Happy Solstice. May this be the turning point for you, too.

--A.

ON FINDING THE HOLIDAY SPIRIT


Driving in to work the other evening I purposely turned the radio off. Seems these days my girl Amy Goodman only reports on the failure of the Democratic party to win and what's going on with the Green and Liberatarian Party's miserable recount effort in Ohio.

So, driving in I get to hearing my own mind and the thoughts that are important to me -- a treat I rarely have -- and I started to think about how much better I'm doing this winter. Usually by this time, I'm on the brink of winter depression with full force coming right about February. Winters here in the Northeast/Mid-Atlantic are bland and colorless for the most part. It's dark when you wake and dark right around 4:30 or 5:00 p.m. It's cold and it takes a whole lot of effort to go anywhere. My body feels laden--two layer Columbia jacket (which is very warm and I know I shouldn't complain but it is indeed heavy), scarf, gloves, layered clothing. And I miss, terribly miss, the color -- oranges, blues, violets -- the color of spring and summer. It takes the strength of Job for me to pull myself out of bed in the winter. Sunlight is priceless for me and on the days that the sky is milky gray, I have, in the past, been a miserable mess.

But this year, I decided that I'm going to do my very best to get control over my seasonal depression. I decided I was going to celebrate both the Harvest and the Winter Solstice. Cultivating this sense of awareness has taught me to seek out the beauty of this season and to appreciate it for what it is. In the late afternoon I stop to watch the sunset--naked, arthritic branches in the foreground, striations of pink and deep blue in the back. I go outdoors to breathe and notice how good the crisp, fresh air really feels inside my nose. Soon I discover that I do not really miss the humidity of summer, the typical East Coast air that is so thick it feels like you are breathing through a straw. I check out the morning sky and watch more ducks overhead in their V-shape formation, heading south, reminding me of the timeliness of all things: there's a time to lead and a time to fall back and follow; let someone else take the reigns. I held onto my pumpkins despite the fact that harvest time is gone. They are lined up on the back deck, still a bright orange, brightening my mood with color. And then there are the animals, so intelligent. Squirrels not even fretting, knowing full well that they have done the best they could to plan. I see one or two with acorns between their paws, happy as can be.

But another thing has put it in perspective for me. That night, when I reached work, my co-worker gave me an update on another co-worker's health. Our colleague, M (not a real initial), went out recently on health leave. She had been feeling weak and her speech was slurred. She suffered a stroke shortly thereafter and has been hospitalized for weeks. She is in her early fifties. The diagnostics reveal that she has several inoperable brain tumors. Word is that they are neuroblastomas, the type that grow like a web across the brain, rather than a nodule tumor type. There are three. She has had a second opinion and chemo/radiation would make her violently ill for only a bare minimal success rate. She can no longer feed herself and when asked questions like, "Are you still hungry?," she answers, "Green."

She is the kind of nurse that I would want to take care of me. She believes in giving back rubs and holding hands. She feeds patients and talks to them and asks, "Now, will you have enough money to buy your prescriptions when you leave?" She puts in requests for the social worker to come and aide these people as best she can.

She asked for one thing: to have a party with all her friends and family. She has opted against any heroics ... no chemo, no radiation, no anything. Just to go home with her family to live out, what she believes, are her last days.

When asked what I want for Christmas this year, I repeatedly tell Spouse that I want nothing. There is absolutely nothing that I can bring myself to ask for. I have more books than I can read, more CDs than I can listen to. In my heart, I ask God to cure "M" or, to take away any suffering she might feel. I pray that her soul will rest in a good place and that it will find peace. And if I had anything to ask for, for myself, it would be to turn my own clock back and erase all my years of worrying, doubting, obsessing over little things.

I wonder if M will spend these next days watching the sky, breathing in the crisp cold air, admiring the squirrels. Will she meet the late afternoon sunset with joy and an appreciation for winter's colors? I'm sure she will.

