. Michael
to learn from you.

That exhausted
from over-giving
you lost
the energy
to protect
your gift:

We promise, St. Michael
to learn from you.

That your arrows
were scalpels
turned against
blameless
flesh:

We promise, St. Michael
To learn from you.

That your heart
refused
work
no slave
on the plantation
of fame
could accomplish
in fifty
venues:

We promise, St. Michael
to learn from you.

That you loved
the simple
vulnerable beings
of this earth:
the trees
the children
& the animals:

We promise, St. Michael
to learn from you.

That in your unique
loneliness
you thought
it best
to
erase
yourself:

We promise, St. Michael
to learn from you.

That in your reading
of us
in our bondage
you sought
to
offer what
we seemed
to desire:

We promise, St. Michael
to learn from you.

That the Self
is
already
perfect
with no need
to be
redefined:

We promise, St. Michael
to learn
from you.

That to be wealthy
in everything
but freedom
& joy
is to be poor
beyond
bearing:

We promise, St. Michael
to learn from you.

That we are
as we are
splendid
to all who
love us
including
ourselves:

We promise, St. Michael
to learn from you:

&
we thank you.

That you left us
abruptly
to ponder
these things:

We promise St. Michael
to learn from you.

& by
our learning
of so much truth
that we have avoided
for so long
& to our
decline
may we repay you
- a very small offering-
for your indescribable
even unimaginable
suffering
from which
we may
awakening
to our
beauty
benefit.

We promise, St. Michael
To learn from you.

And we thank you.

St. Michael

The Chicken Chronicles
Chapter Eighteen
©2010 by Alice Walker

Dear Girls,

The week that Michael Jackson died, Mommy was in a state of shock. She could do nothing, really, but come sit with you. Or with her human sweetheart, or with the other “children;” the dog, Miles, and the cat, Surprise. Spending time with you was especially comforting, and she sat some part of each day with one or the other of you on her lap. She also became even more obsessed with your freedom. How to protect you from predators and how to keep you safe if indeed you wandered beyond the enclosed confines of your house and yard. What pained her so much about the loss of Michael was the loss of his own innocence, seeing it offered to adoring fans that did not have a clue, many of them, how precious was the gift they were consuming. Because to Mommy, looking at a photo of the young Michael, when he was bursting with love of life and the joy of giving himself to others in song, he was a special being, sent to us for a special reason. It seemed to her almost everyone forgot to keep wanting to know: What was that reason?

Mommy could not bring herself to watch the memorial for Michael, live. She waited for a rerun, and that was still almost too painful to bear. She couldn’t absorb the reality that Michael could fit into so small a casket, even if it was made of silver, or whatever the shining metal was. She could not believe his memorial was so large and that it was so public. And that people bought tickets to attend. These things seemed to be about the Other Michael that Young Michael had become, but not about the little boy who loved to sing and dance for the offering of it. So many times over the years, watching Michael as he flashed by on screen or marquee Mommy had wanted to tell him to take his chimp and a backpack and go camping for two or three years. It had all seemed too big, too demanding, too draining, even though everyone in his company seemed to agree he was very good at it. The Entertainer.

And then there were a couple of questions that really hounded Mommy: How could Michael not know how beautiful he was, as he was? And, didn’t anyone ever kiss his nose and tell him they loved it? Or his hair or his chin? Or his color, even with spots?*

Mommy looks at all of you, so different in coloration, beak and comb size and length of feather, and she can’t imagine wanting to change a single thing. You poop all over the place and never even notice; but this too seems the way you are made. Sometimes if you perch on Mommy’s shoulder or head she has a moment of concern, but it passes; she smoothly redirects you closer to the ground.

Mommy met Michael Jackson only once. It was in Steven Spielberg’s wonderful Navajo rug decorated New Mexico adobe style studio in Burbank when he was shooting Mommy’s novel The Color Purple. (What would you do with a copy of this book, Mommy wonders? If I sprinkled it with mash gravy you would probably eat it). Anyway, Michael’s mentor and friend, Quincy Jones introduced us. (Mommy loves Q, irrespective of diet). I smiled and said hello. Michael, his eyes wide and startled, looking curiously like a deer (Mommy loves deer), but dressed in a dark blue uniform with big silver buttons (you would have enjoyed pecking at), said nothing. Quincy had told Mommy that Michael loved the story of The Color Purple and thought of himself as a Celie, the abused step-daughter of her “father” and the brutalized wife of “Mister.” Mommy thought it odd that Michael did not speak, but she had heard of his shyness with strangers. She blessed him in her heart ( she could still clearly see the little boy who had loved to sing no matter who was listening) and moved on.

When Michael was being accused of things she could not believe he would do, Mommy wrote to him and sent the letter by Quincy. Seeing his suffering, she invited him to come for a Master Class she intended to call “The Insufficiently Charted Territory of Perilous Smiles.” A seminar about who some people are, and who he might, trusting them, become. In his innocence, Michael often seemed to Mommy not to inhabit the same Americas she did. This is a huge pitfall for many of our young humans who are taught nothing of how to protect themselves from a machine of malice and envy and greed that, with a big smile, runs some of our best people over, year after year, decade after decade, even century after century. (It is still almost impossible for Mommy to believe, for instance, that Toussaint L’Ouverture (b. 1743) the liberator of Haiti who defeated the French in battle and banned slavery (taking away their human “property”) was still enticed to go to Paris; from there he was taken to the frigid mountains of France,imprisoned, and left to freeze to death. Some serious smiling there!) Though the letter was apparently delivered to Michael, there was no response. Mommy wondered if this was because she asked him to come as himself, not as his persona, and to “leave all long cars at home.”

