The Silver Surfer, Huck Finn and Bilbo (Cas)

            It was 1973 and I was five and I believed I was fully prepared for any encounter life could offer me. I knew this was true because on this particular morning I had not only woken up on time, eaten a hearty breakfast of french toast with peanut butter, washed my hands and face, brushed and braided my hair and scrubbed my teeth all without being prodded, but on this auspicious day my favorite Cubs t-shirt was clean! I put it on with Toughskins, my red Keds and my little league ball cap confident the day would be spectacular. I headed out to kindergarten in the same manner I was accustomed to, my Scooby Doo Mystery Machine lunch box in one hand (with my name on it in permanent marker because it looked just like Toni Erickson’s) and my Silver Surfer backpack over my shoulder. Whatever confidence I felt that morning, would not prove to be adequate weaponry for the battle I meandered naïvely toward.

            It was a requirement that I bring a book from home for free reading period which I was more than happy to do. There were books to borrow in the classroom, but I had already read all the Winnie-the-Pooh and Beatrix Potter books that Mrs. Olsen kept. I could, after all, read any book I chose because Grandma and Grandpa had not only taught me to read when I was three, but the past summer they had taught me to use the dictionary. They emphasized how important it was to look up words I didn’t know whenever there were no adults around to ask for definitions. “Definition” was a word that meant the statement of the meaning of a word, phrase, or term. I was truly ready to conquer with knowledge like this in my tiny noggin.

            The book I brought on this enlightening day was called Huckleberry Finn and it was written by a man named Mark Twain, but that wasn’t really his name. His name was Samuel Clemens, but this didn’t matter much because I could never meet him or write to him because he was already dead. Grandma told me that. Mark Twain was a term used by people who worked on steamboats and Mr. Clemens had worked on steamboats on the Mississippi River. Grandpa told me that.

            The book was very hard because Huck lived a long time ago and talked very differently than people do now. It was also difficult because Huck was older than me and understood things that I couldn’t. I was on chapter two. Within five minutes of the free reading period, I read a word spelled b-e-t-w-i-x-t. I did not know what that word meant. I looked for a dictionary. It was on Mrs. Olsen’s desk. I asked to borrow it. She asked if she might be able to help instead. This seemed reasonable and like her job, so I asked her what “betwixt” meant. She asked to see my book. Then she said she was keeping my book and that I couldn’t read “books like this”. Mrs. Olsen wouldn’t give back my book, either. I know because I tried pulling it out of her hands, but she was bigger than me and this didn’t work. So, I informed her that she was breaking the law and violating my rights. My rights, I knew, had been outlined by a man named Thomas Jefferson in a different book that I had not read yet called the Constitution. I pretended like I had read this book and told her that I was pretty sure she was going to jail because of the Constitution and I got really mad.

            Mrs. Olsen sent me to the Principal’s office. This was bad. I had been there once before and he mentioned that it wasn’t good at all for kindergartners to have to talk in his office. He had said that he hoped we wouldn’t have to talk in his office again. I had really hoped so, too, but it didn’t work and there I was. The secretary in the office told me she had already called my mother and that I should sit and wait for her. This was really bad. She had called my mom the last time I was in the Principal’s office for beating up a second grader in my brother’s class because he had called me a “kindergarten baby” (which my brother told him to do) and I beat him up pretty badly (which my brother knew I would) because he wouldn’t say “Uncle” to a girl (which my brother encouraged him not to). I had gotten in a lot of trouble and I was miserable imagining a repeat.

            When mom got there she was mad, she had a conversation in the Principal’s office without me and then took my arm and marched us back to my classroom. She asked Mrs. Olsen to speak with her in the hall and to bring my book. Mrs. Olsen told my mother that she believed certain books should not be read ever and that I most certainly shouldn’t be reading the likes of these books without adequate supervision and besides it had way too many words outside my vocabulary level. It was really never a good idea to be confrontational with my mom; she was wicked smart and stunningly quick on her toes with comebacks. In this moment mom paused and glared at Mrs. Olsen. That meant she was going to get mad, but I still wasn’t sure why. Then mom narrowed her eyes and spoke rather quietly, almost slowly, AND APOLOGIZED!! I was stunned, and like Huck a bit clueless. Mom said, “I am sooo sorry. I had quite unforgivably and negligently assumed that you were capable of providing adequate supervision and that like me, you were eager to help my child encounter challenging vocabulary and new relevant ideas. I was utterly and completely mistaken.” Sorry? Mistaken? What was she talking about? What had I done? I was nowhere near as shocked as Mrs. Olsen, she seemed completely out on her feet…from an apology(!!!)…what if mom would have given her a full strength come back? I must be in a great deal of trouble if my mom was apologizing to my teacher. Mrs. Olsen said that I could be assigned to another teacher. Mom said that it was very nice they were on the same page about something and that I had in fact already been assigned to another teacher. Then she said “Good-bye” over Mrs. Olsen trying to say anything else.

            We went to the car in silence and after we drove a few blocks I asked if mom was really mad. She said she was furious and that we were going to Grandma and Grandpa’s. The longer she waited to talk, the worse I felt. There generally seemed to be some sort of elusive mathematical equation between how long mom took to be calm enough to talk to me and how much trouble I was actually in. At Grandma and Grandpa’s, mom told me to go sit in the kitchen, the three of them went into the library. Mom was yelling….a lot. So I cried. After a few minutes, Grandma came in and asked what was the matter, why was I crying, had it been a really emotional day? What was she talking about, I wondered, emotional? Well, yeah. Fear of getting in trouble was an emotion alright. I told Grandma I was scared of how much trouble I was in. She laughed and hugged me and said, “Oh Honey, you’re not in trouble, here have some pie.”

