wakeful [weyk-fuhl] adjective

Get woke, America. On November 6 , 2018, it seemed–for a bright, shining moment–that a majority of America was working together and ushering in a new age of cooperation and compassion and real desire to see justice return to American soil. What a long, long time ago that was: before the renewed battle over the wall-sleight-of-hand detracted from children dying on the border and the opening of national monuments to fossil fuel decimation. Before the longest government shutdown in American history.

Wakefulness, to me, is rising to find that the world is not what you thought it was but different. This new understanding–often triggered by crisis– is like a shock to the system that implies you must change your life. In Buddhism, wakefulness is the awareness that you may not exist in a binary world. You have to make non-binary adaptations. The implications of this are dramatic. This elicits a re-evaluation of our economic system, of our cultural understandings, our narrow-minded tribal perspectives, our ego-dominated separation from self in the world. To be woke is to learn what is, not what we thought.  We are changing all the time.  With each decision, a path is forked that determines what our next choices will be, and we are on the path to becoming unique personalities. If this were not so, we would not be able to sit in a sanga meditation and watch our story unfold before us and recognize it as just a story. We would not be able to choose compassion as a path to pursue. As Sartre says, “We are doomed to be free.”  Our conception of ourselves is not who we are. Who we are is the sum of the choices we have made, whether we face up to them or not. It is often the case that we do not tell ourselves the truth about who we are.

Adyashanti, a Buddhist monk, expressed the opinion that poetry attempts to articulate the irreducible quality of things. The thing is just the thing, not in anything said about it. There are no things, everything is a process. Whenever you call it one thing, you’ve eliminated other things. Words can both reveal and conceal. Don’t walk in someone’s mind with dirty feet. The thing you take away from a poem did not come from the words themselves.

As Rumi says, “Out beyond the ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.”

In this issue, author’s have confronted their re-awakenings following crisis, re-evaluated the mark they leave on the world, re-examined their preconceptions, and heroically re-visioned their world.

“Such remarkable words conveying – beautifully, terrifyingly – the state of our world.”

—Barbara Graham, Author

Heaviness in my soul. Dread. 
Apocalypse looming.

What are we doing to our Mother Earth, our only Home, to our brothers and sisters? Destroying so many beautiful and important birds, plants, animals, insects, sea creatures? Filling our precious, rare-in-the-universe Oceans with plastic junk?

Tearing gaping holes in the very web of life from which we come and which sustains us?

My heart cries out in agony watching this madness:

Why are we destroying ourselves?

Why are we scorching our Earth?

Are we mad?

Do we hate ourselves, our lives, so much?

TERROR!

I WANT TO FLEE
to some safe haven, but there is none. On our one planet, there is no “away,” no safe place, no escape from the eco-collapse we are creating with our industrial economy fueled by oil, coal, and gas.

And I am immersed in this life-way –
a moth struggling in a dark, oily web.

RAGE!

Now my mind wants to assign blame, demand change from the “oiligarchs” who are poisoning our water, polluting our air, destroying the web of life; the cowardly people sacrificing us all to political expedience; the deniers and those fomenting denial of the scientific truth. But they are not listening, nor do they care.

DESPAIR.

It’s too late. Too late!
How can we possibly turn this juggernaut around
in 10 years?

Lost. Lost.

Guilt and Grief

My town has not been burnt to the ground or washed away in a flood – so far. And, enmeshed in this oily web, I guiltily go on contributing to this disaster by continuing with my life pretty much as usual, as do most of us living in areas that remain unaffected for now.

Now my mind wants to defend, justify: I am doing something! I got a Prius, solar panels, 100% Green electricity.

But – I burn “natural (ha!) gas” to cook, keep warm, heat water.  Use gas in my car.  Buy things wrapped in plastic, cringing every time I throw something “out,” knowing that there is no “out” on this one planet of ours.

And I grieve for all the people suffering from climate catastrophes. I grieve for all the grace and beauty we humans have created – music, art, poetry, and so much more – which may well be obliterated.

And my heart goes on mourning for the beautiful, intricate, interdependent web of life and all the wonderful, sensitive creatures that are being destroyed.

One thing I know:

We will die with them – for 
All Earth is One Life.

The floods, the fires, the storms are here now, harbingers of what is to come. Drought and famine are here. Floods of refugees. Madmen spreading war.

How can our so-called “leaders” think half-measures will do? We don’t have until 2040 or 2050 to make the drastic changes that are necessary.

Let us protect our only home, Mother Earth. 
We must transform our society, our way of life, 
our technology by 2030.  
It’s now or never. 

This presentation is from a referral from Elders for Climate Action. 

