Becoming the Sun

Giving a poetry workshop on the weather at first seemed like a tall order. But once I started poking around, the poetic possibilities seemed endless. For a start, there are all the different words for "wind" around the world - xlokk, sirocco, hamseen, simoom, sundowner, williwaw...

Then, think about climate change and biodiversity - two things intimately related to the weather. In each London classroom I've visited, biodiversity is on riotous display. Children with names as beautiful and diverse as the wind: Fatimah, Ashok, Timothy, Aliya, Matthias, Natalie, Binah, Princess...

I asked them to use their imaginations and invent new weather patterns to rival 'It's raining cats and dogs'. Plant a seed in children's minds, and the gardens that sprout are either paradisiacal or nightmarish, depending on what they've experienced. 

A little boy from Bangladesh told me about a monsoon he had seen - and its devastating affects. Others drew rainbows of black, gold and red. Storms of coloured snow that stain you blue or pink when the flakes touch your skin. One boy imagined swords and demons raining from the sky, while others preferred blizzards of chocolate and cash.

But the best part was creating poetry with 30 children - all together - about sun, wind, and rain. It gave new meaning to the word 'brainstorm'...

Here's one of my favourites:

Year 3 and the Sun

Last Tuesday in the park,

Under the flaming trees,

We had tea with the Sun.

Our eyes turned to stars

And we saw new worlds.

The trees turned to metal and fire.

The Sun gave us a magic book

And strong armour.

We turned into sunflowers, butterflies

And lions.

We reached out to touch the Sun,

But the Sun disappeared...

We became the Sun!

Imagine standing in front of thirty 7 year-olds, all of them shouting that last line at the top of their lungs: "WE BECAME THE SUN!" In that moment, London must have experienced an electric surge. I know I did.

The Blessing of Writer's Block

“We have fallen into the place 

where everything is music.” ~ Rumi

A few weeks ago I used this line from Rumi to prompt some amazing poetry from British youth. And I moved to London because that’s how it feels, like I’ve fallen straight into the bruising heart of a symphony. Outside my window, trains pass. Construction workers whistle as they crack cement. A dog growls like a stomach that’s never full. Kurdish hymns drift up through the floorboards. Pop music pulses through the walls.

I came here, in part, to find my voice as a writer, my music as a poet. But finding your voice in a world full of voices is a bit like listening for your name at a party that everyone’s been invited to. We’re all talking at once, shouting over each other. Yet I think each of us wishes for a brief lull - a moment when all the sounds and stories can be ordered and absorbed. And then, with love, forgotten.

In Greek mythology, Lethe (forgetfulness) is one of the five rivers running from the underworld. Virgil writes that only when the dead have their memories washed away by the Lethe can they be reborn again.

Perhaps the voice must go on a similar journey. First, there’s the business of living to be done. The voice needs plenty of grist. And London is full of it. The city is constantly metamorphing. New cities spurt up each day, carrying their old bones with them.

Blitzed churches become gardens butting up against glass-and-steel bulwarks. London Bridge may fall but it will be replaced overnight - doubtless by something bold and controversial. The smell of curry mixes with car exhaust and the stale perfume of Victorian pubs.

Then, amid all this music, there’s a pause. A moment, not of death, but of silence. Writer’s block. When, despite the overabundance of material, your hands hover over the keyboard, or the blank pages of a journal. When you take long walks, and wage hot war on wordlessness.

As much as I dislike these pauses (and I do), part of me knows they are good. Necessary even. For how else can the voice be born except by forgetting all that’s come before? All the voices it has heard and mimicked over the years?

Emily Dickinson called Nothing “the force that renovates the World.” I think something similar can be said of silence. Silence is the force that renovates the Word. Yet with the 24-hour news cycle and the constant pressure to publish, writers seldom allow themselves a good dose of guilt-free silence.