Yesterday morning I felt a nudge pulling me out of my bed and into the morning darkness. I rose with ease. I went to my writing desk and pumped out five new pages of Evelyn, talking in her own words. (A chapter I've been struggling to revise). I cooked breakfast for the children when they woke. We listened to Lizz Wright on the player and I sung like I thought I had talent. Later I strung Christmas lights outside with Spouse and the kids, in the cold. Back inside, the children pulled out there Kwanzaa books and their zawadi from last year and laid it on the altar. We made plans for baking brownies but didn't quite get to it. The children and I went to Fridays for dinner and afterwards I stopped by the winery and bought a bottle of Spiced Wassail and Jazzberry (two delightful wines). After tucking them in, rather than rushing to write again, I cracked open the Jazzberry, laid across the couch with my Mexican blanket spread across me and sipped. After a while I turned on Bamboozled, a movie I've had from Netflix for over a month. I laid back and enjoyed the feeling of being alive.

Thank you God, that I'm alive and well.

Peace to you this holiday and always.

ANGEL

GETTING THERE

Since my personal New Year always begins on my birthday, I am not one given to thinking about or making New Year's resolutions. Since I strive, everyday, to live with myself -- my faults, fears, doubts, and idiosyncracies (I am a Scorpio) -- I am given to making adjustments and revisions year round rather than making them at the conventional time.

But it was two days ago, after reading the editorial section of a parenting magazine that I didn't subscribe too, that I began to think about what I would want for the coming year if I had to name one thing. That one thing would be this: to be a better human being.

Angel, what are you talking about?

Well, I'm talking about understanding myself better; getting hold of my inner fears and doubts; learning the true art of living in the moment so that what I later give out to others is a reflection of my own inner peace. It seems to me that those people who are happiest in life are the people who have some deep and pervasive understanding of that simple concept.

I talk alot about Buddhism and Taoism because the study of both (or either) requires active engagement. Buddhism and Taoism connect me to the TODAY of my life. Not when I reach Heaven and not so much of a focus on even getting to Heaven but how to survive and thrive in this world. How to be at peace with myself first. How to direct my conscious mind and how, more importantly, to live gratefully and fully aware. And I am mature enough now, to recognize, that I don't have to be all of one thing, that is all-Christian, to the point that I miss out on what is good teaching for my soul while I am here on earth.

In my Dharma study the other night, I came across the term: TANHA. It is the word the Buddha used in the Second Noble Truth to define the cause of suffering which is translated as "craving" or "unappeasable wanting." I learned this in Sylvia Boorstein's, Pay Attention for Goodness Sake.

Hhmm.

Unappeasable wanting?

She writes: "Wanting so much to have something that you don't have or wanting so much to have somehing you have but don't want to lose, so much so that the mind cannot rest. The having or not having becomes a pre-occupation that fills the mind with the painful energy of greed or aversion. Seeing clearly therefore becomes impossible. Recognizing that neediness is suffering, feeling the pain of longing in both the mind and the body is the [first step] toward untying the knots."

And Buddha taught: "suffering is the extra pain in the mind that happens when we feel an anguished imperative to have things be different from what they are."

So what has this to do with me? What am I suffering with?

Well, I am a mother and a writer, struggling always to find time to write, to get projects done. Constantly questioning whether my time would be better spent searching for a cure for AIDS or some other Nobel Peace Prize winning occupation. I struggle and suffer most on the days that my writing takes fourth or fifth place to the minutiae of life: emails, food shopping, laundry, dropping off and picking up. Midnight meeting me at my desk, laughing at the black rings around my eyes. Laughing at the cup of coffee that I swear will get me through the next chapter. Laughing at my green tea fortified with ginseng. Slapping my face with its cold dark hand as I bend over into Downward Dog, hoping that the blood flowing toward my brain will keep me at least until 1 a.m. And I go to bed, resentment as thick as molasses, filling my chest and coursing its way through my veins. Resentment that is as lethal as cyanide.

And I am a human, getting older, struggling with finding the time to do those things that I love to do: cooking, yoga, gardening. And I am an activist, trying hard to encourage a whole lot of lazy people to recycle, use less paper, donate old cell phones to shelters for women victims of domestic violence. And I become angry with myself when I tip into Wal-Mart, tail tucked, reaching for that five pack of Spiderman underwear that retails for almost 3 dollars less than the other stores, knowing full well that the young woman who sewed them with her bare, raw hands, is earning .62 cents on the hour and probably has dreams of being a writer or an artist or a painter or a dancer or anything besides a factory worker. And I struggle. Suffering with my choices because I, part time worker that I am (because I am a writer) need to shop on discount.

