OnLine With Zoe

The Shore of Change

I went to a meeting last night of many groups discussing immigration issues with specific focus on LGBTQ people.  Speakers were an Attorney, organization leaders and community organizers (a meaningful distinction).  I went, not just to support some very special people in my life, to learn about the deportations locally and express my support for a fast path to citizenship.  Hell, I just would like to change the entire border to a welcoming platform for people going in any direction.  More specifically I want to encourage protests, demonstrations and NVDA here in the O.C.

A young man who reminded me of many in GetEqual spoke.  “There is a short window for action as Congress will only be in session about 25 more days in 2013.”  At the Q&A, I said I would really like to meet him and made the observation that it means that these uber conservative men will be in their home offices here in the OC, prime for protests and I mentioned Dana Rohrabacher.  The Atty on the panel said, “He is a waste of time.”  I suppose that is his POV but it sure isn’t mine.  (and I don’t appreciate being dismissed like flicking an insect.  He might have asked, what would that achieve?).

Changing the mind of a blind conservative is never the point of protesting at their home office.  Gov. Brewer, Gov. Walker, Rep. Campbell, Rep. Hunt, Senator Cruz are never the mission.  They are used on one side of the tension between change-makers and conserve-atives.  It irked me to no end that an atty would just dismiss this fundamental in the Civil Rights, Human Rights movement. 

I waited for the meeting to end and approached the org leader who made the original comment and said, I am very interested in your work, the congressional vacations are great time to protest and how can I help.  He proceeded to tell me his org facebook page and said I could check him out there.  I continued asking about NVDA and protests and he said, “you can check me out here, while he was checking out the guys in the room.”

I thought, dude you should check me out.  I could not stop thinking about it.  I woke up today thinking how much could be gained if we integrated the shore of change – where the progressives in each group on the matrix of oppression stand.  There is so much to be gained by integrating the minorities who have the very same opponent – SAMENESS.   And, obviously it would be the progressives who would go first.  I hope most understand the crackling splendor of watching Representative John Lewis being arrested at an immigration demonstration last week. 

One thing that was truly new news for me last night was how much the repeal of DOMA assists in immigration rights.  It is an intersection to be proud of.  A little old white lady, Mrs Edie Windsor did that. 

The Pad Police #idiots

When I was eight or nine I discovered a big box in my mother’s closet.  It was pink or blue pastel with flowers or swirlees, I am not certain.  It was wrapped so it had to be a gift of some sort.  And then one day, as I snooped for hats or shoes to try on, the box was open.  Inside were white cotton mattresses for my Ginny doll.  They were six inches long with unstuffed extensions at each end.  I cannot say why, exactly, but it was crystal clear that asking about these was out of the question, so to speak. 

 With what I know and believe today, 55 years later and the women’s movement in my veins, it seems impossible that a little girl of nine would have zero idea of what they were or where they came from.  That illustrates how unspoken things were in 1956.  When I was about eleven, I found one of these mystery mattresses wrapped in toilet paper, lying on the sink in the bathroom I shared with my mother.  I opened it and discovered it was some sort of bandage as it had blood on it. 

Packing for summer camp when I was twelve, mother came into my bedroom carrying one of these gigantic, feather-light  boxes.  She also had an elastic belt with pronged metal fasteners.  She made me put on the elastic belt over my shorts and showed me how the pad clipped in.  It was awful.  She went on to explain that everyone did this.  Every girl and woman did this.  I was totally dismayed.  I looked at magazines, at students, at women everywhere to see how they hid this thick cotton mattress held in place by sharp metal clips.  

It was disgusting.  It was silent.  It was in plain wrap.  Buying it was to be stealth, looking to see who was in the store and was a woman at the cash register.  It was a task to change and worse to dispose of.  Most of all it was an Olympian challenge to wear without detection.  No one had to tell me that you could not let boys or men know of this event.  That was simply understood.   I could not figure out how girls sat on their father’s laps with this impediment strapped in place.  

For many reasons, the onus has reduced A BIT.  There are TV commercials.  There are aisles of products in grocery stores.  There are words on the wrapping.  You can swim and walk a hi-beam without worry.  They are scented, winged, flat, disposable.  Hey, got a spare pon?  No problem. 