            It would be a few years before I really understood what had happened, what censorship was and why it was dangerous, and perhaps a few more years before I fully understood sarcasm. Eventually, I got a grasp on all of it. Many years later, I had a child of my own and so we fast forward to last week, 2015. My son is in third grade at what we believe is a pretty progressive school, one we have been really pleased with all through kindergarten to second grade. Third grade in our state is controlled, dominated and fully redirected toward state standardized testing which different schools handle in a variety of ways.

            Last week my son came home and told me his teacher told him he couldn’t bring The Hobbit to school for free reading anymore, because he had to read a book from the list. My hair prickled, my teeth clenched and my hands formed fists. I took a breath. “What list?” I asked calmly while suppressing images of book burnings and fascism. “There’s a list of books that have the right vocabulary words for me” he informed me. Okay. Stay calm. This is the 21^st century, we aren’t censoring books, there is a rational explanation and I will get to the bottom of this. He asked what he should do. Nothing, I told him, I’ll talk with the teacher. He wanted to know if he should bring the book tomorrow. I told him that of course, he should.

            There was a rational explanation. It turns out a computer has generated a list of books that are recommended for having vocabulary words that will help get kids prepared for the state standardized test, which seems innocuous enough on the surface. The Hobbit isn’t on it for third grade. Or any Tolkien. Fair enough, I would admit Tolkien is well above a third grade reading level. There is no C.S. Lewis, no Phantom Tollbooth, no Roald Dahl, no Spiderwick Chronicles, nothing from Chris D’Lacey’s Dragon Fire series…(yes, there is a trend in his favorite reading taste) I will be completely open, I don’t give a flying rat’s patootie about scores on standardized tests. As a former educator, I can assure you they have no bearing on academic or, more importantly, life skills. Struggling students may test well and gifted students may test poorly, happens all the time. Here is the real dilemma, what are we saying to our children about life, learning and basic joy if they are only allowed to read books that might improve a grade standard test score? Really what is the difference between full-on, backward thinking censorship of ideas and this new “list of grade level vocabulary appropriate books”? I have read the list and there are great books on the list, many my son has already read or might enjoy. My issue is simply that there is a very thin line between actively and with malicious calculation excluding ideas (and people, and cultures) and merely not including them…on the list.                            

                 

A Sacred Space of Honor (Cas)

​I have been studying the Inka Medicine Wheel for the past year with a dedicated and inspiring tribe.  Several months ago we had the honor of hosting a Pampamesayok Shaman from the high Andes of Peru.  Q’ero elder, don Juan Gabriel Apaza Lunasco came to Tucson to do ceremony and teachings with our aspiring tribe of Shamans. I was lucky enough to get to share in a short conversation with him through his translator about some of the key differences between our cultures. Don Juan Gabriel speaks a blend of Spanish, Portuguese and Quechua. His traveling companion Caroline, translated for him and for us in turn.

​Don Juan Gabriel asked me specifically why I thought Americans were filled with so much self-doubt and mistrust of self and of others. He said the presence of these feelings were not only tangible, but in certain places inhibitive and even oppressive. He wanted to know why these feelings are so prevalent here. I thought for a moment about where does our self-doubt originate and my mind scrolled quickly through my life at every age and the lives of those I know and love. I realized that many of us may not have actively chosen this, but developed it as a defense mechanism.

​I replied that from the moment we arrive here we are tested and questioned and required to prove ourselves. Tested as to whether we deserve to be in the right class or on the right team.Constantly asked to prove our credentials, our prerequisites, our heritage, our background, our training, our sources for any shred of information we may possess. We have to acquire the right licenses and permits for nearly everything we do. In the “Land of the Free” nothing is actually free; no one lives anywhere in the U.S. unless they or someone on their behalf has paid for their space, and their food and all the resources they need on a daily basis.  

​I shared just that much, but my mind continued racing to all number of other ramifications from prolonged exposure to this cultural tendency while Caroline translated my response. I thought about how so few people just sit down together to converse and simply share ideas and observations, instead our meetings, engagements and social interactions all have to have a predescribed purpose or useful function. Or, how when anyone does want to share their vision, they are expected to provide data and accurate predictions for applications and an annotated list of socially acceptable research documents, instead of just purely inspired gifts of the imagination.

​Caroline had finished speaking and don Juan Gabriel was replying, looking and talking directly to me and holding my hand. I knew I would need everything translated to me by Caroline, but I really felt that I was already receiving the physical energy of his words and the information in them. I felt a calmness that seemed to have always been calm and I felt a great openness and hopefulness in my heart. I would learn later that much of the Quechua language had this exact sort of--for lack of a better term--musical quality to it… the sound of the words resonated vibrationally with the spirit or meaning of the words. He stopped speaking and Caroline translated, but he continued to look at me and hold my hand while I heard the English version.

​He had said that in his home for every generation as far back as anyone could remember, each group of elders had cleared and cleaned all of their own hucha (heavy energies or, by our standards, maybe negative karma) and given it as a gift to the Earth to be composted and returned to balance. Then they had created a reverent space to receive the next generation. They had dreamed and imagined and therefore created a sacred and honored space of hopefulness and expectation to accept the gifts and wisdom and new medicine of the incoming generation with open hearts. With gratitude and with great love, they gather these gifts and integrate them into the community.

