tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8153321583580909462024-03-18T21:49:05.101-07:00Dan GloverA few selected excerpts from my books along with some random thoughts...Dan Gloverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15452167300573196269noreply@blogger.comBlogger63125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-815332158358090946.post-88684777740899964162017-06-02T21:06:00.000-07:002017-06-21T20:16:15.363-07:00The Last Politician<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGE94i2Zpo6KDBmxEk_LBnXuY4mEAwY6NCs5wUp_X31ZCwkCDdWtGUx3ePphghHmsfZimHak_2ab95kp0mx32Z2zisqDTW35bv_wiAOnvz-2M-ym5Qerfi6AGD0OzSzYl1avEKOt_jPic/s1600/15036657_1247600908612317_4266392493513867857_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGE94i2Zpo6KDBmxEk_LBnXuY4mEAwY6NCs5wUp_X31ZCwkCDdWtGUx3ePphghHmsfZimHak_2ab95kp0mx32Z2zisqDTW35bv_wiAOnvz-2M-ym5Qerfi6AGD0OzSzYl1avEKOt_jPic/s320/15036657_1247600908612317_4266392493513867857_n.jpg" width="320" height="254" data-original-width="800" data-original-height="635" /></a></div><br />
So I did not win the <a href="http://ninedotsprize.org/">Nine Dots Prize</a> which is a bit of a bummer. On the other hand, I thought the piece I wrote warrants me sharing. So... it is titled:<br />
<br />
The Last Politician<br />
<br />
Excuse me. Is this seat taken? No? Good. Do you mind? I’m a bit tired,<br />
and all the other benches seem occupied. Sometimes I walk farther than<br />
I intend. You could say I forget my age. What a truly gorgeous day it<br />
is, eh? What’s that? The election didn’t turn out your way? I suppose<br />
you have quite a lot of company in that regard, my friend. But for me,<br />
I’m pretty much apolitical. Sure, I keep up with the news. And of<br />
course, I voted. Well, for who doesn’t matter so much as for what.<br />
Wouldn’t you agree?<br />
<br />
Yes, digital technologies are changing the political landscape but<br />
making politics impossible? I tend to disagree with that assessment.<br />
Well, it’s only my opinion, of course, but I would hazard to say that<br />
this interconnectivity we foster with one another via social media and<br />
wrought by the rise of digital technology is certainly cutting out the<br />
political middle people. Oh, you know, those charged with telling us<br />
who to vote for and why we should.<br />
<br />
Yes, the journalists are prime suspects. Oh, you disagree. I<br />
understand. It’s easy to see why. We’re inculcated with the notion of<br />
fair and impartial reporting. But I think if you closely examine this<br />
past election you’ll perhaps start seeing telltale cracks in that<br />
façade. Honestly, I didn’t notice it myself. At least not in the<br />
beginning. I have my preferred newspaper that I read each morning.<br />
Yes, online. No more hunting in the bushes for this old man.<br />
<br />
Now I don’t know about you, but I have certain columnists I favor. I<br />
don’t take what they say as gospel, but on the other hand, they seem<br />
well-informed and so yes I base many of my opinions on what they tell<br />
me. At least partially. I do play one against the other at times just<br />
to perhaps winnow my way in between prevailing sentiments. Maybe<br />
that’s why I consider myself apolitical. On the other hand, is there<br />
such a beast?<br />
<br />
Sure I have a smartphone. Ah. I’ve heard that argument, yes. We’re all<br />
too connected to the extent we’re disconnected. So that’s the cause of<br />
your discontent. I’d beg to differ. Oh, I see them too. Even here in<br />
the park. Everyone is so busy staring at their phones they’re<br />
oblivious to those people sitting right beside them. I notice that<br />
just about everywhere I go. I nearly got run down by an errant mother<br />
fixated on her screen as she navigated the crowded aisles at Trader<br />
Joe’s. Luck was with me that day, let me tell you.<br />
<br />
No, I haven’t seen that show. I never watch television. Why? I learned<br />
long ago what a great eater of time that occupation can be. Sure.<br />
Social media can be quite draining in the same way but you have to<br />
admit at least there’s a sort of interactiveness to it that isn’t so<br />
with television. Well, I write. That’s why I gave it up. I discovered<br />
much to my consternation that if I had a television, the first thing I<br />
would do would be to turn it on.<br />
<br />
I doubt you’ve ever read anything of mine but thank you for asking.<br />
Novels, mostly. Articles for online journals, though most of those get<br />
rejected. I like to think because a good deal of my thinking is<br />
outlier compared to your common scribbler, but it could well be that<br />
I’m simply not much good. Yes, there’s no accounting for tastes. Plus<br />
we all perceive reality through the lens of our personal histories. I<br />
mean to say we seek out that which we know rather than that which is<br />
outside the format. Even highly intelligent people, sure.<br />
<br />
A for instance? I have a little time yet. You? Yes, it’s good not<br />
being chained to that infernal clock. Too many people are. Have you<br />
ever seen a green sun? No? Nor me. At least until I read an article<br />
about how often times people close to the water sometimes make note of<br />
it. No, really. A green sun.<br />
<br />
So I happened to be visiting family on the Atlantic coast. I spent a<br />
week not doing anything in particular. Oh yes, I enjoyed myself<br />
immensely. Since I’d never been there, they were gracious enough to<br />
show me around. Sure, we took in the beach. Well, that afternoon I<br />
glanced up at the sky, and there it was. A big green sun hovering<br />
right overhead. Sort of like a go light, yes, but not exactly.<br />
<br />
Did anyone else see it? Truthfully, I felt so nonplused I didn’t<br />
bother asking. Would it make a difference if they had? Ah, the myth of<br />
objectivity. Repeatability. A scientifically falsifiable hypothesis. I<br />
understand completely. But still, I’d have to counter that even if<br />
they had seen a green sun like me, or hadn’t, whatever the case might<br />
have been, we’d still have to fall back upon personal history and ask<br />
if they’d ever heard about a green sun or not.<br />
<br />
Well, pardon me, but it seems to have quite a lot to do with your<br />
assertion. Yes, about digital technologies making politics impossible.<br />
How? We are ruled by objectivity. Personal history should have nothing<br />
to do with what it is we perceive. But you have to admit, it does. Oh,<br />
you still object. No, that’s completely understandable. I have failed<br />
to properly state my case.<br />
<br />
That stop sign on the corner. Good, you see it too. What does it mean?<br />
To stop? Of course, it does. No argument here. Common sense, you say?<br />
Well, let’s imagine between the two of us we rudely wrestle that sign<br />
out of the ground, convey it down to South America by convenient<br />
means, and hire an amenable soul to plant it in the middle of the<br />
Brazilian rainforest. What would those natives think that stop sign<br />
means?<br />
<br />
Why, yes, I too doubt they’d know a thing about it. Why is that?<br />
Exactly. Our culture informs us what stop signs mean just as it tells<br />
us that the sun is yellow, not green, as well as how the reality we<br />
perceive is entirely objective—how anything subjective is<br />
automatically suspect. In other words, our personal histories have<br />
little or nothing to do with how we see the world.<br />
<br />
You still don’t understand. Forgive me, please. I’m an old man prone<br />
to conjecture, and I can see I haven’t stated my case with enough<br />
lucidity. Entirely my fault, believe me. According to the myth of<br />
objectivity, when we consider things like digital technologies, we<br />
tend to think of them as something apart and separate from us as human<br />
beings. Would you agree? Good. Now perhaps we’re making a bit of<br />
progress despite this heavy headwind.<br />
<br />
How about politics? Ah. So politics is a part of the human equation.<br />
Sure. Politics is something we do. So what we have is a sort of war<br />
brewing between them and us. Why, digital technology is the enemy,<br />
right? No? You think you were mistaken? How so? Digital technology is<br />
part of the human equation too? Oh no. That’s quite all right. I in<br />
fact agree. But tell me, is there anything you can think of that isn’t<br />
part of the human equation?<br />
<br />
Oh, I know it’s a rather tricky question. Me? Well, I speculate there<br />
is nothing whatsoever outside the domain of human experience. So what<br />
does that do to objectivity? Why, I suppose if you consider it with<br />
care, my hypothesis shatters that myth. Oh, you thought of something?<br />
The fossil record? But aren’t the fossils we dig out of the ground<br />
like that stop sign? How so? Fossils exist as things in themselves?<br />
<br />
You do know that for the longest time, people believed fossils were<br />
the bones of dragons. Oh yes. Not millions of years old at all. In<br />
fact, there are people alive today who insist dinosaurs and humans<br />
were contemporaries living only a few thousand years ago. Well, the<br />
fact how their beliefs do not conform to ours has little to do with<br />
the matters we are explicating here.<br />
<br />
Why, the dominance of cultural mores. How new ideas come along and<br />
upset the applecart. Ah, you’re starting to understand. I knew you<br />
would. I’m inexplicably drawn to intelligent people, you know.<br />
Speaking of stop signs, was there any need of them before the advent<br />
of the automobile? Of course not. Horse-drawn buggies didn’t travel in<br />
a manner that warranted stop signs.<br />
<br />
Well, the same thing is happening today. A new technology is changing<br />
our culture in unpredictable ways. Let’s imagine we two are partners<br />
in the buggy business back around the turn of the 20th century. Things<br />
are going exceedingly well for us. We prosper, in other words. But<br />
then one day this newfangled contraption appears on the streets. Yes,<br />
an automobile.<br />
<br />
Oh, it means nothing. A fad, certainly. Just wait a few years, and<br />
you’ll see. Gasoline? Where on earth will they get gasoline? All a<br />
horse requires is grass. But then, we notice how some of our coveted<br />
buggy customers begin showing up behind the wheel of a Model T. Oh,<br />
just a few at first, to be sure. And losing that contract with the<br />
Army to supply buggies, well, sure, it hurts, but we’ll manage.<br />
<br />
What? You think we ought to forsake the buggy business and begin<br />
selling automobiles? Are you insane? Those things are making our buggy<br />
business impossible.<br />
<br />
Good. So you do see the similarities. Ideas can at times kill<br />
culturally entrenched organizations. In that sense, I agree with you<br />
how digital technologies really are making politics impossible just<br />
like the introduction of the automobile made the buggy business<br />
impossible. Oh, I’m equivocating? How so? Apples and oranges? Sure, I<br />
can appreciate that even though I believe I am using apt metaphors.<br />
<br />
The answer is evolution. No, not exactly Darwinian, but rather<br />
cultural. The same? Yes, that’s the common sense point of view, I<br />
agree. Let me ask you this: can you see an idea? No? How about a<br />
society? Really? A society is simply a group of people? Sure. That’s<br />
why it is commonly believed that a society evolves in Darwinian<br />
fashion just like animals evolve over the course of eons.<br />
<br />
What becomes of society when the people die who make it up? Others<br />
take their place? Of course. So what we’re talking about is more a set<br />
of rules handed down through the generations than strictly people.<br />
Yes, the people follow the rules but in effect, they do not make up<br />
society. The rules do. Otherwise, society would die with the people.<br />
<br />
Yes, I know it’s a bit unconventional. Now perhaps you can understand<br />
better why my articles are often rejected when I submit them to online<br />
publishers. Oh, just because they are working in the digital<br />
technology field doesn’t mean those publishers are cutting edge. To<br />
the contrary. They are for the most part an extension of the<br />
deep-rooted culture prevalent for a hundred years or more.<br />
<br />
Exactly. That’s why I claimed journalism is part of the political<br />
middle that is being usurped by the rise of digital technology. By<br />
using social media, politicians are discovering they can connect<br />
directly with the voters they require to be elected. Yes, some are<br />
more adept than others. Good point. Celebrities? I’d agree they have a<br />
leg up. But then again, politicians have always been celebrities.<br />
<br />
Well, yes, even before the dawn of digital technologies. Think John<br />
Kennedy and his televised debates with Richard Nixon. Franklin<br />
Roosevelt and his fireside chats via radio. Those men understood the<br />
power of celebrity in a visceral fashion and exploited the media<br />
available to them during their reign of power. Plus, they knew they<br />
needed journalism to further their ambitions.<br />
<br />
Now, though, with the introduction of digital technologies and the<br />
social media that goes along with it, that interaction is no longer as<br />
one-sided. The notion of journalism as political interlocutor is being<br />
subsumed by a more direct connection between the politician and the<br />
citizen and of course the journalists don’t like it. Oh yes, the same<br />
thing occurred in our little buggy business. Thank you. You are too<br />
kind.<br />
<br />
But let’s consider this aside for a moment: though they are sometimes<br />
thought of as such, journalists and journalism are not synonymous<br />
terms. The one refers to people while the other references the rules.<br />
Yes, just like what we discussed concerning people and society. For<br />
that matter, politicians and politics fall into that same type of<br />
divide.<br />
<br />
Well, think about it. Yes, I’m aware they call it politicking but that<br />
in no way obviates the distinction. Because politicking refers to the<br />
rules, not the person. A politician politics? Well, yes, but doesn’t<br />
that substantiate my point rather than yours? You’re right. Things do<br />
tend to get confusing on this level. But look at it this way: the<br />
politician comes and goes while politics remains much the same.<br />
Politicians are actors in a play that repeats ad infinitum. Now, new<br />
scenes being introduced by the rise of digital technologies are<br />
affecting not only politics but a host of ancillary professions.<br />
<br />
Relativism? No, I can’t say I am a proponent. Well, because the term<br />
relativism is difficult to define, for one. Also, most forms of<br />
relativism suffer from various weaknesses that render the philosophies<br />
behind them untenable. Examples? All is relative tends to negate<br />
relativism itself. But yes. I have touched upon cultural relativism to<br />
some degree.<br />
<br />
The stop sign analogy, sure. I can understand how that might lead you<br />
to believe I’m an advocate of relativism. However, I think if you<br />
investigate this avenue you’ll soon discover limits arising from the<br />
outside-in research tendency modern anthropology tends to adapt.<br />
<br />
Objective scientific studies, yes, exactly. Students of anthropology<br />
are taught to study peoples as independent objects as if interacting<br />
with foreign cultures will somehow subjectively skew the results. Yes,<br />
I agree. The only way to learn about another culture is to become<br />
immersed within it, not surreptitiously peeping into their windows.<br />
However, those researchers who do dip their toes into foreign cultures<br />
are often considered to have gone native and thereby lose any<br />
scientific standing they might once have held.<br />
<br />
Universal absolutes? Actually, yes, I do believe there are tendencies<br />
common in all societies. Perhaps we can touch upon that in a moment.<br />
Well, in that regard, instead of studying the individuals, it might<br />
behoove researchers to study societal networks. You are correct. To do<br />
that requires giving up the myth of objectivity. In fact, I think if<br />
you look into the digital revolution you’ll discover this is exactly<br />
what is occurring within society. And this more than anything disturbs<br />
the political status quo.<br />
<br />
Your politician is going out of style, becoming an anachronism. Okay,<br />
our politician. No, not any certain person I can name, but rather the<br />
actor. Oh, there will be some last fitful gasps, certainly. And<br />
remember, we are merely in the early stages of this revolution. No, I<br />
do not believe recent elections are indicative of these changes that<br />
are being wrought by digital technologies. Rather, I think they are<br />
reactions of a dying culture.<br />
<br />
The culture of the politician, of course, but no, not politics.<br />
Remember, we’ve differentiated between the two. So in effect, digital<br />
technologies are making politicians impossible. We’ve brushed up<br />
against that theory already. The commonality of certain tendencies in<br />
all cultures.<br />
<br />
In a word, art. Well, yes, painting portraits is a part of art. But<br />
the term itself issues from much deeper far more ancient recesses that<br />
include caring and excellence. Artful pursuit unites the sciences,<br />
religion, and animism. Yes, politics too. But not politicians, at<br />
least not as we currently understand that pandering sort of activity.<br />
And that is precisely why politicians are destined to extinction.<br />
<br />
They can’t compete in the interconnected world that we are building,<br />
that’s why. And so yes, it is easy to rail against digital<br />
technologies and make claims that politics are becoming impossible.<br />
But as I said, it isn’t politics so much as politicians that are<br />
becoming useless. You see the distinction better now, I trust. Good.<br />
<br />
Politics will evolve. That’s hard to say. Prognostication isn’t my<br />
strong suit. But I think not in the survival of the fittest fashion<br />
that Darwin postulated. No, that was regarding biological organisms,<br />
not societal networks. Rather, ideas will propel politics into<br />
unforeseen arenas. Yes, I too thought the automobile analogy was<br />
particularly apt to this situation we’re facing today.<br />
<br />
Politicians and car salespeople are kissing cousins. They both tend to<br />
make unsustainable claims while appearing to be that which they are<br />
not. There is a reason many people don’t trust them. Right. They have<br />
their own agendas which are in no way geared toward art. Oh, but you<br />
misunderstand me. They can still be good at what they do. But the<br />
fundamental bedrock of caring is lacking, the excellence. That’s what<br />
separates artists from racketeers.<br />
<br />
Harsh? Yes, perhaps I am. That’s why I began this discussion by saying<br />
it isn’t so much who one votes for, but for what. Well, I suppose I<br />
would posit artful engagement as a start. Oh, you flatter me. Thank<br />
you. I too enjoy sharing high-level ideas, and it is, I must say,<br />
unusual for me to encounter, at least in person, an individual as<br />
perceptive as you.<br />
<br />
I admit in the beginning I thought social media might bring more<br />
people of our ilk together though so far I am sadly mistaken. Oh,<br />
don’t get me wrong. I’ve met some wonderful folk online. However,<br />
there is also a general underlying meanness. You’ve noticed that too.<br />
So it isn’t just me.<br />
<br />
Yes, I come to this park nearly every day. A man my age needs his<br />
exercise, or so my doctor tells me. Well, let’s put it this way: you<br />
could be my granddaughter. But yes, perhaps we might have the occasion<br />
to speak again.Dan Gloverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15452167300573196269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-815332158358090946.post-37605109781859433342015-11-27T00:15:00.000-08:002015-11-27T00:15:18.614-08:00So... You're the Writer...Yes, I am. A friend, who I'll call Fred, dropped by just the other day to introduce me to his girlfriend Mary. He talks about the woman all the time and I can see why. She's beautiful, smart, and engaging. After our introductions, she said to me, so... you're the writer...<br />
After I acknowledged that, yes I was, she proceeded to tell me about one of my books she'd read a while back. I have a habit of ordering up a batch now and again, keeping them in the car, and handing them out to people I know and like. I'd given a copy of Apache Nation to Fred last year. Whether he read it or not, I have no idea. I never ask.<br />