What is lovely about meditation is that looking back on this comment Mommy made in her letter, she can see how judgmental and insensitive it was. No wonder he didn’t answer it. This almost sarcastic bluntness, which her Sagittarian rising sign gives her, is not always helpful. By befriending rather than cursing it, however, Mommy can help it mellow out, become more skillful; and instead of hating others who also say annoying things, she can see they’re just like her, mostly unaware at the time.

Sometime in the midst of grieving, Mommy figured out that she could let you out into the vegetable garden, if not all the way underneath the grape arbor that unfortunately circles into the woods where the big gray predator that steals chickens seems to lurk. She would have to sit with you while you scratched and ate. This is what she did.

Mommy’s Jewish curandera who lives on the coast also raises chickens. Once when she was about to stick an acupuncture needle in Mommy’s third eye Mommy told her of her dream to have chickens running about the vegetable garden ridding it of bugs. Her friend laughed. I don’t advise it, she said. Then she told Mommy of her experience of letting her chickens run free in her garden. They ate, shredded, scratched up everything, she said. By the time they were through, there was very little left for us to eat that wasn’t pecked. So Mommy had waited. But now, her own love of liberty kept her awake at night, imagining chickens felt the same way about freedom she did. How could she give them freedom and keep them safe?

So there Mommy sat, having opened your gate - through which you poured like a fluffy tide - surrounded by a flock of liberated chickens. You were acting just as my friend said: messing up everything. But by then I didn’t care. Go ahead, I thought, mess it up. I will eat the plants with the holes in them. Why not? And in fact, the more I let go of caring about the damage, the more I relaxed, even exulted in the freedom you seemed to feel. And then up walked Glorious, who looked me kind of in the eye or maybe she was looking into one of my buttons, and hopped into my lap.

Glorious, of all of you, was the most sensuous; and I know you don’t hear that said much about chickens. But she was. Once in a lap she could nestle in and stay as long as possible, until the lap stood up. Then she would lie where she fell, seemingly in a swoon of ecstasy. She would remain in that state for several minutes, until Rufus or Agnes came over and started to peck at imaginary insects underneath her. I named her Glorious for the shining straw colored grasses of mid summer, when Northern California puts on such a show of opulence and ease. Everything golden and still. Warm. Everything growing. Or dying. But quietly.

I had dragged my meditation camping chair that folds out of storage and we were sitting in it together underneath the windmill. I think this was the day of Michael’s memorial or perhaps the day after it. What can one do at such times? I think: Hold something that is alive. Breathe with it. Feel its heart. Offer yours. What else is there?

However, I remembered I had left a burner on up the hill in the kitchen and decided to put Glorious down and go up to turn it off. I did this. When I returned, she was gone.

Just like that.

I looked everywhere. The garden fence wasn’t too tall for a determined predator to scale, but it was unlikely one had done so during the fifteen minutes I had been gone. Of course I thought maybe some hungry human had slipped in and stuck Glorious under his arm. But we are miles from anywhere and there’re not that many hungry humans passing our place. And then I remembered my love of hawks, the way they look when they’ve spotted prey and how they stop just above it in the air and seem to be standing still, though their wings are flapping. Then they drop. This had always excited me before, even though I felt sorry for the mouse, rat, rabbit, snake or whatever animal was being grabbed and then borne away. It had not occurred to me that this same fate could befall one of my chickens!

And not just any one of you, but Glorious.

And then, in my sadness to lose Michael and Glorious in the same week, I realized there is no reliable protection we can guarantee for another being, as much as we would like to do so. Freedom is a big risk, as is loving. Michael and Glorious are perhaps showing us by their lives and deaths what they came onto the planet to let us know: that each day is to be cherished, each moment of closeness with another deeply appreciated, each memory of innocence treasured, valued, and passed on.

Mommies can’t be everywhere. Only Nature can be everywhere.

It has its ways.
____________________________________

*Shortly after Michael Jackson stated he had bleached his skin to camouflage a case of vitiligo, which turns skin white in patches, Mommy was in Cuba visiting hospitals and delivering medicines to the Cuban Red Cross. This was during what was called The Special Period. The US embargo against Cuba had been tightened drastically and people were visibly losing weight from scarcity of food. Medicine was hard to come by. There was no soap or detergent. At a children’s hospital, Mommy noticed that the doctors’ uniforms though washed, were dingy. But they were completely committed to what they were doing: treating children from Russia who had lost hair and skin and skin coloration as a result of the nuclear meltdown in Chernobyl. One of the doctors said to Mommy: Please tell Michael Jackson we can cure vitiligo; we have been working on it with these children from Russia. Really? Mommy asked, delighted. Sure, the doctor said. Send him to us! En Español, of course.

Mommy did not know how to send Michael Jackson anywhere, or, at that time, how to even send him a letter. But she asked around until she found someone who might deliver such a message, and sent it. But then she thought: Michael probably thinks Cubans are demons, from the way they are portrayed in the media. It was painful to think he might never be cared for by physicians who would prefer to heal his affliction( whether physical or psychic) rather than hide it.



Mommy and friends in Havana during "The Special Period." Mommy is holding the hand of Dennis Banks, whose people have always appreciated feathers(mostly of Eagles) and behind her is grandfather Fidel Castro. Behind him Grandfather Ramsey Clark. Mommy doesn't remember the names of everybody else, alas. But she does remember that the Japanese American man and his compañera, both opthamologists, came to Cuba to find out why so many young people at the time were going blind.