​We all three smiled at each other, breathed deeply with a sigh that clearly said, “I see” and then laughed for a moment. Don Juan Gabriel thanked me and I thanked him, but it was only a seed he had given me to meditate on for a while. Where here we seem to be saying to each other and our young people, “Prove right now why you think you have any right to be here!!”; the Q’ero are saying, “Here you are, finally, we have waited for all of time just for you to arrive. Thank you for coming, we are deeply honored that you are here!” The vast difference is almost too great to fathom. The impact of how you might respond to the world and how you would feel about yourself and others had you known that kind of acceptance is astounding to even consider. Maybe we could try to just a little. Remind our families that simply their existence is the greatest gift we have ever received. Arrive at a meeting with a friend with no other agenda than pure gratitude for some time to interact with them. Love our children for exactly who they are in this moment, not as what we may think we want them to become. Walk into any situation with an open heart and an open mind waiting to see what gift it will bring. Breathe in deeply and feel yourself belonging, here, in this sacred place of honor.      

Slipping filters while shopping, or continuing adventures in (un)awareness

All of my posts here are carefully edited to present my best self—or at least as good as it gets.  On the following occasion, I heard the jewels of my starry crown come crashing to the concrete floor of Costco.

I was rushing through the biggest box store on my own, with just a few items bouncing around in one of their monster carts. I maneuvered to a short check-out lane, pacing a woman pushing her overflowing cart to the same spot.  A photo replay could have told which of us had been first, but I was not feeling gracious. I had wedged this last errand into a too-short window before a long-delayed lunchtime. That was an unusual and bad choice for me as I eat like a toddler: a little bit at a time, but all of the time. I aligned my cart a little closer to the conveyor belt to indicate I had reached some invisible marker first. She gave me a sour shake of her head, so I gently nudged the end of her cart with mine to assert my right to precedence.  She bumped my cart back and we began snipping at each other. Her husband walked up with a few items to add to her cart—another point against her, by all the holy rules of grocery engagement—and I turned to glare at him. I thought uncharitably that he looked very much like Mr. Toad of Toad Hall and that he and his fishwife made a fine pair. He looked from her to me with a dog-like tilt of his head and raised both hands to pat the air before saying, “Ladies, ladies…”  We both glared at him in turn but he smiled gently at us both. She looked down and a warm wave of shame enveloped me.  After an uncomfortable moment I said, “I am sorry, this is not who I am, this took way longer than I expected and I am just so hungry. She said, “You know, I get that way, too, that’s why I carry almonds with me. Would you like some?”  I said yes and she drew a plastic baggie of nuts from her purse. I cupped my hands to receive them, but she reached over her cart to push six almonds into my mouth, one-by-one with a pause in between while I chewed and swallowed.

Soon after, another lane opened and we had an “After you, Alphonse” exchange before one of us took it.  My blood sugar up and my shame firmly pushed down,  I watched my adversary-turned-ally finish up first and walk away with her--as it happened--quite lovely husband.

Elemental Travail: Adventures in Chemistry Class

A friend asked if I could find an article she’d written long ago for our high school newspaper. That led to an evening of nostalgia spent leafing through creased and crumbling issues of “The Talon” and poking around online to track news from the past. It saddened me to find that one of Santa Rita’s superstars, chemistry teacher Mr. W. A. O’Donald, passed away almost a year ago. He was in all ways an excellent teacher and is a significant figure in my academic folklore.

Mr. O’Donald was tall and, in the early ‘70s, balding and filling out a little. He wore a white button-down shirt and a tie every day. Every day he reminded us to read the bulletin board by the door. On the last day of the second semester final he walked over to it and pulled from under a thumbtack the scoring key for the final we were about to take. It had been up there for a month. He would toss small sueded rubber erasers at the daydreamers. He never missed; each time they landed gently on the top of our heads. I would add mine to the line of them waiting on the edge of the demo table and return to my desk in the second row where I sat by alphabetical assignment.

One day I was thoroughly absent while sitting in class and sensed that I’d been asked a direct question.  Mr. O’Donald repeated, “What is delta T?”  Marc (yes, the same Marc often featured in this blog) saw my blank look and whispered across the aisle, “Change in temperature”. I looked equally vapidly at him. Marc leaned a little more over his desktop and whispered again, louder, “Change in temperature.” Confused and irritated, I turned to look at Marc full face, “WHAT?” Marc laid his forehead on his desk as Mr. O’Donald thanked him ever so insincerely for his help.

I am a wool-gatherer still, but Mr. O’Donald did cure me of one miserable study habit. After announcements one morning early in the year, he handed a beaker of clear, colorless liquid to the student in front of me and directed her to assess it without comment and pass it on. She held the beaker chest high, waved her hand over it and then turned to give it to me. I was always a little stuffy so I raised it close to my nose and took a hearty sniff.  I coughed, gasped, choked and teared up, barely managing to set down the ammonia-filled beaker. Mr. O’Donald asked the class, “Anyone else fail to do the homework on the preliminary identification of unknown substances?”

I read assignments after that and tried hard to focus on lectures, but lab-times remained trials to me, Mr. O’Donald and Marc, who for some inexplicable reason had volunteered to be my lab partner. I didn’t blow anything up, but nothing glass made it through the hour. Mr. O’Donald kept a slip with my name on it ready so I could go pay at the bookstore for the latest broken beaker or retort. I never wondered until today why my particular fines had to be settled that very period. Test tubes I got for free, although the time spent sweeping them up from the floor meant I was usually in detention for chronic tardiness to my next class.