“[O]ur economic system and our planetary system are now at war. Or, more accurately, our economy is at war with many forms of life on earth, including human life. What the climate needs to avoid collapse is a contraction in humanity’s use of resources; what our economic model demands to avoid collapse is unfettered expansion. Only one of these sets of rules can be changed, and it’s not the laws of nature.” ― Naomi Klein, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate

There is a painful aspect of global warming (climate change) that is hard to accept: Americans  live on a hedonic treadmill (also known as hedonic adaptation) of seeking constant validation that we are living the good life and that it just gets better with making more money and consuming more, driven by novelty-seeking and status competition. Bombarded by constant media conditioning, this perspective is fueled by the socio-economic paradigm we live in, subliminal messaging, capitalistic expansionism, and our “keeping up with the Joneses” mentality renders this version of society desirable, seemingly beyond our choice. “The interconnected environmental catastrophe is the result of a particular lifestyle, a materialistic way of life relentlessly promoted by mass media and governments throughout the industrialized world and beyond. Consuming stuff, most of which is unnecessary, is the key ingredient; excess is championed, sufficiency scoffed at. Far from addressing need, satisfying desire is the driving impulse; the object of desire changes with every new fad, of course, and discontent is thereby ensured, unlimited consumerism maintained,” says Graham Peeples (Nation of Change, “Consuming Stuff: The Polluting World of Fashion.”)

“Since these conveniences by becoming habitual had almost entirely ceased to be enjoyable, and at the same time degenerated into true needs, it became much more cruel to be deprived of them than to possess them was sweet, and men were unhappy to lose them without being happy to possess them.”

– Jean Jacques Rousseau in his Discourse on Inequality (published in 1754)

“This, without a doubt, is neoliberalism’s single most damaging legacy: the realization of its bleak vision has isolated us enough from one another that it became possible to convince us that we are not just incapable of self-preservation but fundamentally not worth saving,” claims Klein. Can these issues be correlated with the rise of global warming effects – on both sides of cause and effect? All these societal problems will be much worse when global warming effects become worse. “It is a civilizational wake-up call. A powerful message—spoken in the language of fires, floods, droughts, and extinctions—telling us that we need an entirely new economic model and a new way of sharing this planet,” says Klein.  And the time frame is much shorter than we imagined or would like to believe.

To be sure, addressing the significant kind of behavioral changes on the individual level that can have an impact is a huge challenge. This challenge falls in the realm of personal “psycho-spiritual transformation”; shifting habits and cravings and dependency on the distraction of devices is a monumental transformation. But the good news is that there is already a rising awareness and support for making changes of this magnitude, like the Mindfulness movement and the Green New Deal. From a Buddhist perspective, it is a matter of viewing the world through the lens of compassion, recognizing the interconnectedness of the world. In referencing the philosophy of Stoic Marcus Aurelius, Demian Entrekin  notes,  “…the right individual behavior is inherently considered within the context of how that individual fits into the community. There is no right behavior without the community.”  Judging from historical narrative, a fundamental shift from “me” to “we” is necessary and may be easier than we think. And better for society in the coming decade.

The underlying question is how seriously one takes the threat of global warming. Do we “pay our dues now or pay them later with interest”? It is our kids and their kids who will be paying with interest –- and they are not happy. The Extinction Rebellion and Our Children’s Trust (The Youth Climate lawsuit Juliana v. the United States) demand climate justice. Contrary to what some might say, we do have a choice; we just need to accept the seriousness of the problem and have the intention to make the behavioral and socio-political changes that are necessary.

While much depends on regulation of big ag and big business, individuals still have a major role, since personal consumption is a major driver of carbon emissions — everything we buy has a carbon footprint. Certainly, there is a basic level of consumption that is necessary for our survival and another for a reasonable level of comfort. But beyond that it’s a matter of choice — over-consumption or luxury spending has little connection to overall life satisfaction and personal well-being. Not changing behavior is also a choice, and the science is clear that no change in environmental behavior is tantamount to human extinction.

Compounding the problem of conspicuous consumption is the failure of the recycling movement. Virtually everything we buy comes in significant and often unnecessary plastic packaging. All our increasingly disposable goods and copious packaging are all very difficult and expensive to recycle. The problem is exacerbated by the breakdown in communication between the White House and China. “For decades, we were sending the bulk of our recycling to China—tons and tons of it, sent over on ships to be made into goods such as shoes and bags and new plastic products. But last year, the country restricted imports of certain recyclables, including mixed paper—magazines, office paper, junk mail—and most plastics,” claims Alana Semuels (“Is This the End of Recycling?” The Atlantic).  Foreign policy and tariffs have driven China to stop buying recycled materials from the United States. Costs of recycling have escalated dramatically, to the point that many cities have stopped collecting or are burning or dumping all material in landfills. Eventually, it ends up in the ocean and then into the world water cycle and food chains.