Apache Nation is one of my few books that might be considered family friendly fare as it has no fucks or shits or goddamns in it. Well, maybe one or two—and only when the narrator is under extreme duress—but who's counting? Right?<br />
So, as I was saying... she says... so... you're the writer. Tell me... do you really walk into those mountains of southern New Mexico like you say you do in your book? I never know how to answer that question. Yes, I do. Oh... well then, I'm planning on my next vacation to go to New Mexico and do the same thing. No, I don't. So what you're saying is: basically your book is just a pack of lies? <br />
Now, if she read the book, she would've seen right off that it is marked as a work of fiction. I make no bones about that. I write fiction. In other words, I make stuff up all the time. I even catch myself doing it in normal everyday conversations. Why? Because it's a better story, and that's what writing is all about.<br />
But then again, I have in the past really wandered into those desolate mountain... walked the trails that I write about in Apache Nation. Would I recommend doing so to others? No. It is too far dangerous for the uninitiated to attempt such a feat. They'd die, probably after enduring horrid days or even weeks trapped in some of the most inaccessible territory in the world.<br />
That I survived is a fluke, sort of like my writing. Though I started with the craft at a young age, I came back to it late. I had no idea what I was doing or why I was doing it. I wrote a word, looked at it, and then wrote another... just as upon entering those mountains I took a step, looked around, and then took another.<br />
I don’t go into those mountains on a lark, as if I am taking a vacation. My writing is the same. I obsess over it. People tell me, Dan... take a day off. Maybe two. Hell, take a week. That way you'll come back to it fresh. But writing isn’t work to me. It's fun. I can think of nothing I'd rather be doing. So why should I stop doing it just because someone tells me I should?<br />
That's the reason I never let anyone know I'm going to the mountains. They'll advise me not to do it. Go to a resort, Dan... yeah... take a trip to Las Vegas. Gamble a little. Stay up late. Hit the whorehouses. You know, like every other red-blooded male does. Yet I can think of nowhere I'd rather go when I go than to those mountains.<br />
So... you're the writer. Yes, I am. And there is a reason for that. I write. Obsessively. While everyone else is plunked down on the sofa stuffing their gullets with chips and popcorn and guzzling beer in front of the flickering television screen watching all the latest sit-coms or rom-coms or sports shows or Hallmark movies, I'm writing. I get lost in that shit. I'll sit down at 10pm, look up a moment later, and it's 3am. Huh? When did all that happen? <br />
And sure... all my lies are laced with the truth. I suppose that's as good a way of putting as any I can think of. I never write about my own experiences and yet that is all I write about. What else is there? Still, I label it fiction. Maybe I want to fool the reader into believing no one can be as stupid as I am and yet live. Or perhaps I like to show off. Who knows. Either way, it is fiction.<br />
I write to amuse the reader... that one reader who gets me. I'm sorta like that guy on the stage singing his heart out while staring right into the alabaster eyes of the prettiest girl in the house. I do it for her... I do it for him... I do it for that one reader who picks up my book and is enthralled by the words contained therein. Today, it's Mary. Tomorrow, someone else might discover these words. And like that singer upon the stage, I crave applause. But I never ask for it. <br />
Yep. I'm the writer.<br />
<br />
Dan Gloverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15452167300573196269noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-815332158358090946.post-11332509361879109812015-02-14T21:55:00.001-08:002015-02-14T22:58:43.974-08:00Big ShotHello, and thank you for all the kind responses I received from Stepping. This is another story from the collection entitled <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00T26F62U">Streets, available for pre-order here.</a><br />
<br />
Big Shot<br />
<br />
A cold wind blows in off the Pacific and the sun hasn’t shined all day. I wake up itchy in the dunes not at all sure how I got here though I seem to remember riding in the back of a rusty van drinking cheap booze with the members of a hair band who are traveling north to do a gig. At least my ass doesn’t hurt so I'm pretty certain they weren’t queers. <br />
I wonder what time it is, not that any of that matters. From the waning daylight I judge I must have slept the day away here. Maybe it's morning but no... the light is dying, a lot like me. I'm prone to binges these days so it's entirely possible I've been here for a night and a day or maybe even longer. Once I get started drinking I don’t like to stop.<br />
My lips are dry and as coarse as sandpaper. When I moisten them with my tongue I taste the salt congealing upon them from the fine mist blowing over me. I shiver involuntarily as I stand up and the westerly wind hits me full force. Apparently I must have stumbled into a little grotto last night which protects me from the chilly sea breeze blowing incessantly. I notice all the trees are bent to the east from its force.<br />
I try to remember what I'm doing here but between my head aching and my needing a drink it doesn’t seem worthwhile to worry about it too much. I'm here. I thought I'd be in Mexico though what I was doing there escapes me just now as well. I suppose I must have overstayed my welcome. That's become a routine of mine lately and one I'm not proud of but a habit I own nonetheless.<br />
I have no jacket and my clothes are damp from the ocean fog. One doesn’t require accouterments as coats and such in the land of Mexico. In fact, not much is required of a man at all in that laid-back country though its citizens are working little mother fuckers to be sure. Me, I like work too but I'd rather watch it than to actually perform it.<br />
The senoritas are fine and the tequila is cheap but the drug dealers are completely out of hand what with cutting off heads and blowing up tourists. Used to be Mexico was all about siestas and fiestas and having a fine time but these days us gringos are all too often seen as unnecessary evils in the land of the good... or is that the other way around? My mind doesn’t seem to model reality into a sensible equation as it once did. I tend to get things all turned around ass backwards and can never seem to set them right again.<br />
Maybe that's my problem. Four wives—or has it been five now?—and eight or nine bambinos later, here I am all alone again wandering the wasteland like a wooly mammoth, a vagrant, like the kid I was forty years ago. It isn’t that I feel much different than I did back then. Of course the senoritas were easier to pick up and the jobs more plentiful and the liquor a lot quicker. All that's changed now... and then there's the goddamned mirror.<br />
Mirrors don’t lie. Sometimes I wish they would... damn, even if they just sort of fudged the truth a little it wouldn’t be such a bad thing. It's hell waking up to this grizzled old mug of mine day after day. In fact sometimes it's downright scary.<br />
I see buildings not too distant from where I stand. It's probably a town, at least I hope so. These days there are clumps of houses sprouting up everywhere. The problem is that when a tramp like me shows up at their door, I'm likely as not told to hit the road and not to return lest they call the police. I suppose I am more than a little frightening. Towns are better. A bum like me can be more anonymous there.<br />
My luck is good today. A sign on the outskirts proclaims I am about to enter Little River. I wonder what state I've landed in, or what country for that matter... it seems like there ought to be a law that signage should specify not only the name of the town but also the state and the country. I guess most folk take it for granted that everyone knows things like that, but I don't. <br />
Walking past the single story brick post office in town I see another sign that tells me I am in the great state of California. Somehow I always thought California would be warmer. I've begun to shiver uncontrollably but I'm unsure if it's from the cold, from the alcohol withdrawal, or both. I decide both are the most likely answers. Luckily the streets are deserted. I wonder if some grand calamity has descended upon Little River leaving me the only swinging dick left alive but I'm certain my luck isn’t that good.<br />
There's a neon red and blue Goodwill box sitting on the corner of the post office parking lot and since no one is around I dive inside through the trap door to find myself something warm to wear... a sweater, a couple more shirts... anything that might provide a bit of warmth. Here it is the middle of summer and you'd think I was in Gnome. But then again I could be wrong about the season. Time has a habit of moving past me way too quickly these days. It could well be winter for all I know. It would explain a lot. <br />
I wish they had Goodwill boxes for unwanted liquor too. I need a drink worse than I care to admit. My hands are shaking and my eyes are starting to cross the way they do when the tremors start. There are no clothes my size... everything is too small. I feel like Gulliver in the land of the Lilliputians as I finally discover an old blanket and hauling both it and myself out I wrap it around me like an old squaw woman might. The damned thing's probably tainted with smallpox or the plague but I figure I gotta die of something and it might as well be that as anything.<br />
My stomach is hollering at me the way it does when I haven’t eaten for a week. Food always deadens my buzz so when I'm drinking I shy away from it. I'm certain if I had a little booze to swill I'd feel a lot better but I don’t and as far as I can tell I'm not going to acquire any in the near future. Food is easier. There's always something to eat in the garbage. <br />
Stopping by the Dumpster out back of the SevenEleven next to the post office yields a cache of pizza bones, though I have to pry them away from the stray cats that got there first. Most of my molars are broken off but I can still gum them long enough to soften up the crust as so I can swallow it. A drink to wash them down would be in order but sadly my pockets are as empty as the promise of tomorrow,<br />
A squad car rolls by, going slow and two sets of eyes looking my way. That's all I need... to be busted for stealing a moth-eaten blanket from a Goodwill box and scrounging pizza out of the garbage. The hills have eyes and some of them fuckers probably saw me climbing into that box or out of that Dumpster and called it in. Jesus Christ... you'd think people would have better things to do than watch out for hobos stealing blankets and pizza bones.<br />
I keep my head down, drop the pizza, and start walking. I figure as long as it looks like I'm going somewhere and I don’t have any evidence on me maybe the bastards will leave me be. Of course I probably seem a tad out of place what with a pink blanket wrapped around me and looking a tad too much like old Charlie Manson. The squad matches my speed staying just behind me. Yeah... I'm in for it. I watch out of the corner of my eye as it pulls up next to me and the lights come on the same time the passenger window rolls down.<br />
"Hey, fella... what'cha doing out here?"<br />
I look up for the first time. The voice is female but she looks like a dude... close-cropped ginger hair, surly attitude, just a hint of a moustache... all the attributes of a true police officer protecting and serving the populous. I figure I ought to answer her though it takes me a few seconds to summon my voice. Apparently I haven’t spoken for some time as my throat is sore and dry and goddamn but I need a drink.<br />
"Just passing through, officer... ain't causing any trouble."<br />
It sounds suspiciously like a croak. Did I say passing or pissing? Can't be sure now. I clear my throat and think about trying again but then decide better of it. Enunciation has never been my strong suit and the more I drink the bigger my tongue seems to grow and the goddamned thing tends to get wrapped around what few teeth I have left leaving me to sound like a bumbling idiot. Did I mention it's hell growing old?<br />
The car stops and the doors both open at once. That's never a good sign. Her partner is a big galoot and she looks more like a dude than he does. I think of Selma and Louise but I am confused as to which one is which. Maybe they take turns. They both are wearing black body armor, night sticks, and enormous guns on their hips. They look way too serious.<br />
"Just hold up there a minute, partner... we need to ask you a few questions."<br />
They saunter my way with that practiced swagger they must teach special at the academy. Or maybe it's a prerequisite for being a cop. Either way, it's the same old bullshit routine... do you have any identification? No? What's your name... where've you been... where are you going... do you live nearby? I answer the best I can hoping to placate the assholes all the while knowing they're going to run me in anyhow. <br />
"We've had reports of someone matching your description ringing doorbells in the area."<br />
"Huh?"<br />
That’s a new one. I thought I'd heard it all but I guess not. Doorbells? Why the fuck would I be ringing doorbells? I want to ask the dyke that question but suddenly she turns to the squawking bird mounted on her shoulder and speaks to it. For some reason I'm thinking the goddamned thing is a parrot. But no... once my eyes come uncrossed I see it's most definitively a radio. I can't quite hear what she's saying to it but I imagine it has a lot to do with me.<br />
"Do you have anything in your pockets you want to tell me about?"<br />
The big fairy is speaking again. At first I think he's talking to his partner because he's looking her way but no... he's asking me the question. Makes sense in a weird sort of way.<br />
"Ummm... some sand, maybe... that's about it. If you find any money I'll split it with you."<br />
He's not laughing. That's a bad sign. Hell, he isn’t even grinning. There's nothing wrong with a little impromptu humor but apparently my luck is rapidly turning ill today. The dyke keeps talking to the bird on her shoulder while simultaneously watching me with a kind of wrinkled-nose disgust that I've grown used to seeing whenever anyone comes too close to me. Yeah... that's what happens when you don’t take a bath for a few months.<br />
"So if I reach my hand inside your pocket I'm not going to get stuck with a needle?"<br />
"God... I hope not, officer..."<br />
"Please place your hands on the hood of the car and spread your legs, sir."<br />
I'm really hoping he's talking to someone else but as near as I can see I'm the only sir around. At least he's polite. He pulls on blue rubber gloves that match his uniform before he pulls back my blanket, pats me down, turns my pockets out, and finds nothing. I feel like fucking Superman with his red cape furling in the wind. <br />
"Where'd you get the blanket, sir?"<br />
"Ummm... I found it?"<br />
"You don't sound too sure of yourself."<br />
"Ummm... I found it."<br />
Yes... that's better. Funny how just a little slipup can change the whole course of a conversation. Just a little sunshine... some cheap whiskey... something to warm me... that's all I need... that and...<br />
"Anything?"<br />
He's looking at me. Interrupted in the middle of a thought I have no idea what he means by that until the dyke answers. Obviously I've mistaken the object of his words. The shakes have set in now in earnest. I'm hoping I don’t start drooling. That'll only encourage them... the rats that are climbing my legs. I feel their teeny tiny claws digging into my flesh as they make their way up my body. They're inside my pants, the bastards. Pretty soon they'll be after my sack and the screaming will start.<br />
"No... as near as I can tell he's clean. No wants, no warrants... do you think we should run him in anyhow? Could be a false name he's given us."<br />
The big fairy looks at me. I figure he must be some kind of Houdini... a mind reader... a soothsayer, doubtlessly a gypsy in a former life. I stand up as straight as I can manage and wrap the blanket a little closer around me hoping to hide the tremors. I stomp my feet ever so slightly to try and shake off the rats... gotta hold it together for just a few more seconds. These fuckers don’t want any more paperwork than necessary. Running my sorry smelly ass in will cause them more trouble than it's worth and this guy knows that I know it too.<br />
"Nah... let's cut him loose. He's just another down and outer. Take my advice, buddy... move on down the coast. If we see you loitering around this area, next time you won't be so lucky."<br />
"Yes sir, officer... that's just what I'll do. Thank you, sir."<br />
I start to walk away when the dyke surprises me by reaching into a pocket hauling out a five dollar bill. <br />
"Here... take this and buy yourself something to eat... if I see that you've spent it on booze I'll be disappointed."<br />
She hands me the money, turns, and climbs into the cruiser. The big fairy is still standing there staring at me like I have something on my face. Or maybe he knows about the rats. It's a disconcerting thought... that they might actually be real.<br />
"Nell's got a good heart. Don't let her down, buddy. I hope not to see you around again. Remember... you're getting a break."<br />
"Yes sir... I'll remember, sir. Thank you again, sir."<br />
I sound way too obsequious but apparently the big fairy is appeased with my response. He scowls, climbs behind the wheel, and a few seconds later I'm left alone again listening to the ocean beating itself to death against the shoreline and the whine of early streetlamps just waking up.<br />
Since the SevenEleven doesn’t sell what I need I walk down to the nearest gas station and buy a half pint of rotgut whiskey. The girl behind the counter graciously puts it into a brown paper sack which I slip under the blanket so no one can see what I have when I walk out. There is three cents change left over. She is way too pretty to be doing this for long. Big tits, nice smile. Someone will come by and scoop her up, make a porn star out of her. It just won't be me is all. <br />
"Keep the change."<br />
Yeah... I'm a big shot.<br />
Dan Gloverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15452167300573196269noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-815332158358090946.post-18181425138098911192015-01-28T01:24:00.000-08:002015-02-01T16:43:04.192-08:00SteppingHello, and thank you all for your continued support. Today I'd like to share a short story from the new collection I've been working. Without further adieu... <br />
<br />
Stepping<br />
<br />
It's something to do with the way I want you. There's got to be something wrong with that shit. I try to block you out. The thought. I swear I do. And alas, I always fucking fail. You're so deep inside of me. I can't get you out. There've been times when I start... digging. <br />
Old bones I thought I buried... they have a habit of pushing up out of the ground right when I least expect it... where I never anticipate you. I thought you might save me. I really did. None of that matters any longer, or so I tell myself. Fuck it. <br />
I remember a time among myriad others... I'm riding the #20 west to Pulaski. Madison bus. I got on at LaSalle and sat in the back. All I could think, as the bus continued past Ashland was, fuck. So many goddamned weirdoes. Look at these people. I mean, Jesus. What do they do all day? This crazy bitch, her hair - cranberry red - all tangled in that God awful weave of knots, dust, fuzz and crumbs - her fat ass micro-waving something awful in that deep, moist crack. She bent forward, chasing her bag of Cool Ranch Doritos on the muddled floor, and as she pinched it between two fat fingers painted pink at the end, a thin stretched-to-the-gills green thong bubbled up and got sucked back into the void after she sat back with a grunt. <br />
I looked out the window at the gray dying world, and thought: who the fuck is eating that shit? Somebody. Somebody nasty. I mean - someone out there - they eat that ass. Fucking go down there and eat that shit, on purpose. I know that for a fact because she was talking to him on the phone. Yelling. She was pissed as fuck. He hadn't—done something. <br />
How many time I gotta tell yo azz, nigga?<br />
When I say... <br />
What, you ask? Well, I don't know everything. If so, I wouldn't be riding the #20 west, hoping to buy smack from a bunch of uneducated street niggers, would I? Again I gaze through the glass, and past Western now, the city is starting to appear more desperate. More unreal, surreal. And then - that's when I started digging. <br />