The only time Mr. O’Donald edged toward overt frustration was the day I broke the piston burette mounted to the wall of our station. I had run a sponge over the countertop but there wasn’t quite enough room under the burette’s lower spout for both the sponge and the back of my hand. The whole apparatus exploded off the wall. Splinters of glass flew everywhere, fortunately without injuring me or my long-suffering lab partner.  My parents were used to the supplies and equipment fines but their reaction to one for $125.00 was fierce.  By common consent thereafter I was restricted to observing and writing up lab results.

Similar challenges awaited my U of A chemistry professor three years later, but sadly, he fell far short. This anonymous individual did not have Mr. O’Donald’s rapport, sardonic humor or endurance and so I do not have a bachelor’s of science degree.

A Truly Kinder and Gentler World (Cas)

 My six year old son wants a paper route. The kind my husband and I had when we were kids; getting up early every morning, picking up a delivery of local daily newspapers and rolling them all up individually with rubber bands, hopping on our bikes with our delivery tote bag and tossing newspapers up onto subscribers front porches.  There is no need to explain to you just how many of those details are total fantasy now a days. There are not a lot of real papers left to speak of, children go virtually nowhere unsupervised anymore and I am pretty sure OSHA would crack down on kids handling their bikes one-handed while they flung the papers with their other hand or some other thoroughly ridiculous detail of the operation. The world sure was safer and happier when we were kids, right?
        Not to be deterred by any of these insignificant details, my son set about writing his own paper and rolling it up into rings cut from repurposed toilet paper rolls and compiling them into a grocery tote bag so I could walk with him while he rides around the neighborhood delivering to people we know. Sure, why not? It will be a good writing exercise if nothing else. He can “pretend” to get some “real world” skills, I can support that experience. He decides on an afternoon delivery time of which I fully approve and he dives into his work. Paper (from the already used on one side box) and markers in hand he draws boxes around different stories, some have drawings or illustrations meant to represent photos of the news, some have wiggly lines that might represent the content other than the headlines, but most entries are just the headlines. He occasionally asks me to properly spell words for him, but for the most part is working hard and very independently for a long time.

        After several sessions of this style of working, my son sits down at the table where I am working and he has a notepad and a pencil.
“Are you going to interview me for your paper?” I ask.
“No,” he says, “Maybe later. Right now, I was hoping you could tell me some stories from the real news.”
“What do mean “real”?” I ask.
“Well, like the thing Saturday to stop Monsanto from making poisonous food, tell me about that again, for my paper.”
“Okay, GMO Free Project of Tucson is Hosting a March Against Monsanto at 10 am Saturday in Reid Park.”
“GMO’s are terrible poison and so people who don’t want to have to eat them will go to Reid Park on Saturday and rally with what? Like signs or something?”
“Yeah, pretty much.”
“Do you know other news? Do you know what happened in Oklahoma?”
“I do. There was a huge tornado in Oklahoma and a lot of people lost their homes, got really hurt and a lot of people died.”
“So now they need what like, love and some new homes and stuff?”
“Yeah, pretty much.”
“Okay.”

        Back to work he went. Incorporating his new “real news” items into his newspaper. All the while, I am still smugly thinking about the much more charmed and freedom filled life I had as a child and how it is so “nice” that my son gets to “practice” his real world skills in the safety of our own home. Then I got my copy of the paper. Sure enough, a story about the event at Reid Park, “NO GMO’S RALLY AT REID PARK” with a drawing of protestors holding signs, one sign says, “Real Food, thank you” with a smiley face. Another one about the tornado with a drawing of a tornado an upside down car and an upside down house, the headline “A Tornatoe was in Oklahoma, please send them your love, your money and some hope.” There were ads; “Listen to Alice Cooper on the Muppets or the radio” and “Buy Books at Bookman’s or Antigone (drawing of books)”. There were some factoids; “The Cheetah runs 75 miles per hour” and “Second graders at Montessori Schoolhouse are studying Mexico (drawing of a mariachi band)”.  There was lots of inspirational ideas and anecdotes; “Plant trees (drawing of trees)”, “Be KIND (drawing of hearts)”, “Learn at School, I did!”, “Adopt Today, Cuddly (drawing of a puppy)”, “Ride a Bike”, “Give Poor People Money, here or in Africa to buy food”, “Summer is coming (drawing of him in a pool)” and “Surprise your kids with popcorn and a DVD like Star Wars”. There was a trivia section querying whether chickens eat cows (they don’t) or if cats are vegetarians (they aren’t). Finally, there was a section on the bottom that said, “Please pay 300 pennies for this paper if you like or do 300 nice things or give even more money to someone who is doing nice things like the Center for Biological Diversity or the Food Bank thank you oh and be happy.”

        He handed me my copy and informed me that mine was free because I am helping him and because I already do lots of nice things. I read his paper and I started thinking about my paper route when I was a kid. I hated it really. Most days it was okay, if the weather wasn’t terrible, but it was Iowa so the weather was usually terrible. I never got to sleep in because even on weekends people wanted their papers before 6. I always got it right onto their porches and people would still complain it wasn’t good enough and short me when it was time to collect payment. People wouldn’t pay; seriously, they wouldn’t answer the door for an 8 year-old paper girl to give her the $3.50 they owed for 6 am porch delivery of the daily paper!! A lot of the people were just plain mean and most days I daydreamed about my nice warm bed and wished I was still in it. Worst of all, I always knew the news!! I started my day with it. Granted, the Sioux City Journal’s headlines in the 70’s were nowhere as bad as what is plastered all over news stations and the internet today, but bad news still got the front page and there was plenty of it. Maybe we weren’t reveling in our freedom and happiness back then, it just sounds more appealing when you retell it.