Leaving You

Chapter Seventeen
The Chicken Chronicles
©2010 by Alice Walker

Leaving you that first day after my travel and illness, I was stopped at the gate to the chicken house by a strong sense that you wanted me to stay. Mommy stood for a few seconds with one foot raised in the air. What to do? Some of Mommy’s feelings became a bit scrambled (no pun!) when she was a little girl; members of her family were always leaving home and she did not understand why they wanted to go anywhere, especially if they loved her, as they seemed to. Nobody talked about “loving” anybody in those times. But you could still tell because love is that kind of emotion; where it exists, it’s all over the place. Where it doesn’t exist humans claim they don’t think about it; usually they’re untruthful. So Mommy was stoic. They went. She stayed. They waved goodbye, she waved goodbye. They might be gone for a third of a decade, coming back looking and smelling and behaving entirely differently. She learned to let her heart shrug. Or maybe she put it to sleep. Because in reality, losing all her sisters and brothers in this way hurt a lot. But when you’re really little, or even not so little, what do you do with this feeling that nobody names?

So in a way, Mommy, with you, is just waking up. Isn’t that funny? And this was one of those times. She stopped, with one foot raised outside the gate to your yard, one foot inside. Hummm, she thought. I feel really odd. Even a little dizzy. If her heart had been an egg she would have heard it start to crack.

Mommy noticed Gertrude Stein in particular. Gertrude Stein, unlike her namesake, was always the smallest of the chickens. That is probably why Mommy’s young friends, K and J, became accustomed to holding her in their arms, even before Mommy started doing this. There stood Gertrude Stein just by Mommy’s foot. She had the look she’d had after losing Bobby to the Predator Inhaler. Mommy brought her foot back inside the gate to the chicken house and picked her up. Oh, she felt in her heart, this is what I wish my sisters and brothers had done! Brought that foot back up on the porch, back inside the house. I wish they had picked me up! And not only that, I wish they had stayed home! Or taken me with them! Though how could I have left school? Left our parents? My mother, especially?

Now, after half a century, of course Mommy understood why they had to go away. Why they too had to be stoic. They had to travel far away from home to find work. And sometimes to avoid encounters with people who were dangerous.

With one hand Mommy reached down her stool from the rafters and sat on it, Gertrude Stein nestled contentedly in her lap. Because she was slightly chilled and Gertrude Stein very warm (chickens are super warm blooded) Mommy placed one hand under a wing, the other under Gertrude’s body, covering Gertrude’s gray, scaly, entirely precious feet. She looked down into the orange colored feathers with their Aubrey Beardsley like designs. How extraordinary you are, she murmured. And, stretching out the wing her hand was under: How beautiful you are, too! She thought of all the children in the world who eat chickens, but do not realize this about them: that they are beautiful. This made her sad. It wasn’t that she felt no children anywhere should eat chickens; she was a fervent supporter of Heifer International and sometimes sent, through them, chickens and other animals to poor families whose survival meant having the occasional animal to eat. And she also, on occasion, ate chicken herself. No, she grieved knowing what children missed when they had no opportunity to learn to appreciate what they were eating. How marvelous it was. Not just its taste in their mouth, but in its very Being.

In fact, she could have boo-hooed right there. She had this thought: Maybe after this lifetime some of us do come back as crocodiles. And, previously human, we have learned about the beauty of what we are eating; but as crocodiles, we have to eat flesh to live. Maybe that is why crocodiles cry when they’re having lunch; they remember. Mommy thought: and maybe that is why humans cry “crocodile” tears even before they become crocodiles. There was a part of her that did cry when she was eating something that once was beautiful in its own feathers or scales, darting about eating gecko eggs or krill.

Gertrude Stein did that wonderful thing chickens do when they’re cradled and warm: she dropped into a swoon and nodded off with her eyes still open. Then they started to close. Mommy too was very comfortable, though still a bit chilled; next time, she thought, I’ll wear a warmer coat. She also hoped she wouldn’t start again to cough. That would be such a disturbance of the moment! Sitting with Gertrude Stein made Mommy think of Glorious, and how she was lost. And the loss of Glorious would always be connected to the loss of Michael Jackson, whom Mommy always called in her mind: St. Michael.

Enough Mother

The Chicken Chronicles
Chapter Sixteen
©2010 by Alice Walker

My darling girls,
It has been too long! Mommy has so many things to tell you she doesn’t know where to begin. Well! After two weeks of coughing with that nasty flu, named for pigs as innocent as you are, she finally staggered down the hill to see how you are. Of course you are the same as you always are, if nobody’s gone missing. You are eager to see who’s coming; glad to encourage them to bring you good things to eat; you’re interested in their shoelaces, tasteless though they are. You’re prepared to chat, which in your case is more of a cluck. Mommy was so happy to be alive to see you that just seeing you waiting by the gate of the garden made her whole day. What a miracle you are, she thought. She got a little teary thinking of her good fortune to have you in her life, but we needn’t go there.

What is always so energizing about being with you is your curiosity: what’s that shiny thing hanging from Mommy’s ear? An earring. What’s that shiny thing sliding down her nose? Her glasses. What’s that shiny thing….oh, many of them, going down the front of her blouse. Buttons! What a funny sound they make between the beak. Beaks? Bills? Being still a little weak, Mommy retrieved her green stool from the rafters and sat down on it. But she hopped up in less than a minute because she forgot the first thing she wanted to do was see if there were fresh eggs. So, Mommy opened the People door and went inside. She went from nest to nest. Many were empty. But the nests with the chiropractor’s balls were swimming in eggs, the bigger chiropractor ball like a white boulder in the middle of an egg ocean. She was too thrilled.

My goodness, she cried. All these eggs. Everyone must be laying now. Because, when Mommy left to go abroad (she likes saying “abroad” because it is so old fashioned) only a few of the girls were laying. And that reminds Mommy of one of the things she wanted to write about: how to tell when a hen is laying. Mommy did not know how you knew this, and she would every day collect the eggs and look at them for any resemblance to their parent. Yes, she did that, and Mommy is probably old enough to know better. Whoever heard of an egg looking like the chicken who layed it. But then again, Mommy is a poet. Anyway, she would look at the light green egg and know it was from one of the Ameracaunas; look at the light brown eggs… and then it got tricky. It could be the Barred Rocks, Rufus and Agnes of God, or it could be, maybe, one of the Red Gang of Six. Mommy was wondering also whether and what to name the gang. It didn’t seem quite right to give them a group moniker. Mommy herself is a strict individualist, except when she’s prejudiced.