“As the trash piles up, American cities are scrambling to figure out what to do with everything they had previously sent to China. But few businesses want it domestically, for one very big reason: Despite all those advertising campaigns, Americans are terrible at recycling [placing product categories in correct bins],” says Semuels.

I confess, even those of us who try hard find it frustrating due to the lack of standardization of the plethora of types and varied chemical properties of all the materials, not to mention the fact that, for example, plastic, metal and glass containers must be 99% clean before they are accepted by recycling manufacturers. We mostly, since we are bereft of time affluence, adopt an “out-of-sight-out-of-mind” attitude, eager to move on to the next pressing engagement or titillating experience.

Recycling programs grapple with the “double emission” paradox — we buy way more than we need (for a variety of personal and social reasons) creating “upstream” emissions. “Upstream activities are cradle-to-gate…emission factors, which include all emissions that occur in the life cycle of a material/product up to the point of sale by the producer.” Then we compound the problem through the emissions created by their disposal.

Since worldwide affluence has risen over the past few decades and products and the cost of production have declined due to various factors, this perfect storm of consumerism has fueled a domestic “throw away” culture. Products are more easily obtained—we don’t have to shop at the market when we can order from Amazon in our slippers. Our consumerism is perpetuated by intense marketing campaigns and intentional targeting to addictive behaviors.

Despite not fully contributing in economic upturns or downturns, the average consumer finds themselves compelled to buy things we don’t need, with money we don’t have, to make impressions that won’t last, on people we think will care, to paraphrase a quote widely attributed to author Tim Jackson (Prosperity without Growth, 2017), commenting about about the 2008 recession.

The product development/distribution model is based on the capitalistic notion of infinite growth. “As industrial ecologist Robert Ayres has pointed out: ‘[C]onsumption (leading to investment and technological progress) drives growth, just as growth and technological progress drives consumption.’ Protagonists of growth seldom compute the consequences of this relationship.”  The unsustainability of this process is clear.

Tim Jackson also points out that the concept of endless economic growth is unsustainable. International trade has rendered “absolute decoupling” impossible.  Absolute decoupling means that energy use and carbon emissions are decoupled from economic growth. In other words, emissions decline as GDP rises; but recent data shows that despite significant advances in energy efficiency, absolute decoupling is not happening. This fact has been proven by tracking the relationship between GDP and carbon emissions in European countries over the past few decades.

Economic growth is antithetical to environmental health. Focus on GDP also creates an externalities problem where there is no cost placed on the carbon content of products.  (Economic externalities often occur when a product or service price equilibrium cannot reflect the true costs and benefits of that product or service). As global trade flourishes, it is more difficult to track externalities and thus environmental impact.

“Degrowth economics have a simple solution to global warming: downscale production and consumption and ditch GDP as a measurement of human flourishing. Degrowthers argue that this is possible without affecting our standard of living through measures such as work-sharing, consuming less, and devoting more time to art, family, nature and community. ‘Degrowth means a phase of planned and equitable economic contraction in the richest nations, eventually reaching a steady state that operates within Earth’s biophysical limits.’ — Samuel Alexander (The Conversation)”

“Economists agree that average national output (GDP) is not a good measure of a country’s economic well-being because only what is sold in the marketplace is included in GDP, and all other human activities are ignored,” says Dr. Clair Brown, in an interview about her theory of Buddhist Economics. “Yet GDP is used to measure economic performance around the world. Economists have created several ways to measure pollution and environmental damage, income inequality, happiness, human capabilities, and non-paid activities (both useful and harmful). These metrics have been used to create various holistic measures of economic performance, such as the UN’s Human Development Index, the OECD Better Life Index, the Genuine Progress Indicator, the Happy Planet Index, and Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness Index. Buddhist Economics relies on these measures, and any one of them is better than using the GDP.

“The major change in perspective for a rich country, like the OECD nations, is to focus on the quality of life of everyone and go beyond consumerism to create happiness and a better world. Our perspective shifts from a focus on chasing after more income to creating a meaningful life and preserving nature. In a Buddhist economy, ‘Practice compassion to be happy,’ replaces ‘More is better,’ and ‘Everyone’s well-being is connected,’ replaces ‘Maximize your own position.’ Our motivation is that we are dissatisfied and want to have a more meaningful life; we want to get off the materialistic treadmill and enjoy the relationships and experiences that make us happy; we want to pass along a healthy planet to future generations.”

“If we are to collectively overcome the greatest challenge humanity has ever faced,” opines Peeples, “environmental considerations need to be at the forefront of our daily lives. A shift in living is required, a movement away from lives based on desire and the pursuit of pleasure to simpler lives based on meeting need, cultivating right relationships with others and the natural world and living harmlessly. The responsibility rests with all of us to live well and to pressurize our governments to act to halt the environmental catastrophe before it’s too late.”