But here is what is important to me, and here is what is key ... that line about wanting things to be diffent from how they are. I mean, how foolish and how much of a time waster is that? I remember a line from a little .45 record I used to listen to when I was little: wishing doesn't make things so. Why not learn to embrace each moment for what it is? Why not learn and embrace a new concept of time? A concept that is not linear, rather, cyclical; a concept that is not at all Western. Why not see the inter-relatedness between what is happening now and what is desired for the future? Surely that has to be the path toward greater happiness.

And so, I think that that's where I am. Doing what I need to do to organize the days a bit better. A load of laundry here and there rather than a whole bushel on the weekend. Speaking up and saying what I need when I need it. Pulling back from what I think I "need" in order to write. Just simply write. But mostly, I think, seeing that the NOW -- the time that I am writing this novel or this next collection of poems or that collection of essays -- NOW is THEN. Raising these two children and laughing with them trying to get their two feet right on the Twister. Sitting down at the sewing machine with my daughter (her very first sewing machine) and teaching her the beauty of making something by hand. Taking time to wander aimlessly through the yard. Fill the bird feeder and dump the stale water from the birdbath and fill it with fresh water. Taking time to go to the farmer's market for that cilantro or fresh sage or fresh thyme and learn how to cook that recipe NOW, rather than when I retire. Dancing like I don't have a bit of sense to that new Zap Mama CD which my daughter, grown-as-she-wanna-be absolutely loves.

Raising myself and my children and my art.

The three are inseperable. Inter-related. How can I enjoy the tomorrow, how can I make tomorrow a reality, without enjoying, fully, the NOW?

And lastly, perhaps more importantly, establishing a new paradigm, a new concept -- a more workable way of looking at time. A concept that does not work around 24 hours. I'll expand more on that when I have better language.

But for now, this what I would hope for, if it had to be one thing.

ANGEL

LOOK MA, I'M ON TEE-VEE ....

clip...

The Black Communications Network's Presentation of "Poetry in Black"
which was taped live on November 20th with poets I'Keyia Leonard & Angel V. Shannon
is now being aired on PAC14. The next viewing will be tonight, Friday, December 10th
at 9:00 PM. Please check PAC14.org for future dates and times.

Nice.

--A.

THE CAUSATION OF BEING....AND THE PAIN OF KNOWING

I swear I will not dishonor my soul with hatred, but offer myself humbly as a guardian of nature, as a healer of misery, as a messenger of wonder, as an architect of peace. --Diane Ackerman

I will admit from the very beginning that I snipped this quote from
my sister's site but I use it here today because it resonates so deeply with me.

Last evening, while driving to work, I was listening to Amy Goodman's interview of a filmmaker (I forget his name, forgive me) whose film is debuting this weekend in San Francisco, Berkley and in Washington DC. The film is titled: WMD: Weapons of Mass Deception. Similar to Michael Moore's Farenheit 911, it aims to reveal what's really going on in Iraq and the lack of in-depth, investigative journalism (ie,what we know the US media continues to censor). What struck me was the audio of people rushing from the Palestine Hotel. There was a large group of unembedded journalists near that locale and across the road was some kind of bridge on which a large US envoy of tankers were driving. Without getting the details too mixed up, the long and short of it is that the journalists (most of them foreign) were told that the tanker had "come under fire" and they were to all go into the hotel for "cover." No one, to this day, reports ever hearing any fire. What ensued later was combat fire aimed at the hotel and several journalists were killed. The audio included cries for help, pleas for safety and the neverending question, "Why, why?" and many, many "Oh my God's."

As I made my way into work I was struck with a feeling of utter helplessness and despair. Despair in that I feel I am doing so very little to end the suffering of others. How much I feel that I am commiserating in this destruction, by feeding this capitalist system that uses its full might to "gas" people to death, to rip apart families (both here and there) and then, to stand before us bold-faced and brazen, and say that we are there for "self-defense" and liberation. And yet, this is my home. This is where I have, with all good intent, studied to become all that I am. This is where I have learned courage against a patriarchal system that devalues people of my race and sex. This is where I have birthed my children. This is where I stand to behold the beauty of the Mother Earth who sustains me. This is where I have become woman.

And let me not be misleading: I am, at times, happy here. Here is where I have choices. Choices between red or blue or orange or yellow or green shoes. Choices between flats or heels, wedges or pumps. Choices between Mother Jones and Mother Earth; choices between Yoga Journal and Ascent. Choices between Dark Roast, Cappucino, or Latte. Here is where I am free to study Buddhism or Catholicism or Judaism. Here is where I am free to allow my hair to twist into elliptical patterns. Here is where I can write my poems of love and fear and war without threat of beheading. Here is where I am free to birth as many or as few babies as I want. Here is where I can mingle with Christians in the morning and Muslims in the evening.