So what happened? Her next knoll over neighbor, Sue Hoya Sellars, the great painter, goat raiser, cheese maker, the best roaster of goat and chicken in the world, came to visit. She and Mommy took a stroll about the garden, picking collards and kale and digging out a few potatoes and onions. Mommy of course wanted to brag about her girls. Oh, she said, they are laying. At least some of them are.

Do you know which ones? Asked Sue, her head cocked and her bright blue eyes giving her an adorable chicken like countenance.

I don’t, said Mommy, somewhat wistfully. She didn’t really care, and still it would have been nice to know.

Well, said Sue, here’s how you tell. Mommy has learned so much from Sue! She waited with joy.

Sue reached down and picked up Rufus. See her red comb? She said. Then she put Rufus down and picked up Hortensia. Mommy never writes about Hortensia. But there she was. A striking vision of black and gold, with less orange and more yellow in her neck ruffle.

This one, said Sue. Hortensia, said Mommy.

This one isn’t laying. See how pale her comb is?
Mommy looked closely. It was true. Rufus’s comb was fiery red; Hortensia’s merely pink.

When they start to lay, said Sue, putting Hortensia back on the ground, their combs turn. Isn’t that the coolest?

Mommy agreed. It sure was. She was wondering all kinds of things. For instance, in humans, what was the equivalent of the comb? Had hers, whatever it was, turned?

But then she thought of something else: she thought of her friend Jean Shinoda Bolen who had taught her something just as wonderful as what Sue was teaching her. Mommy didn’t recall how it happened but somehow she had been in a circle of women who had lost their mothers, hated their mothers, didn’t know their mothers, or were estranged from their mothers. Motherless women! And they were all mad because nobody should be without their mother! This was their feeling, even though in truth they might not have liked her at all.

And Jean said: Now, here’s the magical thing about Mother. There’s always enough.

The women looked skeptical and someone snorted and said: usually enough is too much.

But Jean continued because she is a wise woman and relentless teacher: Here’s how it goes, she said. We all know the world is full of women who feel motherless, and that is not their fault. However, what most women don’t know is this: that if you collect seven women and form a circle together, enough Mother will automatically be created. Ample Mother will appear.

Well! The women were all over this gift. It meant nobody need ever be motherless.

And so girls, that is what I hope for you. When Mommy’s away, and Mommy’s away a lot because Mommy is a nomad, you yourselves, being twelve strong females, can create me in my absence. You can create the Mother you need. It is only Mommy, out flying about the earth, who cannot create you, except in her thoughts of your sweet, mostly cuddle and food interested ways, and the wonder of you which she carries in the nest of her heart.

The Triangle of Life

I woke this morning thinking of Howard Zinn (see remembrance below) and of how much he loved us! Us, you know, humanity. And someone sent this piece about earthquakes from a person who reminds me of this caring. Caring is what will see us through. And yes, take a few moments to say, as we almost always do: What, even about this, earthquake survival, they lied? So they did. (Maybe they didn't know). But one of us found out, and told the others! That is the joy, and hope, of our age.

AW

DOUG COPP'S ARTICLE ON THE: 'TRIANGLE OF LIFE'

My name is Doug Copp. I am the Rescue Chief and Disaster Manager the American Rescue Team International (ARTI), the world's most experienced rescue team. The information in this article can save lives in an earthquake.

I have crawled inside 875 collapsed buildings, worked with rescue teams from 60 countries, founded rescue teams in several countries, and I am a member of many rescue teams from many countries. I was the United Nations expert in Disaster Mitigation for two years. I have worked at every major disaster in the world since 1985, except for simultaneous disasters.

The first building I ever crawled inside of was a school in Mexico City during the 1985 earthquake. Every child was under its desk. Every child was crushed to the thickness of their bones. They could have survived by lying down next to their desks in the aisles. It was obscene, unnecessary and I wondered why the children were not in the aisles. I didn't at the time know that the children were told to hide under something. I am amazed that even today schools are still using the Duck and Cover instructions- telling the children to squat under their desks with their heads bowed and covered with their hands. This was the technique used in the Mexico City school.

Simply stated, when buildings collapse, the weight of the ceilings falling upon the objects or furniture inside crushes these objects, leaving a space or void next to them. This space is what I call the 'triangle of life'. The larger the object, the stronger, the less it will compact. The less the object compacts, the larger the void, the greater the probability that the person who is using this void for safety will not be injured. The next time you watch collapsed buildings, on television, count the 'triangles' you see formed. They are everywhere. It is the most common shape, you will see, in a collapsed building.

TIPS FOR EARTHQUAKE SAFETY

1) Almost everyone who simply 'ducks and covers' when buildings collapse ARE CRUSHED TO DEATH. People who get under objects, like desks or cars, are crushed.


2) Cats, dogs and babies often naturally curl up in the fetal position. You should too in an earthquake. It is a natural safety/survival instinct. That position helps you survive in a smaller void. Get next to an object, next to a sofa, next to a large bulky object that will compress slightly but leave a void next to it.

3) Wooden buildings are the safest type of construction to be in during an earthquake. Wood is flexible and moves with the force of the earthquake. If the wooden building does collapse, large survival voids are created. Also, the wooden building has less concentrated, crushing weight. Brick buildings will break into individual bricks. Bricks will cause many injuries but less squashed bodies than concrete slabs. Concrete slab buildings are the most dangerous during an earthquake.