WATCH A SHORT FILM ABOUT THE GREEN NEW DEAL BY THE INTERCEPT AND NAOMI KLEIN HERE (7 MINUTES) 

 Acknowledgement: I would like to express my gratitude to Charles Entrekin (and his assistants) for the editing and the very powerful additions that help drive these issues home.

Editor’s Note: While producing this article, author Tom Webster created the following presentation to encourage residents of his community to reduce their carbon footprint. Grassroots organizing begins at home. Carbon Footprint Calculator courtesy UC Berkeley. Nitrogen and Water hyperlinks courtesy The Homeowner’s How-To Permaculture Handbook (Tyler Varian-Gonzalez, 2018).

During a holiday party at her neighbor’s place, a young woman expressed the idea that she detested shopping. She thought it was a shallow and materialistic way to spend time. People at the party seemed to agree with her. She proclaimed at one point that shopping was actually a disease. The party was billed as an interfaith gathering with no explicit themes other than spiked punch in a large glass bowl and spiked brownies on a matching square plate.

There was, nevertheless, a particular street in a particular neighborhood where she liked to go and spend time by herself. She didn’t mention this small fact. It was on the upper west side of town. There were several small shops clustered together that carried nice things, expensive things. And there was plenty of free parking.

What she liked most about the shops on this narrow, tree-lined street was the atmosphere. It felt like she could escape her humdrum life and her smallish third floor apartment and become someone else for a while.

Occasionally she would buy something for herself. Something small and inconsequential. A bar of sandalwood soap from France. A colorful votive candle holder made of glass from the North Coast. She liked to spend that time alone. She thought the idea of aromatherapy was foolish, but she enjoyed the scents of the items in these shops. Soaps and candles and hand creams. It made her entire body relax.

Then she fell for a young man. She fell so hard is was like dropping through a hole in the floor and ending up in a new universe. She met him at an out-of-town wedding. Actually, it was after the reception when everyone retired to a nearby restaurant and took over the bar. He took one long look at her and that was that. He was the stepbrother of one of the bridesmaids, and he arrived late due to heavy traffic. There were drag races at the speedway and that gummed things up.

Before she knew it, she had three sons and a small house in the foothills overlooking the city. The boys were two years apart and they behaved as if they came from different fathers, but she obviously knew better. None of this was planned.

Over time she gave it everything she had. She poured herself into her boys every single day. It was as if some vital force would build up inside her overnight and she poured it into them during the day. They drank it up.

From time to time she would happen to drive by the small shopping street that she had frequented in the past. But there never seemed to be quite enough time to poke around. There probably was enough time, but it didn’t feel like there was. The idea of free time had vanished.

There was one afternoon when she was in the neighborhood and decided to revisit the shops. All the boys were accounted for, and the eldest had started school. She parked the car on a side street around the corner and sat still for a few moments.

It was so quiet.

But when she finally opened the car door and got out, she realized that she had left her pocketbook at the house, and so she got back in and drove away. She decided that there was no point in going into the shops if she couldn’t buy something. What she really wanted, after all, was to have a small piece of another life, the one she didn’t have.

I watch the shadow cast from my apartment
descend with the rising sun in barely perceptible increments
notable to no one but me and wonder how many more
notable things have I missed simply because they move
too slowly or that I lack the right perspective.

What if I could observe the Earth suspended in space
and watch it move in grace like a blue goddess
against a sea of stars?

What if I could see the Earth wake up and breathe
as spring comes to the Northern Hemisphere
with a growing carpet of green?

What if I could be there through every epoch and era
to witness the slow progression of life unfold
in rapid motion on a hundred screens at once,
only to see them one by one go blank
in the Sixth Great Mass Extinction?

What if I could watch the Sahara sands creep southward
consuming the rainforests and farms of Africa
as a hungry tide of humanity spreads northward?

What if I could watch the oceans rise and swallow
one island nation after another until they
lap on the shores of Times Square and the Thames?

What if I could watch the mountain glaciers retreat,
in barely perceptible increments, as they solemnly
ascend the slopes into thin air?

I am a Muslim. I wrestle with the Quran daily, often replacing rote interpretations with insights more consistent within the context of my life. In 2001 I stood before cameras to disavow the extremists who brought down the World Trade Center in New York City, and more recently hung my head in somber genuflection at Friday prayer services the day after the murder of 50 Muslims at the hands of white supremacists in Christchurch, New Zealand.

And as a Muslim I have a duty at least once in my lifetime to go on Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca as prescribed by the Quran. Mecca, as every Muslim knows, is the most holy city in Islam. It is in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, as it has been known since 1932, in historic Arabia. But, as a result of an accumulation of serious concerns about the Saudi regime I have come to a point where I have made a conscientious decision not to undertake Hajj any time soon.