But never be fooled, as easy as it might be for menstruating America; it is dirty, it is taboo, it is not dinner table talk.  Men are repulsed at the very idea that this shamed private item be the object of resistance in the Austin State House.  Maybe they were actually informed that this action would happen when House Bill 2 passed (19-11) but be it rumor or fact – they would not have it happen. 

With puny minds, little did they consider the idiotic laughing stock they would become.  Someone at morning police briefing had to tell them to confiscate condoms, tampons and pads.  Someone had to provide big bins for all the contraband.  Someone had to make this a RULE. 

Of course no one had time to tell Rambo, the pad police, what is the proper protocol.  The memo about not shaming the women, not mocking the pads, not inserting their own aversions into this police action would not be tolerated.  Maybe the younger women who immediately knew this was an outrage and made it trend on twitter #tampongate, were handing them over with equal dollops of contempt but some were not able to be cavalier. 

Idiot men waving around a pad, humiliating women for whom it was an entrenched cultural taboo was a whole lot more than embarrassing.  These men revealed the contempt they have all day, every day. They just had a way to demonstrate it on this occasion.  Hardly more mature than a second grader who thinks a that a loud fart is the best joke ever, these tough men in their armed uniform projected their discomfort as confiscation continued.  With no concern for the reality of this action, the police took food from hypoglycemics and diabetics, took incontinence pads, took pons and napkins.  With no second thought about all those who practice abstinence and are not pregnant, they binned their sanitary protection. 

These mindless, bible-headed bullies were so mortified with the idea of citizens throwing clean pads and wrapped tampons at them as if it was an unbearable shame when I would ask about the government inserting an ultrasound wand, a forced sterilization for inmates, the insistence of carrying an unwanted pregnancy.  It may have become a media circus, a trending tag but, to me, it is so much more. It is the laws of the old testament, of bleeding being unclean and requiring sacrifice. It is the Red Tent.

A Perfect Storm Named Wendy

Facebook and Twitter are a blaze with #StandwithWendy.  The unruly mob of waking women in Austin’s gallery June 25 assigned a new meaning to orange and long-haul.  At one point the viewers on youtube were 190,000+ watching the clock countdown.  The national contagion was full on.  It did not hurt that this epicenter was Texas, home of the notoriously ignorant Perry who spilled all his candy in the lobby running for the GOP presidential bid in 2011.  The country expects Texans to be conservative and, for the most part, christian.   No one will say Perry can’t do two things at once like we did about Dan Quail.  Perry can sign a bill to protect an embryo with one hand and execute prisoner #500 with the other.  

Those of us who ever used Roberts Rules of Order knew that the maneuvers of the last forty minutes were not jerks or people jerking around the state senate.  They were the some of the many brains of this operation who were lavishly spending time, resting Senator Davis’ voice, putting an end to the exasperating interruptions to which Senator Davis would say, “not at this time.”  While the gallery chanting had all the appearance of spontaneity and may have been for most, it was the brass section rising up at the coda, telling the losers of their loss.

Funny memes, women’s organizations scrambling to get out their donation pleas, a twitter account sprang up @wendysbackbrace; cutting through the tragedy of young Texas women’s lives parlayed like campaign chips.  I’ve "got your back gurl" has new meaning now.  Hundreds of commenters headed to Amazon to post their 2 cents over Senator Davis’ shoes, Mizuno Wave Riders.  "The next time you have to spend 13 hours on your feet without food, water or bathroom breaks, this is the shoe for you. Guaranteed to outrun patriarchy on race day."

Social media has crowned this new goddess.  Petitions have called for her to be the next Ann Richards and send Governor Perry packing.  Suddenly the public lexicon includes ACCESS, SB5, NVDA and Gandhi tactics.  And the word, filibuster has leapt off Jimmy Stewart’s screen and onto the 5 o’clock news.  (Do note that Mr. Smith was carrying on about a boy’s camp)

You might think I would be jumping for joy. Ok, the jumping part is a stretch.  But it worries me that people think one magic messiah has shown up to save the day for Reproductive Justice.  This thought is so faulty, so risky that I am genuinely wondering how to even talk about it.  Pointing it out might be seen as being cynicical or a naysayer and I am neither. Seeing this fully will empower, enable and show you your part in this storm.  It did not happen without you.