4) If you are in bed during the night and an earthquake occurs, simply roll off the bed. A safe void will exist around the bed. Hotels can achieve a much greater survival rate in earthquakes, simply by posting a sign on the back of the door of every room telling occupants to lie down on the floor, next to the bottom of the bed during an earthquake.


5) If an earthquake happens and you cannot easily escape by getting out the door or window, then lie down and curl up in the fetal position next to a sofa, or large chair.

6) Almost everyone who gets under a doorway when buildings collapse is killed. How? If you stand under a doorway and the doorjamb falls forward or backward you will be crushed by the ceiling above. If the door jam falls sideways you will be cut in half by the doorway. In either case, you will be killed!


7) Never go to the stairs. The stairs have a different 'moment of frequency' (they swing separately from the main part of the building). The stairs and remainder of the building continuously bump into each other until structural failure of the stairs takes place. The people who get on stairs before they fail are chopped up by the stair treads and horribly mutilated. Even if the building doesn't collapse, stay away from the stairs. The stairs are a likely part of the building to be damaged. Even if the stairs are not collapsed by the earthquake, they may collapse later when overloaded by fleeing people. They should always be checked for safety, even when the rest of the building is not damaged.

8) Get Near the Outer Walls Of Buildings Or Outside Of Them If Possible - It is much better to be near the outside of the building rather than the interior. The farther inside you are from the outside perimeter of the building the greater the probability that your escape route will be blocked.

9) People inside of their vehicles are crushed when the road above falls in an earthquake and crushes their vehicles; which is exactly what happened with the slabs between the decks of the Nimitz Freeway. The victims of the San Francisco earthquake all stayed inside of their vehicles. They were all killed. They could have easily survived by getting out and lying in the fetal position next to their vehicles. Everyone killed likely would have survived if they had been able to get out of their cars and sit or lie next to them. All the crushed cars had voids 3 feet high next to them, except for the cars that had columns fall directly across them.


10) I discovered, while crawling inside of collapsed newspaper offices and other offices with a lot of paper, that paper does not compact. Large voids are found surrounding stacks of paper.

In 1996 we made a film, which proved my survival methodology to be correct. The Turkish Federal Government, City of Istanbul, University of Istanbul Case Productions and ARTI cooperated to film this practical, scientific test. We collapsed a school and a home with 20 mannequins inside. Ten mannequins did 'duck and cover,' and ten mannequins I used in my 'triangle of life' survival method. After the simulated earthquake collapse we crawled through the rubble and entered the building to film and document the results.

The film, in which I practiced my survival techniques under directly observable, scientific conditions, relevant to building collapse, showed there would have been zero percent survival for those doing duck and cover. There would likely have been 100 percent survivability for people using my method of the 'triangle of life.' This film has been seen by millions of viewers on television in Turkey and the rest of Europe, and it was seen in the USA, Canada and Latin America on the TV program Real TV.

Spread the word and save someone's life... The entire world is experiencing natural calamities so be prepared!

Take Care

Thank you, Doug Copp. Wherever you are, know we are grateful for this teaching.


There are those who disagree completely with Doug Copp's advice; many have a great deal of anger that he has even offered it. It made sense to me, much more than the old "duck and cover" instruction. I do tend to expect the best of people and to believe they are, often, simply trying to help. However, be advised to consider this approach and all other approaches to earthquake survival with care. We are now in a period when earthquakes are becoming more frequent and more deadly: recent examples are Haiti and Chile. A good debate on what is the best protection during earthquakes could be a useful thing.

Saying Goodbye to My Friend Howard Zinn

We have lost a gift, which having received it, all of us might become.
AW
Photo: @1991 by Jean Weisinger
©2010 by Alice Walker

On hearing the news of his death.

Me: Howie, Where did you go?

Howie: What do you mean, Where did I go? As soon as I died, I went back to Boston.

I met Howard Zinn in 1961 my first year at Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia. He was the tall, rangy, good-looking professor that many of the girls at Spelman swooned over. My African roommate and I got a good look at him everyday when he came for his mail in the post-office just beneath our dormitory window. He was always in motion, but would stop frequently to talk to the many students and administrators and total strangers that seemed attracted to his energy of non-hesitation to engage. We met formally when some members of my class were being honored and I was among them. I don’t remember what we were being honored for, but Howard and I ended up sitting next to each other. He remembered this later; I did not. He was the first white person I’d sat next to; we talked. He claimed I was “ironic.” I was surprised he did not feel white.

I knew nothing of immigrants (which his parents were) or of Jews. Nothing of his father’s and his own working class background. Nothing of his awareness of poverty and slums. Nothing of why a white person could exist in America and not feel white: i.e. heavy, oppressive, threatening and almost inevitably insensitive to the feelings of a person of color. The whole of Georgia was segregated at that time; and in coming to Spelman I had had a run-in with the Greyhound bus driver (white as described above) who had forced me to sit in the back of the bus. This moment had changed my life, though how that would play out was of course uncertain to a seventeen year old.

One way it did play out was that the very next summer I was on my way to the Soviet Union to see how white those folks were and to tell as many of them as I could, even if they were white, that I did not agree to my country’s notions of bombing them. I didn’t see a lot of generals, but children and women and men and old people of both sexes were everywhere. They were usually smiling and offering flowers or vodka. There was no “iron curtain” between us, as I’d been told to expect by Georgia media. I love to tell the story of how I was so ignorant at the time I didn’t have a clue who folks were queuing up to see in Lenin’s tomb; nor did I even know what “The Kremlin” was. I also didn’t speak a word of Russian.