This is a form of personal protest, not against Islam itself, but for Islam by prioritizing its performative dimension over inherited identity. And not by adding to the escalating bloodshed and tyranny crippling Africa and the Near East, but by using a nonviolent protest against a brutal regime that continues to deny its own people, especially women, fundamental human rights; that has committed atrocities against innocent people in the war in neighboring Yemen; and that murdered Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul, Turkey for daring to suggest the Saudi leadership could do better.

And, as a former emergency responder with the New York City Fire Department during the 9/11 attacks on the U.S. that killed more than 3,000 innocent people, I am deeply troubled by the extent to which the Saudi regime was allegedly complicit in those attacks.

Those long-simmering allegations are now contained in a lawsuit filed March 20, 2017 on behalf of thousands of members of the families of 9/11 victims. The action, which names Saudi Arabia as a defendant, was made possible when Congress in early 2016 almost unanimously overrode former President Barack Obama’s veto and amended the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act to allow for lawsuits to be filed against foreign powers allegedly involved in terrorist attacks in the U.S.

Last year, Saudi Arabia filed a motion with the court to block the action, but the judge denied it, and the case continues. It is a complex case that will likely take years to resolve. It has not received a great deal of publicity in the past two years. Suffice it to say here, the affidavit filed on behalf of the plaintiffs offers much detailed food for thought.

From Ritualized Imitation to Radical Introspection

Even before I made my decision to not undertake Hajj any time soon, I found myself steeped in a process of self-questioning and reflection ever since 9/11. Quranic verses that presented Muslims who preceded Prophet Muhammad led me to contrast Islam’s performative nature over identity.

It’s this reciprocal relation between action and reflection that evolved into an epiphany of Islam as radical introspection: a perspective aware of the contingency of its own perspective; an understanding that perpetually prostrates itself before absolute uncertainty; and an ongoing process that seeks daylight from unfathomable ocean depths where we battle our inmost fears.

Hajj then became a metaphor for our inward journey, where the Kaaba that Muslims circle in Mecca signifies the human heart within. That’s really what my story is about.  

Making Hajj at Bear Lodge

These were but some of the ideas percolating in my head when my son suggested a trip to Wyoming last September.  Now it bears mention that I join collective prayers at Friday’s Jumaah, abstain from alcohol and pork, and pause as adhan, the call to prayer, evoke shivers down my spine and goose bumps on my arm. For sure, on Friday I stand shoulder to shoulder and face Mecca with fellow mosque congregants.

But at home conscience dictates I pray facing all directions as a reminder that while Mecca functions as a collective reference point it no longer constitutes my focal point. Rather, my vision undulates in the remembrance that wherever one may turn there is the countenance of Allah. 

Keeping this in mind, I took my son up on his offer and we made our own impromptu spiritual pilgrimage last fall to Bear Lodge in Wyoming. It was a joyous, transformative retreat; one that recalled the sweat lodge my son invited me to some years ago in Shinnecock, Long Island. The Park Service sign at the trailhead barely hinted at the aura of timelessness that awaited us.

We saw a handful of hardy souls on the dusty path as we snaked around the soaring monolith that served as a sacred focal point for indigenous people in the area since time immemorial. Little different from the hot rocks in the sweat lodge, we were slow cooked to perfection by the glaring sun beating down on the boulders around us. We connected, laughed as we took selfies, and experienced the natural beauty of Wyoming where the azure blue sky seemed to overflow the horizon in all directions. The morning transported us atop the world looking out on forever.

Conceivably, it may have been this very same path that inspired Lakota Sioux Chief Luther Standing Bear to remark that after all the world’s great religions were written about in fine books with finer covers, each of us must confront the Great Mystery on our own. Looking back, a sense of irony enveloped me in knowing that the science fiction movie classic Close Encounters of the Third Kind was filmed there. One can read about absolute being in scripture; seek it with others in churches, mosques, or synagogues; or experience it on their own terms in wide open spaces: Hajj is also where the heart is…

 A Lesson from Hudaybiyyah

Political Islam was preceded by the primordial Islam, our natural disposition (fitrah) to question and discern meaning each moment from embedded and embodied perspectives. However your parents, schools, and census questionnaires label you, from this vantage we are all born in a state of Islam.

And it’s these conflicted notions between political and primordial Islam that have reached a vital crossroad. Will it continue to be usurped by terrorists and despots for self-serving ends? Or will it fulfill its promise by awakening a primal force for social justice and human rights in each and every one of us in a solidarity informed by radical introspection and critical dialogue? It’s up to Muslims to reclaim the truth of Islam, however, and Prophet Muhammad himself shows us how.

Of all of the campaigns of Prophet Muhammad the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah was the most effective in transforming the hearts and minds of people. Virtually unarmed and vulnerable, the Prophet and fellow pilgrims put it all on the line when they set out to make Hajj in year six of his mission. Although they left the outskirts of Mecca without making Hajj that year, Prophet Muhammad entered Mecca triumphant a scant two years later with nary a drawn sword.