        Personally, I would much rather read a paper like my son’s everyday. His world really is a kinder and gentler world. He focuses on solutions and cooperation and really believes in kindness and beauty, that’s the kind of freedom I want!  

Clueless in the Canyon (Lynn)

The mosquitoes are back—early this year, it seems. I acknowledge their role in the ecosystem but I am not an eager advocate of their right to reproduce and am always sorry to see their return. At dusk tonight I tossed some ‘natural’ larvacide pellets into our backyard pond and ran back into the house, but not before suffering a retaliatory attack that left me madly scratching my arms and ankles. While dressing my wounds with lavender lotion, I remembered a spring evening about ten years ago when Marc and I had visited the Four Corners National Park. We had enjoyed our day wandering through pit-house ruins and cliff dwellings on the mesa and we looked forward to an evening tour of some thousand-year-old petrogylphs hidden in the Canyon de Chelly. These walks were held nightly in the spring months and were restricted to those in the company of a Navajo guide.

This night’s escort was a frail-seeming, elderly man who met our small group of tourists (all strangers to Marc and me) at the trailhead as the sun set and a full moon rose. He was dressed in a loose, long-sleeved, high-buttoned shirt he’d tucked into his wrinkled, worn jeans that were in turn tucked into loosely tied sneakers. Our guide leaned on a tall wooden walking stick as he introduced himself as “Norman”, gave us a little background about the petroglyphs we were all anxious to see and then quietly assessed our general fitness for the three-mile walk. Almost everyone had suitable footwear, but since the day had been clear, hot and dry, we were all in shorts and most of the women wore tank tops. He mentioned matter-of-factly that although at this elevation there was only an occasional scrub oak and sage bush, the canyon floor was heavily vegetated and that meant mosquitoes would be plentiful and aggressive. Although we were redolent of coconut sunscreen, no one had any insect repellant.

Norman was too self-contained for any overt exasperation. He offered us what he said (with a sideways smile) was an ancient Indian preventative for insect bites. He clipped a few leafy branches from a sage bush with the blade of a jack-knife he’d taken from his pocket. Since I was standing nearest to him, he handed the first, strongly scented branch to me. I rubbed it furiously over my bare arms and legs, thinking the plant’s efficacy must be in its essential oils. Norman watched me in silence for a very… long… time, and then turned to the next person and handed her a branch. She wafted it elegantly about her face and shoulders. Everyone else followed her example. I drifted to the back of the group as we walked down the hillside, deeply grateful for the increasing darkness.

As it happened, I remained bite-free through the tour--if not from the aromatic sage, then no doubt because any mosquito alighting on me would surely have been incinerated from the heat of my flaming embarrassment.

Not Entirely Clueless with a Cellphone: Adventures in Stereotypes (Lynn)

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It is a truth generally acknowledged that a woman gives directions based on landmarks, but there are many of my sex who give directions in the manly manner. Not for us is the feminine discursive, “It’s just a skosh beyond the big chicken statue by the garage with blue roof.”  The figurative approach may be a regional rather than sex-linked trait given the friendly loquacity of rural Midwesterners and Southerners as opposed to laconic New Englanders. Women and men in those locales commonly offer such help as  “It is aways yonder just by ol’ Dalton’s place, you’ll see the turn right there by the barn he was always gonna pull down before it fell down.” In either case, I belong to the clan that trusts cardinal directions and reasonably estimated distances will indeed get you there from here. You could plan an invasion with the specificity I provide. Pinpointing our location for the AAA service for a minor roadside emergency last week after my parents' customary survivalist stock-up at Costco and a long morning of doctor’s appointments should have been easy-peasey.

“Was I in a safe location?” AAA rep Nadia asked after two dropped connections on my rudimentary flip phone. Yes, at least the car was. I had left it parked in a roadside pullout at the bottom of the cactus-studded, no doubt rattlesnake-crawling, scrubby, shrubby desert hill that stood between me and a steady cell signal.  I was confident that my parents were sitting on the shady side of the car enjoying ice cream from the cooler on the back seat. I was reasonably sure that my 82-year-old father would not wheel his walker to back of his Honda CRV and unload two hundred pounds of dog food, kitty litter and potting soil to access a spare tire none of the three of us could mount.

In years past, the AAA dispatchers knew me immediately by voice because I was frequently on the outside with my keys on the inside of a prudently but prematurely locked car. Since cars have long come with clickers, Nadia and I had to run though the name and number protocol. She assured me help would soon be on its way, just as soon she could tell the tow trucker where we were. Pinpointing our exact location became a Pythonesque contest for points scored as Nadia and I strove toward our common goal.

I opened with “The car is one third of a mile inside the east entrance to Saguaro National Park West. It is on the north side of the road at the first marked pullout in the park.” Nadia responded. “So, you are just east of Old Soldier’s Trail?”

I explained that Saguaro National Park is bisected by the City of Tucson. One half is at the foot of the Rincon Mountains on the east side of the valley. The other half is on the west side of the valley, on the far side of the Tucson Mountains. “We are closer to Picture Rocks, which is a community on the other side of town just west of the west boundary of the westside park.” That was far too many ‘wests’—“Oh! You are just outside of the entrance, near Kinney and Sandario?” “No, that’s on the (inward wince) west side of the park. I’m just inside the east boundary.”  There was nothing I could add, there were no distinctive features beside the road dipping and curving below me. There wasn’t much traffic, either, although the few cars passing below me were zipping through the desert as though it were an amusement park. Again I hoped my parents were staying off the road.