Coming back to Spelman, I discovered Howard Zinn was teaching a course on Russian History and Literature and a little of the language. I signed up for it, though I was only a sophomore and the course was for juniors (as I recall). I had loved Russian Literature since I discovered Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky back in the school library in Putnam County, Georgia. As for the Russian Language, as with any language, I most wanted to learn to say: hello, goodbye, please and thank you.

Howard Zinn was magical as a teacher. Witty, irreverent, and wise, he loved what he was teaching and clearly wanted his students to love it also. We did. My mother, who earned seventeen dollars a week working twelve-hour days as a maid, had somehow managed to buy a typewriter for me and I had learned typing in school. I said hardly a word in class (as Howie would later recall), but inspired by his warm and brilliant ability to communicate ideas and conundrums and passions of the characters and complexities of Russian life in the 19th century, I flew back to my room after class and wrote my response to what I was learning about these writers and their stories that I adored. He was proud of my paper, and, in his enthusiastic fashion, waved it about. I learned later there were those among other professors at the school who thought that I could not possibly have written it. His rejoinder: “Why, there’s nobody else in Atlanta who could have written it!”

It would be hard not to love anyone who stood in one’s corner like this.

Under the direction of SNCC (Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee) many students at Spelman joined the effort to desegregate Atlanta. Naturally, I joined this movement. Howie, taller than most of us, was constantly in our midst, and usually somewhere in front. Because I was at Spelman on scholarship, a scholarship that would be revoked if I were jailed, my participation caused me a good bit of anxiety. Still, knowing Howard and others of our professors, the amazingly courageous and generous Staughton Lynd, for instance, my other history teacher, supported the students in our struggle, made it possible to carry on. But then, while he and his family were away from campus for the summer, Howard Zinn was fired. He was fired for “insubordination.”

Yes, he would later say, with a classic Howie shrug, I was guilty.

For me, and for many poorer students in my position, students on scholarship who also worked in the Movement to free us of centuries of white supremacy and second-class citizenship, it was a disaster. I wrote a letter to the administration that was published in the school paper pointing out the error of their decision. I wrote it through tears of anger and frustration. It was these tears, which appeared unannounced whenever I thought of this injustice to Howard and his family – who I had met and also loved – that were observed by Staughton Lynd, who realized instantly that a. there was every chance I was headed toward a break-down; and b. the administration would quickly find a reason to expel me from school. Added to the stress, which nobody knew about, was the fact that I was working for a well-respected older man who, knowing I had to work in order to pay for everything I needed as a young woman in school, was regularly molesting me. Lucky for me he was very old, and his imagination was stronger than his grasp. As a farm girl and no stranger to manual labor, I could type his papers with one hand while holding him off with the other. What rankled so much, then as now, is how much others respected, even venerated him.
Perhaps this was one of many births of my feminism. A feminism/womanism that never seemed odd to Howard Zinn, who encouraged his Spelman students, all of them women, to name and challenge oppression of any sort. This encouragement would come in handy, when, years later, writing my second novel, Meridian, I could explore the misuse of gender- based power from the perspective of having experienced it.

With Staughton Lynd’s help, and after he had consulted with Howie (I did not know this), I was accepted to finish my college education at Sarah Lawrence College, a place of which I had never heard. I went off in the middle of winter, without a warm coat or shoes and ice and snow greeted me. But also Staughton’s mother, Helen Lynd, who immediately provided money for the coat and shoes I needed, as well as a blanket that had been her son’s. In my solitary room, and knowing no one on campus, I hunkered down to write. Letters to the Zinns, first of all. To inform them I had been liberated from Spelman, as they had been, and had landed.

I was Howard’s student for only a semester, but in fact, I have learned from him all my life. His way with resistance: steady, persistent, impersonal, often with humor, is a teaching I cherish. Whenever I’ve been arrested, I’ve thought of him. I see policemen as victims of the very system they’re hired to defend, as I know he did. I see soldiers in the same way. In some ways, Howie was an extension of my father, whom he never met. My father was also an activist as a young man and was one of the first black men unconnected to white ancestry or power to vote in our backwoods county; he had to pass by three white men holding shotguns in order to do this. By the time I went off to college, the last of eight children, he was exhausted and broken. But these men were connected in ways clearer to me now as I’ve become older than my father was when he died. They each saw injustice as something to be acknowledged, confronted, and changed if at all possible. And they looked for signs of humanity in their opponents and spoke to that. They both possessed a sense of humor and love of a good story that made them charismatic teachers. I recently discovered, and it amuses me, that their birth dates are remarkably close, though my father was thirteen years older.

Howie and I planned to rendezvous in Berkeley in March, when he came out to spend a few weeks with his grandchildren. In April we planned to be on a panel with Gloria Steinem and Bernice Reagon at an event in New Orleans for Amnesty International. I had decided not to go, but Howie said if I didn’t come he would “sorely miss” me. I wrote back that in that case I would certainly be there as “soreness of any sort” was not to be tolerated.

Over the years I’ve been in the habit of sending freshly written poems to Roz and Howie. After her death, I continued to send the occasional poem to Howie. Last week, after the Supreme Court’s decision to let corporations offer unlimited funding to political candidates, I wrote a poem about what I would do if I were president, called: “If I Was President: ‘Were’ For Those Who Prefer It.’” My first act as president, given that corporations may well buy all elections in America from now on, would be to free Mumia Abu-Jamal and Leonard Peltier, both men accused of murders I’ve felt they did not commit; both men in prison for sadistically long periods of time.

Howie’s response, and the last word he communicated to me, was “Wonderful.” I imagined him hurriedly typing it, then flying, even at eighty-seven, out the door.

The question remains: Where do our friends and loved ones go when they die?

They can’t all go back to Boston, or wherever they’ve lived their most intense life.