Of course, true silence is more than just the absence of noise. 'Renovation' comes from a Latin word meaning 'to make new' and was originally used to indicate spiritual rebirth. When faced with writer’s block, sometimes it’s the soul that needs reviving more than anything. So put down your pen, and putter in the garden. Visit a new city. Teach a child to ice-skate. Do something that gives your word-smithing a rest and at the same time replenishes your wonder and engagement with the world.

Or take singing lessons, where learning to breathe is just as important as the notes produced. Then next time you find yourself lost for words, or wondering where your muse has flitted off to, you’ll just think of it as the big, deep breath we all must take before plunging headfirst into song.

Divided Mind/United Mind

I’ve been thinking a lot about the state of art today. Much of contemporary art and literature seems to suffer from similar ills - disorientation, dissatisfaction, disillusionment. Artists hold up a mirror to society, it’s true. So of course it makes sense that art should reflect the world’s turmoil and confusion. But can the artist sit back once she's held up her mirror and say to the viewer, “There. This is what you look like. Isn’t it dreadful?”

I think this is where much of art fails. It skims the surface without seeking the essence, or attempting to search for the cause and purpose of all this upheaval. Our fractured society is reflected in the shattered mind of the artist, who often dredges up his or her own internal battles to inform art that may be cathartic, but is rarely enlightening.

In the Bhagavad Gita, a seminal text of early Hinduism, Krishna instructs the warrior Arjuna on the ways of true life. He tells Arjuna that the divided mind is the source of suffering, and the cause of anger, attachment, and selfish desires. But the united mind enables us to shed anxiety, and to perform our work “as a man established within himself.”

I’m struck by this phrase, “a man established within himself.” It seems like this is what most of us are searching for - to be comfortable in our skins, poised, confident, and at the same time, un-self-conscious. And paradoxically, the more of our Self we find, the less it concerns us, and the more attention and service we can devote to others.

But how does the mind's unity or division relate to the state of art today? Much great art, it can be argued, stems from struggle - often the artist’s internal wrestling, but also external conflict. Perhaps a fully united mind could never have created Picasso’s Guernica, or Beethoven’s Fifth. Yet there is more than chaos in these works. There is also a drive toward empathy, honesty, and insight.

So perhaps the true artist is a person who is not perfectly at peace, but also does not surrender to confusion and chronic anxiety. Art that lasts is not purely a reaction to its time and place, though of course it is informed by both. And art cannot reside fully in the skin of its maker - though personality and humanity should both shine through.

Yet the beautiful and transcendent faces of art are often forgotten in a quest for cleverness and self-confession. Beauty? the critics scoff. That's so old-fashioned. And anything hinting at soul or spirit is looked at with skepticism if not outright derision.

This saddens me, because I feel that one of the primary tasks of the artist is to see the world with new eyes, without distortion but with love. And love is a dimension I find missing in much contemporary art. Love is a force of attraction, and attraction leads to unity. So perhaps the artist does not need to begin with a unified consciousness, but must have a great capacity to love, and an ability to translate this love into words or images that enlarges this capacity in others.

I'm not speaking of romantic love, of course, or even the Platonic ideal. The kind of love I'm speaking about is what the Gita calls 'devotion.' Devotion is love detached from any expectation of outcome or success. It is love coupled with hard work and service. It is a commitment to small acts of beauty that bring joy or understanding to people's lives.

Space to Sing

Space to Sing

What is the most perfect music?

Silence.

~ Sting

And with this quote to tickle our muses, I began a poetry and spoken word workshop with three young women at London's Eastside Educational Trust.

For me, poetry must have at least four ingredients:

- words

- silence

- music

- soul

The teens at the workshop had words, music and soul in abundance. So I worked on giving their poems plenty of silence to breathe - and space to sing.

Silence and space are often overlooked in music and poetry. But the places where we draw breath, pause, and look into the listeners' eyes, is for me the essence of poetry - its quiet heart that our words must honour.