This is a perfect storm and Senator Wendy Davis is not the center.  This storm began collecting with each right-to-lifer threatening a woman walking to a clinic door.  A crack of lightening, the slow and vicious shooting of Dr. Tiller.  Sickening photo signs of bleeding embryos with thousands of people marching chanting the rosary.  And all the while, abortion services disappearing.  All of this being narrated by brilliant women, Erin Matson, Shelby Knox, Michelle Bruns, Steph Harold and RH Reality Check – to name only a  few.  

Representative Laubenberg was the Shakespearean opponent revealed.  Her proclamation that a rape kit is a medical pack for a D&C was not laughable, it was tragic.  I could hardly piece together all the conclusions that leads to as I watched her search her document for section 486.  "In the emergency room they have what's called rape kits, where a woman can get cleaned out."  What of unprocessed rape kits?  What of the votes to fund sexual assault protection services?  Did she actually think that stored unprocessed kits held extracted embryos?  Ultimately I had to stop thinking about the chain reaction of her thought process.  It was too upsetting.

The real force of this storm is the change that is collecting through citizenry’s understanding (standing under) that united minorities are no longer the minority.  The fact that this was Austin, Texas is no accident.  The Dreamers, GetEqual, the Harvey Milk Conference, the legacy of Ann and Cecile Richards, and the unrelenting need for health services for poor women.  Disappearing access, insane requirements, unthinkable barriers to “safe and legal.”  The intersection of all the oppressed chanting at once, My BODY, My choice.  This is contagious.  Wendy Davis is not patient #1.

Patient #1 was bleeding to death in an airplane from Mexico City to some town USA 1966.  Or, sitting in a tub with a hanger and a bottle of coca cola for a douche.  Or a broken body at the bottom of a staircase.  Or a bride facing her groom, catapulted together with no way out.  What we caught is mindful compassion and finally we found one another in numbers that strengthen our resolve and raise our voices.

Imagined by visionaries, demonstrated by activists, narrated by writers, this revolution is televised.  Celebrate Wendy Davis as a lightning rod but know this: YOU made this happen.  Your voice joined with another.  You made this happen when you said, this is enough.  You are making this happen because, in fact, there no other way – You are the one you have been waiting for.  The Perfect Storm collected and it is US. 

For Heather ~ My Campaign Speech 2007

It is hard to believe the speech below was given six years ago.  Actually it was given in Spanish, translated by Heather Frederick, delivered to a room 95% non-Spanish speaking.  I wanted the women to know what it felt like to be entirely discarded on the basis of language.  It was not well received.  In fact, the flyers with the translation to English almost got me disqualified.
Today, I am thinking of the young women I ran with for office, the legions of interns and, in particular, Heather.  Today they are sitting in the Texas gallery.  They are escorting clients from parked cars safely into Planned Parenthood.  They are on hotlines, in Gender and LGBTQ Centers, helping.  They are shaping the future, just as feminists did in the 60's & 70's. I love you more than my words will ever explain.

Tomorrow I will do what I do everyday.

I wake up, I get out of bed and work to advance women.
I do it with my blog
I do it with demonstrations
I do it hosting Feminist Cafes
I do it promoting the ERA
I do it protesting oppression

Tomorrow I will do what I do everyday.

30 years ago I visited my friend Ginny Foat, at the Sybil Brand Women’s Prison
25 years ago, Ellie Smeal came to Illinois, Now paid my hotel bill and stepped away from the ERA.
Over the last 4 years I edited 120 biographies of Women Who Changed America 1963 – 1975
Last year I convened a NOW chapter and spoke dozens of times
In the next two weeks, I will be at a feminist gala in Oakland and host a feminist panel at USC

Tomorrow I will do what I do everyday.