I keep one nail sharp. I file that fucker to a point. When I'm tweaking—when the creepers are out—I start to dig. When I'm nervous and think I might not be able to score, I start to dig. I looked at that fat black bitch—listened to her cunting voice grinding my nerves to shreds—and I started in on my wrist, just slightly, right at the spot before it meets the palm of my hand. I moved quick and firm, like I have some bitch in heat on the edge, some Arab virgin vegan whore who, deep down, fears that if she lets a Catholic prick like me get her off she'll be thrown deep into some dry sandy pit, stoned to severe injury before being set on fire in front of her grandparents and maybe that favorite uncle she blows on the side. So I fucking work it. I rip that goddamned hijab off her muzzled little raghead as I go in quick and firm. She looks at me and begs me to stop and I go faster. I hold her neck tight, squeeze, and as her muscles spasm and those dark eyes bulge—you Muslim slut—tell me you don't want this shit you fucking whore—she shakes her head like she's begging for mercy and I send her over the edge. I feel her warmth trickling down my finger and I look down to see the blood pouring from my wrist as somebody tugs the draw string and we pull over.<br />
3400 west. Kimball stop. <br />
I pull a glove out of my pocket to hold over my bleeding wrist and think: if we crashed into some unseen abyss, would anybody miss them? Miss me? All these people? Any of us? Hell. They're not so bad. They're probably pretty nice, most of them. I feel gentle now. Now that I've bled. Now that I bleed. I take a deep breath, let my arm hang down, and squeeze. I loosen the glove and feel that hot red shit running down sticky into the palm of my clenched fist and I smile.<br />
Six more blocks. I pull the cord and thank the driver on my way out. He says nothing. Doesn’t even grimace. Looks dead west toward some unknown fucking destiny. Some fucking thought. Some lurid lucid dream. Some putrid addiction. Some lame fucking pussy at the end of a long day driving, perhaps. Or maybe some touchy family time. Perhaps not everyone is as deranged as I. I hope he's one who knows. Fuck what I hope, anyway.<br />
I step off and the air is cold and sharp. Glittering. The corner of Madison and Pulaski is fucking crazy. You get off right at an empty lot cratered in filth and littered with thousands of artifacts of failure and a beat ass furniture store huffing fumes of diesel through a brown paper sack of a canopy. Everyone out here is on some fucking hustle, even the cops. Especially the fucking cops. I step off in the same suit I was wearing when I got on in the Loop. I fit in there. Now, everyone's looking at me. I'm getting eyed-up. They're ready to kill for me. To do anything I ask if I have the right stuff... that green shit. It won't take much. True entrepreneurs. The fresh client. All these niggers, trying to build some dynasty out here. You know what I'm here for, you fuckers. Who's got that name brand? <br />
There's too many cops around. I hate cops. I start twitching. Involuntarily. Like that fucking dog... Pavlov, that perverted pussy-hating mother fucker. I start stepping. I meet eyes with a black face playing the low keys in some cut about a block farther west. The sidewalk is crumbled, the buildings lining the street vacant and defeated, windows broken like old women's teeth, doors agape. I walk slowly, and a little way down, I stop. <br />
You five-O?" <br />
I shake no. Imperceptibly. Little more than a jerk.<br />
"You some snitch, nigga?" <br />
I repeat the shake. I'm twitching again.<br />
"Just a client. Maybe." <br />
I say it low. No more than a whisper. A whimper, yeah, that's what it is. My throat is closing up. I feel like I've been stung by a billion bees and that venom is working its shit on me. I shift back and forth on my feet to keep the Jones at bay. But he knows.<br />
He looks me over. He's hard. Stone fucking hard. Forty, maybe younger. They age fast out here. Standing out here he's seen some shit. More than I can dream. A human lie detector. A pusher. A killer, maybe. No one to fuck with. He has his way with women. Those who give themselves to him—they're his property. It's just the way it is. <br />
He looks in my eyes and knows I don't give a fuck. Not about anything. <br />
"Okay, word." <br />
He tilts his head, wipes his nose with his sleeve, and:<br />
"You don't wanna fuck wit dem niggas back there. They on tha' fluff. Tha' Nixon shi'. Mos' ma'fuckin' sleepwalkers come through here ain' even know differen'. Fuck wit 'em and you finna get a bad bundle. I got tha' ma'fuckin' tecata, nigga. The beast. Hit me here, and then walk behind the building. It'll be under a red brick by the fence. By the address. I'm out here, nigga. Come see me. 4157 all day. So whachu wan'?" <br />
You know what I fucking want? I want to kill you, to be honest. I want to murder your fucking black ass. Slow and gentle. Not because it's racial or anything. It's just because I need you. That and you're just too fucking loud. Your volume. Your style. Everything. But I respect that. You don't give a fuck, either. <br />
I slide him a bill and walk off without speaking. Worst comes to worst, it won't be there. But I know it will be. It might be short, but it'll be there. He's smart. They all are. Repeat business, that's the goal for all of us. I walk around the back in my fucking suit, and nobody fucks with me. I pick up the brick, take my shit, and place the bag in my black leather glove. That plastic burns where I fingernailed the gash. I walk east to Pulaski, cut north, and wait for the bus. The whole world knows I'm carrying. And what does it matter? Nothing. Not a fucking thing. <br />
I get in the back of the bus and ride back to the Loop, feeling so released after dipping my finger in the bag and taking just a baby bump. An old lady sitting by me in the back, she saw me do it. She gives me that look, my mother's look. I turn my head, shamefully. But fuck, I feel good. <br />
Twenty some minutes and I'm back to the hustle and bustle, back in the flow. Back to the game. I walk into my building. Bopping now. How's the market doing, someone asks me. Fuck the market, bitch.<br />
"Those bulls are running loose today, baby!" <br />
I yell, like I give a fuck. He gets all excited, pisses himself, a grown ass man, like it means anything. Your death certificate is already written, son. That money. That feeling. That power. It's all fake. I look at these little pencil-neck dweebs running around, chasing dreams over phone calls and emails. Funny how it's the same bullshit with different players. All the costumes. All the jargon. So meaningless. <br />
I think of those boot lip mother fuckers back in the hood, the hustle, the death crowding in all around their black fucking faces and eyes of knowing, and damned if I don't feel alive. I dive into cesspools and come out clean. I'm the man they all hate yet they don't dare fuck with me. I just don’t give a fuck and they know that shit.<br />
I walk into my private bathroom with my silver spoon and needle. I lock the door. I scoop a little mound and light my Montecristo Signature Series Lighter. A friend gave it to me, back in college. It's an epic, superb, a-quality lighter, made for one job. As the white magically melts into an impeccable, clear liquid of impossible purity and strength, I reflect on old times. Life is slipping away for me, I think. I smile as those way past reflections with old friends hold that timeless, photographic quality in one's head, and I'm glad we didn't all have smart phones back in the day to actually capture so much of what was. There is elegance in mystery. <br />
I accrue all that remains in my silver spoon into my 24 karat, gold plated syringe, drop my pants and send that hot shot into my body in a quivering blue vein, right where the inside of my leg meets my torso. I fall back, aghast and awed. I walk out of my office, and tell my secretary to hold all calls. I'm going to busy, working on things, per se, for the next several hours. I feel it.<br />
"In fact, Kate, why don't you go home early today? Your work has been exceptional lately."<br />
"Really?"<br />
"Yes."<br />
"Well, you're the boss!"<br />
Indeed.<br />
<br />
Thank you for reading. If you enjoyed Stepping please watch for the release of my book, Streets, due out shortly. You may <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00T26F62U"> pre-order it here</a>.<br />
Dan Gloverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15452167300573196269noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-815332158358090946.post-70315423635780321782013-04-06T22:36:00.000-07:002013-04-06T22:36:11.825-07:00Competing<a href="http://youtu.be/ojMZ3IK9dzI"><h3>The Author Reading Aloud</h3></a><br />
<br />
In my misguided youth I took a step outside my front door, and then I took another step. The road opened itself before my eyes like a flower unfurling itself to the morning sun. Marveling at the mystery and with each new sight competing for my favor I wandered ever on.<br />
Many years later having no other direction I found myself traveling west; I came to the Pine Ridge Indian reservation in the Badlands of South Dakota. The road was dusty; I was dirty, my hair long and unkempt. I saw a dirt road leading into the desert; I pondered on following it but being thirsty I instead made my way to a neon-lighted tavern that squatted in the dust. I’d never seen so many Indians! They were lined up three-deep at the bar. All the tables and chairs were taken so I took my drink to stand in a quiet corner where I would not have to compete for space.<br />
The floor was dirt; it was sprinkled with sawdust; every once in a while one of the Indians would look at me and spit derisively onto the ground. I thought how much they must hate me; not just me but the sight of any white man. If I had been older and wiser I would have perhaps been filled with fear but being young and stupid I feasted on the competition.<br />
As the night wore on the liquor took effect; I grew bolder. I bought drinks for complete strangers not out of a sense of camaraderie but rather to insinuate myself into their good graces. Soon I found myself sitting at a table full of alien-sounding people to whom I must have seemed equally odd.<br />
I met a girl who sat there; she was very quiet but when I asked her she said her name was Angie. She wasn’t particularly striking but she had a pull that attracted me; I must have had the same affect on her. We drank and we talked and we stroked each other with our eyes; standing close while dancing each dance we inhaled one another’s breath. We reveled in our meeting one another. Our lips brushed. Later that night when a group of big Indians began making remarks about smelling a honky in the bar she said I should come with her. <br />
So I did.<br />
She took me on a journey way out into the desert to her home where she lived with her father and with her two sisters. I recognized the dirt road as the one I had been tempted to take before entering the tavern. I wondered how I knew. She told me how her father was the nominal chief of their tribe, the Hunkpapa Lakota. Their house was very poor, the furniture sparse and the cupboards empty. <br />
In time I fell in love with Angie and she fell in love with me. I supported her as she supported me. We spent our days entwined together in each other; we spent our nights drinking. Since she gave me her heart I had no need to compete for it. When I gave her my heart I lost it without competition.<br />
She told me how if anyone in the tribe in their poverty needed anything they came to her father. Since he was the chief it fell to him to provide for them. She said he sometimes gave away the very clothes hanging on the line outside to dry and how she took to hiding them by tying a clothesline out behind the storage sheds and the junk yard in back of the house. <br />
The people loved their chief; they supported him as he supported them. He instructed many ceremonies each according to the seasons. Serving with humility he guided his people, knowing if he was to lead that he must follow. Ruling by following meant that the people didn’t feel oppressed. When he stood before the people he would not be harmed. <br />
His name was King of a Hundred Streams. He was like the sea. He knew many of the old songs; each morning before the dawn I would hear him outdoors chanting to the sky and to the wind and to the water that ran brown and rank in a creek behind the house. Though I listened intently I couldn’t make out the words. <br />
When I asked him what he sang about he told me the music and the ceremonies surrounding it were essentially the same. The styles of the musical pieces were different but he told me how they promoted the same feelings of love. Some songs he sang at pow wows, others at the changing of the days, still others in the different seasons. Though the occasions and forms of the songs and ceremonies differed he said how they expressed the same feeling of respect. <br />
Since he knew the essential nature of the music and the ceremonies he continued them as he found them; in turn he said how he would pass them on intact. In the visible world there were ceremonies and music; in the invisible world were the spirits that guided them. I noticed how he often left small sacrifices for them, a bit of food or a scrap of clothing. If I was eating an apple he would always nod his chin towards the sacrifice bowl intending me to place the core there when I finished.<br />
King of a Hundred Streams talked sadly about how no one really knew the music any longer. The young people compete in songs like monkeys, he said, with boys and girls mixed together, and no distinction between father and son, mother and daughter. Such music could never be talked about, he explained, as it was not the music handed down by the ancestors. What they like is the sound, he told me, but music and sound should never be taken as akin to each other. <br />
Music springs from the mind while ceremonies appear in outer movements. So it is a rule to make ceremonies as brief and few as possible while giving music its full development. This rule for ceremonies leads to the forward exhibition of them where their beauty resides. This rule for music leads to the inner consideration of it where its beauty resides. If ceremonies demanding this condensation were not performed with this forward exhibition they would disappear. If music demanding this full development were not accompanied by introspection it would lead to a dissipation of the mind.<br />
So it is that each ceremony has its proper response; for music there is introspection. Ceremonies bring pleasure while music brings about a sense of repose. The responses to ceremonies and the introspection of music spring from one and the same idea and have one and the same object. <br />
Music arises from the modulations of sound; its embodiments are in movements of the body. These modulations and movements are the changes required by nature. They are found complete in music. King of a Hundred Streams lamented that even though people today like the sounds they produce and it brings them pleasure if the embodiments are not suitably conducted disorder arises. <br />
In the time I spent there with Angie and the chief I learned many things. If I had stayed I might have learned of the mystery without searching so long and hard. But my wandering ways pulled me to the road early one winter. I would never see them again.<br />
Since I do not compete I have no competition. <br />
Dan Gloverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15452167300573196269noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-815332158358090946.post-5246187887805333652013-03-31T00:02:00.000-07:002013-03-31T00:02:37.072-07:00Description<a href=" http://youtu.be/B-gEhtGlf50"><h3>Video of the Author Reading Aloud</h3></a><br />
<br />
When I was a child cigarettes cost just thirty five cents a pack. I remember my uncle the priest standing in the church parking lot smoking one after another while saying goodbye to his parishioners on Sunday mornings. When he came to visit our home my mother didn’t like him smoking in the house so she refused to provide him with an ashtray. Rather than going out of doors to smoke he flicked his ashes into the palm of his hand and rubbed them into his pants.<br />
Before he left our house my uncle would always reach a coarse hand into a deep pocket to pull out some change. Sorting through the coins he would hand me a quarter and dime holding it out to me in his ashy palm. As he did so he would wink while cautioning me not to take the money and buy cigarettes with it. I always felt like winking back at him as I promised not to; when I retrieved the coins they felt dusty and smelled faintly of tobacco. <br />
Reaching into that leathery wrinkled palm always reminded me of the moveable feast called Ash Wednesday when my uncle would make a cross on everyone’s forehead out of the ashes of last year’s Palm Sunday leaves while admonishing them to turn away from sin. I thought how he might well have used cigarette ashes instead of burning the old palm leaves and how no one would know the difference.<br />
When I grew older I wondered why my uncle was tempting me. If his goal was to keep me from buying cigarettes it seemed odd he would always give me the exact amount required to purchase them. I wondered if his intention wasn’t to provide me with a little spending money so much as it was a test of my resolve. Perhaps he thought temptation must be present before a person knew if they were strong enough to resist it. A description of temptation might not have been enough; he sought to make it real.<br />
Other people have goals in their lives. They have purpose. They know where their life is heading. The experience of their lives is real and concrete. They hold an image of the perfect world in their hearts as they spend their days striving towards it. To these people the description of the world is of paramount importance. Nothing else matters. By ignoring the mystery they keep to the description; by succumbing to temptation their lives are filled with desire.<br />
The strong attack the weak. Great countries look to conquer small countries to prove their greatness. They muster armies along with myriad weapons of destruction; when the small countries have been laid to waste the learned of the great countries write down the history of these exploits. As they grow up the students revel in their learning. Thus war is repeated generation after generation.<br />
While he lived my uncle always seemed disappointed both in me and in my actions. He expected me to live a life without sin and yet I was a sinner. In his descriptions of heaven there was no room for a person of my caliber. He made a point of informing me how much I would have to change in order to become a man of god. I wanted to tell my uncle how I had no expectations of heaven or of god but I knew I would only disappoint him all the more.<br />
I suspect my quiet cemented his suspicions. <br />
Having no expectations I find I am never disappointed. By following the source I forego the description of experience; by stilling desire I leave temptation behind; by acting in the moment I let go of the promise of tomorrow and the sadness of yesterday’s regrets.<br />
By keeping to the mystery I am without substance. People enjoy pleasant music and good food and fine paintings. They smoke their cigarettes and drink too much while telling others not to follow their example. They describe the way of the world; they caution me to be aware of sin; they do not walk the way of the mystery. These are all descriptions of experience. But the mystery is without flavor; it cannot be heard; looked for, it cannot be seen. Use it and it cannot be exhausted.<br />
So I cultivate peace and happiness; I allow the mystery to rest in my heart. <br />
Dan Gloverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15452167300573196269noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-815332158358090946.post-44166226266723560302013-03-24T00:02:00.000-07:002013-03-24T00:02:42.614-07:00Without<a href=" http://youtu.be/tX7jF-vJ8Y0">The Author Reading Aloud</a><br />
<br />
After my young wife died during childbirth I was left without direction or purpose. We had been a family. We were building a home together, a life. Though her parents disapproved my wife had seen something in me no one else ever noticed before.<br />
I’d been working at a job site some thousand miles away. Though I worried about her she allayed my concerns by assuring me it would be months before she gave birth. Since we needed the money I left her there in the care of her family.<br />
When they told me what had happened I was consumed with guilt. At their funeral I was sure everyone was looking at me knowing it was my fault my wife and my son lay dead. In every spoken word I heard her name. In every waking moment I longed for the peace sleep would bring. In every dream I saw her. She was standing in a doorway waving goodbye. When I called out she turned away as she closed the door softly.<br />