And so I ask, how does one deal with the pain of knowing? The pain of knowing that others are suffering? I do try my very best to be guided by the Eightfold Path:

1. Wise Understanding: realizing the cause of suffering.
2. Wise Intention: motivation--inspired by understanding--to end suffering
3. Wise Speech: speaking in a way that cultivates clarity
4. Wise Action: behaving in ways that maintain clarity
5. Wise Livelihood: supporting oneself in a wholesome way
6. Wise Effort: cultivating skillful (peaceful) mind habits
7. Wise Concentration: cultivatintg a steady, focused, ease-filled mind
8. Wise Mindfulness: cultivating alert, balanced attention

and so how does one accomplish #2?

Maybe there are some hidden answers in Diane Ackerman's quote.

Or maybe it is simply in here:

Every act of love is a work of peace no matter how small.
--Mother Teresa

APOLOGETICS -- BEEN AWAY SO LONG

The longer you’re away the harder it is to explain the passing of such time. The harder it is to quantify and qualify—what has been accomplished and just what constitutes accomplishment. Does it meant that goals have been met? Or, is it that one is getting closer and closer to the goals?

In the days since my last post I have been angry, amused, bereft, dumbfounded, dazed, elated, fearful, surprised, saddened, overwhelmed, overjoyed and every emotion in between. I have lived amongst the baffled and bewildered, unsure of how and why the elections resulted in four more years of the current administration. Angered at the concession of those who promised to do more than tuck their tails and recede into dark and dingy hiding places. Disappointed by the apathy and complacency of the masses—the most of us who only demand the least.

As a result and in order to reserve energy and sanity for what is needed most—my own survival—I receded into my own nesting place. I am like this every Fall, going inward to examine the deepest parts of myself; to hold each piece under the looking glass checking for flaws and idiosyncrasies, inconsistencies. A time for wrapping both arms around myself and reminding Me that I really am okay, that I am doing my very best and that all that I have become is a result of my own choices (which is, of itself, a good thing). A time for looking in the mirror and recognizing that I am aging beautifully. Not because of taut skin or long nails or a flat stomach or any other Western ideal of beauty—but because of what resides, now, on the inside; because I have learned that Life is Good and I have finally embraced The Path that prepares for me a feast of everything that is good for the soul: patience, equanimity, generosity, renunciation, wisdom, energy, truthfulness, determination, and mindfulness. And this is what I love, so very much, about Buddhism. That it so unlike every major organized religion and is, rather, a path for mindful living; a path toward a greater sense of peace within one’s own self before one sets about trying to change the world.

Turning 35 is a gentle nudge for me. A nudge that says, Hey Look, all those things you want to do and things you want to learn and places you want to go? Go. See. Do. Turning 35 is a shedding of skin, a shedding of the need to analyze and question and pontificate; a deliberate turning away from those things that are safe and predictable and a running toward Full Catastrophe Living with open arms.

I have spent days in pumpkin patches with four and eight year olds, searching for just the right shades of orange to display on our front porch. I have run my fingers down the length of Native American corn admiring the beautiful swirls of red and yellow and white and orange. I have set out ears of squirrel corn in the yard for the squirrels to feed upon (oh, how they enjoyed that!), checking each day for where they’ve hid it after they’ve nibbled. I have set up my birdhouse on the deck, waiting for the arrival of an expectant mother, hoping she’ll find my little space suitable (my son loves the color of bird’s eggs!) My eyes have roved the shelves in search of just the right gourds to place next to the pumpkins in order to yield the true picture of Harvest Time. At the pumpkin patches, I have stood next to my son and watched his eyes grow as large as moons as he pet the young goats and talked to them in the way that only four year olds can. We have held hands, walking across the field to select fresh peach preserves and blackberry jam to spread on our toast. And I have come home with my four year old, spent, shoes covered in mud and eyes weary from the vast array of orange and marigold and scarlet and brown. Fall in the Northeast (what splendor!)

