Poem for the week: "Just Another Gigolo"

Just Another Gigolo

I met him in a dream, a man who

in a weak moment of confessional

honesty, called himself an intellectual

gigolo, and who, strangely enough,

was speaking on the radio as I was

dreaming, talking on CBC’s Ideas

that was repeated at 4 in the morning;

and in my dream, I had words with

him, affirming his characterization

that he was a gigolo of ideas, having

followed his varied career for years,

who walked away from Harvard

to save the Liberals from the vile

Conservatives but instead decimated

the Liberal Party to third-party status

when he became leader of the Official

Opposition and forced an election

on the people, a gigolo who provided

his service of ideas to the party that

lured him from the halls of academia

in the hope that he would save them

like the leader who will be known

forever for saying, “There is no place

for the state in the bedrooms of the

nation,” just another gigolo of ideas

whose son is now the Premier serving

the country with his own ideas, a soapy

brand of political correctness and weird

fixation with climate change, a young

man who aspires to be like his Jesuit

trained father but who is more like his

bipolar well-intentioned mother and

says one thing but does another.

New spiritual musing: "Bee After Bee and the Secret Way"

Bee After Bee and the Secret Way

“Watch the synchronicities, the coincidences,

because they will bring you goodness,”

—St. Padre Pio

I love coincidences. I never know when they will happen, nor does anyone else for that matter (they have a mind of their own); but when they happen, they do so for a reason, and one happened the other morning to give me confirmation for something that I already knew cognitively but not quite as gnostically as I would like to have known; hence, the remarkable little coincidence that confirmed through personal experience what I already knew intellectually, and as confusing as this may seem, this is the inspiration for today’s spiritual musing on what C. G. Jung called “the way of what is to come,” which he also called the secret way...

In all honesty, when I’m called to write a spiritual musing I never know where my oracle and inner guiding principle wants to take me; and no sooner did I write the first paragraph of this spiritual musing, and I caught a glimpse of what I had been called upon to explore—the inexorable mystery of the omniscient guiding principle of the secret way of life that poets have been exploring for centuries; what Emerson called the “Oversoul” and “God within.”

“Adventure most unto itself /The Soul condemned to be; /Attended by a Single Hound— /Its own Identity,” wrote Emily Dickinson. That’s what we’re all looking for, our own identity, our true self that the secret way of life points us to through signs, symbols, dreams, meaningful coincidences, and especially poetry, which, as I came to see after years of living the secret way of life, can only be found by growing into the person we are meant to be; that’s what made my  remarkable little coincidence the other morning so timely that it crossed over into what Jung called “synchronicity,” the word he coined to describe the simultaneous occurrence of events which appear meaningfully related but have no discernable causal connection—hence, “meaningful coincidence.”

If I may, then. While reading David Brooks’ new book the other morning, The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life, I came upon a passage which he believed could very well be the “pivotal point” of his whole book. He quotes the passage from Annie Dillard’s book Teaching a Stone to Talk, a collection of her personal meditations:

“In the deeps are the violence and terror of which psychology has warned us. But if you ride these monsters deeper down, if you drop with them farther over the world’s rim, you find what our science cannot locate or name, the substrate, the ocean or matrix or ether which buoys the rest, which gives goodness its power for good, and evil its power for evil, the unified field: our complex and inexplicable caring for each other and for our life together here” (The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life, by David Brooks, p. 64)

This was my experience also, which, by happy coincidence, I had just written about in my new book The Fourth Corner of the Abyss that I was bringing to closure; but because I never heard of Annie Dillard, whose comment Brooks felt was pivotal to his new book on the quest for a moral life that he embarked upon five years after he wrote The Road to Character, I had to Google the Pulitzer Prize-winning author, which I did immediately; and what I found impressed me enough to put two of Annie Dillard’s books on my Amazon wish list: Teaching a Stone to Talk, and The Writing Life—which I had to read, because I love reading about what writers have to say about writing; so I went into Amazon’s Look Inside feature and started reading Chapter One of The Writing Life (which she began by quoting Goethe, “Do not hurry; do not rest,”), and that’s when the remarkable little coincidence happened.