I drank to find solace in forgetfulness. For a time I did. But I would always sober up and the memories would come rushing back. So I drank more. Though I knew she would never approve I also knew she was gone. So I drank. <br />
I found myself lost in a strange city on a chilly autumn night. A store window showed me my reflection. I looked disheveled, hungry, and alone. A black cat sitting on an orange pumpkin grinned at me. There were dusty bottles in the store window too with dirt and junk piled in the corners as if someone was going to fix it up but then grew tired and stopped.<br />
Standing there staring at myself I smelled something bad; it was me. I hadn’t bathed in weeks. I felt ashamed of how I had deteriorated. Looking about me the street was empty. It pleased me to be alone in such misery.<br />
I walked on. I came to an old church with a rusty padlock on the door. A hand-written sign taped to the door said closed. It must have been closed a long time; the sign looked faded and weather-beaten. I recalled my uncle’s church as being bigger but I was young then and the whole world seemed bigger.<br />
I walked around back to the alleyway to test the back door. It too was padlocked but a window up high was broken out. By turning a rusty metal garbage can upside down I was able to stand on it and gain entry.<br />
The old church was darkened; a nearby streetlamp threw enough light in the window that as my eyes adjusted I could make out overturned and broken pews with trash—empty wine bottles, discarded food containers, old clothing—covering the floor. I kicked aside the garbage to turn an unbroken pew right side up as I lay out my bedroll on it. I fell into a troubled sleep.<br />
I dreamed it was springtime and I was a boy again suffering under one of my uncle’s rages. As the crack of his words dissipated he looked at me a long time, a sad kind of look; as if he knew whatever he said would be lost upon me, as if he were gauging whether or not to waste any more of his energy. And then he thundered that I would go to hell for my sins. <br />
Waking I could still hear his words echoing through the abandoned church where I found myself. I wondered if hell was where I was. Listening to the rats scurrying under the pew where I lay it seemed as if it might be. I remembered how I wanted to tell my uncle that once I got to hell my sins would no longer matter. It dawned on me that if I was in hell then all my sins had been absolved.<br />
The guilt I had carried with me for so long began to evaporate as I realized the world does not reside outside of me. The world is me. Looking up through the gaping fissures in the roof of that old church at the autumn stars wheeling through the heavens I realized they did not exist on their own apart from me. Though that night of my grieving seemed never-ending I realized when the dark is long it is because I make it so.<br />
When those who are loved pass away they are bitterly lamented. Mourning taken to its absolute depths should stop there, however. The living glory in life, not in death; the virtuous take their mourning to the extreme and then let it go in order to go on living. <br />
The good, the clean, and the careful people of the world are thieves of virtue. Having never suffered great loss they have yet to achieve their desires so they are full of anxiety. Once their desires are achieved they are full of anxiety that they should lose them. When they are anxious they will lose the things of their desires there is little they will not do.<br />
I left my wandering and my drunken ways. I cleaned myself up. I took a new wife and found a job someone of my nature could perform well. Together we grew a new family of laughing babies and happy times. I never forgot but I ceased to wallow in my memories; instead I learned to revel in the moment. <br />
Now I am an old man; once again I find myself alone in the world, without family, with no purpose, and without any clear direction. Since I have the mystery to comfort me, however, I know my non-purpose and non-direction as signs of it and not of my misery.<br />
Without leaving my mat I know the whole world. Without gazing at the sky I see the ways of heaven. The farther I travel the less I know. From a distance I appear stern. When approached I am mild-mannered. When listened to my words are firm and decided.<br />
I see without looking. I listen without hearing. I know without learning. I work without doing. <br />
This is the way of the mystery.<br />
Dan Gloverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15452167300573196269noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-815332158358090946.post-89890663963512399622013-03-17T00:16:00.001-07:002013-03-17T01:22:17.399-07:00Interfering<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amXvwZoudqE"><h3>The Author Reading Chapter 48 - Interfering</h3></a><br />
<br />
I always thought there must be a mystery in the world about which no one would tell me. The mystery wasn’t to be found in any book; I had read them all. The mystery wasn’t to be found in the universities; I had attended all the classes. The mystery wasn’t to be found on mountain tops; I had climbed them all.<br />
I always thought people were interfering with me so that I would stop seeking for the mystery of the world that no one wanted me to know about. I imagined them outside in the dark hiding in weeds watching me through lighted windows ready to pounce upon me should I come too close to my goals. Though I pulled down the shades and stayed up all night lest they break into my abode during my sleep to steal my dreams I never saw anyone at all.<br />
After a while I began wondering if I was wrong about the mystery in the world. I reasoned that if such a mystery existed everyone would know of it. Libraries would be filled with the knowledge. The mystery’s splendor would be written across the mountains and reflected by every ocean. Every scholar would be aware of it and teach it willingly.<br />
I took a family and a job. In time life interfered until I forgot about any lingering trace of the mystery. Once in a great while I might hear a snatch of song that reminded me of something that I couldn’t quite put my finger on; once in a blue moon I might catch a glimpse out of the corner of my eye of a fleeting image that seemed both foreign and familiar at the same time; when I looked it was gone.<br />
I immersed myself in the world of desire; I no longer had any time to dream of the mystery. I told myself I had imagined it all. I scolded myself for letting my sense of the mystery interfere with my life for as long as it did. I knew there was no one waiting outside my windows watching me; I knew there never was anything in the world like the mystery I had chased after so intensely that I exhausted myself. What a fool I had been.<br />
Sometimes it seems as if I’ve done it all. I no longer have the strength of my youth. Everyone wanted to make me into what they thought I should be, not what I wanted to be. When I wouldn’t be what they desired they turned on me. They always had to have more. I gave them everything asking nothing in return; that is what I got.<br />
Sometimes I wonder what it was I wanted. It must have been something. <br />
In the days before I knew of the mystery I went to school eager to learn all I could from the great masters. In the pursuit of learning about the world, each day I obtained new knowledge and precious ideas. <br />
When I heard of the mystery I quit school and scorned the masters. In the pursuit of the mystery, every day I dropped a little part of my knowledge and let go of each one of my precious ideas like dropping pearls one by one in the dust. <br />
Though I know I will never attain great virtue, by gathering up a store of small virtues I may gradually pass and repass the boundary. Still, these branches of learning that are picked up in answering and replying, in advancing and receding, leave me lacking in essential wisdom. Even in mediocre work and study there is something worthwhile; but if I stay with these pursuits for too long a time there is a danger of them proving inapplicable. Therefore I do not practice this mode of behavior.<br />
There are those who say not to associate with people who cannot be a blessing to me. I have heard it said these people will interfere with the path I walk, leading me down dark corridors. This is different from what I have learned. I honor the talented and the virtuous yet I bear with everyone. I praise the good and pity the incompetent. Since I have no great talents or virtues are there those who refuse to associate with me? What right do I have to pick and choose who is right and who is wrong? <br />
For one word people are often taken for being wise; for one word people are often deemed to be foolish. Therefore I take much care in what I say. Without knowing the force of words it is impossible to know people.<br />
Pursuing the mystery means less and less is said and done until non-action blossoms into being. When nothing is said and done, nothing is left unsaid and undone.<br />
The world is ruled by allowing things to be as they are. The world isn’t what we think it is or proclaim it to be. It cannot be ruled by interfering. <br />
That is the way of the mystery.<br />
Dan Gloverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15452167300573196269noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-815332158358090946.post-42477737093010954592013-03-09T23:43:00.001-08:002013-03-09T23:43:35.981-08:00WholenessShe was diagnosed in the spring of her fortieth year. Though she had been troubled with pain for years the doctors all pooh-pashed it, gave her some pills, and sent her on her way. When the spasms of hurt became too much for her to bear she collapsed at work.<br />
The hospital called me on a Tuesday afternoon so I left my job to rush right over. By the time I arrived the emergency room physician had done some scans. The doctor discovered a mass in my wife’s pelvis. The physician referred us to an ontology specialist who said a biopsy was in order. Two days later the cancer was confirmed. It had metastasized by the time they caught it though. They advised us that her chances for survival were nil.<br />
She insisted on aggressive therapy. I felt it was my wife’s call to make. The children were only in their early teens. She wanted to be there for them; she desired for our family to remain whole. I guess she hadn’t reckoned on the side effects of the treatment being worse than the disease. When she died six weeks later on a cold September night I had learned hard lessons about how to insert catheters and intravenous needles and other niceties that go hand in hand with late-stage cancer. As she withered away the children watched in helpless horror by her bedside.<br />
Sometimes even now I awaken wondering why her part of the bed is empty. Is she fixing breakfast? As I come more fully awake of course I remember. I wonder if I should have advised her not to have the radiation and the chemotherapy that so sapped her strength turning her into a living skeleton. I know she would have died either way but she went through so much suffering for nothing.<br />
We take what authority figures like doctors and nurses say as gospel. But they aren’t the ones who will suffer when the treatment ends up killing the patient more quickly than the disease it is meant to alleviate. <br />
When I follow the dictates of society I am ensnared by it. I am constrained in my choices. The moral choices that I make are identical to the values of society. Everything in life is an ethical activity. When I do this instead of that I do so because it is better.<br />
The children are grown now and on their own. My wife has been in her grave for many years. These days I often travel deep into the mountains far from society; I am free to follow the mystery. When I am all alone from my vantage point I see there is more than one moral structure called society; there are many. <br />
All these moral structures are little empires onto themselves. Each of these moral codes is fighting one another for supremacy. They are not simply conflicting rules; there is a deep underlying clash between the old and the new, the good and the evil, the haves and the have-nots.<br />
By following these moral codes people are forced to pick and choose which ones are of value. They choose the one and neglect the rest. Their lives are never complete; they are full of desire forever grasping for that which they do not possess. Rotten wood cannot be carved; a tower of dirt will not stand. While others may rival their wisdom no one can match their stupidity.<br />
When I follow the mystery there is fullness. Though I have nothing I am complete and whole. Since I have no desire I practice non-action. I let go of that and do not choose this. I keep these four characteristics in mind: I am humble in my conduct; I am respectful in serving others; I am kind in dealing with people; I am just in leading others.<br />
When I rise from sleep and stumble onto the dusty mountain path I see no east and west in the sky; it is whole and clear. When I climb high on a ridge and look down upon the world below I see no north and south; the earth is whole and firm. When I see my reflection in a clear mountain lake I see no separate body and soul; I am whole and strong. <br />
Naming these things I see no up and down in the valley of experience; it is whole and full. The clarity of the morning sky allows me to see. The firmness of the humble earth allows me to walk. The strength of my spirit prevents it from being used up. The fullness of the valley of experience prevents it from being exhausted.<br />
Learning virtue without proper cultivation, not thoroughly discussing that which was learned, not moving towards a righteousness that I have discovered, being unable to change that which is not good, these are things which occasion me concern. <br />
So I see that being humble like the earth is the core of nobility. I see that the low valley is the foundation of all high knowledge. I see that too much success is never an advantage. I do not draw attention to myself by showing off my wealth and chattering of my hubris.<br />
I consider myself worthless, orphaned, and widowed, and I am free and whole.<br />
Dan Gloverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15452167300573196269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-815332158358090946.post-73181901063181852582013-03-03T01:31:00.000-08:002013-03-03T01:31:48.401-08:00The Beginning of FollyI seem to remember when I was very small how my older sisters used to read me fairy tales from children’s books. They were scary stories full of wolves and bears and crocodiles and though the colorful characters all wore smiles on their faces those grins were always full of sharp and pointed teeth. Though I was frightened I couldn’t bring myself to turn away. <br />
I learned to write my letters by tracing their geometric patterns with a finger on my thigh as my sisters read. After the reading was done and I was supposed to be sleeping I would crawl from bed to get my crayons and my coloring book to try my hand at tracing the letters for real. Though I tried again and again I remember how I could never seem to get them quite right.<br />
I thought how the patterns of my creation should mirror the objects of my ideas. It surprised me when they did not. I thought if only I mastered those patterns then they would be true representations of the world. So I practiced all the time. But I never got them right. When I grew older I knew this as the beginning of folly.<br />
Though we tell ourselves we are creatures of intellect and reason we live within a myth-bound world. Science has taught us that only the objective world has value. This is called the myth of independence. <br />
One day I learned to sit quietly; the world began to slow down. The more I practiced the more the world slowed until in the stillness of my heart I came upon the memory of the mystery. How could I have forgotten?<br />
One who remembers the mystery comes to see that objects begin with the idea of those objects; objects do not exist as independent things apart and forever separate from the observer of them. By neglecting the mystery the world is its own beginning.<br />
When the mystery is forgotten, goodness arises. When goodness is forgotten, kindness arises. When kindness is forgotten, justice arrives. When justice is forgotten, ritual comes into being. <br />
Ritual is the belief in these representations of experience, not in the mystery of the source. Ritual is the beginning of confusion. To know the future is to believe in the trappings of experience. This is known as the beginning of folly.<br />
Fine words and an insinuating appearance are seldom connected with true virtue. I am neither proud of my wealth nor do I flatter others in my poverty. Though I find myself living a life of wealth I uphold the rules of propriety. Should I lose all my riches to become mired in poverty I hold onto my cheerfulness. This is known as sustaining the proper sequence.<br />
When people are guided by laws they seek to avoid punishment but have no sense of shame. If people are led by virtue and learn to follow decorum they develop a sense of shame; they become good of their own accord without threat of retribution. For a person to sacrifice to a god that doesn’t feel right to them is known as flattery. To see what is right and not to do it is known as lack of courage. <br />
These days I write the stories that others read. I call them my stories yet they are but mirrors of the mystery. If I tried to force them into being in the same way I used to work at copying those letters from the books my sisters read to me I would fail to get the stories right. Rather, these stories arise from nowhere; they are not my stories any more than is the world. They are not meant to impress the readers but to perhaps inspire them to lead a better life.<br />
When I do a good turn I do not see the good that I do. When a fool tries to do a good turn they brag about it and so it is not good. By not-doing anything I leave nothing undone. A fool is always doing something and so much remains to be done.<br />
It is needless to speak of things that are done; it is needless to remonstrate about things that have run their course; it is needless to blame things that are past. Why should I contemplate high offices filled with indulgent generosity, ceremonies performed without reverence, or mourning conducted without sorrow?<br />
I dwell on what is real and not what is merely on the surface. I focus on the fruit and not on the flower. I accept one and reject the other. <br />
The cautious seldom err.<br />
Dan Gloverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15452167300573196269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-815332158358090946.post-28293716265315339342013-02-23T20:11:00.001-08:002013-02-23T20:11:54.596-08:00Heaven's NetMy uncle was an acknowledged expert on what it took for a person to get into heaven; I listened to him many Sunday mornings preaching his sermons, his eyes alight and his hair ablaze in the glory of his god. Even as a child I knew his words were but foolery. He spoke them with such certainty that he had to be mistaken. <br />
He no doubt looked at me as an expert at what it took not to get into heaven. He counseled me to walk in the certain light of his god. Instead I walk in the uncertain darkness of the mystery. He counseled me to take Jesus by the hand and forget all my troubles. I have known nothing but trouble all my days yet my heart is serene. <br />
I loved my uncle as a man while he loved his god as his servant. My uncle’s god asked him to devote his life to teaching that which everyone already knows. The mystery asks nothing of me so I devote my life to not-teaching that which no one knows.<br />
My uncle and I were together only a short while—less than fourteen years—before a horrid fire in his church took his life. At his funeral the priest said how angels were sent down by God to bring home the faithful folk like my uncle. I envisioned heaven’s net being cast down from on high gathering in his ardent spirit to be hauled before his god for his day of reckoning. For a long time after I prayed that day went well for my uncle.<br />
I’m sure my mother loved her older brother as I loved mine yet I always sensed a splintered crack separating their love. When my uncle visited our home my mother returned to her little girl days eager to please him but she always seemed to be falling short. Today I recognize the same sickness in the love I felt for my older brothers.<br />
A troubled person is drowned in water; I am drowned by my mouth. Water is always nearby yet those who know it not drown in its depths. Its nature makes it easy to play with but dangerous to approach. The mouth is loquacious and troublesome for words once uttered have scant repentance; people are easily ruined by them. <br />