I have sat in auditoriums (school field trip!) watching the dances of Native American tribes as close as New York and as far away as New Mexico, awed by the pride and love they retain for their heritage. And in the same vein, I have had the pleasure of visiting the brand new National Native American Museum in Washington D.C. (a must see if you are ever to know the truth of how America came to be) part of the FREE Smithsonian Institution. (Did I mention it is FREE?) The very last space on the National Mall, sixteen years in the making. Even the design of the building is amazing—no straight lines, but flowing like that of rivers.

I have spent days reading. For my birthday, Spouse, in the way that makes me love him so deeply, bought me a beautiful set of lounging pajamas perfect for enjoying my new copy of Alice Walker’s biography by Evelyn C. White. And yet, I had to set it aside because I, for my birthday, decided to order all of the books that I must own: On Call by June Jordan; Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde; Ain’t I A Woman by bell hooks; Anything We Love Can Be Saved: A Writer’s Activism by Alice Walker; In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens by Alice Walker; Women, Race, and Class by Angela Davis; Speak So You Can Speak Again (an absolute MUST HAVE interactive book about Zora Neale Hurston complete with audio CD). Surrounded by all these supportive spirits, breathing in their words, their thoughts, their joys and their passions, I have dwelled in sheer delight. And to have heard Zora Neale’s voice on the audio CD makes me feel so incredibly grateful to be a woman storyteller; made me run each day to my writing space, pen in hand.


And I should say that I moved my writing space. For some reason, I chose to move into the dining room where there is greater sunlight and an oversized wall hanging of African women walking with baskets on their heads. In this same room there are candles and a small wrought iron shelf unit that holds Alice’s biography. Also, in the opposite corner, a small table on which I placed Zora’s book and a framed, postcard picture of Zora. Sitting in that room one day, I felt welcomed by the elders, in fact, beckoned. The warm sunlight gave me a feeling of complete relaxation about it all, urging me to surrender all expectations and time limitations I have put upon myself for the completion of this book. I had been struggling with one chapter for the months of September and October—struggling to get at the emotional root of one very important character. The difficulty was dualistic: getting deep into the character’s emotional and psychological makeup AND finding the language with which to convey it. Succinct, yet descriptive and logical enough that you can understand her later actions (she abandons her children in search of her own dreams). And we ask, what kind of woman would leave her children? Must be crazy! No, not really. Not when we examine the very question that Langston Hughes put forth: what happens to a dream deferred? And so, one must, (as did Lorraine Hansberry with the character Walter) one must get so very deep into the mind and psychological makeup of these kinds of characters in order to render the story any degree of verisimilitude. And that going deep takes time. The novel that I am writing goes into a very deep psychological place; a place that I did not know when I signed on for this journey. The characters are (as every character should be in fiction) very complex and dealing with these complexities in the midst of my own very real life, is not an easy task. But I endure and I hope that I will have presented it well by the time all is said and done.


And then there have been the book signings. Four since my last writing, including a taping for a local public television show titled “Poetry In Black.” I’ve answered so many questions about this book and my life as a writer and how I’m able to manage it all. How do I? I don’t know. But being “on the road” this way has cured me, for sure, of that star strucked-ness that I had when I was a young writer meeting authors. And of course, my daughter, who now says, “But Mommy, you just had a book signing before!” and me, rushing out the door saying, “I know honey, but I’ll be back as quick as I can,” and thinking, on the way, that I wouldn’t trade my life right now for anything.


And I have managed to gather up two batches of poems for submission. One was a call for anti-war pacifist writers and another for women writers in general. We shall see. Amazing to me that I used to send things out with so much anticipation and nail biting and fervent praying that the works would be accepted. And now, it simply is what it is. What is accepted is, and what isn’t simply isn’t. No fear and certainly not personal. What is there to fear anyhow? If one can survive parenthood, certainly one can survive the rejection of a few poems!


And I have spent days washing dishes with candles lit on the windowsill, gazing out at the changing leaves, listening to the dance of the wind around my chimes; spent days trying to perfect my Warrior Pose and my sun salutations to balance my Root Chakra; spent days trying my best to sit zazen; and days just feeling grateful to be alive, to be a mother, a poet, a writer, a thinker, a creative person, a wife, all in no specific order. Have even tried to teach myself crochet (in the spare moments waiting for the dismissal bell to ring) and tried my very best to catch up on this blog.

And every step of the way, I have thought so very much and so very fondly of :

You and You and You and You and You

Peace always,

ANGEL