At the same time, poetry's living music is also essential. So I asked the girls to write me a poem starting with this line from Rumi: 

"We have fallen into the place where everything is music."

Here are their creations:

Rashana

We have fallen in the place
where everything is music.

From the beat of your chest,
to the oceans and the seas -

waves of mood-setters
playing that magnificent tune.

Speaking to you, calling out to you -

from behind the shadows
of the trees,

down to the last grain of sand -

blares that burning
sweet melody,

fluorescent in all its beauty
and glory.

Tides are put to rest in disbelief.

Carmen

We have fallen
into the place

where everything
is music.

Music affects the soul
in ways that a surgeon

never could,

and it gathers space
for a new sound

to complete the orchestra,

along the road 

we call “life.”

Silence is
the loudest beat

in a symphony.

Hannah


We have fallen into the place
where everything is music.

The rushing of wind mixes
with people’s meaningless chatter.

The beating of birds’ wings mingles
with the sea’s angry movements.

As I lie here I imagine
the rapid beats of my heart

sending trembles
through the ground.

Fear and passion all in one.

But, above it all, an unheard silence
lingers in the air.

Like a mystical ghost,
an unwanted stranger.

Now, stop and listen.

Witnessed Words: Names

Witnessed Words:

"Names"

"You know the name you were given, 

you do not know the name that you have."

~ Jose Saramago, All the Names

My mother had many names, one of which was given to her by the Tiwi people of Melville Island, off the northern edge of Australia, in the East Timor Sea.

During her time on the island, she formed a women's weaving group, since the old art of basketmaking was being lost. So they gave her the name Miradinga, which is the Tiwi word for the pandanus palm, used for making baskets.

The woman who gave my mother her Tiwi name was called Eileen.

This, of course, was not the name she was born with. A British schoolteacher renamed her along with thousands of Aboriginal children from the so-called "Stolen Generation" - those who were taken from their families and sent to boarding schools to be "re-educated".

During my mother's stay on the island, a family asked her to adopt one of their children, Anita, since they knew the opportunities my mother would be able to provide her in America. 


But my mother was young, unmarried, and too aware of the emotional and spiritual risks of taking Anita away from homeland. So Anita stayed on the island, and Mom moved back to the States.

I grew up hearing about Eileen and Anita, Foggerty and Deaf Tommy. These people were just names to me, but fortunately, before she died, Mom and I dug through her old slides to find a few fading faces to give life to the names.

Eileen and Beverley

Deaf Tommy, Foggerty & Friends

Anita

My mother's given name was Jacqueline, after her father, Jacob. 


Her maiden name was Aipperspach - German for 'little running brook.'


When she married my father, she struggled - should she give up her name and take his?


She did, becoming Jacqueline Lefton.


The story of Lefton is one of shifting identities too. Initially Lefkovits, when the family fled Hungary before WWII, they changed their name to Lefco, then to Lefton - in the process removing all traces of Jewishness.


Mom's parents did not give her a middle name. But in her thirties, she received one from an elderly Persian man of great faith and learning:


"Your name," he said, "is Tahirih."


Tahirih means 'the pure one.' It is also the name of one of history's great heroines: In 19th century Iran, Tahirih refused to be veiled and stood up for the right of all women to be educated.


This, in her own way, was my mother too - she cared for the unseen and unheard in society.


My father called her 'Anis,' which means Companion.


And I, of course, knew her by one name only: Mom.


So my mother, who came into this world with no name at all, left with at least seven.

I began to wonder: What does it mean, to name someone?


Naming can be a gift of acceptance and new beginnings.


It can also cause a violent loss of identity.

Naming something can give it power. 


It can also remove its mystery and take away its power.

Naming is an act of definition, declaration. I am This.

But if it comes from the outside, it can also be an act of confinement and limitation. You are That.

Naming makes the unknown known - but only partially. For a name can conceal as much as it reveals. It is only a hint, a clue to the inner mystery.