Again, if I may. I was feeling antsy the day before, and it carried over into the morning; and I was antsy because I had been watching too much Netflix, YouTube, and TV to avoid my second reading of Brooks’ new book The Second Mountain, which I had to read again to refresh my memory and bring my book The Fourth Corner of the Abyss to closure with the final chapter “The Five Stages of Life” that a symbolic dream that I recently had and Brooks’ new book had inspired.

This antsy feeling has happened before, many times in fact, which I’ve come to define as a mild form of spiritual restlessness that makes me apprehensive, like an annoying little itch that can’t be scratched; which was how I was feeling when reading the first chapter of Annie Dillard’s The Writing Life.

I had to get myself out of my doldrums, but I didn’t really know how—or, I did know how, but I didn’t want to slug my way through The Second Mountain again, because the second half was mostly padding for the first part; and that’s when Annie Dillard’s name lit up on me when I read the passage that David Brooks quoted.

So, I Googled her name to find out what I could about her, and reading something that she wrote in Chapter One of The Writing Life (thanks to Amazon’s Look Inside feature) inspired the remarkable little coincidence that gave me the inspiration I needed to get myself out of my doldrums; and here’s Annie Dillard’s insightful passage that did it:

“To find a honey tree, first catch a bee. Catch a bee when its legs are heavy with pollen; then it is ready for home. It is simple enough to catch a bee on a flower: hold a cup or glass above the bee, and when it flies up, cap the cup with a piece of cardboard. Carry the bee to a nearby open spot—best an elevated one—release it, and watch where it goes. Keep your eyes on it as long as you can see it, and hie you to that last known place. Wait there until you see another bee; catch it, release it, and watch. Bee after bee will lead toward the honey tree, until you see the final bee enter the tree. Thoreau describes this process in his journals. So a book leads its writer.”

 This was not new information for me, because I’ve been a student of the Sufi teaching for years, and Sufis have used this metaphor of bees and honey to pass on the secret teachings (the secret way of life, which flows out of the Sufi poet Rumi in streams of boundless wisdom), so Annie Dillard’s passage did not take me by surprise in that sense; it took me by surprise another way, because the timing was perfect—or, meaningfully coincidental, if you will; and I knew instantly what I had to do to get myself out of my annoying little doldrums: I had to be like the bee and go from flower to flower and collect the sweet nectar I needed to nourish my soul and grow out of my self-inflicted oppressive little mood of apprehension (which I knew would morph into despair if I didn’t do something about it) that took the joy out of my day; so, I opened up a book by one of my favorite poets—Ten Windows: How Great Poems Transform the World, by the American Zen poet Jane Hirshfield, the first “blossom” in my “honey” quest to cure my spiritual malaise.

Jane Hirshfield brought to my attention that poetry does our thinking for us, and it does our thinking for us because when the poet writes a poem, he or she engage what Jung called our “transcendent function,” which he recognized as our superior insight; and when we engage our superior insight, or higher function (“God within”), we tap into the creative energy of life, which is the Logos, the omniscient guiding principle of life that Jung identified as “the way of what is to come.”  

So, I went to Chapter Four of Hirshfield’s book, which coincidentally enough was titled “Thoreau’s Hound: Poetry and the Hidden,” and this chapter inspired me to write my very personal poem, “Una Bella Giornatta,” which led to more reading, writing, and sweet nectar of life.

That’s how I “worked” my way out of my annoying little doldrums, by tapping into the well of my creative higher self, which we all have access to if we make the effort; but the trick is to DO something, because DOING has the power to send those depressing little demons back to hell where they come from, especially if it is DOING for another, as I did in my poem “Una Bella Giornatta” that can be found in my book The Devil’s Hindquarter; hence revealing the puzzling mystery of the Zen koan that I unpacked in my poem “Chop Wood, Carry Water”—

“Before enlightenment; chop wood, carry water.