A short pause ensued before Nadia said, “Aha! Then you are at Gates Pass on the southeast side entrance.” Oh, damn, I’d forgotten that existed, I hadn’t been there since high school.  I said, “We’re on—I mean the car itself is on—Picture Rocks Road, I’m not, I can’t get a signal in the valley, I myself am about 400 yards up a hillside. But Picture Rocks the road is the only one through the monument that goes to Picture Rocks the town. That’s the road we’re on.”

Another silence on the line made me fearful that Nadia was offended by an emphasis misinterpreted as snottiness, but no, the call had been dropped, again. As I walked gingerly around prickly pears casting for a signal, I tried to see through the brush that obscured both the car and the road below.  If I didn’t speed things up a bit, my father would inevitably go for the buried spare.

The third call connected and I rushed through the protocol. “Can you get me to Nadia?” A new female voice, Sandra, said, “Ma’am, I have computer captioning of your previous service ticket. I see a tow truck has been dispatched to the Sandario and Kinney intersection. Which quadrant are you on?”

“None of them, we’re not there. We’re on the other side of the park.”

 “Are you on Old Soldiers’ Trail?”

“No, no, no, not Saguaro Park East, the east side of Saguaro—wait, wait, forget that, and forget the whole park part.” I took a calming breath. “We are on Picture Rocks Road, about a mile southwest from the Picture Rocks and Ina Road intersection.”

“I see Picture Rocks intersects with Kinney Road.”

“Yes, yes, it does, but we’re about fifteen miles (heaven help me) EAST of that intersection. I'm sorry, I don’t have GPS. Maybe we could just ping my cell phone?”
Sandra said, “Ma’am, that is for serious emergencies only, I’m sure a flat tire does not rise to that level of need. The service rep will certainly find you on Picture Rocks Road. The driver will call you when he is—.” The call dropped for a fourth time.

It was indeed up to him (or her) now. I couldn’t be sure I’d get any call up on the hill any more than down at the road level and my parents had been alone far too long.

As I scudded down the rock channel I’d scurried up, I thought about the limits of language and technology, or just maybe of my ability to use either.  I was inclined to blame the technology. I loved my car clicker but had decidedly diminished affection for my flip phone. As I neared the pullout, I saw the CostCo contents neatly stacked by the open tailgate of the CRV. The spare had been changed by a rancher who had pulled off the road because her huge battered pickup had radiator trouble.

The Good Samaritan and I reloaded the boxes and bags and we were soon rolling down Picture Rocks Road. A call from the AAA tow truck driver came in as we exited the park boundary. He had been delayed, but was now approaching the Kinney and Sandario intersection.  I thanked him and said all was now well and goodbye.  Modern technology eases our lives in myriad ways, but a little mechanical tech in the form of a jack, a four-way tire iron and an old-fashioned neighborly chat had saved this day.

Clueless in the Clinic: Basic English Vocabulary (Lynn)

After a few sessions in the cancer clinic, friends-and-family become accustomed to the dynamic of the treatment area. It’s like being in any waiting room, except that it is hyper-clean and there are really decent snacks for everyone. Strangers show each other small courtesies, and soon everyone has a sense of community. You know almost instantly who wants to be left alone, who wants to chat, or who truly needs a listener.

But you don’t learn everything all at once. 

My father was one of the patients in the recliners this afternoon who were variously reading, resting with eyes closed or outright snoring. The nurses and support staff spoke softly with those who were awake, addressing everyone by name and all the while setting IVs, reading orders, and running through checklists. When a woman two chairs down the row of recliners awoke and said she was cold, the nurse nearest to her--busy with another patient--said she’d be right there, in just a little bit. There were all kinds of wraps everywhere, so I picked up a printed fleece lap-blanket that was hanging over the pony wall to tuck around the chilled patient. An older woman sitting in the corner chair beside her companion who was half-way through her treatment said, “Get her a warm one.” I looked at the target of my intended assistance. She in turn looked sleepily back at me, and then we both silently considered the fleecie in my hands.  I thought surely it would be warm enough, the room wasn’t generally chilly, but of course I could have no idea how the drip was affecting her. I put the fleecie back on the wall in search of a better blanket. There was a heavy, crocheted afghan folded on an empty chair so I reached to fluff it up and over her.  Mid-stretch, I heard my advisor repeat, this time with just a touch of asperity, “Get her a warm one.”  I let the afghan fall short between my hands, looking at it, thinking, “But this would be good, it’s heavy and dense and, well, a little scratchy maybe, but it’d be plenty warm”.  Now wishing I’d just attended to my knitting, I heard  once again the short, sharp command from the corner, “Get her a warm one! A warm one!”

Fifty-five going on six, I stood in that aisle clutching a heap of unworthy afghan and teared up like a scolded child.  My father laughed, saying, “Lynnie, go get one from the cabinet over there”.  As I turned to see the gray metal cabinet with top vents and a black electrical cord coiled on its side, the glorious light of comprehension dawned at last. “OH, you mean a WARM one!”

Now I know where they keep the toasty, HEATED blankets.

A Poem for the Ayni Despacho Ceremony (Cas)

Ayni Despacho Ceremony for 
the Healing of the Winds of the Four Directions

During a recent ceremony hosted by the amazing Shaman Women Healers at the Harmony Hut, I extracted statements and intentions about each of the elements included in the gift mandalas the group was creating and I commemorated the event in this poem. 

