I am Whooper Swan. I am who? I am walking, talking dirt. Made of earth stuff which was made of Sun’s fire. I walk and talk and laugh and cry. I can even fly! Now, Dear God, let my poor voice be heard.

A friend tells of a time in his youth when he lay in some grass looking up at the sky and felt completely happy for awhile. Nothing, he said, brought this experience into being. It was many years ago and he has never felt that way again. But he still searches for it. He had it for no reason, had it, and he searches. How foolish is that?  He makes gratitude lists when he already knows it comes out of nowhere for free. 

He has been told often by those he has met who are happy that gratitude comes from one thing only, it comes from knowledge you are alive. That other thing, the thought of gratitude, the words, “Thank you”, is all about good manners and has nothing to do with feeling grateful.  All the gratitude lists in the world will never bring the feeling of gratitude. And, so, my friend does not make the connection with his own simple experience lying in the grass doing nothing. Only meditating. What a tragedy! 

Locate the Gap

I AM THROUGH WAITING SILENTLY FOR THE WORLD TO CHANGE, SO, 

MUCH LIKE A FRAGILE FLOWER BRAVELY STANDS TO PRESENT ITSELF, JUST AS IT IS, I SHALL BEGIN 

MY NEW WORLD AND STRIPPED OF ALL BAD TRADITIONS KNOW BY SIMPLY BEING: WHO I AM.

Alice was told, “If you don’t know where you are going, then any road will do.”  We are told that by our world as soon as we get here. Choose one. Choose a major.  Choose a career. Choose a companion. And follow the rules. The risk you take when you listen to the world is that the world will never see you as somebody who knows where (s)he is going. That is terrible. Why is it terrible? Because you will always be receiving advice from those who do not know where they are going either. All who know where they are going will automatically refuse to tell you to choose a road. They respect you too much. Lost people will be be glad to be your guides. They think you have need for one even though you have no such need. You already know that feels like a rolling stone, completely unknown, and all alone. Bob Dylan said that. 

First, know where you are going and where you stand are the same. It is no coincidence that nowhere and now here are the same. It is perfectly all right if you cannot please the world.

I will discuss a moment something very beautiful and very important that everyone knows but almost nobody remembers. It is this-nobody can embarrass an infant. It is impossible. You were once such a creature…beyond an embarrassing experience. The world had to first build up inside your head an image which it could embarrass before it would accept you as one of “us”. It gave you a name and then drilled that name into your consciousness to the point it one day embarrassed the named kid…not you, by the way, but the named kid you had become. Now you had a feature the world could send to school and later to war.  It had control of you. You were a citizen now. Not happy, sad, actually. There is beauty in an otherwise sad story, though, and the beauty is that you were never made to give up entirely on the baby who could not be embarrassed, the amazing creature who never once gave a thought to its appearance in the eyes of anybody else. It lives on inside you.  It , I call, the heart, so courageous, so bold, so full of passion, so intelligent, so wise, so devastatingly fascinating to observe. It’s free. It’s you! Given a chance, it will show you and everybody else it is as kind and generous and and tolerant as it is courageous and bold and free. How divine!

1968

In the Summer of 1968 I know something happened to change me forever but I was unaware it happened or that I had changed either. I lived on until now inside that new, invisible cocoon where I was molded by loving hands to become one of these… 52 years later. While that was underway, I was aware only briefly from time to time that, “I am different somehow and I like it”.

This afternoon I looked hard into those years right up to that fateful summer. I noticed a few important happenings. In April and then June, Martin and Bobby had been assassinated. I was about to begin my third and final year of Law School. The political scene that Summer was an insane parade of wild, weird, incomprehensible freak shows. In Chicago, the Democrats led off with violent beatings and stomping and kicking and jailing of many kids my age also students who dared protest in the streets and parks. It was sickening to watch on television. People just like me being treated in such horrible ways by policemen who behave as if they hate them ferociously. That could be me. Should it have been me? The trials of those kids in Chicago who were the leaders of the protests were a complete mockery of anything resembling justice. By now, I knew it. I had learned enough to know better and had not yet stepped into a courtroom to try a case. 

