Where we lived, the settlers build their houses. Where
we drew fresh water, the oil companies sucked oil.
Where deer ran in countless numbers, we have a new
mall. Where the healing plants thrived; the river is
burning. Now, a fence cuts the road home. Next the sky
will be tethered, and we will pay for air.
From Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings by Joy Harjo
Big Mac speaks:
“buy now, pay later, Diner’s Club.”
Is the darkness only in my mind?
And then I look outside and see the smoke.
And mirrors.
The sun sets on the last July Saturday and I listen to a fado lament sung by Ercilia Costa and read Winter a poem by Czeslaw Milosz:
“And now I am ready to keep running
When the sun rises beyond the borderlands of death,
I already see mountain ridges in the heavenly forest
Where, beyond every essence, a new essence waits.”
On Sunday my Dad, Kenneth Hinds Chandler, passed away, and today I honor my “centurion:” a life that spanned our American Century. In addition to being a loving husband, father, brother, uncle, grandfather, great-grandfather, and friend to the many that loved him, he was a farmer, soldier, administrator, fisherman, hiker, artist and avid reader of history.
When I was six we began tramping together, sharing the spaces and places of American History from New England to Virginia: Plymouth to Williamsburg; Boston Harbor to Yorktown; and Gettysburg to Bull Run. Walking in his footsteps history came alive and helped guide me to my career as an archivist.
So, ‘tis not strange, in this time of sorrow to reach for Walt Whitman and his elegy to President Abraham Lincoln in the Spring of 1865:
When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d,
And the great star early droop’d in the western sky in the
night,
I mourn’d, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.
Ever returning spring, trinity sure to me you bring,
Lilac blooming perennial and drooping star in the west,
And thought of him I love.
Late Saturday afternoon, walking my neighborhood, and thinking about my Dad, I chanced upon a beautiful lilac bush blooming in the fullness of this Spring. And oh I shall mourn with ever-returning Spring. Farewell Dad. Thank you for bringing me into this world…for taking the risk of having a child…for taking the time to teach me about integrity…for devoting your life to giving me a home where I could grow and learn and dream of the person I would become and the worlds I would explore. You put me on the road of life and set an example for me as I met life’s challenges. Farewell Dad. I love you, until we meet again.
“In a world without forest streams from which to drink, where shall I find forest streams from which to drink?”
From the poem In a World Without Forests by Dick Allen, Zen Master
Tramping alongside the Maacama, I rejoice to still find water flowing towards the Russian River. End of September, the air is dusty; golden fields are baked; creeks are typically dry; and the fear of fire haunts all of us who love California’s rolling hills and rivers. Almost a year ago, firestorms besieged Sonoma County, this beautiful place, displacing and forever changing the lives of humans and animals. I am grateful for all lives saved and mourn for all who lost their homes and loved ones. I am grateful for this yet babbling creek. The cup is yet half full. Little daylight remaining, a great blue heron soars by me settling alongside the quiet creek bank searching for the last catch. In the East, St. Helena soars, sheltering the vineyards below where harvest has begun. Equinox. I whisper a prayer “may we live in balance and at peace for one year more.”
Borders deserve respect, but respect for asylum and respect for due process is deserved too. Danger lurks when we label others; people are not labels, they are human beings deserving dignity and respect. Human rights cannot be merely an abstraction, they must be the values by which we truly live every day. Human rights must be our primary colors; human rights cannot be whitewash. “The history of the Holocaust is not over. Its precedent is eternal, and its lessons have not yet been learned.”[1]
“Every man has a name
Given by the stars
Given by his neighbors.”
Zelda Mishkovsky, 1974
[1]Snyder, Timothy. Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning. New York: Tim Duggan Books, 2015.
Living in the East Bay, our gaze draws westward, and this is not hard to understand. In the west looms San Francisco, our imperial city; our iconic bridges, the Golden Gate and the Bay Bridge; winter rainstorms are born there; and the sun, traversing the north-south longitude, sets in the west. And quietly, holding up the sky, Mount Tamalpais anchors my western horizon. Tamalpais is always there, grounding me; at times just in the corner of my eye, and other times commanding my full attention, whether near or far. My love for Mount Tamalpais has grown deep over the years – many chapters of my story feature this mountain. In the 19th century, the ukiyo-e artist Hokusai captured his love for a revered Japanese mountain with his famous series of woodblock prints Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji.