In Islam, it is said that God has ninety-nine names, each a facet of the divine essence. So a name is the robe that shelters and honours the essence.

The wrong name can be as degrading as an ill-fitting suit of clothes - worse, perhaps, than no clothes at all. Besides, if you have no name, you are still given one. You are called "Anonymous."

And think of all the wisdom attributed to Anonymous!

There is great freedom but also great loss associated with being Anonymous. You gain the power to say anything and not be held accountable. But you lose recognition and singularity.

I think we are all anonymous for most of our lives, even to those we know best. I think of my mother - did I really know her? Did I really see her?

Only when we are truly seen can we be truly named.

The real test, of course, is to see yourself clearly. 


And then to give yourself a name.


What's yours?

Anita and Jacqueline (Miradinga)

For my Mother

1 June 1951- 20 April 2010

Home

Home

“We have to stumble through so much dirt 

and humbug before we reach home.

 And we have no one to guide us. 

Our only guide is our homesickness.” 

~ Hermann Hesse, Steppenwolf

 

Light #2

Light #2

Diaspora (n): 

1876, from Greek, diaspora "dispersion," 

from diaspeirein "to scatter about, disperse,"

from dia- "about, across" + speirein "to scatter" (see sprout).

~

In Jewish mysticism, it is said that when God was pouring the first light into the vessels he made to contain it, the light was so hot, the vessels broke.

The light broke too and scattered across the face of the earth, waiting for humans to gather it and make it whole again.

I feel there is a strange connection between breaking, scattering and restoration.

I love the idea that it is only through our cracks and imperfections that the inner light can seep through.

I read a beautiful poem by Christian Wiman recently on the On Being blog called "Every Riven Thing". As the poet explains, riven means "broken, sundered, torn apart".

And that's the mystery. Because within our brokenness, inside our marrow - is the first light that was scattered, just waiting for us to recognize it, and gather it up.

This light is "in us" but not "of us" - in many ways it is:

"The Other, who reveals where you'll go

next. The stranger who should be welcome

in your home, for stranger may also be god."

~ Ruth Padel

So again, there is this paradox - between god and stranger, between what is sacred and what is feared/rejected/reviled. Our challenge is to welcome this fear (or ourselves, mainly) - and then to expose its divinity.

I think the trick is to learn to see ourselves as something remarkable and foreign rather than familiar and banal. And I think we learn see ourselves clearly by travelling.

We read books, listen to music from new places. We spread ourselves across different countries, houses, jobs, relationships. And in this scattering - diaspora - we sow a trail of seeds fed by "the warmth of other suns" (Isabel Wilkerson).

And it is, finally, these other suns that are in us too, filling our narrow bones with wonder - and finally, quietly, with recognition.

I see you

beneath the trees

unafraid of the darkness falling

- a lucid braille -

translating your body 

into light.

Light #1

Light #1

I was thinking the other day about travelling to new places, and how the colour and quality of light is always different, and how we are always changed, even slightly, by absorbing these new frequencies. So of course I wrote a poem...

Another City's Light

I sit on the verge in the sunburnt light.

Nearby, a man coaxes music from an old guitar.

On the street, two boys kick a football

between the goalposts of a tourist's legs.

The city smells of salt water, car exhaust,

the shy perfume of sand.

I am a stranger here, and sometimes I think

pilgrimage, not citizenship, is man's rightful state.

I watch the sun drop into sea

like an overripe persimmon.

And when it's too dark to read the street signs,

I trace the cry of fruit bats back to my apartment

but do not flip the switch -

dark is not light's absence, but its breath.

And after all day in the city's glare,

I just need to breathe. 

Long, luminous breaths.

Untitled

(Pilgrimage)

Uncertainty Principle

Uncertainty Principle

"It is in the admission of ignorance and the admission of uncertainty that there is a hope for the continuous motion of human beings in some direction that doesn't get confined, permanently blocked, as it has so many times before in various periods in the history of man."

