In the labyrinth

Yesterday on the radio on Selected Shorts I heard part of "Ziggurat" by Stephen O'Connor.  In the story, the minotaur and the new girl go round and round in the labyrinth, but there is no way out.  It struck me that the story is what my life is like.

Afterwards, there was a brief interview with the author, and that's what the author said too.  He said the story is about how now matter how we try, we can't escape our situation, or who we are.

When the story starts, the new girl is playing a computer game.  Later when the minotaur asks her about the game, she says, “Basically, they’re all disappointment games. Except this one. This one’s about ambition. You’re supposed to build the Tower of Babel before God knocks it down. But that usually ends up being a disappointment game, too.”

What the minotaur does is he encounters people and eats them.  He encounters them going about their lives, but it doesn't  matter what they are doing, because he eats them anyhow.  "None of the things they yearned for would come to pass. All their beliefs about destiny and justice, all their rituals, injunctions, inhibitions and plain-as-the-nose-on-your-face truths: trash, irrelevant, wrong. Their gooses were cooked—royally—and always had been."

Then today I was listening TED Radio Hour, and the story was "How Do You Get People to Pay For Music."  Amanda Palmer was a street musician.  The way it worked is she played music, and trusted that people would give her money.  So when she became a star, it seemed natural to her to do it the same way.  She lets people download her music for free, but she asks them to donate money.  When she travels to give concerts, she asks people if she and her band can stay at their house. She love connecting with her audience.  She says it's about trusting that people will be there for her.

I don't trust.  I guess that's why people aren't there for me.  My experience is that humans either turn their back on me, or else they tell me how they think I ought to live, what I ought to do.

Amanda Palmer lives outside the labyrinth. She lives in a world I'd like to live in.  But I can't get out of the labyrinth.

Summer evenings

When I sit outside on a summer evening, whether at a concert, with people, or alone, that's when I know this is what life is all about, this is what makes life worthwhile.

Enough admonishment

When I dropped off my food scraps for composting, the compost lady looked at my food scraps and said, "You don't cook enough."

Every day I tell myself:

You don't cook enough.
You don't clean enough.
You don't spend enough time looking for another job.
You don't exercise enough.
You don't spend enough time practicing Morris dance.
You don't spend enough time doing your work for the time bank.
You don't spend enough time preparing your radio show.

I really don't need any help admonishing myself.  I've got it pretty well covered myself, thank you very much.

Violence prevention

According to Shankar Vedantam's July 2 story "Therapy Helps Troubled Teens Rethink Crime," often violence is not a calculated thing, but a matter of someone getting mad and out of control.  That seems consistent with many cases I've heard about.  On Tuesday, in a neighboring town, at a youth baseball game, an umpire made a call, and as a result was assaulted by a parent and a coach.  Even in cases where it's a little more pre-meditated, often it is still the same dynamic where someone feels disrespected and is filled with rage, so they decide to go after the person who angered them.  A recent case in the news is that of Aaron Hernandez.  After he was arrested for murder, more stories came out of his reacting violently when angry.

The article tells about a program in which young people were taught to slow down and think before acting.  During the year the program was going on, the students in the program had a lower arrest rate than the control group.  However, the change did not last after the program was over.

I think it's a step in the right direction.  Making guns less readily accessible would help too.  So often criminal justice focuses on punishment.  By then it is too late.  I hope we can continue to work on preventing crime before it happens.  When crimes happen, the victims and the perpetrators can have their lives ruined.  Let us teach our young people not to ruin their own lives and other people's lives.

It is present in human nature, this ability to burst into violence.  It bursts out in certain circumstances.  It seems to have to do with feeling disrespected.  It has to do with anger, and anger seems to come from hurt.  Can we care for our young people so they don't have to erupt into anger?

Maajid Nawaz grew up feeling alienated, and became an Islamist radical.  When he was in prison in Egypt, he was adopted by Amnesty International.  Because of this experience of being embraced, he changed, and became a counter-terrorism activist.

Rejecting people, we alienate them, incite them to violence.  Embracing people, we inspire them to compassion and reconciliation.  No, it doesn't always work that way. It doesn't guarantee safety.  But people are more likely to be nice to us if we are nice to them.

It seems so simple and obvious.  Why do people not do it that way? Why when my country feels another country is a threat, do they drop bombs on that country?  We have made more enemies in places like Iraq and Pakistan than we had before we were bombing them.

Intentions

For pagans, there is magic. For monotheists, there is prayer.  I believe they are just different approaches to the same thing.  I do not believe there is any entity or force outside ourselves which is influenced by magic or prayer.  However, I do believe they  have merit.  I believe that what they are about is formulating intentions and feelings.  The Druid Magic Handbook talks about the importance of formulating intentions.  It suggests that at least three meditation sessions are needed before deciding on an intention.  It gives examples of how intentions can be framed in the wrong way.  It really takes a lot of thought to  frame an intention.

What would my intention be? Maybe this: to be brave, true, and open.  

I am lost. I don't know how to get out. I have been stuck in these for years.  I have been working to get out for years, but it's quicksand, sucking me back down all the time.   

To be brave: To seize opportunity when it comes.  To step into the great unkown, for doing so is the only way to escape where I am.  

To be true: I don't know the way, but I have an instinct that tells me whether I'm going the right way or the wrong way.  I  have an instinct that tells me when I am being true to myself, and when I am trying to be something else.

To be open: To show others how lost and vulnerable I am, because by doing so, maybe I will invite help.

Sky

Sky
Flying soaring freedom
Home of eagle, home of hawk

Sky
Blue tranquil deep
Serene

Sky
Raindrops, teardrops.

Where does sky begin?
The air around me, invisible,
Caressing my cheek
That's not sky
But the air goes up and up forever
Until it becomes sky

When does it become sky?
When it turns from invisible to blue.
It's not really blue.
It just looks that way to us.
It's all an illusion.
It's all a matter of point of view.

We always say that the color of the sky is blue.
I look above and I don't see blue.
I see gray.
The sky is gray.
That is not sky.
That is clouds.
Clouds floating in the sky.
Clouds blocking the view of blue.
Clouds between me and the sky.

Where is the sky?
Are the clouds in the sky?
Or is the sky the blue behind the clouds?
It's all just a point of view.

Sky
Dark, forbidding.
Thunderclouds.
Lightning strikes.
Hail hammers.
Tornadoes destroy.

Sky
Stars twinkle.
Moon shines.

Sky
Golden sunlight dazzles.

Sky
The air around us
Reaches up
Touches treetops
On to mountaintops
Reaches the moon
The sun
The planets
The stars
The universe
Vast
Infinite
Eternal

Aspen, apricot, and avocado

Next in my series of comments from Lives of the Trees by Diana Wells are aspen, apricot, and avocado.

Apricot and avocado are apparently very nutritious.  Reading about them caused me to want to eat them more often.

As for aspen, they

are some of the toughtest trees on earth.  Indeed, the very trembling of their leaves is a strategy to avoid damage from gusty winds in the exposed places where aspens so often grow.  Aspens can live in barren, mountainous regions, as well as many other places.  Their heart-shaped leaves are borne at the end of long, flattened stalks so that instead of resisting breezes and breaking, they bend with them.

Wherever I find barren regions and gusty winds in my life, may I bend and tremble so as not to be broken by the storm.