In the movement, I am a middle sister
I get my older sisters
I get my younger sisters
I love being in service to both

My older sisters think the younger ones have abandoned the women’s movement
I tell them they just looking in the wrong places
My younger sisters are crazy busy managing their lives
and tired of hearing the oldest sisters say they are not doing anything.
 
Tomorrow I will do what I do everyday.

I will buy and read every book I can afford on feminism.
I will crawl the web for every item that is by ~ for or about women.
I will encourage every female to be all she can be and to exceed even her own expectation.

Tomorrow you may decide that I am doing it with and for California NOW.
Tomorrow you may decide to put an end to the litigious strangle hold suffocating CANOW.
Tomorrow you may decide to continue with expansion in CA NOW, as all expanding and stable
non-profits do, with a paid staff and executive director.
Tomorrow you may decide to get back to the issues of our evolving feminist lives

But fundamentally, for me, tomorrow nothing is going to change.
Tomorrow I will do what I do everyday.

Pray That Exodus is Over

Tonight I watched my friend Michael Bussee and my facebook friend, Sean Sala on Lisa Ling's Our America.

I am so fortunate that never, not for a single second, did I think that my attraction to women was a sin. Never did I think that it was wrong or sick. Now I want to tell every kid, every parent, everyone who will listen that it is a simple, wholesome, valuable expression within humanity. I believe with every breath that one day it will be globally accepted and seamlessly integrated. In the meantime, lets do all we can to speed that up.

I don't know Alan Chambers. I do know that he cannot change until words are outweighed by deeds. I wish him well.

Finally, I hope that SCOTUS will tell the nation and the world that all Americans have full access to all human and civil rights.

The March for Equality

There are no coincidences.  It is a phrase bandied about which seldom has applied in my life more than now.  The week of March 26 – 30 is a pivotal and profound set of days in the March for Equality.  We can only hope that the Cherry Blossoms intoxicate the whole of D.C. with the perfume of change in the direction of justice. 

March 26 and 27, SCOTUS will be hosting a Pride like no other.  It will be listening, weighing and considering if they are evolved enough to state legally and publicly that marriage is a civil right.  Should they find their higher selves, they will be able to do this.  Those of us who
already know the deep truth of it will welcome them to this 21^st Century wisdom. 

March 28 will be an amazing companion to this Equinox of change.  It will be the second time in US history that a president has engaged the DOJ to prosecute a single (singled-out) citizen for obstruction at the White House fence.  Lt. Dan Choi follows in Miss Alice Paul’s path with this unique outcome.  She was arrested, tried and sentenced in 1917 for obstruction at the White House fence.  Just as Mr. Wilson directed his staff to act and the media to ignore, Mr. Obama has pushed on with an iron fist both in the prosecution by the Department of Justice and the censorship of mainstream press.  Lt Choi stood at the fence, as have thousands of others but is the only one facing the DOJ.  Ironically, being found guilty and sentenced would result in being disqualified to re-enlist.  Certainly this is the epitome of Heller’s Catch 22.

Recently I have been investigating the temperament of President Wilson and his henchmen.  From the DOJ to the press, Mr. Wilson was vigilant to stop Miss Paul, stop the embarrassment, stop the outward demonstration of his preference to steer clear of suffrage.  Miss Paul pressed harder as the resistance mounted, creating greater tension.  She was as clever, brave and possibly more effective than Mohandas Gandhi in the practice of Non-Violent Direct Action.  Mrs. Pankhurst lit some fire in Albert Hall. 

The direct lineage is not lost on me that Miss Paul, the Mahatma, Dan Choi, Cindy Sheehan, Sonia Johnson, Mary Lee Sargent, Robin McGehee, dozens of others have stood still in the maelstrom of chaos and said, “truth is here.  I will not move as truth is here.”  Just as apt is the reverse; they moved the barriers to change to say, “this change is justice herself.  This demonstration is going to break the social stasis.”  No matter the metaphor, these are the people who move possibility.

On March 28, I will be in that courtroom.  Maybe you would like to be there too.  Please tell anyone you think would want to know about it and/or would like to be there. 

8:00 AM on Courthouse Lawn - Yoga, Meditation and Interfaith Prayer
9:00 AM in Courtroom 6, (Second Floor) - Trial
U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia
333 Constitution Ave. N.W.
Washington D.C.