~ Richard P. Feynman, Physicist

Humans are not comfortable with uncertainty. We like certitude, definition, direction.

Otherwise we feel like an unobserved photon of light - neither particle nor wave. 

Or perhaps both. 

I'm trying to enjoy my time as a photon, dodging direct observation, slipping between cultures and continents. 

The more I get to know London, the more I feel it is the Capital of Uncertainty, home to the (literal and metaphoric) homeless who are increasingly a global norm.

If you're like me, you hesitate when people ask "Where are you from?" or "What do you do?" I mean, how can there be one, simple answer to those labyrinthine questions!

For a small but growing band of professionals, there are simply no models out there for what we want to do. 

We are not (unlike many university departments) "interdisciplinary" in name only. We are connectors and integrators to the core. 

We gulp down knowledge from diverse sources, synthesize it, then spit out this spidersilk braid of different theories and paradigms - which, I believe, will one day be incredibly useful in pulling the world out of the deep pit into which it (or some of it at least) has fallen.

I think a lot of uncertainty stems from the fact that the entire world has entered uncharted waters, virgin territory. The old models don't work, and we don't have a firm enough grip on what the new ones should look like.

Yet there is a pioneering edge to this unknowingness. An edge of inventiveness and creativity that many people are beginning to explore.

But you still have people who look askance when you say, "Well, I have degrees in International Relations, Public Policy, Education and Philosophy - but I'm really interested in journalism right now. Also literacy and migration..."

Are you a dilettante? Some people wonder. Or just another example of one of those poor, lost kids who dabble in this and that before settling down to a nice stable job in accounting.

No! I want to shout. All these young people searching for themselves and their "calling" are not, generally speaking, self-absorbed (or at least, like most of us, only mildly so).

Because having a calling means answering a need, a need only you can fill. And you find that need by going deep down to the roots of your tree, where the little grubs and leaf moulds live, and finding that - goodness! - you actually are connected to this strange, wandering spacerock we call home. 

You discover that your head may be up in the stars, but your feet are fed by subterranean seas...

Being neither animal nor angel, neither atom nor cosmos, humans are paradoxes, bundles of contradictions.

But once we begin to make peace with ourselves as "between worlds", there is tremendous potential to be found.

For me, it's the tension between opposites that sparks originality and progress.

"Peace on earth" will not come when everyone looks and acts the same. Homogeneity creates weakness and disease - like crop monocultures that are highly susceptible to blights that can cause entire population collapse.

Hybrids are hardier and healthier (sorry for the alliteration), and usually much more interesting.

But hybrids are also harder to label, define, and stuff into pre-existing boxes.

So it comes back to uncertainty again - to being comfortable with new forms of life and work that may defy easy definition.

I like to think of uncertainty as the creative principle that underlies our universe.

In fact, Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle is one of the cornerstones of quantum mechanics - and therefore describes what's really going on "beneath the surface" of the physical world.

It basically states that the more precisely you measure a particle's speed, the less you can know about its location, and vice versa.

For me, the Uncertainty Principle is how the universe manages to be both measurable and mysterious at once.

At the subatomic level, the universe is just fluid enough to slip through our fingers when we reach out to grasp it.

It's the universe saying, "You can know this much, but no more..."

As physicist and historian Jacob Bronowski said, "The Principle of Uncertainty or, in my phrase, the Principle of Tolerance, fixed once for all the realization that all knowledge is limited."

So it reminds us to be humble. 

It also reminds us to be alive.

Because for me, it's this fundamental uncertainty that is the secret engine of growth and evolution. It's what makes the universe expand.

It's what Emily Dickinson meant when she said, "Dwell in possibility."

Because uncertainty is just another name for possibility, for the freedom inherent in each speck of light, to choose where it's going - and how fast it will get there.