After enlightenment; chop wood, carry water,” says

the old Zen koan. But if life, as all indications would

suggest, is a journey to its own destination, (1 plus 2

equals 3, and the acorn seed becomes an oak tree),

then certainly before and after enlightenment would

suggest that one has made the journey to one’s destined

purpose and lives life as before the journey, only now

one is enlightened of their destined purpose; that’s the

presumption of this Zen koan, because one has to be

enlightened to know this. And, if life’s purpose is to

become itself, what is this “itself” that this Zen koan

fails to articulate? That’s the irony of the journey to

one’s true self (whether chopping wood and carrying

water, or working at McDonald’s); and the mystery

of this puzzling Zen koan is revealed: the more

we do life, the more enlightened we will be.

That’s the mystery of “the way of what is to come,” the omniscient guiding principle of life that fosters resolution through signs, symbols, dreams, meaningful coincidences, and the transformative power of poetry that collects the sweet nectar of life that nourishes our soul’s longing for wholeness and completeness, which, ironically, was the theme of David Brooks’ new book, The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life—proof positive of the secret way of life exemplified by the author’s quest for self-resolution; and after I finished reading his book for the second time, I brought my own book The Fourth Corner of the Abyss to happy resolution, and all thanks to one remarkable little coincidence that opened the door to “the way of what is to come” by way of Annie Dillard’s bee after bee analogy.

———

Poem for the week: "My Good Neighbor"

My Good Neighbor

He’s an old sausage maker,

my good neighbor, who brought

this old custom with him from

the old country when he was only

seventeen, and he picked up a pork

shoulder and casings for me in the

city so I could make sausages like

my parents, but I found my good

neighbor in his basement getting

the meat ready for the grinder so

we could make my sausages together,

and when he had stripped the skin

and most of the fat off the shoulder,

he cut it into small pieces for the

hand grinder, and when I ground all

the pork he added the spices—salt,

paprika, and chili flakes (like my

parents, I like to add fennel seeds;

but my good neighbor didn’t like

fennel in his sausages, and I relented

to his preference); and then we got

the casings ready, washing off the

salt with cold water and lemon, and

then he slid a casing onto the funnel

for me to grind the spiced meat into

the casing; but before we stuffed the

casings, we fried a patty to taste and

added a touch more paprika, and he

pricked them so they could breath

and we tied the links and hung them

in his pantry, and the next morning

I picked them up and Penny and I

packed them into freezer bags to use

when we needed them (we love them

on pizza, spaghetti sauce, and with

my own recipe of pasta aglio e olio),

leaving two sausages out for our eggs

and sausage breakfast; but the next

time we make sausages together, I’m

going to add fennel seeds because he

refused to take any of the sausages

I intended to give him, because

my good neighbor, true to his nature,

loves to give more than to receive,

and my company was thanks

enough for him.

Poem for the week: "I Have Lived the Life"

I Have Lived the Life

I have lived the life of an atom in the Body

of God, an embryonic soul with consciousness

but no reflective self-consciousness;

And I have lived the life of a higher primate,

with a power grunt that granted me alpha

status and garnered me self-reflection;

And I have lived the life of a Roman gladiator,

my name was Glaucas, and I was feared

with respect beyond terror;

And I have lived the life of a privileged Roman

nobleman, but I fell in love with a servant woman

with whom I share my life today;

And I have lived the life of an ancient Greek

statesman, my name was Phaedrus, and I was a

student of the philosopher Pythagoras;

And I have lived the life of a North American

Indian, my name was Bear Claw, and I

became the chief of my village;

And I have lived the life of Solomon, a black slave

in the state of Georgian, and when I got caught

for running away, I was whipped to death;

And I have lived the life of a Cockney fishmonger,

pushing my cart through the streets of London,

shouting “Kippers! Fillets!” for my living;

