AELEFTON.WORDPRESS.COM

Dear Readers,

In keeping with the roving nature of this blog, I've picking up and moving on. Please visit my new website:

aelefton.wordpress.com

I look forward to continuing the conversation in new spaces!

AE

Returning to the World

Image Credit: NASA

I have just finished Martin Buber's extraordinary work, "I and Thou", and am still reeling from the experience. Every page in my book has been underlined, notes scribbled in the margins - confirmations, questions, refutations (yes, I'm one of those sacrilegious souls who writes in books). So here is one passage that left me deeply thoughtful about how we talk about "progress" and "development". This passage helped clarify for me where the true evolution of humanity is leading - first into our depths, then back into the world:

"The sickness of our age is unlike that of any other and yet belongs to the sicknesses of all. The history of cultures is not a stadium of eons in which one runner after another must cover the same circle of death, cheerfully and unconsciously. A nameless path leads through their ascensions and declines. It is not a path of progress and development...but only the unheard of return - the breakthrough. Shall we have to follow this path all the way to the end, to the test of the final darkness? But where there is danger what saves grows too." (Emphasis added.)

Buber speaks of "the unheard of return" - meaning our return to the actual, lived world of human encounters and relationships. For Buber, this is the essential direction of all true change - returning to the world from a place of aloneness, struggle, alienation. Of course, we must first descend into our darkness before we can return. But it is the process of return that redeems our darkness, gives it meaning, and ultimately, heals us.

Honouring the Intuitive Mind

"The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. 

We have created a society that honors the servant 

and has forgotten the gift." 

~ Albert Einstein

In his now-famous TED talk, Sir Ken Robinson describes how schools kill creativity. He asserts that all children are innately creative, yet we socialize them into conformity by measuring them against a "standard" that is biased and even harmful. He advocates different solutions to this problem, which I will not elaborate here. What I'd like to do, instead, is think about what nourishes our creativity - which includes honouring our intuitive minds.

I recently read an interview with the Andrei A. Tarkovsky, the son of famous Russian film director, Andrei Tarkovsky (remembered for Solaris, among other works). Mr. Tarkovsky spoke about the spiritual lineage of Russia, and how this lineage, so deeply ingrained in the culture, is the unquestioned foundation of all Russia's great works of art, literature, and film.

I was reminded of the Firebird, a mythical creature of Russian folklore. It is said that when one of her feathers drops to earth, another art form is born.

For me, it was astonishing to read Tarkovsky's unabashed admission of the centrality of the divine in creative pursuits. In the West, there has been a not-so-subtle overthrow of God or anything hinting at religion or mysticism in much of contemporary art (perhaps starting as far back as the Enlightenment).

Let me be clear: I am not advocating a return to the religiosity of, say, the Middle Ages or even the Renaissance. But I feel we now worship rationality and its associates (utility, efficiency, price) to the detriment of wisdom, experience, reflection - in other words, our "intuitive mind". Just as the union of science and faith is necessary to achieve a fuller conception of truth, reason and intuition are equally vital in connecting mind, heart, and gut.

It is this unity - of intellect, emotion, and intuition - that informs creativity. (Note: I do not say, "is" creativity. That's another discussion.) Art that is purely conceptual feels sterile and empty. Art that is purely emotive lacks clarity and the power to move beyond catharsis. And intuitive art - by which I mean art that springs from somewhere deeper than consciousness - is inexpressible without the languages of mind and heart to give it form.

There are two words in Einstein's famous quote that bear exploration: servant and gift. I have written in an earlier entry about "servant leadership", and I feel service itself is an essential part of the creative process. When we serve others, we step out of our own whirlpool of self, with all its problems, confusions, and obsessions. The very act of opening to another in a stance of service also opens us to creative energies. This is because we have to submit to the will of the universe and stop trying to control the outcome. And once we give up control, we are signalling our willingness to be transformed.

Thomas Merton described spiritual transformation in similar terms:

"...in order to make this leap our of ourselves we have to be willing to let go of everything that is our own - all our own plans, all our own hesitations, all our own judgments...That does not mean that we give up thinking and acting: but that we are ready for any change that God's action may make in our lives.

 "On this readiness to change depends our whole destiny."

I feel the same can be said of creativity. Creativity requires, at core, a willingness to fundamentally change how we see ourselves and the world. And this willingness to change in never confined to logic or reason - though it does make use of them. Our brains provide the heat of motion and concentration that moves us toward the precipice of some real or mental leap. But it is here, at this point of utter unknowingness when all familiar stars disappear from the sky, that thinking too much is not a good idea. This is the moment when we need a wisdom deeper than rationality or emotion.

To prepare ourselves for this moment, we must honour and nourish our intuitive mind just as much as our bodies and mental capacities. Nourishing our intuitive mind means:

(1) Acknowledging its power. We cannot control our intuition - at best, we can open ourselves to it, listen to it, and protect it. 

(2) Befriending its eccentricities. To do this, we must spend enough time alone in order to reconnect our intuitive mind with our reason and emotions. This may mean engaging in solitary activities like walking or mountain climbing. But it also can mean prayer and meditation. 