If people are taught lessons of virtue and uniformity by rules of ceremony their minds will dwell on what is good; if they are taught by laws and uniformity is enforced by punishment their minds will be thinking of how to escape. If I bind people to me by my good faith they do not turn away from me. If I show them courtesy their hearts are docile to me. I watch how others use restraints of punishment against people calling them laws. In this case people become bad and are isolated.<br />
Words begin as threads but when spoken they become as rope binding the speaker. Therefore I do not take the lead in idle chatter. I never speak words which may be spoken but not embodied in deeds nor do I perform actions which may be done in deed but not expressed in words. In this fashion my words are carried into action without risk and my actions can be spoken of without risk.<br />
I once met a brave and passionate man. We were traveling together on a passenger train going west to the sea. Over the course of the trip we talked of many things while watching the scenery flow past the windows. He must have come to feel comfortable in confiding his secret to me as he whispered how his wife had run off with another man; opening his coat he showed me a pistol he carried; he told me how he planned on killing them both or to die trying.<br />
I once met a brave and calm man. We were traveling together in a truck while working as barkers in a carnival. Our talk served to pass the long hours driving down one Interstate highway after another. On the last day in each others’ company he whispered to me how his wife had run off with another man; he showed me his tears; he told me how he planned on letting them go. He said only God had the right to judge them.<br />
I often wonder which of these two is good and which is evil? I suppose some things aren’t favored by heaven but no one knows why. Even the wise are not sure of this; so I practice disinterest and revel in not-doing.<br />
Now I am as old as my uncle the priest on the day he perished. Unlike him I don’t talk much but of course I never did. Our natures differed in that. While he made a life of standing before his flock leading them to the nets of heaven I sit silently staring out of the backdoor screen at the hummingbirds flitting about and dancing bumble bees and lazy cats sleeping in the sunshine.<br />
Because the highest virtue is found in disinterest I never yelp about God. When I think of heaven I think of the mystery. It doesn’t strive but it always overcomes all obstacles. It never speaks and yet it is always answered. The mystery asks for nothing yet it is supplied with all its needs. It seems to have no purpose yet its every aim is fulfilled.<br />
It is said heaven’s net casts wide; though its meshes are coarse nothing slips through.<br />
This is the way of heaven.<br />
Dan Gloverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15452167300573196269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-815332158358090946.post-76007142378317394622013-02-16T18:26:00.000-08:002013-02-16T18:26:09.887-08:00Body and SoulWhen my uncle told me I would go to hell for my sins I knew he didn’t mean I would go there bodily. I knew he meant my ever-lasting soul would burn in that lake of fiery torment for all time. I wanted to tell him of the mystery but I had no words. I still don’t.<br />
There was a time when I was the world, not a part of the world. I know this instinctively although there was also a time when the feeling was quite foreign to me. I rejected the one by embracing the many. <br />
Now I embrace the one by rejecting the many. <br />
I don’t remember being a baby. But over the years I have learned what it means to be a baby by watching my own children as they grew into the world. By learning to be a baby again and what it means to be a part of all this I see a mirror of me studying to be a part of it all.<br />
There are those with whom I may learn in common but I find them unable to go along with me in principle. Perhaps we may go along together in principle but I find they are unable to become established with me on these. If we manage to become established in principle I find them unable to weigh occurring events along with me.<br />
I was taught to look at the world objectively. I studied the world like it was something quite apart from me, like it might be nothing more than pictures in a book. I thought I could disappear from the face of the earth and look at it undistorted, like God looking down from heaven. What rubbish!<br />
Growing up I was known as a big part of all the trouble in the world. My uncle warned me to stop doing the evil things I did. If I could have made him understand I might have told him the only way I knew to be part of the world was to be parcel to the misdeeds that were the foundations of everything. I knew such talk was blasphemous in his ears so I kept quiet and in continual trouble.<br />
I would have told him the only way to find out about the world is to care for it, to win its love and respect. The only way to learn about the world is to believe in it and to have it believe in me. The only way to learn about the world is to immerse myself in it and to let it immerse itself in me. The only way to know the world is to suffer its pain. That makes all the difference.<br />
A baby is one with the universe. Soon, though, a baby grows into two people. One is the world; one is the baby. One is the body; one is the soul. One is full of suffering; one is disinterested.<br />
I am like two people: one who feels at home and the other who wants to leave. The first person doesn’t show itself to others. It will never be any count and knows it. The other person loves to show off. It revels in pride. The first person never speaks. The second person never stops speaking. The first person is the mystery. This second person I know.<br />
I say I have a body and I have a soul. Why do I embrace the one and neglect the other? There is no telling them apart. By cleansing my soul of desire my body is without blemish. By discovering the face I wore before I was born I dream the original dream.<br />
I hold loyalty and sincerity as first principles. Having no friends unequal to me I am unafraid to drop my faults. I dislike none; I covet nothing. Should someone refuse my words of admonition they shun that which is valuable in the manner of changing their conduct. When they are displeased with my gentle advice I can do nothing for them.<br />
My uncle the priest worried about my soul. I wanted to tell him my soul was eternal and so it might be better to worry about this frail and mortal body. But I hadn’t the method to inform him of the mystery.<br />
By keeping compassion in my heart I am without cunning. By understanding the shadows from which I came I see the root from which experience springs forth. By quieting my thoughts I open myself to all things. By considering the gloom behind my eyes I do nothing and yet achieve everything.<br />
I take what I need and leave the rest. My load is light for I possess nothing. I let others take the credit so I can better lead without dominating. The wise are free from perplexities; the virtuous are free from anxieties; the bold are free from fear.<br />
This is the way of the universe.<br />
Dan Gloverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15452167300573196269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-815332158358090946.post-83817911919072032472013-02-09T18:48:00.001-08:002013-02-09T18:48:34.636-08:00AchievementThe world is full of achievement. Most people spend their lives seeking to attain success, wealth, and fame. These are all great things to be sure but they are not the highest achievement.<br />
Almost everyone lives their life alone though they are surrounded by the mass of humanity. Almost everyone has a secret they never share; they spend their life hoping no one guesses what it is. By living in pretense they deny themselves the truth of their achievement.<br />
The truth is that all their wealth and success are built upon a foundation of folly and futility. It may comfort them to hold these things dear but when death comes a-calling they will be willing to pay any price to have just one more day of life, nay, another hour, even a minute more. All those high and mighty achievements pale beside that one little thing that sneaks in through the back door when no one is looking.<br />
I never tell anyone that I know their secret. They think I don’t see how weak they are and how confused. I let them pretend they are big and strong; I let them imagine I am soft and feeble. If they think I am as mixed up as they are then they will leave me alone. If I smile just right they believe I am as unhappy as they are.<br />
One summer many years ago while crossing from Tennessee into Arkansas over the wide Mississippi in a place which had no bridge I marveled at the expertise of the ferryman. I asked him if such a skill could be learned. It can, he replied. Good swimmers learn quickly but a diver who has never seen a boat manages it at once. I thought perhaps he had misunderstood my question as he hadn’t answered me directly so I asked him what he meant.<br />
He said good swimmers since they forget the water and its dangers acquire the skill of sailing the boat quickly. As to those who are able to dive and having never seen a boat, they manage it at once. They look at the watery gulf as a hillside and the ups and downs of the boat as a ride in the country. Such happenings have occurred to them a multitude of times so they do not affect their minds. Wherever they go they feel at ease. <br />
I’ve been told I was a troublemaker as a child. My parents would send me to church so that I might there find salvation but instead of turning left at the fork in the road and achieving my goal I would somehow end up turning right to spend my Sunday mornings smoking cigarettes I bought with the money I’d been given for the collection plate while playing pool with the other miscreants at the pool hall.<br />
Of course word trickled back to my folks from my uncle the priest who missed my shining face sitting in the familiar pew. The following Sunday I would be driven by my scowling father and my mournful mother in the family automobile to the church steps with stern words of warning from my folks. But again, instead of turning left into the church I somehow got sidetracked into turning right invariably finding my way back to that smoky old pool room. <br />
My uncle came to our house one dire Saturday. He sat me down to talk to me, words of doom and how disaster would follow me the rest of my days lest I repent. He always said I would go to hell for my sins. But I figured when I got there my sins would no longer matter. I wanted to explain that to him but I knew he would never listen. So instead of learning to speak I learned not-speaking.<br />
I talk very little even when spoken to. I learned from my uncle that those who talk much know little. He always spoke of what he knew. Of what I know I cannot speak.<br />
By taking the world of troubles on his shoulders my uncle could never rest easy. The great problems of humanity weighted him down with baggage he couldn’t seem to shed. By masking my knowledge I simplify my problems.<br />
I once observed a contest of skill between several groups of pool players. In the first contest the prize was but a shiny ribbon worth very little. I noticed how the players were able to put forth all their skill. The second contest was for a large trophy with the winner’s name emblazoned upon it for all to see. I witnessed how the players shot timorously. The final contest was for a golden medal. I noted how the players shot as if they were blind.<br />
So I shield my senses from bright objects of desire and temper the need to possess them. I am at one with the choking dust, with the swirling water, with the temptation of fire, with the high hard sky, and with the wind that speaks my name. This is called original union.<br />
I am unconcerned with friends and with enemies. Though I walk alone I am surrounded with virtue. I am unconcerned with good and harm, with honor and disgrace. Though I am full of dishonor and hold my disgrace as a natural part of myself I am as innocent as a newly born baby.<br />
This is called the highest achievement.<br />
Dan Gloverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15452167300573196269noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-815332158358090946.post-49938303547234507232013-02-01T21:12:00.001-08:002013-02-01T21:12:58.137-08:00The ExecutionerI’ve worked many jobs never becoming proficient at any of them. In time the ax would always fall. While living in the north woods and unable to find any other work I hired on to cut trees and clear brush on hillsides in Canada.<br />
I needed the job but I hadn’t reckoned on the sacrifice it demanded of me, of my family. I naïvely believed I could leave my young wife safely behind while I made like Paul Bunyan and cut down tall trees in a land far from home.<br />
I made a bit of money but when I got back home there was no one to share it with. While I was away the executioner had paid a visit claiming a prize too horrible for my mind to consider.<br />
Our world is built on a foundation of mythology. In our superior times and our wondrous age we overlook that even the names we use to denote the passing of the days are remnants of the old gods who once ruled our desires and terrorized our nights; we forego the customs but we still perform the rituals. <br />
The old gods demanded sacrifice. At first simple prayers were enough to pacify them if accompanied by a gift of grain or a spot of wine. In time those sacrifices became more complex with a whole class of priests sprouting up to act as official executioners, splitting open the chests of willing victims offering up to the gods the blood of still-beating hearts torn from the torso of the sacrificed.<br />
The ritual of sacrifice became connected to the good resulting from it and on a par with natural law and moral behavior. In time the ritual of sacrifice came to mean religious merit so the performance of certain virtuous conduct would automatically lead to a better existence: to a secure life, wealth, and family. Ritual became the bonds which held a society together. When the priest came to be viewed as the executioner magic disappeared from the world.<br />
When magic disappeared virtue and righteousness followed. By establishing their way as the only way, by becoming overpowering and overawing, the executioner pursued people even to their deaths. Yet life is what most people desire; death is what they dread. By shunning the execution I welcome the season of my death even as I relish this flavor of life.<br />
Her ghost comes to me often even now, decades after her death. Our son stands with her. They are holding hands while standing in a green field dotted with summer flowers; he died a newborn but in my dreams he is a handsome man fully grown who in his looks takes more after his mother, although I see he has my eyes. I desire to linger there with them however I realize my place is here in the world; it gladdens my heart to know they wait.<br />
Knowing their spirits watch over me I act respectfully even when I am deep in the mountains many miles and days away from other human beings. By being reverent and sincere I maintain harmony with the world. By offering my desires as a sacrifice I enrich the heaven of memories that flow at times unforeseen. <br />
I had no money to buy a casket in which to bury them. Though I tried borrowing no one would loan me even so much as a dollar so I built a coffin myself out of scraps of lumber stacked in the attic of our garage. It was exacting work, the kind I had never before attempted; since I hated the doing it required all my skill. Each cut was an epiphany; as each nail sank into the uncaring lumber I felt a scream form deep within my soul. The salt from my eyes stained the wood. Though I tried to wipe away the tracks of my tears I am confident their marks yet remain.<br />
As my young wife and our unborn son lay sleeping the slumber of death in that horrid plywood coffin I remember how I thought of my brother, of how he and his lover gave up their baby for adoption rather than marrying and raising a family together. They said how they weren’t ready to give up the life they had to raise a child. I wondered why some are blessed and yet turn away the proffered gift while others yearn for that same blessing and yet are denied. <br />
Still, to offer oneself up for sacrifice is not to be taken lightly. When people identify with the son of heaven and not with heaven itself they fall back to the ways of the jungle whereby everyone approve of their own views and disapprove of the ways of others. Mutual disapproval arises resulting in the disorder of the world.<br />
I thought of my uncle who being a priest had sacrificed any happiness he might have found in the warm arms of a woman and the shining eyes of a child. I questioned if the ache of my loss was equal to the wondrous feelings I experienced during the short time together with my family; upon reflection I knew I would have never forsaken the wonder of the love I felt for my wife and child even while knowing it would end as it did.<br />
By returning to the mystery I witness once again the magic that creates the world. Though I will always carry the guilt by understanding the sacrifice as ritual I am absolved of my sins. By recognizing the executioner I leave him to his own devices as I hold close to the center. By using my death as a guide I forego the fear and revel in life.<br />
In times past I understand the executioner dressed in a black cloak in reference to thoughts dark and unseen; he was shunned by others except during the ritual. Over the years customs have changed but the executioner is still avoided six days a week; instead of dressing all in black he now wears a white collar; the only time people come to see him is on the day of the Lord when fear drives them to his house of sinners and the cross holding a god of unrepentant pain.<br />
However fine the viands may be if a person does not partake of them they will never know the taste; however perfect the lesson may be if a person does not learn it they will never know its goodness. When I learn I come to understand the paucity of my knowing; when I teach I realize the difficulty in learning. After I know my deficiencies I am able to examine myself; after I know the difficulties I am able to better stimulate my efforts. Teaching is half of the learning.<br />
Most teachers today speak of how rapidly their students are advancing paying little regard to what they acquire. Their lessons lack sincerity; neither do they put forth all their effort into teaching them. What they inculcate is contrary to what is right and their students are disappointed in what they find. They may seem to finish their work but how quickly they give up their lessons.<br />
The executioner knows all too well that prohibition from evil after it has manifested meets with opposition; instruction given after the time for it has passed is done with toil and difficulty; the teaching of lessons indiscriminately and without suitability produces disorder. Understanding the nature of proper instruction makes for both a good teacher and an excellent executioner. <br />
So it is I know that even today there is always an official executioner. If I try to take the place of the teacher it would be like trying to cut plywood like a master plumber. If I try building a coffin like a master plumber I will only hurt my hand.<br />
I know someday death will reach out to tap me on my shoulder but I am untroubled. By being a reflection of the mystery I hold both life and death dear in my heart yet neither find anywhere to enter. The mystery comes before the first breath of life and it remains when death has stolen the last gasp away.<br />
Who in the world does not fear death? Those who are not afraid to die do not fear death; in fact they welcome it. For those who do not fear death it is no use in threatening them with the executioner. But for those who fear death, if breaking the law means they will be executed, who will dare break the law?<br />
Dan Gloverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15452167300573196269noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-815332158358090946.post-6093334817058422102013-01-26T18:29:00.000-08:002013-01-26T18:31:28.755-08:00Strength<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2QyWLUbXbUu7UVT2AZD81FIsrfHYtZEyHtacXtrNxFT4gajl0jCoe2Qj7NwVFbOd8xo0YRg1U2WWwmQc2yLpALWvWQwKUooTYGMjBXlusheF3hh-v6aObhdUEt_MnrGdE98SPNiB2_oc/s1600/pictures7.1.12+048.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="240" width="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2QyWLUbXbUu7UVT2AZD81FIsrfHYtZEyHtacXtrNxFT4gajl0jCoe2Qj7NwVFbOd8xo0YRg1U2WWwmQc2yLpALWvWQwKUooTYGMjBXlusheF3hh-v6aObhdUEt_MnrGdE98SPNiB2_oc/s320/pictures7.1.12+048.jpg" /></a></div>People look down on me and pretend that I don’t know that they do it. I can never talk to them, not really; I can never say anything to them about things of importance, things like the nature of good and evil; how these things we take for granted are merely imposters for the reality we can never know. If I make an attempt to tell anyone these things a look of befuddlement crosses their face; I know I have made a mistake.<br />