And I have lived the life of a mendicant Sufi in

Medieval Persia, living the secret way, but my love

for God and sexual pleasure drove me insane;

And I have lived the life of debauchery in Paris, France,

and I turned on God, Jesus, and the Holy Mother

Church, and I died in pitiless disgrace;

And I have lived the life of a textile merchant in

Genoa, Italy, Don Giovanni was my name, and I broke

my wife’s heart, who is my partner today;

And I have lived the life of an aristocrat in London,

the Earl of Wellington Manor, but I sailed to the new 

land of the Americas and become a fur trapper;

And I have lived the life of the man I am today in a

parallel world, returning to my same life again

to achieve a different outcome;

And I have lived the life of a precocious writer

in a future life, and of all the lives that I have lived,

my current lifetime has been the hardest.

Poem for the week: "The Lady in the Chapel"

The Lady in the Chapel

The lady was kneeling in the back pew

of the chapel in St. Michael’s Hospital

in the heart of Toronto “the Good” where

I had brought the love of my life for her

follow-up MRI for the surgery she had

at St. Michael’s for her ruptured brain

aneurysm that she recovered from with no

cognitive or motor impairment, a miracle

that I attributed to her surgeon’s gift and

St. Padre Pio, to whom I prayed with no

less intent that I saw on the lady’s face

in the chapel as she prayed her wooden

rosary beads while my love and I waited

for the results of her MRI from her surgeon,

and when we got up to leave for my love’s

appointment with Dr. Aditya, I walked up

to the lady in the chapel, bent over, and

with my heart in my throat, whispered into

her ear, “Pray to St. Padre Pio. He gave us

a miracle,” and she looked into my eyes,

surprised but not startled, nodded that she

would, and I left, leaving her to continue

praying her rosary for her loved one

in St. Michael’s Hospital.

Poem for the week: "A Family Heritage to Be Proud Of"

A Family Heritage to Be Proud Of

“Never complain, never explain,” was his grandfather

Fergus Hurdle’s motto, stern Scotsman that he was,

pioneering his family’s homestead in Georgian Bay,

Ontario, clearing and farming more land for his family

to grow self-reliant and strong, and his son Angus

expanded the family farm for his own children to

grow strong and self-reliant, passing on his father’s

wisdom of never complaining, never explaining, to

which his clever son Jock, who got a steady job with

health benefits and secure pension, added the proviso

to the family motto to “work smarter, not harder,”

which his own children took to heart, guiding them

all to obtain a position that secured steady work with

health benefits and a pension, which gave them the

security to work on the side to build a nest egg for

their own family, and every one of Jock’s five children

worked their way into a comfortable position, led

by his example as Fire Chief for his community, which

gave him all the free time he needed to renovate

old houses and build new ones, and his oldest son

became a fireman too for the GTA, joining his father

off shift in the house-building business, and his second

son became a school teacher with all the benefits and

excellent pension and summers off to work with his

father and brother, and the family business grew with

each new house they built, buying more land for new

houses and whole new subdivisions, and his daughter

went into accounting and secured a safe government

position with benefits and a good pension, and on

the side she also did the books for the family business,

and Jock’s third son wrangled a postal position with

good benefits and government pension, and he joined

the family business to build a nice little nest egg for

his own growing family, and Jock’s fifth offspring

joined the Ontario police force, which had benefits

and a secure pension, and he joined the family business

to safeguard his own family’s future, and the business

was secure enough to help out the grandchildren who

were also weaned to seek out employment with good

benefits and a secure pension so they could all build

their own little nest egg working for the construction

company that their clever grandfather had built, always

guided by their family’s wisdom to work smarter, not

harder, and to never complain, never explain, and each

and every one of Fergus Hurdle’s descendants, a very

close-knit family that learned the vital art of compromise

and always worked as a team that got together every

Sunday for extended family dinners at the Jock

Hurdle fifty-acre homestead, contributed to their own

community in Georgian Bay, Ontario with their many

good works and good character; a family heritage

to be proud of.