And it was to be another 24 years until it was revealed to me, an honor graduate, that as early as 1830, when the nation was only about 30 itself, then President Andrew Jackson directly and without apology flaunted the United States Constitution by ordering the Trail of Tears forced march of all Indians across the Mississippi River to live on Reservations designated suitable by the white politicians in direct violation of the order of the Supreme Court which told him he could not do so legally because the Constitution, the supreme law of the land, forbids it. That is not taught in Law Schools in the United States. In my lifetime, I lived to listen to another President tell the world on television,”If the President does it, it cannot be illegal”. These guys with swollen egos never learn. In my law practice, I  saw many times the laws disregarded by courts, police, lawmakers and elected leaders. It is enough to make anybody sick. I even once wore a tiny device to record a public official tell me repeatedly, “forget the law, let them have what they want” (meaning the authorities.)

Okay, that which I turned out to be when I emerged from the cocoon?  It is a whooper swan! Have you met someone who knows who he is and is happy with it? Such a one can make peace with the world he lives in and experience that miracle while alive, regardless of what others do or do not.

___________________________

*Let me add that it was the darkness played an important role in that transformation, as important a role as the light within the cocoon. Both are with us.  Which will you feed the most? Think it over.

ANNOUNCING!  Grand Opening of the Swan River Theatre!

Politicians say, Make America Great Again, Vote for me.

What do they mean tossing the term, “America” at us? Is it in the government offices in Washington D.C.?  Is that where “America" resides? Is it on the printed money? Is its voice heard in false positions of power wielded over others? Can it ever be? Is it jobs? Is it in institutions? Is it an army, navy, and air force? Is it law and order as determined by fiat and punishment? Is it a chain of prisons? Is it glamour, sports and entertainment? Do not answer too swiftly.  Give it some thought. What do you think? What do you want it to mean to you from now on? 

The politicians speak of it as if they had understanding of the term when they have not any.  Little do they know that “America” insofar as the word has any meaning in reality is not a place marked on a globe. It is a magical spot that is at the same time vast beyond measure and so tiny it can never be located to be attacked or mocked. It is where all people who are born come from and long to return to and mostly they wish to return because of the confusing mess politicians have made claiming they are the experts on the subject, “America”. It can be things like those listed and many more or it can be humanity’s gate that never closes. It can be confusing or it can be simple. When will we learn that politics speaks only to the worst in us? Fear, greed, intolerance, envy, lust, hatred, rage, violence, vengeance. The other “America" listens to and speaks to only our goodness:  which includes love, patience, kindness, tolerance, courage, stamina, appreciation of beauty, contentment, self reliance, simplicity, joy, wisdom, all supporting a peaceful co-existence. That is where we wish to live.

Maybe “America” is something so important its name ought never have been spoken. The essence of its meaning to those who crossed uncertain seas looking for something better is certainly unspeakable. We know it when we feel it. So, it is recognized by every human being. It is the first treasure.  The one from which all other good, life-enhancing treasure flows. It is a treasure no one can own or hold as his own in any way, shape or fashion. It cannot be held, printed, banked, or counted. It is the heartbeat and the first breath.

Then it must be obvious no man or group of men and

women can make it great…it is what it is by its nature and that is all there is to it. Everyone of us carries an abundance of it inside ourselves. In other words, it is obvious that since the first treasure belongs to nobody all treasure that flows out of it is likewise the property of nobody. All things good are to be accepted in the heart of a human being as gifts every day as the daily bread spoken of in prayers.

Now, if there is a poet out there with an original thought it would be nice to hear something like, “America” is freedom of each of you to be true to thine own self. After all is said and done, it is the only decent way to live.

You can be reminded of the meaning for your own self at the Swan River Theatre tonight.

LOVE

I rode upon a beam 

to Planet Earth to exist here as a human being.  

From that moment until it is time for me to go I belong where you find me. My sense of belonging comes from within me not from without. This is my time. This is my story. Only I can know it. 

Even someone who sleeps next to me in the same bed night after night will not. And I will not know her story. It is in that intimate sharing we know each other to belong here as we are and know how to share the plums generously. It is the only way. Then we can let each other enter our dream as an unknown equal.

I heard it said many times that it is a dangerous thing when people are not seen as who they truly are but the speaker is usually referring to how evil some other person is and not at all considering the effect of not being seen as  one who belongs here as much as any other can claim to belong. When that occurs a candle is lit in the heart of a wrongdoer which will light other candles. Being seen is what it is all about. Seeing others is why we beamed here in the first place.