I fell asleep, after leaking tears for Howie most of the day: my sweetheart’s shirt was luckily absorbent and available to me, and after tossing and turning almost all night, I had the following dream: We (Someone and I) were looking for the place we go to when we die. After quite a long walk, we encountered it. What we saw was this astonishingly gigantic collection of people and creatures: birds and foxes, butterflies and dogs, cats and beings I’ve never seen awake, and they were moving toward us in total joy at our coming. We were happy too. But there was nothing to support any of us: no land, no water, nothing. We ourselves were all of it: our own earth. And I woke up knowing that this is where we go when we die. We go back to where we came from: inside all of us.

Goodbye, Howie. Beloved. Hello.

This piece ran Sunday, January 31st in the Boston Globe.

A few days after I wrote this remembrance a friend sent me a video about an orangutan and a hound dog. They had discovered each other and formed a bond. I realized the Orangutan, whom (I prefer whom to that) I had never seen animated with joy, as shown in the video, was the principal being coming to welcome us in the dream. I was struck especially by the comment of the orangutan's human care-givers that sharing to the orangutan comes naturally: that if given anything he or she breaks it in half immediately and offers the other half back to the giver. This ancestral behavior is wonderful to know.

To the Wife and Children

©2010 by Alice Walker

Dear Ones,

I realize you and your mother have been hurt and embarrassed by the infidelities and bizarre behaviors of your father. This is a common problem for many. Because your father is famous, you may feel exceptionally exposed, but be assured there are millions of wives and children feeling as sad, confused, angry and distraught as you do. I know you are lonely for your father, and that you love him too. Loving our parents is natural, and I would advise, whatever else you do, that you not fight this natural tendency to care about one of the persons responsible for delivering you to this world.

Where were you before? And what were you doing? You may wonder.

I tacked on these questions to remind us how huge the mystery of all behavior really is.


Once, I was so angry with my own father, and embarrassed by him too – he dared discuss my dating life with my mother in front of me, when I was a teenager, as if I were not there; plus he had personal habits that filled me with distress – that I didn’t speak to him for a year. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and at the end of the year I felt as though I had seriously damaged my heart. Which might be true. Only later I realized, whatever his faults, this was someone who loved me, and in our culture it is still difficult, fathers and mothers alike, to know what to do when a young girl sprouts breasts or a boy grows a beard and starts talking all the time about “going out.” My father, by then exhausted as the parent of eight children, had insulted my integrity, I felt, by distrusting my ability to take care of myself. But from his point of view, as a man, he was probably doing the best he knew. My inability to understand this, and far more, when I was younger led to a great deal of regret and a couple of bouts of literal wailing as the years rolled on.

I happen to like your father’s name. I wish more of us, not just indigenous people, would name ourselves after animals and plants. Even so, you might wish to consider the option of non-attachment to this parent by removing his name, if the stress of attachment is too great. One way of doing this, later on when you are older, and for your mother, when she is not upset, is to change your name. You could easily change your name to that of a tree or trees, for instance. Then you would be known as Ms. Or Mr. Pines or Oak, but would not be named for the entire forest. There is power in names, and it would not be favorable, as the I Ching would put it, to labor a lifetime under a name that stresses you. Besides, if you chose a tree (which is a kind of earth parent: it helps us breathe) you would remain connected to the forest in a simple and elegant but entirely impersonal way.

You may wish to read this paragraph once more. Wishing a measure of privacy for you, I am writing in a kind of code.

Sometimes people think that demanding and receiving an unnecessarily large sum of money from someone who has harmed us will help us feel better. I don’t see how this could be true, though I have never been in the position to have this experience. It is right to require a parent, if he or she can afford it, to offer all that you need for healthy growth – love and affection, food and shelter, education and travel; even a down payment on your first house – and in your case this could be substantial. Your mother should be well compensated also. Giving birth is not easy, and raising even one child, in our consumerist, violent, gadget-addicted society, takes more than many women are able to offer. Proper child rearing is heroic, largely unappreciated work, and this is a global situation; though you, as wife and mother, may be feeling alone, presently, with this awareness.

Personally I have felt happiest living on money I earned myself, though when I was married and my husband made more money than I did, it felt wonderful to pool our unequal financial contributions as we went about spending money on such things as a car for me (in which I drove to work in a poorly paid appointment at a local college) health insurance, and excellent professional attention to my poverty stricken teeth. I was raised by my parents to understand that work mattered, and that learning to save what I earned mattered also. I think there is a danger, in accepting quite a lot of money from anyone, of becoming disconnected from the masses of people who work for a living, and they/we happen to be most of the folks living on the earth. It is often our work that keeps us juicy and capable of having opinions about some of what goes on for the majority of our sisters and brothers, ourselves; confident in the ability to freely express what we observe.

None of this may apply to you. It isn’t as though I’m following your journey through this passage in your life. And it is only a passage. I’ve seen a clip of a few seconds of your faces on a television that was on in an airport. (I don’t understand why they torture us with TV in airports). I wrote an open letter to your father/husband some weeks ago and a friend, concerned for you, as we all should be (and for all parents in your situation) said: What would you say to his wife and children? At first I thought I was not called to say anything to you. Presumably you, the wife, are from a different land, and have a family, a country, and a culture, which will support and cushion you and your children. For people of obvious mixed culture and race in America it is harder, sometimes, to find the inner compass we all must steer by, because the outer compass, our very Being in a divided society, is so confusing. That was part of my thought in writing to your husband/father, whom I also do not know. And, I must admit, I was thinking of Michael Jackson. It has seemed to me billions of people the world over, and over decades, clapped and sang and danced along with him as he hovered on the edge, obviously lacking counsel from elders that might have prevented him from going over the cliff.