If you or anyone you know would like to write the judge -
Judge John M. Facciola
USA v. Lt. Daniel Choi
E. Barrett Prettyman Courthouse
United States District Court
333 Constitution Avenue NW
Washington, D.C. 20001

The Self Interview Unchained

I am not a fan of chain mail, email, posts.  I don’t respond in five minutes with six people I want to hug or send angels to rescue.  I don’t want to tell you my last meal choice, the one word to describe you or post what ten words I would say if you called for bail.  But ask me about writing, about my books, about “Intellectual Activism” in the words of Patricia Hill Collins and I will clear my desk. 

This fine morning Shannon Drury, The Radical Housewife, included me in a facebook post.  She had been enlisted by Sonya Huber, who asked about The Next Big Thing.   Sonya says, “Basically, I get to answer these questions and then tag five writers who I think are the Next Big Thing. Very cool!”  I concur.

What is the title of your book? 
The Engaged Heart ~ An Activist’s Life. 

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
How did I get from there to here? 

What genre does your book fall under?
Political Memoir
(I want to use Lerner’s phrase, Political Autobiography but Frey robbed us all of using the word autobiography and, frankly, memoir leaves a lot more latitude) 

Where did the idea come from for the book?
My practice is Engaged Buddhism.  I think the best way to talk about it is through the demonstration of a life.  I hope that my life, my story, my passion, as manifest in my political activism, will inspire, inform and possibly ignite a few activists who just cannot stop.  No, you can’t when it is your calling.  Lucky you.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?
Microsoft Word took care of that, 1,410 hours at the keyboard and about the same amount of time sorting through my life.  I looked at every photo, every document, every Filofax 1985 – 2012 and all 515 blogs I had written over the last 14 years.  I made a 25 page-  two column outline of events of my life and then began to color outside the lines, off the page and on the walls. 
The most interesting thing was watching the events stream by like cars in a train, passing through some type of selection machine, awarding or discarding importance.  At 64 I was constantly surprised with what was significant and what was entirely forgettable.  Many things  I thought valuable deserved no remark and were flicked away forever.  Like sorting the attic, I organized my life.  It was industrial strength roto-rooter self-discovery.  I highly recommend it.     

Who or what inspired you to write this book? 
Doris Stevens, Lillian Hellman, Beatrix Potter, M.K.Gandhi, Paulo Friere, so many, so many.  But more honestly the answer is the tragedy, the broken heartedness of wanting to read a person’s own life story to find there is none.  What did SHE think about this or that.  How did She manage that disappointment?  Where did SHE find the courage to continue when nothing was working?  How did SHE not give up? 
The most incendiary thing for me was the movie, Iron Jawed Angels.  How could anyone represent Alice Paul as such an insipid fool?  And the movie, Milk which portrays Harvey as a single faceted human being when he was infinitely more.  The true story is always so much better than some watered down, product-placed piece of cheery fiction.  I don’t want to see the newly released acclaimed Lincoln once I read that the Black characters are slivers of their true selves. 
I want to know that Alice hid a copy of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poetry in her skirt when taken to jail and threw it at a window in the suffocating dining hall for a bit of air.  What was to be gained in showing her throwing a shoe as done in the movie.  Why invent a boyfriend?  Was Hollywood so unable to make a movie about a woman without a boyfriend?  Where is your political memoir, Alice?    

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
In 2001 I submitted my book about fasting for the ratification of the ERA.  I have a file of 28 rejection letters which all say the same thing, Dear Ms. Nicholson, Thank you for all you have done for the ERA and this wonderful book.  We could not sell a book on feminism in the current market.  Wish you all the best.  I did what I always do, what I like a lot about me – I did it myself.  I learned all I could about the professional production of books and started my own publishing company, Lune Soleil Press.  LSP is publishing The Engaged Heart. 

What other works would you compare this book to within your genre?  (I would amend this to say books that inspire)
Fireweed, A Political Autobiography
My Experiments with Truth
Autobiography of a Yogi
The Sun at Midnight
Cave in the Snow

What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?
I would so prefer a documentary, like the Times of Harvey Milk or Last Call at Maud’s.  But if I had to choose, it would be Rosie O’Donnell.  Maybe she could gain some weight for the role. 