Sadness and pleasure are symptomatic of my depraved nature; joy and anger cause me to go off course; love and hatred are a failing of my virtue. So it is that I find being free of joy and sorrow is achieving excellence; focusing my unchanging mind absolves me of the desires of pleasure and anger; to be conscious of no opposition allows love and hate to fall away. I find simplicity where there is no mingling of thought. I find the strength of purity where my spirit is unimpaired. When I take no action I engage in a constant manifestation of spontaneity. <br />
By leaving the middle way and following the promptings of my mind I forsake my nature by invalidating the simplicity of my spirit and letting go of the essence of resting quietly in the world. By continually adding to my knowledge I grow perplexed and disordered in all things as my problems become increasingly more numerous until my mind drowns in multiplicity. By being still, by waiting patiently, by acting without any trace I rectify myself bringing my strength back to center.<br />
My uncle was a priest; he spoke to everyone as though he knew all about good and evil. At the funeral people pretended they liked him but they talked about him behind my back, just loudly enough that I could hear. They said how the fire had sent him to hell. I remember being embarrassed for my uncle but neither did I speak up in his defense. In those days I always seemed outnumbered. I hadn’t the strength to oppose them.<br />
Throughout my young life my uncle made a special point of telling me that I would go to hell for my sins. He had an enormous portrait in his office on the wall behind his desk of a man crossing a river in a boat that seemed to be sailing toward an island, only it wasn’t a man and it wasn’t a real river. The boat was full of shadowy souls on their way to hell; the boatman was a wraith enshrouded in hate, the river was full of flames that didn’t consume what they burned; they just blazed on and on, an eternal torment. <br />
Being a priest my uncle had no children of his own. My mother explained how her brother had sacrificed such worldly things such as a wife and a family for his love of God. I remember him as being much older than my mother but as a boy anyone older than forty seemed as ancient as Methuselah to me.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGM0-kmBEUpIx__fcg5B4M8DRpMaDP8XFDqNT8UXf6dDdP5dsvY8-nnlkDSL2QWHL0N0Ux1E6z4K68b_7_R2-UwYDOErdN9Didk90u4VZmh7Nm23qRZpGIS7kb5eAELBXKIZYLGnjccUI/s1600/thel1st_the-river-styx.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="164" width="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGM0-kmBEUpIx__fcg5B4M8DRpMaDP8XFDqNT8UXf6dDdP5dsvY8-nnlkDSL2QWHL0N0Ux1E6z4K68b_7_R2-UwYDOErdN9Didk90u4VZmh7Nm23qRZpGIS7kb5eAELBXKIZYLGnjccUI/s320/thel1st_the-river-styx.png" /></a></div><br />
<br />
I remember how he called me into that office one day after my mother informed her older brother of another of my endless parade of transgressions. He sat like a black mountain in a huge leather-bound chair behind his desk sternly lecturing me on the virtues of goodness. Sitting there on my hard wooden stool feeling small and the strength of God descending upon me all I wanted to do was to stare at the portrait that framed my uncle’s face. My eyes kept straying to it until I was chastised for not paying sufficient attention to his admonitions. <br />
The portrait burned up along with my uncle and that old church of his when it caught on fire one cold January day; I remember how my mother had insisted on making me go with her to church that day. I thought it was a day like any other.<br />
When we got close to the church we found the road was blocked by a fire truck. People were standing everywhere, watching. My mother parked and we got out of the car so we could see what had happened too. I saw flames pouring from the church windows; I saw how the firefighters drenched in sweat all had icicles hanging from their mustaches and eye brows; the people watching the fire watched in silence as if they feared drawing the boatman’s wrath as he swirled into the air in a haze of wrath and hate, smoke and soot. <br />
I wondered for a long time if it was the portrait itself that caused the fire. I was young yet and impressionable. One day I recall how I had entered my uncle’s office alone. Standing before it I remember how detailed the picture was and how the deeper I gazed into it the more alive that portrait became. I thought how the flaming river might well have crept into the wall upon which it hung. <br />
As a child I was of the habit of going to the church alone, knowing the doors were always unlocked. Rummaging through the dungeon that served as a basement I discovered a gang of gargoyles lurking in the darkness. Though hideous to behold I couldn’t take my eyes from them. They were grimed in dust and spidered in cobwebs as if hidden there centuries ago, held against their will until the day someone like me came along to set them free. As I stood there watching the church burn I wondered if the gargoyles would survive. I knew my uncle would not.<br />
I remember how the policemen standing nearby had to hold my mother to keep her from bolting with all her strength into that church to save her brother. Later she cried for him, endless rivers of tears that seemed to belie the distance I always sensed between them; I missed my uncle too and wept for him along with my mother but I was not unhappy when that portrait had turned back into the ash from which it sprang.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilp05wE6SfOhJDbYZYc0UtnGtwkgapGTdEiDMcHMjOsPmlta9LtrbDKWmpbt_IhIJt15KTyXL-pKI7ttiwDMYptd_cfv3Vh0OtNUpmWaohkB-nxZcrIbMbvnAdaH_G2RpiQSYUBmWYhxI/s1600/pictures7.1.12+073.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="240" width="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilp05wE6SfOhJDbYZYc0UtnGtwkgapGTdEiDMcHMjOsPmlta9LtrbDKWmpbt_IhIJt15KTyXL-pKI7ttiwDMYptd_cfv3Vh0OtNUpmWaohkB-nxZcrIbMbvnAdaH_G2RpiQSYUBmWYhxI/s320/pictures7.1.12+073.jpg" /></a></div>Months later when springtime arrived and the robins were singing in the treetops I ventured into the charred ruins of what had been my uncle’s church finding my way to the dungeon where the gargoyles slept. They were cracked by the heat of the fire; most of them were broken into many pieces. I gathered up two of the unbroken ones and although I had no idea why I wanted them I carried them home, wrapping them in cloth and hiding them in the attic where I kept my other treasures. Many decades later, though I have lost all my friends, nearly all my family, and every one of my lovers, those gargoyles have followed me across the years like demented angels panting at my door waiting to come in.<br />
My uncle was a leader of men; through guiding the shadowy souls in the boat by his force of wisdom he made sure his congregation sought out the isle of heaven instead of landing in the smoldering pit of hell. He couldn’t save himself. Being a master of myself I go beyond heaven and hell to seek out the mystery.<br />
To be a leader of others requires the force of wisdom. To master myself requires the strength of enlightenment. Trembling and in solitude I remain where I am, seeking the restoration of my true nature. Nothing more is needed for my enjoyment.<br />
When I know I have enough I am rich. By staying where I am I endure. By persevering I cultivate my willpower.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSfQ1NJ7OYdjWs2_dkJNOa_6TNlnmaAbzc9yJNGyJ2A4aBavbwWoLVY8RSlcDZ9zfdzKmehg1d6jR6k6FTEJsn7sjZfgI_Ax5PgXao4CL-47kxegtrUAY5xfnGYiV8qGsZniLSnUA143g/s1600/the+mystery+11.5.12.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="320" width="205" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSfQ1NJ7OYdjWs2_dkJNOa_6TNlnmaAbzc9yJNGyJ2A4aBavbwWoLVY8RSlcDZ9zfdzKmehg1d6jR6k6FTEJsn7sjZfgI_Ax5PgXao4CL-47kxegtrUAY5xfnGYiV8qGsZniLSnUA143g/s320/the+mystery+11.5.12.jpg" /></a></div><br />
By being eternally present I die and yet I do not perish. <br />
Dan Gloverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15452167300573196269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-815332158358090946.post-72220266320091347702013-01-18T21:41:00.000-08:002013-01-27T14:17:15.587-08:00FailingMy love affair began decades ago. Though born and raised in the flatlands of the Midwest I’d been drawn to the Rocky Mountains ever since I learned of their existence. When I was still a boy leaving my home and family behind I journeyed deep into forested peaks not knowing what I would find.<br />
I discovered love. I walked on uncharted paths. I worshiped the high places. I adored the low valleys. When I came home from my travels I found adulation in the eyes of those to whom I told my stories. I inspired others by my tales of mad adventures. <br />
To my horror they sought out the unknown even though I told them they were not ready for what they would find there. Most of them died in the wilderness failing to perceive their danger until too late. Some of them returned to curse me for not having warned them more strenuously. A very few of them looked at me and nodded.<br />
Like the mountains I thought love was unbreakable. I thought love was something apart from me; I thought I fell into love, like it was there waiting for me. Because I did not understand the nature of the universe I failed to understand the nature of love.<br />
The universe is relative and subjective. What do I mean when I say the universe is relative and subjective? I mean that all time and space are relative to the observer of that particular time and space. By failing to see the universe is relative and subjective I see the universe starting with objects, not with the perception of them. <br />
I fail to fathom the mystery.<br />
By offering the mystery I bring others back to what they have lost. Living in obscurity I am manifest. By taking care with small things I overcome calamity. My generous largeness cannot be kept in obscurity. My courtesy keeps shame at bay. By knowing the mystery I set order to confusion before it happens. In this way trouble is overcome before it starts. <br />
By my gravity and reverence I become stronger every day; by indifference and want of restraint deterioration sets in. Since I never know when my death will find me I cannot afford to allow myself any irregularity even for one day lest I die in dishonor. Those without honor are familiar and insolent. By being so they may bring death upon themselves yet they give it no thought.<br />
There is a perfect path, the righteous path, and the calculated path. Those who see the perfect path naturally and easily own it; the wise practice righteousness for the advantage which it brings; those who fear being found guilty of transgression practice it by constraint.<br />
Humanity is like a heavy vessel and a long road. If I try to lift the vessel I cannot sustain its weight; should I try to travel the road I fail to accomplish the distance. There is nothing that has so many different degrees as humanity; should I nerve myself to it I find it a difficult task. If I measure humanity with the scale of righteousness I find it difficult to discover what I seek. When I look at people and compare them with one another I know who among them are more worthy.<br />
By never giving up the way, by forgetting the winter of my age and taking no thought that the years ahead will be insufficient to the task, by urging myself on with earnestness from day to day, I only give up when I sink into death.<br />
These days in speaking I reflect on what might be the end of my words and examine whether there may not be some error in my conduct. By being circumspect in all I say while keeping reverence in my heart I am unstained in my ways.<br />
When I have doubts and perplexities I lead others astray. By not discharging my duties others in my purview groan beneath their load. By dealing reverently with infliction of punishment I spread my lessons wide. By taking care I set examples for others and so I am treated with respect. I do not consult with others before acting. In this fashion I never by little counsels fail at great enterprises.<br />
If I act I defeat my own purpose. If I grasp I am lost already. By not acting I am never defeated. The small is easily scattered; by not grasping I never lose it. The brittle is easily shattered; by not holding on too tightly I never break it. I do not cling to ideas; in this way new ideas continually arise.<br />
This is the way of the mystery.<br />
A great tree wider than my embrace begins as a tiny seed. A skyscraper a quarter mile high begins with a pile of dirt. A journey of ten thousand miles begins by taking a single step outside my door.<br />
Once while walking deep in the mountains I suffered a broken ankle by taking a fall on a slippery rock. Alone and in pain I struggled mightily expending my strength when I should have been conserving it. Just when I felt my will ebbing away like a spring drying up I saw the buzzards circling above where I lay waiting to feast on my rotting body. Without understanding it I spotted something red flickering through the trees. It was my truck. I had made it back to camp without realizing it.<br />
People usually fail right when they stand on the edge of success. So now I take as much care at the end of my journey as at the beginning; in this way I never fail. I seek freedom from desire so I do not collect precious things.<br />
By knowing the mystery peace is easily maintained. By allowing everything to find its own nature I practice non-action.<br />
Dan Gloverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15452167300573196269noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-815332158358090946.post-13145132417105074492013-01-11T20:33:00.000-08:002013-01-11T20:33:16.985-08:00The Space BetweenWhen everything gets to be too much I run away; I am a coward; I cannot face my demons head-on. Instead I seek out the space between the desires that drive my life and the mystery that is the foundation of experience. Each time I find myself overwhelmed by the world I seem to find my way into the mountains where the air is hard to breathe and my dreams are surreal; they are filled with a potency they lack in the lowlands. <br />
Deep in the mountains day breaks very early. Everything is quiet. A late January dawn comes stepping so quietly over the mountains that they are barely visible above the nascent pines. I don’t quite know what it is that wakes me... the chill of the air, perhaps, or the crack of stone falling from on high. <br />
Or maybe it is the mystery.<br />
I crawl from my bedroll intending to kindle a fire to brew coffee but first I stop. I stand without thought drinking in the morning. The breeze rattling through the trees is speaking in tongues. Though I listen long I cannot decipher its message. The wind has no interest in me. It does not care if I am here or not here. The days are constantly being reborn without any help from me.<br />
I am alone. I have walked four days to reach this spot; I have not seen anyone else during my journey. Hunting season is over so like every year at this time the forest seems abandoned. I know I have never been so far away from another human being. If only I could I would go even farther until no one remembered my name or that I ever existed at all. I would dream a dream of myself and know I was dreaming.<br />
I would become as disinterested as the mystery.<br />
The mystery that comes before experience is like the crack of dawn deep in the mountains; it is disinterested. It sees these things that I name as that which arises, flourishes a short while, and then all is destroyed. In this way experience is constantly renewed and yet it is never exhausted.<br />
I’ve known countless people in my life. Each has left an indelible mark upon me. Some of these people were takers who would never think of giving; others were givers who never thought of taking; a few neither gave nor took. Were I more like the mystery I would inhabit the space between this giving and that taking. <br />
By attempting to injure others I am injured in return. By trying to please others I am merely adding fire to fire and water to water. There is no end to these signs of deferral. By entering the space between these two I bend to no one and yet I accept the world in all its suffering. I have heard of knowledge of the wise. I have not-heard of knowledge of the unwise.<br />
In all manner of human discourse there are two cautionary considerations: one is what is naturally right while the other is the conviction of what is right. A child discovers duty in the love of the parent; a follower finds their obligation in serving the leader. When the child and the follower, the parent and the leader, do what they cannot but do virtue enters in the space between these two.<br />
In all things this is so; people are at first sincere but always end by becoming rude. In the beginning things are treated as trivial but as the end nears these matters assume great proportions. Hasty vengeful thoughts arise and no one knows why. By keeping a reference to unavoidable obligations the mind finds enjoyment in the circumstance of position. The best thing is to be ready to sacrifice oneself; this is the most difficult of my teachings and the most far-reaching.<br />
I am disinterested. I witness people being born, flourishing a short while, and then passing back to the mystery from which we all both move away from and back toward. In this way this gathering of lovers is constantly renewed and yet it is never wearied.<br />
As I walk the rocky paths high in the mountains I recall a time when I held onto hope even when everything seemed hopeless. I could think of no reason to expect anything better so I quit expecting anything. I took a breath and then another. In my defeat I found victory. In my every victory I am defeated.<br />
The space between that which I name and the mystery of the nameless is a breath, nothing more; it is merely an inhalation followed by the exhalation, a heart skipping a beat, the whispering grass under the rustling serpent meandering through the weeds. <br />
The shapes of these things change but their forms remain. If this were not so I would wander like a new-born baby full of wonder and empty of regret.<br />
Long speeches weary the listeners. By keeping to the center I avoid the extremes. <br />
This is the way of the universe.<br />
Dan Gloverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15452167300573196269noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-815332158358090946.post-1387213997408049252013-01-04T20:54:00.002-08:002013-01-04T20:54:57.068-08:00Knowing MyselfThere is always someone trying to make me feel inferior by offering ways for me to improve. Of course they do this without any expense to themselves. I call it ego-climbing but there is plenty of just plain meanness involved too.<br />
I suppose they are mad about something though I can never be sure of what. I have heard it said that there are places in the world where living in poverty still offers a sense of dignity. But I have learned living here if you are poor, you are just poor. If you are rich you are somebody. If you are poor you are nobody. <br />
At one time I found myself down and out, no food in my belly and no place to lay my head. I saw a fine house up ahead of me and thinking surely these people could spare a bite and a bed in exchange for a bit of work I knocked upon the door. No one answered and so I knocked again. An angry man answered telling me while pointing a shot gun in my face to be on my way before he called the police to have me arrested for vagrancy and trespassing.<br />
I wandered on. The night grew darker and the threat of rain became real. I saw a tiny shack hidden in the weeds with one dim light filtering through a filthy windowpane. I knew these people would have nothing to spare but in my misery I hoped perhaps they might let me spend the night under the overhang that served them as a porch and so keep out of the coming storm.<br />
Before I could knock the door opened. A ragged man stood there. He seemed happy to see me, as if he’d been expecting someone but couldn’t be sure who and now that I had arrived he was glad to see it was me. He invited me in and fed me a meal of fine soup and freshly baked bread. When I went to roll out my bedroll on the floor he provided me with an air mattress to make it all the more comfortable.<br />
In the morning he fed me a good breakfast of pancakes and real maple syrup he was proud to say he had collected and boiled down himself. Afterwards he gave me a ride out to the Interstate highway in an old rickety pickup truck with bald tires and a loud muffler. Before we parted he pressed a five dollar bill into my hand saying that I had more need of it than he.<br />
I never saw that man again but I hold his kindness in my heart.<br />