 Now, I have no doubt that Prophet Muhammad would shun a land steeped in the hypocrisy, moral bankruptcy and the self-idolatry of its rulers – that’s why he fled Mecca in the first place. Indeed, the Prophet’s momentary vision bespoke a multimodal Quran grounded in his univocal firmament. Thus, as the seal of the Prophets, he extended an invitation for each of us to think for ourselves in real time, to apply the criteria of right and wrong step-by-step as he did amidst dynamic times, places, and circumstances.  

Building on Khashoggi‘s plea to Saudis, Muslims and the world deserve better. Thus I fervently hope that a bold first step that takes a pacifist stand against tyranny in the birthplace of the Prophet will create a ripple effect. Not only across other faith communities, but in nation states to promote the ethical character of their citizens rather than arbitrary entitlements conferred by borders, race, or the DNA in which they had no say. 

What you do is your business however – you will never see the world through my eyes, or I through yours. Perhaps one day we can circle the Kaaba together in solidarity against oppression. But until then, I have my life to live, things to do, family to care for. And to take a line from Jimi Hendrix’s “If 6 was 9”, since I’m ultimately the one who’s going to die when it’s time for me to die, I’ll do the best I can to take my stand, sing my song, and live my life moment by moment immersed in an Islam that makes sense to me.

###

Originally published in the Bookend Review. 

After a solo pilgrimage along France’s Le Chemin de St. Jacques—rarely certain where or even if I’d find a bed for the night—I returned to Paris to fly home.  On my last late-October night, I stepped out for a pre-dinner walk.  I passed two women wearing hooded black coats who stood motionless on a shaded street corner. One’s masked hood covered almost all of her face.  The other’s pale, gaunt face was mostly visible. It appeared that a heap of backpacks stood beside them. 

On my return, the two hadn’t budged.  Perhaps they really were statues. I maintained my stride, but turned and looked at them directly. My eyes locked with those of the woman with the gaunt face. When I reached my hotel room, her face stayed with me. I had to go back to make a connection, if only to find out why they were there at dusk guarding a heap of backpacks. 

***

In the preceding months, the knitting that bound together everything I called “me” had ripped and I’d fast unraveled. I told people I was going on a pilgrimage to engage in a prolonged act of contemplation. Secretly, I planned to lose myself and maybe not even come back.

Most pilgrims lived on the fly, carried their lives on their backs, had no idea where they’d spend the night.  I refused to make reservations because millions before me accepted Que sera sera!  There were some close calls.  I spent one restless night cocooned in bubble wrap on the kitchen floor of a priest’s house.  

***

As I approached, the two women didn’t flinch.  The gaunt-faced one had removed her hood, revealing a clear complexion with no signs of excessive sun exposure usually observed in street people.  The second woman, olive-complected, still wore a masked hood revealing only her eyes, nose, and hair-lined upper lip.  What I’d mistaken for backpacks was a mammoth shopping cart stuffed with small suitcases, carry-ons, backpacks, and water bottles varying in size and fullness.  I saw no scraps of food, no shopping or trash bags, no collection cup, plate, bowl, or box; no sign to explain who they were and why they were there.  Instead of sitting on a step, portable chair, or ground, they stood like sentries. Neither reached out or made entreaties.

Both turned to me; neither cracked a smile nor spoke a word. When I said, “Bonjour,” they reciprocated. I asked if they spoke English, expecting “no” or radio silence. The younger answered, “Not so well, but I understand it and can speak it.”  Up close, she looked about 30; the other, about 60. The younger’s partially-open coat revealed multiple layers. The elder’s coat resembled monk’s robes.  

“I saw you standing here.  I wondered why?”

The two conversed together, speaking in French, before turning back to me. The younger finally said, “I would like to introduce my mother. We are poor and homeless because circumstances resulted in our losing everything we owned except what you see here. Ask us questions, as you wish.”  

I’d ask the daughter a question, she’d confer with mom, and eventually the daughter would answer. Occasionally, the two argued over my meaning, how to respond, or whether to dismiss my question.  Now and then, the daughter warned, “You used a word that carries a different meaning in French than you probably intend. Would you like to rephrase your question?”  As the conversation gathered momentum, she increasingly answered without conferring with mom, or asked, “Is that really the question you want to ask?”  

After dancing around, I asked, “What caused your being thrown onto on the street?”

“Do you want a social answer or an individual answer?” she asked.

“Whichever, both if you like.”

She began offering a social explanation, then stopped.  “You don’t need to know that to appreciate the circumstances that changed our lives.”

“You’re homeless now,” I said. “You live on the street.  But you’re obviously university educated. You haven’t always been poor.  You’ve known life’s comforts.”  

“Correct. We had no idea what being poor felt like. Now, the street’s our bedroom.”