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
The provenance of change is what consumes me.  How does it occur?   What pushes it forward and why does it stall or reverse?  Since change occurs from the inside out, the only way to see how it happens is to look inside.  I have dug deeply, told the truth and never opted to sweeten a telling. The goal was to excavate how a mind and heart change. 

Who or What are your Next Big Things?  
Wilder than any rollercoaster – I am a wreck waiting for it to come out.  I handed my pdf off to the designer, finished a successful Kickstarter campaign to finance it and contacted my printer.  Readers, reviews, who’s pissed because I did or did not talk about them.  Yikes! February it will be out in paper.  It is currently available in Kindle.

Now I am working on a new presentation, The Provenance of Change.  We need to understand change and consciously join with it.  Reproductive Autonomy, Full Federal Equality, Gender Equity and political representation = change at the speed of light rushing through the intergalactic Wi-Fi.  What a time to be alive. 

YOU - you are the next big thing.  What are you going to do now?  I want to see and cheer.  What is going to happen to women who want full access to political process?  What is going to happen as LGBT are visible in all segments of society?  What is the oppressor going to do as the oppressed are finding one another and uniting to say, ENOUGH is ENOUGH?  YOU are the Next big and best thing! 

Kickstarter Campaign to take The Engaged Heart to Print

Writing for a year, actually 1,410 hours, my 4th book is done.  Over 500 pages with 120+ pictures, The Engaged Heart is my whole life memoir.

When I started, I thought I would write it and offer it only on kindle.  The Hungry Heart and The Passionate Heart are available on kindle now. 

Then people started asking for a signed paper edition of the new one. They said they wanted to hold it, write in the margins, stuff it in a suitcase. 

I don't have the money for my designer to format for print (very different from kindle), a big print run or storage.  I investigated a bit and found out that my printer, Worzalla, offers both Print on Demand and recycled paper.  I can order in small affordable increments and will not have the problem of climate-controlled storage. 

Watching campaigns on kickstarter inspired me to give it a go.  With quotes from both my graphic designer and printer, $4,000 would assure The Engaged Heart would go to print.  I hope you will consider becoming a backer.  There are lots of rewards; signed books, postcards, movie screenings. 

Maybe you don't know what kickstarter is.  It is a collective funder which vets a project, posts serious ones, and only pays out if the goal is met.  In fact, if the goal not met, no one is charged for their pledge.  Stop by, pick out a reward and make a pledge. 

This is a wild ride but I already made my commitment.  Seems I made it a long time ago!  Thanks for pitching in and being a part of this latest adventure.     

I Expect So Much More From You.

Opening Notes for
Pomona College Women's Union

I expect so much more from you. 
You were born cable ready. 
You do not face the obstacles of learning technology or
learning that the earth is small or
that we are all in this together.

I trust you and your decisions about your body ~
to ink, to pierce, to share it with others. 
But I need you to demand your autonomy, demand education,
demand healthcare and reproductive choices. 
I need you to demand the right to say NO.

You are the elite. 
You do not spend  65% of your day carrying water,
you are not at a sewing machine making running shoes,
you are not forced to marry,
you are not barred from school during your period. 
You survived infancy, you have agency. 

I expect so much more from you and the vote is the least of it. 
I expect you to consider every oppressed individual as
a complex integrated human being and not see a designation (like race, SO, GI, religion). 
But rather to see that the unity lies in the power cycle. 
I expect you to see that anything you do to chip away
at the imbalance of power is your service to everyone. 

I expect you to move from I want MY RIGHTS to I want equality. 

Something extraordinary is happening at this time, while you are alive.  This is it. 
Something is bubbling up in numbers that cannot be ignored. 
It is global, not only geographically but across the population, across issues, across borders.
It is time to unite, to find one another, to realize our similarities and
to see clearly that those who hold power are a minority that travels dark alleys.