I sit quietly to empty myself of all thought. My mind becomes still as a pond reflecting the sky. Like the quiet mountain meadow watching the coming and going of days I watch as these thoughts arise, flourish, and pass away and then return once more. They grow and flourish and return to the source. <br />
I ply the depths of the water and emerge intact; I walk over hot coals without burns; I climb the highest of heights without fear. How do I attain this state? It is not to be described as skill or daring; by maintaining perfect breath I am without form and so beyond the capability of being transformed. I lie concealed in the clue which has no end and so nothing can injure me. <br />
Returning to the source of experience is stillness. This is not the way of knowledge but of insight. The source of experience is the unchanging mystery. Understanding its constancy is insight. Not realizing its constancy will lead to disaster.<br />
By opening my mind my heart is opened as well. With an open heart I act royally. By being royal I obtain the divine. By being divine I am at one with the mystery. Being one with the mystery is eternal. For though my body will one day die, the mystery will never pass away.<br />
Dan Gloverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15452167300573196269noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-815332158358090946.post-57698304854471228992012-12-28T20:17:00.000-08:002012-12-28T20:17:22.994-08:00Growing OldFriends of mine live on a farm not far from my home. They enjoy growing their own food so they know it is without pesticides and the land is kept free of harsh fertilizers. My friends spend their days deep in meditation even while working their fields. <br />
I visit these friends as often as I might. Unlike most people I know they rarely speak even when spoken to; instead they nod their heads and smile as if they already know of which I speak. And of course they do.<br />
In my youth I recall how there were a number of acres of bottom land on the farm, full of rich soil and blessed with abundant sunshine all day long, but it had a tendency to flood when the rain came. A creek running through the valley invariably overflowed allowing the water to collect in stagnant pools drowning any crops that had been planted. After losing their harvest several years in a row my friends thought it best to simply let the land lay fallow.<br />
One sunny afternoon I took a walk through the hollow. I liked walking alone there. My friends seemed to sense this and so often left me to myself. Seeing hundreds of stones embedded in the creek bank I wondered if any of them contained fossils. I managed to dislodge several of them but they were merely round rocks devoid of any vestige of former life. By chance one of the stones rolled down into the creek; though it didn’t stop the water from flowing it triggered an idea. <br />
Going into the forest I found a stout branch that I broke off a fallen tree. Coming back to the creek and using it as a pole I began dislodging and rolling more rocks into the creek one by one. Gradually as the day progressed into night I built up a small dam. <br />
The following day when I came back to the creek I saw that a small pool water had begun to form behind the rocks. The water flowing over the rocks seemed to sing sweet melodies to me as I added more stones to the heap.<br />
Stopping to wipe the sweat from my eyes and looking up from my labors I noticed one of my friends helping me stack the stones. I hadn’t seen him arrive nor had he announced himself. He must have seen me working and rather than asking me what I was doing he just started to assist me in my endeavor. <br />
The next day when I arrived there were six people there before me, all of them toiling happily in the early morning sunshine as they worked silently at wedging stones from the ground and rolling them into place on the top and sides of the ever-growing dam. <br />
The pool of water behind the pile of rocks had by now become a small pond. I had never before built a dam. I silently wondered how much force the mass of water would produce as it gathered behind the stones. But my friends seemed to have anticipated that eventuality as the higher the dam became they built it three times wider.<br />
Now I have grown old. Fifty years later when I visit that farm my friends feed me fresh fish they have caught in what used to be useless bottom land. Only the elders recall a time when there was no lake. The younger ones speak seldom even when spoke to. When they gather around the campfire at night I tell them that the lake began with a single stone; they smile and nod their heads as if they already know of that which I speak. And of course they do.<br />
My friends have no tractors on their farm. They have no machinery of any kind. When they are thirsty they pull their water from a hand-dug well. When they are cold in winter they chop wood to burn in their stove. When they harvest their food they do it all by hand. The food is plain and filling. Their clothes are well mended; their home is secure.<br />
My friends never travel far. They take death seriously and use it to guide their lives. They have an old truck but it is kept in a garage; they never use it. They have canoes but they are stored in the barn loft. They have weapons but they keep them hidden away. <br />
There is no television there, no Internet. They have no phones. There are no electric wires there to run any of it anyway. They light the wicks of their oil lamps at night. They have no books, only scrolls from the old days. They are happy to live their lives in this manner.<br />
The neighbors are within sight of my friends’ farm and from time to time while visiting I will hear their dogs barking and cocks crowing. But they leave each other in peace while they grow old and die.<br />
Dan Gloverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15452167300573196269noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-815332158358090946.post-44567289307545253972012-12-21T20:11:00.000-08:002012-12-21T20:11:11.482-08:00AvoidanceI sit here alone in an empty house made for a family. It creaks and moans its displeasure so I keep music playing to pacify its incontinent mood. My loved ones have vanished; some have scattered to the four winds; others lie sleeping beneath the good earth. I sit here typing away night after night these words few people will ever understand, not caring whether anyone reads them or not. <br />
When I sit here too long my legs begin to ache so on murky summer nights I arise to go out walking deserted streets past homes with windows featuring flickering television shows lighting up the darkness; I walk the walk of a forsaken man circling back on himself. People drive past me in shiny new cars. I wave and they wave back. But I don’t know these people. They are but slumbering phantoms floating through a life of desire while I am awake to harsh realities that sharpen my senses and deaden my yearnings.<br />
I have heard it said that the world is made of suffering. It isn’t the kind of suffering one will notice right away; rather it is insidious in its relentlessness. Suffering is a tiny thorn wedged in the sole of my shoe. It doesn’t really hurt, not enough I should sit down to remove my shoe to pluck out the thorn. Still, it irritates each step I take until I can think of nothing else.<br />
Though I seek to avoid suffering it has a way of finding me anyway. I make careful plans but before they can come to fruition my hopes are dashed on the rocks of how things really are.<br />
I notice there is a limit to life but there seems no limit to knowledge. By pursuing what is unlimited with what is limited I put myself in peril; knowing this and still doing it I am sure to find danger. Rather than doing good in order to discover fame or shunning evil to avoid punishment I do what is natural to preserve my health.<br />
There was a time when I journeyed deep into the mountains to forget myself and my troubles. All I found there turned out to be me, however, and my troubles followed along. There was a time when I attended month-long Buddhist retreats in an effort to discover my true nature. All I found, though, was me. There was a time when I read many books to gain the knowledge of others. All I found was a singular knowledge of me. I burned the books page by page to keep warm on snowy mountain nights.<br />
Tired of the cold and privation I left the mountains behind. Coming home I discovered my dwelling vacant, my lover gone, my children grown. The chill of the high plateau had followed me home unseen; the loneliness I found on the rocky peaks seeped into my bones to become my nature.<br />
Sitting here in the middle of all these shiny baubles I am a cheated man in the midst of plenty. I am a presumptuous pretender in the heart of knowing. I am a misfit in the center of conformance. Since I cannot alter the world I am myself and the world changes with me. <br />
Complete enjoyment is found in attainment of one’s aim. This doesn’t mean accumulating wealth and fame; it simply means nothing more is needed for one’s contentment. These days most people desire riches and fame; if these things come they cannot be stopped and their going cannot be obstructed. Therefore it is best neither to indulge in the aim of these things nor to resort to vulgar acts to gain them. <br />
If the departure of what is transient nullifies one’s enjoyment this merely shows what enjoyment they afforded was worthless. Those who lose themselves in the pursuit of their desires and put aside their true nature to the study of learning and thinking are people who have turned themselves upside down.<br />
I avoid the desire to make a show of my knowledge; people seeing my simple lifestyle say they want to be more like me. They don’t understand. They can only be what they are. They are not ready to be like I am. So whenever someone asks my secret I simply shake my head as I walk away without a word. <br />
When I stand upon my tiptoes seeking to grab that which is beyond my reach I am unsteady. When I walk with great strides I cannot maintain the pace. When I make a show of my knowledge I am not enlightened. In my self-righteousness I find no respect. My boasts achieve nothing. My bragging only serves to bring me down.<br />
These are extra provisions and needless baggage. They never bring me happiness. Therefore I avoid them.<br />
Dan Gloverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15452167300573196269noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-815332158358090946.post-50531851794143564262012-12-14T21:04:00.001-08:002012-12-14T21:04:41.506-08:00Accepting DisgraceWhen I first moved to this town on a sweet summer day now long forgotten a well-meaning neighbor knocked on my door. When I answered it she asked if I would be interested in attending the weekly bible study at the local community center. I told her no as I shut the door in her face. She has never spoken to me since.<br />
These days I do not belong to any formal school of study. The priest at the church where I do the building maintenance wondered if I was a practicing Catholic. I didn’t see as if it was any of his business so I acted as if I didn’t hear his question as I went about my duties. He walked away. I could feel his sorrow radiating to heaven at not having saved my soul.<br />
If I had the words I would have told him that of all causes of sorrow there are none as great as the death of the mind; the death of the body is next. People make small changes but they do not lose that which is natural to them. If I were to disgrace my freedom to settle on the smallness of one thought that would be a true cause for sorrow, not the fact that I ignored such an invitation.<br />
If I had the words I would have told him that when I walk I do not know where it is I am going; when I stop to rest I do not know what to occupy myself with; when I eat I do not know the taste of the food; all this is accomplished by the influence of heaven and earth, not by my actions. <br />
There was a time when I thought I might like to learn to quiet my mind, to still these rampant thoughts cascading one after the other in an endless stream of nonsense and bickering like marauding baboons chasing one another through the forests of my intellect. But when I tried to sit quietly in the way the books that I read suggested the chatter in my head grew ever louder until in desperation I gave up.<br />
During the summer of my thirtieth year not knowing any better I attended a retreat at a Buddhist monastery. It was a sparse place under a high mountain that seemed to glower down on me. I felt like a white person sitting at an Indian pow wow, out of place and in foreign company. I didn’t understand their ceremonies full of meaning for them and yet bereft of significance for me. <br />
Their beds were low to the ground which made rising at four o’clock in the morning even more of a chore. The food consisted of a tiny bowl of rice and a cup of weak tea which made my belly rumble. The mat on which I sat was stiff without any give to it which made my ass ache. No one was allowed to say a word to anyone else but for the head monk.<br />
He took me aside one day to sit beside him in his chamber. The head monk wondered if I had any questions. I shook my head no. I didn’t. He said I should sit until questions arose but the longer I remained silent the greater the knowing became. The wind spoke my name; the trees sighed in unison, the mountain continued to glower.<br />
Finally the retreat was over. All the other participants seemed happy to be able to talk amongst themselves once more. Their chatter erupted like the singing of birds welcoming the new day. <br />
I sat apart, alone and silent. The words would not begin again. <br />
He saw me sitting there. He waved at me with a movement of his chin to follow him into his chamber. The head monk said I should accept disgrace willingly. He said I should accept misfortune as a way of life. I thought he must be talking to someone else, not to me. I had always been taught to hold my head high at my position in society and to look on the bright side of life. His words could not have shocked me more had he hit me over the shoulders with his keisaku stick. <br />
I was no longer sure of myself. <br />
I crept off like a wounded animal. As I drove home I sought solace in the stillness of meditation. As my thoughts began to quiet I realized I was as unimportant in the madness of the universe swirling around me as a single grain of sand on an endless beach buffeted by the waves of infinity. And since I was unimportant I no longer found myself concerned with loss and gain.<br />
As my thoughts became as nothing so did my body. I was a mote. I was the nothingness that overcame me. I knew viscerally that without my thoughts or my body I had no misfortune.<br />
When I got home I accepted disgrace as I surrendered myself to the universe. <br />
Dan Gloverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15452167300573196269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-815332158358090946.post-6361421164636734582012-12-08T21:43:00.000-08:002012-12-08T21:43:01.818-08:00Magnify the SmallMy great grandmother was a very old woman when we planted the apple tree. She softly sang a song filled with harmony while we worked, with the movement of her hands instructing me how deep and wide to dig the hole. I sometimes dream of the music but when I wake the melody has faded. The apple tree was but a sapling, a broken branch she had rooted in water. I remember how she gleefully rubbed her hands together after we planted it telling me with a twinkle in her eyes how good the apples would taste.<br />
I remember it was late in the fall so she said we had to take care of the little tree; she showed me how to pack mulch around its tiny base after instructing me to drive a stake into the ground beside it so as to tie it lest the snows of winter break it off before it had time to strengthen itself against the rages of the world.<br />
Though I was just a young boy I was old enough to know she would never live long enough to collect a harvest from that tree. Still, all things start small. The taste of the fruit is magnified with the years. This is what I have learned my great grandmother in her wisdom was attempting to share with me.<br />
I remember how she always gave me a big glass bottle of soda pop—they didn’t have cans or plastic in those days—and how she got a stomach ache one day and it didn’t go away. When the family made her go to the hospital the doctor told her she only had a couple weeks to live; the cancer eating her from the inside was late stage; all they could do was to make her comfortable. The last thing she said to me before leaving the house for the final time was to take care of that apple tree. I promised her I would; it was one promise out of ten thousand I kept.<br />
Writing is like planting trees. Starting with but an acorn a splendid oak unfurls its twisting boughs to the universe. Starting with but a single thought a magnificent book weaves its web of characters to the reader.<br />
As a writer I tend to discount what a reader says about my creative work. It isn’t that I don’t appreciate the readers of my work; I do! It just seems to me that a reader subordinates their own creativity; unless they are an author as well they will never understand what it means to sit in front of an empty monitor or an empty notebook to witness it filling with words of their own. <br />
It is easy to teach the art of writing; there are rules of grammar, sentence construction, plot and theme, and many other aspects of writing that anyone can learn. It is impossible to teach the art of creativity. No one knows where it comes from. <br />
Creativity arises from the mystery. By practicing non-doing my monitor overflows with words. By practicing non-action I tap into the mystery that is as boundless and vast as I am empty and small.<br />
Despite my obstinance I was brought to her hospital deathbed, to say goodbye, I suppose. I must have been four years old. I wanted no part of approaching that sad sack of withered skin and bones who used to be my great grandmother. She didn’t know me any more than I knew her. I remember my mother softly saying: grandmother, your great grandson is here. But the old bald-headed woman only moaned in pain and rolled over to face the wall. Though they all thought they were doing me and my great grandmother a kindness the family should have left us to our memories of each other.<br />
When I came into this life I let out with a single cry. When I began this sentence I started with a single letter. When I started this book I began with a single word. By increasing the few I magnify the small. By seeing the simple in the complex I achieve much through small things. By singing her simple song and planting apple trees my great grandmother left me with an enormous legacy.<br />
All sound arises from the mind; music is the intercommunication between minds. Even animals know sounds but not its modulation. Most everyone knows the modulations but few hear the music. On this account I must discriminate the sounds to know the airs; I must know the airs to hear the music. By knowing the music I understand the character of others. Having attained this I set order to the world. <br />
If another person doesn’t know the sound I cannot speak to them about the airs; hence, I cannot say a word of the music. Knowledge of music leads to the subtle springs that underlie the rules of ceremony like planting trees in the autumn of life. By possessing knowledge of both the music and the ceremonies I walk the path of virtue. By this I mean realization of self.<br />
Music is the modulations of voice, the source of which is in the affectations of the mind as it is influenced by external things. When the mind is sorrowful the sound is sharp and fading; when the mind finds pleasure in things the sound is slow and gentle; when the mind is joyful the sound is exclamatory and soon disappears; when the mind is moved by anger the sound is coarse and fierce; when the mind is reverent the sound is humble and straightforward; when the mind is moved by love the sound is harmonious and soft. <br />
When the feelings are moved within they are manifested in the sound of the voice. When those sounds are combined so as to form compositions, this is called airs. The greatest achievements in music are not in the perfection of airs but rather the teaching of people to regulate their likings and dislikings and bring them back to center. My great grandmother’s song was much more than a little ditty; it was her way of teaching me a lesson where words would never suffice.<br />
The evolution of the universe is made up of small steps. Great performances are done as if they are easy. Working without doing is called practicing non-action. Like the apples on my great grandmother’s apple tree I know by tasting the tasteless I reward bitterness with care.<br />
I never attempt anything big; taking things lightly in the beginning only results in immense difficulty later. Since I confront the difficulties from the beginning I never experience difficulties. <br />