Inspired by two books, Opening the Mountain: Circumambulating Mount Tamalpais A Ritual Walk by Mathew Davis & Michael Farrell Scott and Tamalpais Walking: Poetry, History and Prints by Tom Killion and Gary Snyder, I persuaded my dear friends, to walk from Muir Woods to East Peak, the top of Mount Tamalpais. At the end of March, we covered a distance of approximately twelve miles, spanning a range of plant communities, including redwoods, mixed evergreen forests, grasslands and chaparral, as well as plants, such as ceanothus, endemic to the mountain adapted to the Serpentine soils. Our journey gave amazing views of the greater Bay Area and we saw Mount Tam’s sister mountains: Black Mountain (west), Mount St. Helena (north), Mount Diablo (east) and Mount Hamilton (south). The artist Tom Killion began his love affair with Tamalpais as a young man, and inspired by Hokusai, he created beautiful prints of the mountain from multiple viewpoints, many of them featured in Tamalpais Walking.
Last week, cycling from Oakland to Richmond on the Bay Trail, I travelled a diverse landscape featuring mudflats so alive with plants and animals coexisting with trucks and cars speeding by on asphalt and cement highways. This is nature – mankind a dominating part of a community of flora and fauna; this is not wilderness. Throughout the journey, there was my friend Mount Tamalpais, on the horizon, a guidepost measuring my progress, a signpost holding close my memories.
Some memories are like small towns on country roads;
once well travelled, now enigmas signifying an interstate exit.
Sister reminded me Mom’s favorite perfume was Faberge’s Tigress.
Dad bought her Tigress every Christmas.
Tigress: the sleek bottle containing the amber liquid crowned with a tiger skin stopper.
Unconscious memories no longer a mystery.
“Comprehend without your head
and without your ears, listen
to noiseless, un-mouthed words.”[1]
My mother was a Tigress – that was no mask.
She comprehended the noiseless, un-mouthed words of others.
Listening without her head and ears she always saw the truth behind other’s masks.
No matter how deep it cut-to-the-bone she always spoke her truth.
See suffered no fools.
And she always gave herself away for the benefit of others.
Across time and space I see you.
I embrace you.
I love you Tigress for all you did and hoped for me.
Namaste.
Written while listening to Caetano Veloso singing Cucurrucucu Paloma en Vivo inspired by the lyrics translated from Portuguese to English.
[1]A quote from Attar’s poem The Conference of the Birds, translated by Shole Wolpe
The room is charged. His eyes two points that arc, revealing his story. He has fought the pain. But there has been a price. He is so tired and there is so much he has forgotten.
“I sit with this room. With the grey walls that darken into corner. And one window with teeth in it. Sit so still you can hear your hair rustle in your shirt. Look away from the window when clouds and other things go by. [Ninety-seven] years old. There are no prizes.” [1]
Spring has roared awake.
Last Friday’s fervent downpour.
New leaves brilliant greens.
Soft. Supple. Hopeful.
dear companions, follow Gary Snyder’s footprints:
Hiking Muir Woods to East Peak Tamalpais.
Day born in fog, climbing above misty clouds through rainy redwood rainforest.
Dappled sunshine coastal oaks and bay laurels; woodlands and meadows;
warmth on my skin.
Ridgeline a soft blanket enfolds the city, ocean sleeps
cozy quilt.
Winding serpentine swale, wild turkey shares stories.
Manzanita blooms humming honey bees.
Twisted Pacific Madrona mark dry north side trail.
Paradox: Winter rains; little fog. A dryland.
Oasis of redwood trees, quench their timeless thirst by a spring.
Summiting: St. Helena to the North, Diablo to the East, Hamilton to the South.
From Tamalpais guardian of the West.
My mind locked in the winter of my Father’s illness. Naked and cold, not yet open to the thaw.
Will the hot sun of New Mexico burn winter away?
William Carlos Williams writes in Spring and All:
“Dead, brown leaves under them
Leafless vines –
Lifeless in appearance, sluggish, dazed spring approaches-
They enter the new world naked,
Cold, uncertain of it all
Save that they enter. All about them
The cold, familiar wind –“
alive in the sea of information 