In some ways, the counsel to you is the same as for the Formerly Cherished: there is healing in Nature, turn to it. Let your heart remain open, even if having it break is the only way to do this. Time passes, and pain does too. Meditation helps. This is a birth experience while it is also a death. You will all be reborn as other than you were; there is every possibility of great excitement, amazement and joy, in this. Who knows, you may find it is your habits with each other that will change, and not, ultimately, the configuration of your family; errant spouse included. This may seem unlikely, but where there is love anything can happen, and usually does.

Ok, this was my “Dear Abbey” paragraph.

In my experience the only thing that prevents joyful rebirth, with or without original participants, is inability to forgive. There are practices that help with this. One I can wholeheartedly recommend for opening the heart is tonglen, a Tibetan Buddhist meditation that works I would think even with children, if they are old enough to enjoy sucking in their breath and imagining that by doing so they’re clearing all the smoke out of a room! If they can also grasp the concept of inhaling their own hurt feelings fearlessly, and exhaling what they’d prefer everyone on earth to have instead: joy, happiness, a new pony! (For me it is always a peaceful walk on the beach). There is a CD set from Sounds True on which to find instruction: Awakening Compassion, by Buddhist nun, Pema Chodron. The teaching is droll and thorough, fun to hear, even if the practice doesn’t stick.

For stranded moms, dads, kids and anyone going through a tough time, I would also recommend living with a dog and cat. One of the greatest teachings from animals that seem quite different from each other is how readily and easily they can learn, most times, to get along. And especially with dogs, how quickly they forgive. I find myself sometimes thinking of my friends and myself as dogs, when we are sharing a difficult period with each other. Dogs tend not to outlive us; my own dog Marley Mu, recently died at the age of thirteen. She seemed always to grasp, by steadfastly loving, licking and sniffing, me, something that appears hard for humans to comprehend: we’re all headed in the same direction; toward the non-existence of the bodies and personalities we presently claim. There is not a moment to waste! How long would dogs carry on this nonsense? I ask myself, realizing I do still care for my friends with whom I’m feeling at odds. Maybe five seconds, I answer, learning to breathe and to let nonessentials fade.

Dogs have an undeserved reputation for being faithless because they’re curious, loving, eager to please and non-discriminating. They will stick their noses anywhere. Men who do this are sometimes called dogs, some women too. Where does nature, human and non-human come in? This aspect of infidelity is worth considering, too.

It probably goes without saying, but especially during times of great emotional challenge find company with those who embody the equanimity and growth that you seek; and who understand that a focus on revenge by it’s nature distorts one’s view of life.

All Directions Home,

AW

A book that might be useful in exploring the backdrop to mixed race and culture in America is The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family, by Annette Gordon-Reed. This book is so well done that one says, reading it in wonder: This could not have been done better. It is like something that grew (an old cactus, maybe, with one bloom every hundred years) rather than something that was painstakingly researched, written and pieced together. Or maybe reading it is like peering through a microscope at the bark of a very old tree. If there was ever an American ancestral founding family that deserves our compassion, the Hemingses/Jeffersons are that family. I would also recommend my favorite CD by Nina Simone, Baltimore, which, in a way, is a compilation of songs about family, and one song in particular expresses a double belief: “Looks like only God can save the family,” the chorus, and, in Nina’s voice “Looks like even God can’t save the family.” However, if God is love, as many believe, what’s left is our own hard work.

If I Was President ("Were" May Be Substituted by Those who Prefer It)

© 2010 by Alice Walker

If I was President
The first thing I would do
is call Mumia Abu-Jamal.
No,
if I was president
the first thing I would do
is call Leonard Peltier.
No,
if I was president
the first person I would call
is that rascal
John Trudell.
No,
the first person I’d call
is that other rascal
Dennis Banks.

I would also call
Alice Walker.

I would make a conference call.

And I would say this:

Yo, you troublemakers,
it is time to let all of us
out of prison.
Pack up your things.

Dennis and John,
collect Alice Walker
if you can find her:
in Mendocino, Molokai, Mexico or
Gaza,
& head out to the prisons
where Mumia and Leonard
are waiting for you.
They will be traveling
light.
Mumia used to own a lot
of papers
but they took most of those
away from him.
Leonard
will probably want to drag along
some of his
canvases.
Alice
who may well be
shopping
in New Delhi
will no doubt want to
dress up for the occasion
in a sparkly shalwar kemeez.

My next call is going to be
to the Cubans
all five of them;
so stop worrying.
For now, you’re my fish.

I just had this long letter
from Alice and she has begged me
to put an end
to her suffering.

What? she said.
You think these men are the only ones who suffer
when Old Style America locks them up
& throws away
the key?
I can’t tell you, she goes on,
the changes
this viciousness
has put me through,
and I have had a child to raise
& classes to teach
& food to buy
and just because
I’m a poet
it doesn’t mean
I don’t have to
pay the mortgage
or the rent.

Yet all these years,
nearly thirty or something
of them
I have been running around
the country
and the world
trying to arouse justice
for these men.
Tonsillitis
hasn’t stopped me.
Migraine
hasn’t stopped me.
Lyme disease
hasn’t stopped me.
And why?
Because
knowing the country
that I’m in,
as you are destined to learn
it too,
I know wrong
when I see it.
If that chair you’re sitting in
could speak
you would have it moved
to another room.
You would burn it.

So, amigos,
pack your things.
Alice and John and Dennis
are on their way.
They are bringing prayers from Nilak Butler and Bill Wahpepah;
they are bringing sweet grass and white sage
from Pine Ridge.

I am the president
at least until the Corporations
purchase the next election,
and this is what I choose
to do
on my first day.

***
Three deep bows to Noelle Hanrahan, Angela Davis and Gloria LaRiva. Champions of Liberty; Long distance, Unwavering.

For a fuller comprehension of this poem please view these videos: Incident at Oglala, In Prison My Whole Life, Trudell, and Why We Fight.