Ayni Despacho Ceremony for the Healing of the Winds of the Four Directions

This pulsing vein of creation

that began as only a vision of our Ancestors

and now is strong enough,

palpable enough

to root us solidly to the core of the Earth,

to make us whole and substantial,

vital

anchored equally to the tangible and the intangible

inviting us to become authentic

by realizing our imagination

and the pure intention we invest into it

will one day be our Descendants 

and all the parameters of their world.

Honoring the power and potential

of that divine vision and hopefulness

Hope becoming source and sustenance,

the seed of transformation, 

Transmutation from energy forms

from luminous beings

to pure Love and Light.

Mountains of Joy, Prosperity, Abundance.

Mountains of Beauty, Inspiration, and Balance

abounding elevating purifying

and blessing our existence as

this momentary indulgence

the Universe playing a human game

being Sun fed, warm Earth cradled, loved.

Recognizing the equality of all beings

as sisters, brothers, mothers, fathers,

blessed children and sacred grandparents,

teachers, lovers, angelic guardians.

Blessed by all the sweetness

by the mere essences that are truly all sustaining

by sharing and generosity

we gratefully experience excess

gratitude creating

healing and health

by giving love

creating belovedness

feeding the Earth that feeds us.

The path up the majestic Mountains

an Invitation

ascending to the peaks of wisdom

to our highest selves and our highest good.

Honoring rhythm and change

we are movement, we are the dance and

we are the chaos

in pure beauty and

intoxication with divine Earthly bounty,

benevolence and Love, Love, Love.

In wild abandon and gyration

into Energy, expanding and multiplying.

By honoring source, by gratefully accepting

the unlimited variety offered to earth’s children

dwelling on the nurturing belly

of the valley basin encircled by Guardian Mountains,

shaded, watered, fed and washed

by sacred voices in the clouds,

warmed and energized by Father Sun,

dreamt and foretold by Goddess Moon,

here now, breathing, thankful

accepting responsibility

Inspiring our own Words into Dreams,

Ideas into Reality,

Imagination into Blessed Wholeness,

This Gift for our Descendants

Shamanic Bat Journey (by Cas)

image from ucsantacruz.ucnrs.org

                One of the big attractions to living in the southwest is definitely the spirit of the place. That spirit energy draws all kinds of beings to Tucson. The mixing, melding, merging and mingling of many viewpoints, cultures and lifestyles is the bounty of the Naked Pueblo. I love being able to go to the opera one night and an All-Souls puppet making workshop the next. Being able to attend a Noam Chomsky lecture at the U and being able participate in a Despacho Ceremony for the winds of the four directions of Tucson. Tucson is a rich combination that appeals to the high intellect and to the profoundly spiritual. What better way to experience both than a shamanic journey with 45,000 Mexican Free-Tailed Bats? 

                On the one hand you have one of the biggest colonies of Tadarida brasiliensis, who, according to Wikipedia, “are about 9 cm (3.5 in) in length, and they weigh about 12.3 g (0.43 oz). Their tails make up almost half their lengths. Their ears are wide and set apart to help them find prey with echolocation.” What kind of prey? On a nightly basis they eat pounds of moths, beetles, mosquitoes, flies, wasps, and ants. Pounds of them!! Not to mention spreading pollen. Tons of desert cacti and succulents depend on them. If you enjoy rum or tequila, thank the Mexican Free-Tailed Bat for pollinating the sugar cane and the agave!!  Now, let’s add to that the fact that Shamanically Bats represent rebirth, intuition, dreaming and vision. Bat spirits are capable of imparting to you great gifts including; the ability to see through illusion, create true community, transformation and prophecy!! All this AND they are MAMMALS THAT FLY!!! Bring on the Bat Journey!!

                We gathered together about an hour before sunset at the walking bridge on the Rillito River near River and Campbell to meet up with Alyson Greene, who envisioned, created, offered and guided this journey. (Here’s a link to her account of our evening…http://shamanacircle.wordpress.com/2012/08/25/sacred-nature-adventures-beauty-bats-and-blue-lotus-tea/ ) A group of a dozen of us then walked down into the wash north of the bridge and settled ourselves comfortably on the sand. We formed a circle, shared sage and essential oils to open ourselves to the spirit of the bats. We took a short consciousness journey together to connect with our guides and receive some clarity about our adventure. After we checked in with each other we then made ourselves extremely comfortable, most of us lying down on our backs on blankets spread over the sand to begin journeying with our eyes open, Alyson’s drumming and wave after wave of thousands of bats waking up and heading out to hunt and pollinate for the night.

                Whenever I have journeyed, the beginning of the experience is always a battle with my cognizant self that starts questioning, “How do you know this is real?” If I engage that thought with possible replies like;  “How do we know if anything is real?”, “What is “real”?”, “Maybe I did too many drugs twenty years ago and this is all residually enhanced.” or  “How do you prove experiential knowledge?”… (you get the idea)…then I inevitably miss relevant portions of the journey. I have learned, gratefully, to simply reply to my own negative thoughts with, “This is my reality…here…now” and quiet that distraction as quickly as possible. This mental exchange occurred as the bats activity began to intensify and spirit gifted me with another musing, “If animals could speak to us, would we understand anything they had to say?” and so I listened.  Watched and listened.