They began passing cigarettes with an insistence that belied the austere sense of control they’d shown earlier. I rationalized: a cigarette’s stinging warmth buffered them briefly from the cold. The daughter’s fingers were heavily stained by nicotine; grit crammed her fingernails.

“Smoking is expensive and one of the worst things for your health,” I said.

“But this is all we do. We don’t use drugs, we don’t even smoke cannabis.”  

After 45 minutes, I tried handing her a 10 Euro note.  After conferring with mom, she said, “We’re glad to talk with you. You don’t have to pay us to talk with us.” She lifted a water bottle from the cart, took a long sip, and passed it to mom.       

Initially, I kept my eyes on the daughter, waiting for what she’d say next.  During their back-and-forth, I didn’t look at mom. I suspect mom, likewise, only attended to her daughter. Gradually, mom and I began to focus on whoever was speaking. Then, we began looking directly at each other while listening to daughter’s voice in the background. I could understand mom better after she adjusted her mask so I could see her lips. The daughter’s role evolved into confirming what the mother and I had already come to understand.

The energy balance shifted. They began firing questions at me. 

“What kind of work do you do?”

“Research on the health and well-being of children,” I answered.

“Medical research?”

“No, health risk behaviors like unprotected sex, carrying weapons, using tobacco.”

“Where do you look for inspiration? What books? Where else?” 

“Most is government-funded. Little seems inspired.”  

“What’s your academic field?”

“Psychology. What’re yours?”

“Knowing that won’t help you understand. You Christian?”

“I believe the divine resides in you and me.  Religion should help us act compassionately, instead of causing disputes and wars.  What about you?”

“We don’t believe in God and place no value on religion.”

“Where do you sleep? Where will you sleep tonight?”

“We often sleep on the street, probably will tonight. We’ll see.”  

“Usually in the same part of the city?”

“No, we keep moving with no real plan.”  

“Are there social service agencies that help provide shelter for the homeless?”

“Maybe, but that doesn’t address the underlying situation. The homeless stay homeless.”  

“How will you get out of this situation?  Winter’s coming.”

“Maybe we won’t.”  

I said something about homelessness in America. They opened their eyes wide.  She said, “We had no idea you were American. I thought there were no homeless in America.”  

“Where’d you get that idea?”

“Rudy Guiliani said, ‘There are no homeless in New York.’” 

“Rudy hasn’t been mayor for years. Anyway, he lied.  There were 40,000 homeless in New York.  He wanted to make them disappear so he took away benefits, as if that would force them to remedy their situation, as if it were that simple.” 

“Are most of the homeless in New York?”  

“No, they’re everywhere, especially cities. In Portland, there are lots of services. The problem is, it’s hard to find jobs and stop being homeless.” 

“That’s what I’m saying. We once had a good life, but lost everything. Even if we could find jobs, how can we get back to any kind of life?”  After a pause, she asked, “Why did you come back?”

“I’ve been away. I wanted to talk with someone.”

“Why us?”

“I saw your face.” 

They looked at each other. “People stop and talk with us because they have a need.  What is your need?”  

“I came back to find out why you were here. I stayed because I could feel your, ‘Maybe we won’t.’” 

“What did you feel?”  

“When I walked in the mountains, I had no idea where I’d spend the night. Long ago, I had no place to live, so every night I slept in the forest. I came here because I feared losing everything, in a different way.”

“Are you’re saying you can feel what it’s like to have lost everything and have no idea how to rise above these conditions?”  

“I can begin to understand, ‘Maybe we won’t,’ because I saw no way out either.” I shivered in shorts and t-shirt. I said, “I wish we had a fire!” meaning to say it to myself.

She said, “We need to move because it gets dangerous here during the night, especially for women.”  

“Where’ll you sleep?”

“We’ll see.”   

I reached out my hands and she held them in hers. As our hands warmed each other, I transferred 20 Euros into her left hand and closed her fingers tightly around it until her hand surrendered.  Finally, the mother spoke and the daughter translated. “We accept your money and thank you. We will use it to buy food.”  No translation was needed.

The daughter dropped an empty liter water bottle back into the shopping cart.  The two began pushing it across Avenue Secrétan.

“Bon nuit,” were the last words we exchanged.    

The three contributors in this collection, as well as the poems by Cheryl Dumesnil and Maria Rosales, come from a group of artists and writers that experienced the devastation of climate change first hand. The memoirs and photos and poems are from a group submitting renewal stories after the calamity of the Paradise Fire. — Ed. 

Julie Banwellund, 2018–I was doing the laundry and I had a thought about the shirt I was throwing in the dryer. A remembering of the times I’ve worn it and the stories it holds. And then I realized it’s not that shirt, it’s a totally different one, and I don’t even know where it came from.