Dan Gloverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15452167300573196269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-815332158358090946.post-76289000433708583802012-11-30T20:18:00.000-08:002012-11-30T20:18:26.618-08:00DeathBig cities are full of fear and larded with wonder. They exist as a confluence of ideas born from both the close terror of hate lurking like limed death in the dank alleyways and from the exhilaration of life flowering like unrequited wrong breeding in the light of steel and glass high overhead. <br />
Though I am a creature of the night I am not without my vanity. Though I am on intimate terms with death I keep the company of life. Though I am a poor man in the midst of plenty I am at times granted a glimpse of the elegance I normally forego.<br />
So it happened while visiting the big city I took a room high in a stylish hotel. Walking out on the balcony and looking down I could see taxis moving on the street below; they reminded me of yellow lady bugs crawling along the ground. People looked like ants.<br />
I thought how much faster it would be to get down if I just leaped to the ground rather than taking the elevator. It seemed a lot easier to get to the ground from where I stood than it did to get to where I stood from way down there on the ground. I wondered if that was why so many people jump.<br />
When heaven sends down calamities it is possible to escape them; when we create calamities for ourselves it is impossible to live. By being in harmony with the ordinances of God I find happiness in the midst of a suffering world.<br />
These severe folk I meet here in the city are so busy, leaders and followers all. Their ways are different than mine. When it is proper to continue, I persist for a long time. When I am confused, I retire. When it is proper to withdraw, I depart quickly. By forcing others to follow me they do so without heart. They surrender because they lack the strength to fight. By subduing them with virtue I win their hearts as they sincerely submit.<br />
Going back into my room I saw a newspaper lying on the table, perhaps compliments of the management. On the front page an article told of a man, a well-known and a wealthy man, who had leaped to his death from one of the high bridges that crossed the many rivers in this city of dreadful night. <br />
I wondered why such a man would chose death over the richness that was his life. The article went on to say this man of fame and fortune had suffered from depression for many years. I thought how he might have tried living in the obscurity of poverty to see what depression really meant. He might have come to see death as a means and not as an end.<br />
By using death as a guide I live each moment with full waking knowledge that it may well be my last. I know my death is stalking me; it sits here in this very room; if I glimpse ever so quickly to the left sometimes I catch it there shadowing me. At times it mocks me by winking.<br />
Each moment is of utmost importance. To think that one moment is more important than the next is to misjudge death’s intentions. I know my end can come at any time and in any form so I am ever vigilant. Being here high in the sky is no different than the life I lead in the gutters of the world.<br />
The feeling of commiseration for others is a principle of compassion. To feel shame and dislike is a principle of righteousness. Modesty and complaisance is a principle of propriety. Approving and disapproving is a principle of knowing. Everyone is endowed with these four principles yet many say they cannot develop them properly. They play the thief in the midst of plenty.<br />
People are full of dreams. Their desire betrays them. By believing they are masters of their own fate they fail to take into account that death is always waiting for them, like a patient suitor who has been jilted too many times and yet is ever-ready to gather their lover into their arms when they are ready and take them home.<br />
They all flock here to this metropolis looking to hit it big. They don’t realize that a giant lives here; it is waiting to eat them, to make them part of itself. They don’t see the giant; in fact, they run right into its waiting arms as invisible as the air we breathe yet as solid as the steel girders by which this building is able to stand tall and imposing in the sky.<br />
By coming to the city these people believe they are full of courage. But most people live their lives on the gross level. They spend their days following the dictates of others. They spend their nights wishing for the work to end. They pass their time as quickly as they may so something else can happen. <br />
But... it never does.<br />
Is the maker of guns less benevolent than the maker of body armor? The gun maker’s only fear is that people will not be killed; the armor maker’s only fear is that people will be killed. So it is also with the priest and the coffin-maker. The choice of profession is therefore of utmost importance. <br />
From the want of compassion and wisdom will ensue the absence of propriety and righteousness. Those who find themselves in such circumstances are followers of others and are not leaders, yet they are ashamed of their servitude like a coffin-maker being embarrassed by building coffins. Should I find myself ashamed I practice compassion like an archer who sets and shoots. If I miss my target I do not blame others but seek for the fault within myself. <br />
To take example from others is to help them in their own practice. When I am straitened by poverty I do not grieve for what I have lost. When I am neglected and left alone I do not so much as murmur. I company with others indifferently while at the same time not losing myself. If I wish to leave but I am pressed to stay, I stay, not counting it as required by my purity to go. <br />
I have a saying: you are you and I am I. Though others are mired in greed and desire for finery how does that defile me? By manifesting neither narrow-mindedness nor want of self-respect I follow the mystery leaving behind the lure of infatuation. <br />
Courage is that by which intent is daring. Most people desire to be one of the fortunates that make it here in this city of awful darkness but they are not willing to be lucky. Since no one raises any objections to what they do not dare, they live a life of quiet fear while sequestered safely in lofty towers full of radiance shunning the dark places where the shadows of the mystery whisper and roam.<br />
Those few who see the mystery may walk abroad at night without fear. They cannot be harmed for in them the knife can find no place to thrust its blade and the bullet can find no hole through which to enter.<br />
Why is this so?<br />
Because there is no place for death to enter.<br />
Dan Gloverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15452167300573196269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-815332158358090946.post-4837652213311325062012-11-24T17:48:00.000-08:002012-11-24T17:48:23.934-08:00StrayingI dreamed of my son last night. I found myself straying in the dark under dimming streetlamps yet walking a familiar path with autumn leaves crackling under my feet. Looking up I found myself in front of his house. The door was open so I walked in as I always did, unannounced and without knocking.<br />
He greeted me warmly as was his wont. We talked of things of no real import. When we tired of talking we sat silent reveling in each others’ company; looking into his glowing face I thought how fine it was to see him again.<br />
When I woke it took me a moment to recall just where I was. It took me a few blinks of my eyes to remember my son has been in his grave for many years now. Though I knew my mind was but straying in dreams I thought how excellent it had been to see him once again. As my tears flowed I knew they were tears of joy and not of loss.<br />
As I lay there coming more fully to myself I recalled one day in the mutedly remembered past how I woke in much the same way early one morning in a public park in western Wyoming as the clouds on the horizon were just twisting pink. I had left the dusty Pine Ridge Indian reservation a few days previously after quarreling bitterly with my lover over some perceived slight that didn’t amount to anything. <br />
I couldn’t remember going to sleep there the night before; I must have imbibed a bit too much. My head pounding, my mouth tasting of dirt, I looked up to see a torch burning on top of a column high over my head, its flame fluttering in the chill of the early autumn morning breeze refusing to go out.<br />
There was an iron plaque affixed to the white stone holding up the torch. Reading it the words proclaimed this was an eternal flame dedicated to the men and women who had lost their lives in all the wars ever fought. I wondered if it counted the millions of Indians who had been sickened and slaughtered and driven off their lands but somehow I didn’t think so.<br />
I thought how that torch was like all the ideas passed down from one generation to the next in an eternal dance through time and space... ideas meant to illuminate those who were worthy enough to receive that knowledge. I pondered what would happen if that torch ever went out; I wondered if it would be like the day they came to tell me that my son had died.<br />
If so the world might return to the mystery from which it sprang.<br />
I can be imposed upon by what seems to be what it ought to be but I cannot be entrapped by what is contrary to virtue. The commencing of harmony is the work of wisdom; terminating it is the work of enlightenment. Wisdom can be likened to skill; enlightenment can be likened to strength, as in the case of throwing a stone at a target a hundred paces away. That I reach it is owing to my strength; that I hit my mark is not owing to my strength.<br />
When I array myself in dreams and fine clothes and indulge in too much food and drink, my yard is full of weeds and my cupboards are bare. If I had just a little sense I would walk the main road and my only fear would be straying from it. But I become sidetracked easily.<br />
This path I walk is never-ending; it goes on and on; often times it seems all uphill. When I stray, when I grow tired, when I feel so weary I fear I cannot go on, when all I want is to lay down and sleep, I let my desires slip back into that place from where they arise so they trouble me no longer. I go on.<br />
My son taught me many things. As he grew into a man I learned to be a child again. When he passed away I died along with him until I learned of the mystery. By giving in to his memory I find he will never die. By letting go of that which I have no use for I give in to the mystery. <br />
My son was my closest friend. On account of our virtue righteousness was our way and propriety was the door through which we walked together. The tendency of our mutual respect was like the tendency of water finding its own level. <br />
Though I loved my father we were never friends. I always sensed I disappointed him in ways we were never able to discuss. Just before he died I remember him telling me I could have been someone if I hadn’t wasted my talents on dreams. I always thought I was someone: a writer, a son, a father, a husband, a business owner; but since my accomplishments were meager in his view I guess I wasn’t anyone to him. <br />
As a boy I used to catch my father at times standing very still while staring out at the land that he owned; we lived on top of a high mountain and his land went on as far as the eye could see. I had no desires to work myself into an early grave in order to acquire that which I had no reason to own. I wanted only for the days to move easy. My father always told me the world was a hard and a mean place—that I should grab everything I could—but I suppose I never saw it the way he did.<br />
Though I always loved them my father had all the trees on his mountain cut down so he could grow crops; the land was too poor, so what he planted did not grow. In time the rains fell and small tree sprouts appeared. But my father bought cows, pigs, and goats to put inside his fenced fields and they ate the sprouts. Years later no one remembered how that mountain was once treed. I thought how our love for one another was much like that sad denuded mountainside.<br />
By hoarding more than I can use I forget the mystery and wallow in the world. By losing myself in desire I begin engaging in action rather than non-action; I begin to do rather than not-do.<br />
This is not the way of the mystery.<br />
Dan Gloverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15452167300573196269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-815332158358090946.post-55961650274824578422012-11-18T21:30:00.000-08:002012-11-18T21:30:42.160-08:00ReturningMy grandfather lived in a run-down shotgun shack. He wasn’t my real grandfather but that’s what I called him. He was my mother’s step-father. He lived far away from us in the Deep South where life was very difficult, where the ground wasn’t dirt at all but just hard-packed red clay and nothing grew but tall thistles, poverty, and weeds. <br />
My father bought an old run-down farm for next to nothing. Even though there wasn’t anything there to steal he worried someone might break in to the tiny cabin perched precariously on a hilltop so together he and my mother talked the old man into coming there to live and to watch over the place.<br />
I was a less than ideal child. I could never get along with my mother; my father was always gone working. But when we visited her step-father way down there in Alabama I got along splendidly with the old man. So one day my father decided in order to ameliorate peace in the household that I should go and live with grandfather. I jumped at the chance.<br />
The old man didn’t much care whether I went to school or not, so most days I didn’t bother going. We spent our time together smoking hand-rolled cigarettes and drinking moonshine whiskey he bought at the local pool hall and cutting posts to sell at the lumber yard. Each post had to be a certain length; each post had to be de-barked with a sharp blade, otherwise we wouldn’t get full price, which didn’t amount to much more than a few pennies each anyhow. <br />
The lumberyard where we sold our posts sat just outside of a little town no one ever heard of called Finger. The town had one store, a general store, where all the old men gathered around the wood stove in both summer and winter. The cans lining the shelves were dusty as were the dry goods. The proprietor always watched me when we stopped there as if he was sure I had come there to shoplift what I could. While he watched me, grandfather filled his bib overall pockets with tins of beans and sardines and sacks of tobacco and packets of rolling papers.<br />
Returning home in his rickety pickup truck that he let me drive the old man would laugh a toothless cackle as he pulled out the loot he had garnered while I distracted the store owner. Looking back I suppose it wasn’t right us doing what we did but we did it to survive. Cutting posts was a poor day’s pay. It barely kept us in gas and whiskey. And I suppose you could say the old man was half-loony by that time anyway. He probably belonged in a home but that would have killed him quicker than the whiskey and the cold.<br />
The old man liked to tell stories of the days when he had been young and I liked to listen. I suppose all old people enjoy remembering the exploits of their youth. I often wondered if the fact of their memories was different than the memories themselves. Though I would never accuse the old man of lying it seemed as if he was apt to embellish the good while neglecting the terrible. <br />
I remember that even though it was in the deep south of Alabama the winters were very cold at times. The shack where we lived had no furnace; we had an old rusted-iron wood stove in the living room that served to warm the house as well as to cook our food and boil up water for us to get up to our necks in when we had a mind to.<br />
The front door consisted of an aluminum screen tacked onto a wooden frame. In an effort to keep the cold winter winds at bay we’d tape cardboard over the screen but it only served to lessen the freezing grip that the cold took on that old house. <br />
Just as the cold began fading during my second winter there the old man began coughing up gray goop that he spit into a spittoon that he kept in the living room. From the rattling sounds of his breathing I knew he wasn’t feeling well but when I walked to the nearest neighbor to call my folks my father said the old man would be fine, not to worry about him.<br />
A couple mornings later my grandfather didn’t come out of his bedroom. He always went to bed when the sun went down and rose when it came up. So by noon when he still hadn’t emerged I peeked into his room. I could tell by the lack of movement under the covers that the old man had passed on during the night. <br />
I walked across the hollow on a dirt road to call my folks again. At that time there was only forest and grasslands; the people who lived thereabouts were very poor. They looked out for one another though in a way that was foreign to me being raised in the north. When I got to the door of the neighbor’s house to use their phone I broke down crying. I had loved the old man in my own way. I knew I would have to go back north to live in a place for which I had no love. <br />
It was in the returning that I came to know myself better, however. I went back to my lessons. I graduated from high school with honors. I had grown determined not to end up the same way as my folks; though I loved my grandfather I had no inclination to become like him either. I entered a university out east; later I went to law school; I became a busy attorney working out of New York City with clients who trusted me with their livelihoods as well as their lives.<br />
I grew wealthy beyond measure—counted upon for advice by both politicians in high places and judges sitting in high courts—yet something nagged at the edges of my psyche, like an itch that try as I might I couldn’t quite seem to reach to scratch. I thought about what bothered me and then I thought about it some more. The more I thought about it the farther away a solution seemed.<br />
Finally after many years had passed I gave up the thinking, left my law practice, and buying an old pick up truck I set out for destinations unknown in an effort to capture the freedom of my youth. I thought if I left all my certainties behind I could find the answers that had so far eluded all my efforts at uncovering.<br />
At first I though I was too late. I’d grown fat and full of knowing. I had waited too long to act. The tentacles of the city of dreadful night had wormed their way into my very being. As I headed west into high mountain places I felt like a man returning to the place of his birth. I missed many meals wandering the mountain trails. As my mind stilled the troubles ebbed along with my weight. I became light upon my feet once again; my mind became as clear as the cold streams from which I drank.<br />
I found myself returning to the mystery.<br />
Years later I returned to Alabama passing through on my way somewhere else. I saw how the old shack had been torn down. An immaculate brick home stood there instead. The old hollow once full of trees was now full of new homes. The dirt road was a highway. The old town that once sported a single general store now had a dozen fast food restaurants and a big hotel and neon-lighted casinos dotting its edges. <br />
I thought how all the glitter of the money rolling into the old town had covered up something important, something no one else seemed to notice but me. It was all a lie intended to make the people happy. The real truth of living is in the suffering and in the poverty of pain.<br />
I thought how it is better to live with a sad truth than to live with a happy lie. That which holds a person together is the values in their life. When a person desires happiness they overlook the sorrow that makes up the world. No one desires sorrow but it is the way of things to lose that which we love.<br />
The mystery comes before happiness and sorrow, good and evil; the mystery has never been born; it waits neither patiently nor impatiently for everything to return to it. The wise seek out higher knowing but the mystery is unknown and unborn. The fool seeks to take what is not theirs but the mystery gives freely and asks nothing in return.<br />
Returning is the motion of the mystery. I know by letting go of this, it will return. By curbing my desires and stilling my mind I know all I need will be provided.<br />
Yielding is the way of the mystery. Rather than forcing my way through life I yield to the mystery. Taking and never giving is the way of the fool. Giving and never taking is the way of the wise. The mystery comes before it all.<br />
The names of all things are born of being. Being is born of not-being. Returning to the mystery is the way of the universe.<br />
Dan Gloverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15452167300573196269noreply@blogger.com4