(3) Serving others. Service is how we learn empathy, acceptance, how to give, but also how to receive the unexpected gifts that both friends and strangers offer. These values heighten our sensitivity to true connection, helping us distinguish between intuition and cognitive/emotional noise. And true connection = intuition.

This is, of course, a very partial and incomplete list. But it is a start. Writers often speak of "submission" in terms of sending poems or stories to editors in the hope of publication. But I believe creativity requires another kind of submission.

Creativity requires offering ourselves to wisdom's wisdom. This is the "sacred gift," and it demands nothing less than our entire being.

Non-Integration Is No Longer an Option

"The one who is always trying to discover the unknown,

Could not discover himself.

The one who captured the rays of the sun,

Could not fill the void of his own life.

The one who illuminated the world with lanterns,

Failed to realize the darkness of his own heart.

If there is darkness in one's own heart, what is the use of light on the outside?"

- Allama Iqbal, "Filling Our Void"

There is always the question of whether you can separate an artist from his/her work. Or a great leader from his/her confused or sordid persona life. In the past, this separation was possible. In some respects, it still is. But we are swiftly moving into an era when the divorce between Work and Source will not be acceptable or even desirable. Non-integration is no longer an option.

I believe this is true for several reasons. First, there is the revolution in the means and speed of communication. In the past, information was very limited. We knew about people through word of mouth, through their own personal correspondence or memoirs, through other people's recollections.

Today, technology has so blurred the line between personal and public that many artists and leaders are confronted with the details of their "private" lives - whether true or fabricated - in almost real time, and before a global audience. It is becoming increasingly difficult to watch a film or policy debate without making even subtle character judgments: "Oh, he's the one who had an affair with..." "She was involved in that hit-and-run..." Even if the information is false, life in the public eye requires much greater vigilance to preserve one's reputation.

Second, and beyond self-preservation, there is a deepening thirst for honesty, sincerity, and heartfulness in art and leadership. In the past, people were content with making a living, or if they were hungrier, with the search for "meaning." Now, even meaning is inadequate. People are looking for meaning that is meaningful - which is not a truism. Many works of art have a kind of meaning - they can be conceptual, existential, or beautiful. Even ugliness and brutality, as witnessed in both politics and many commercial films, has a kind of meaning.

But this is not what people are seeking. In art and leadership, connection is everything. And connection cannot be faked. Without the integration of ethical living and creativity, connection is impossible. Why? Because connection rests, first, on contact with one's soul. And this bond is broken if a person is destructive of human relationships.

In politics, leadership without integrity is leading us farther away from our station as beings with a conscience and nobility.

In education, social services, and international development, ticking boxes and writing reports is no longer satisfactory. In fact, it is harming everyone from office workers to aid beneficiaries by talking about everything from "empowerment" to "sustainability" without one essential word...love.

In the arts, intellect and creativity divorced from humanity is producing much that is half-living, and much that is dead.

In religion, morality without relevance or role models is proving an empty ethics.

In science and academia, the highest aim has become to pick holes in each other's arguments. Personality politics is the name of the game, not collaboration, dialogue, or mentorship.

In industry and economics, the quest for utility and profitability leads to unceasing cycles of boom and bust because concepts like detachment, sacrifice, and service are not included in our models.

This is why I believe the era of non-integration must end. Because is becoming too painful to look at ourselves in the mirror without seeing, at the same time, the world we have created. 

5 Years Too Many

This month marks the 5th anniversary of the imprisonment of 7 Baha'i leaders in Iran, for no crime other than their belief in a faith deemed "heretical" by the Shiite clerics. This is a faith that teaches the oneness of God, the oneness of religion, universal education, the equality of men and women, and the unity of humankind. You can learn more about the systematic persecution of Baha'is here: http://www.bic.org/fiveyears/

I Am Going to Cause a Tiger

And so, as I sleep, some dream beguiles me, and suddenly I know I am dreaming.

Then I think: this is a dream, a pure diversion of my will; 
and now that I have unlimited power, 
I am going to cause a tiger.

~ Jorge Luis Borges

Do not wake me, says the dreamer,

let me pass through Indian forests

and glimpse the crushing velvet,

the hunter's molten eye.

Let me speak Blake in my sleep,

grind syllables between my teeth

like citadels of crashing light,

forming meteors that arc the iris -

fallen stars devoured

by my own slumbering depths.

Let me whisper to my darkness

the golden oath I dreamt:

I am going to cause a tiger.

But do not wake me. Not yet.

Song of Ourselves

March 8th was International Women's Day. A few weeks earlier, I had written a personal reflection on what it means to be a woman today. It was published last Friday on American Public Media's On Being blog. You can read the essay here:

SONG OF OURSELVES

My mother, Jacqueline and her dear friend Judith, Haifa, Israel

New Blog: FireWired

New year, new job, new city, new blog! I've begun work on FireWired, a blog about education, technology, and social justice. Readers and suggestions welcome.

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