                Prior to the journey experience itself, I brushed up on my scientific bat knowledge a little. I was mostly interested in learning about echolocation and how different bats ears are from ours.  The one piece of information that really stuck with me was that our ears are actually pretty similar; some humans can even use a form of echolocation, but that the sound that bats emit as their echolocation beacon is not detectable to human ears. Wait what? Not detectable? Nearly the first thing I think of in regards to bats is that distinctly bat sound, you know the sort of clicking almost electrically kinetic chirp clicking noise that is BATS. Turns out that their actual echolocation noise is at such a high frequency that humans and even most dogs can not hear it.  But we hear bats, right? So what are we hearing? I listened, I watched and I listened. They are talking! Like any other communal mammal they were communicating with each other.  The more intensely I focused, the more visual the connections between the bats became. Mostly they were webbed together by intricate lacings of pale green glowing lines which were easiest to see directly above us and harder to maintain visually if I followed the bats movement into the sunset.  Every once in a while one of these lines would grow thinner and thinner almost as if it was being stretched and then it would quickly glow a bright pink and the two bats at either end of the pink line would move closer together, remedying something between their connection.

                As I mused on the nature of what these various connections might mean, I was graced with visits of spirits very dear to me. Some of whom, I have only ever known as spirits and others of whom I have known in various states of existence.  In a communal way, they had very clear messages for me. Some simply by their presence reminding me of all of the astounding transformations of which we are truly capable.  Others spoke directly to me about very specific fears I am currently facing and very specific paths to overcoming those fears.  Some named individuals who are willing and ready to work with me and some illustrated resources that I already have in abundance and have been neglecting to recognize on my own. Seems a lot like creating community, breaking down illusions and aiding in transformation…did the bats do this? AND THEN A BAT LANDED ON MY BELLY!!! The bat seemed to weigh nothing, adjusted its wings, twitched its little head and was gone again. Yeah, that happened. I glanced at how really close to us a lot of the bats were coming, several more came extremely close to me, but the one who had landed on my belly really defined the entire experience for me. I was entranced and deeply charmed and saturated with gratitude.

                The experience continued, Alyson drummed on, others were still journeying, but I was content. I watched with complete admiration and joy, relaxed and at peace. I appreciated how mammalian these bats remained in flight, flying a bit kinetically like I imagine I would when I dream of flying. I turned my head more often and watched how the thick black cloud of bats faded and diminished and were ultimately absorbed in the glowing red light of the sunset. Individual bats moving together becoming one mass and then becoming part of the horizon of it all. Every once in a while we are given a little glimpse of the big picture and this time I had bats to thank for it, as if I wasn’t already infinitely indebted to them for their assistance in tequila creation!!

Adventures in Culinary Alternatives...

I had talked a few months ago to a friend who uses a common, regulated medicinal herb for chemo pain relief about its possible use as an alternative to the narcotics that my husband, Marc, takes for chronic pain. My friend offered some of his supply for a trial, although he had nothing to suggest about how to use it other than by inhalation. That is not an option for Marc because his illnesses already affect his respiratory system. My friend nonetheless kindly gifted me with about half an ounce of loose, tiny leaves, all wrapped up in a white paper towel and then again in a beat-up plastic baggie. I put the baggie in my purse and drove straight home, feeling at once culpable, vulnerable and empowered.

When I got home that afternoon, I told Marc about my proposed experiment and laid the baggie on the bar in the kitchen. Marc said nothing at first, and I saw expressions of incredulity, censure, wry gratitude, and finally, curiosity cross his face. Neither one of us was terribly well informed, although years ago I had held a similar baggie briefly in my hand after picking it up from the lavatory shelf in the U of A women’s room. Before I could determine what it was, a coed had burst into the room, grabbed the baggie and darted back through the door as it swung.  

After staring at the small packet on the kitchen counter for a while, we engaged in a lengthy, wide-ranging debate, one that is obvious and no doubt universal among those seeking alternative medicines. At last we decided to leave all options open for a while (including just throwing it out) and I stowed the baggie deep in the tea cupboard, with half a grin for that small joke.

Weeks passed, and although several chances arose where we could have run the trial, the herb was still not in a usable form. Each time, Marc took the usual narcotic, and I felt bad each time about my failure to follow through. True, I’d come home with the product; done some initial research (finding out that in addition to steeping tea, one could also could brew a beer, but baked goods were best because fat was the most efficient processor of the therapeutic ingredient), and I’d think about it periodically before getting distracted by something. I have a habit of beginning but never finishing a project, but in this instance, I’d faltered partly because I’d read that the effect is slow to manifest and the potency difficult to measure. On a recent, particularly bad pain-day, I finally took action, deciding that I would prepare something called “bud butter” to have on hand. Spreading that on cinnamon toast might be the best option: it was lower calorie than brownies, and easy for Marc to prepare if I was not at home.

While Marc was sleeping, I put a pound of butter in a pot on the back burner of the stove to melt, and rummaged through the cupboard looking for the plastic baggie. In my kitchen, everything once opened gets transferred into one size of zip-lock bag or another before I toss it in the pantry. Now I pulled out a small (unlabelled, but then nothing ever is) baggie of loose leaves wrapped in white paper and poured it into the blender to grind up and add to the butter as the Internet recipe directed.  The recipe said to simmer for twenty minutes, until the butter turned green. This particular pot of butter was a red-gold brown and I wondered if I'd let it go stale. Perhaps it was a different variety. In any case, it smelled heavenly—slightly spicy and not at all cloying, as had been the hazy atmosphere of the rock concerts we’d attended years ago or of the annual open-air blues festivals at Reid Park. Marc, awakened from his nap, came into the kitchen. After one or two hearty sniffs he asked why was I making apricot decaf on the stove rather than steeping it in the electric teakettle.

Somehow that misstep soured me on the whole endeavor, and this project joined the myriad others left undone. I do have fruit-flavored butter for coffee cake that I might make soon, but the other ingredient has been returned to my friend. I’m sure I returned the proper baggie. There are no others, labeled or not, in that cupboard now. None at all.