It is time for new tactics, a new language to manage the unfolding of equality.
It is time for the idea to be more important than one charismatic leader.
It is time to care more about meaning than who said it.
Truth will survive by its own special force,
beyond a rarefied body of legislators in a State House

Now that there is a global conversation, the truth will shake out.
We have a common intuition and hear what sounds right and
what sounds insincere, manipulated, even invented. 
There is something coalescing that has the same chant, tone, cadence ~
Arab Spring, Occupy, Slutwalk, Women Unite, Travon Martin protests, Keystone
People are finding what binds them in one simple phrase ~ Enough is Enough. 

I don’t care what specific minority you currently represent,
the fact is you belong to all of the them. 
It is time to say, enough is enough.

Dreaming about 21st Century American Buddhism

As I work on a new book The Engaged Heart, I went back over 500 weblogs I have posted in the last twelve years.  Seems I have been wanted to redesign American Buddhism for some time.

7/23/2003  A Buddhist Dream
      Monks needed something to do.  Or I want to go so far as to say that there are men and women whose hearts are spilling over with passion and have no place to spend it.  There are men and women who have a burning desire to live with intention -- to know no meaningless breath  --  to be fully engaged, awake, filled with purpose and part of a whole.
       This level of passion never seeks rest from the spirit.  The body dances and the mind spins in deference to the spirit, as the spirit is ruler, supreme choreographer, beloved whisperer.  The passionate heart always chooses to listen.  It is not that they have no choice.  They have every choice and they choose spirit.  It runs deeper than desire.  It is not content with occasional service.  It cannot live in patchwork fashion; serving one hour a day, one day a week or one step at a time.  It requires fulltime dedication or fulltime mourning.  It is a matter of depth that longs to be filled, longs to be spent.  This passion must be of service.  This passion wants to be integrated into society -- meeting needs -- developing new ways to address new problems.  This passion is a lasting, reliable, sobering intoxicant. 
      I was dreaming.  I am dreaming.  It is a dream of Buddhist orders of American men and women who lead passionate lives of genuine integrated service.  Warriors of light  Teachers of stillness.  Leaders of joyous clarity ñ building spiritual communities that are fully and fearlessly integrated into American life -- uplifting us all. 

8/15/2003 Heart of Astrology
      The 20th Century created a flood of information.  To process and organize all of it, everything was reduced to smaller, more understandable components.    People were categorized.  Cells were classified.  DNA was identified.  It lead to great encyclopedic knowledge and terrible exploitation of atoms.  A person was divvied up by specializing doctors proclaiming their turf; leaving us with a nightmare of trying to piece ourselves back together. 
      The 21st Century is the time to unite.  It is time to see the forest, the overall effect, the whole of humanity, the integration of body, mind, soul and spirit.  It is time to stand hand in hand; dissolving boundaries and drawing others into larger and larger circles of inclusion and integration.  It is time to focus on what unites us: every study, every discipline, every phylum, every being, every molecule.  It is time to embrace and hold dear every dissected isolated granule of life.  It is time to recognize that the division of the last century, that lonely disparity, was merely an illusion and in reality everything and everyone is a unified whole joined together in infinite motion.   Illuminated with prayer, meditation and understanding, the very things which separate will be the things which bring us together.

8/28/2003  American Buddhism
On my 55^th birthday ~
     First, I believe that my definition requires no agreement.  Nor does yours.  Second, Buddhism occurs from within a culture.  It cannot be imported or exported.  Historically, the imported forms always fade.  Each culture creates its own form.  It unfolds as their culture ages.  India, China, Japan, Thailand and others slowly, elegantly unfolded their own Buddhism.  Sects are not shards from a main teaching, but a genuine and relevant customization.  Third, Buddhism involves the conscious construction (call it deconstruction or reconstruction) of the internal landscape.  The mind is watched, organized, disciplined, controlled, emptied, filled and brightly lighted. 
      Finally, I believe that American Buddhism will not arrive via an ocean.  No jet or ship or text or teaching will ultimately establish American Buddhism.  It will unfold in the minds of Americans who integrate their practice within the context of their culture.  It will be appropriate, natural, useful, unique, exquisite and it will be truly American.  It is percolating tonight in the practice of thousands of Americans.  I hope I live long enough to see it named.