This happens often in this new parallel life of ours. When I’m washing the dishes, and a wooden spoon is almost mine that is gone, or I’m sorting laundry and none of these clothes were ours two months ago, or I’m putting food in the fridge and there isn’t any space because it’s a little fridge that we didn’t pick.

It is strange. This limbo. This cocoon. It feels like the colors are muted, all different shades of gray. Things offer comfort and we are so grateful to have them, but I don’t know their stories. I pick up something that my brain substitutes for something I’ve owned for 10 years, and the process repeats. At first I recognize it as mine, and then I remember it’s not, let my eyes see it for what it is. Something new, or passed on to us. And then the memory of our pile of rubble and ash comes up. A reminder from my brain that all of our physical possessions are gone.

It is a weird half life. Where we are living comfortably, in a warm home with space and a couch and a table. But it all feels subdued. I remember how vivid our life was before. How bright and loud and saturated.

Our current reality feels muddled and muted and gray. It still has moments of vibrancy. But I feel as though I see with different eyes. I am in a cocoon. Wrapped in layers of gauze. Touch and taste and smell aren’t as strong as they were just two months ago. We are going with the flow. Trying not to offer much resistance. We are in a new town, with new stores and new people, in a new home with all new things. A new bed, new mattress, new bedding. Hardly any reminders of the life that grew organically before this one. A home we hunted for, worked on, set up ourselves, with our treasures we had collected our whole lives.

How strange to be in this space now, with these substitutions to the things we once treasured.

Trying to find the ease and joy of everyday, but still reaching for items from the past. Our brains have to rewire our realities every time we open that drawer and don’t find what we expected.

And maybe this is just the natural cycle. The mourning period, the grief, the darkness of winter. Hard to tell when all the usual variables are stripped away. All of the pillars of our previous life have crumbled, leaving us raw and open, vulnerable to the elements. Trying to be gentle and patient to all the broken pieces of myself. Knowing that I need time and rest to heal. Trying to trust that my higher self knows how to recover from this and that I just need to let myself take this time.

Trying not to compare myself to anyone else. We all deal with grief differently, we all heal differently.

The unknowing is the hardest. Trying to make a plan for the future when I still feel so unbalanced. No longer in the quicksand, but maybe in the marsh. Wondering which way will lead to stable ground, hoping I can take the right path, without loosing both of my shoes in the muck.

It is beautiful where we are now, but the fire danger is real. I don’t want to discount that factor like we did during our time in Paradise. And the fire danger is still real in Paradise, too, even with so much of the fuel burned up.

So do we just give up on California and move to Oregon, somewhere coastal where it isn’t a severe fire risk, too? Or Washington, where it is so wet there isn’t the same risk… but what do we trade out instead…?

And this is when my head starts spinning and my anxiety grows. This is where I have to let it go and trust. Trust more than I ever have before. Have faith that there was some sort of purpose in this. That my family and friends will emerge with new skills and strengths that we wouldn’t have gained before. That we will find resilience and refinement from this fire. That we can rebuild our lives with meaning and grace. That we can be patient and gentle with ourselves.

I am trying to find the purpose in the muted colors and the quiet of this winter cocoon. Trying to feel the gratitude and trust in this second chance to remake our lives with purpose. Trying not to feel so lost while I am untethered in this storm.

I want to heal through this gray winter and bloom with the spring. My roots grow stronger and deeper through this storm. I want to break out of this cocoon the strongest, most vibrant version of myself.

Some days are harder than others, but my gratitude runs deeper than my grief.

Mandi Horton, 2018 — It was hard.  It was actually harder than I thought it would be. I’m doing ok and moving past and settling into my new normal. I’m happy mostly in my daily life.  So I did not honestly expect the waves of sadness and pain and panic to be so entirely overwhelming.  But it’s ok. I needed to see it and have a chance to just be with my house and experience it. And I’m all right. I’m mostly all right. I’m probably all right….  I’m going to be all right.

The Rose of Paracelsus is a transcendent short story about faith, the last short story by Jorge Luis Borges.

I was recently listening a conversation between Dr. Alison Gopnik, Sam Harris, and others on Waking Up (now Making Sense) and was so impressed with Dr. Gopnik’s perspective and commentary about AI that I decided to visit her website and peruse her other ideas. I was drawn to this article published in the Atlantic in 2015. It is reprinted here by permission of the author.

In 2006, I was 50—and I was falling apart.

Until then, I had always known exactly who I was: an exceptionally fortunate and happy woman, full of irrational exuberance and everyday joy.

I knew who I was professionally. When I was 16, I’d discovered cognitive science and analytic philosophy, and knew at once that I wanted the tough-minded, rigorous, intellectual life they could offer me. I’d gotten my doctorate at 25 and had gone on to become a professor of psychology and philosophy at UC Berkeley.

I knew who I was personally, too. For one thing, I liked men. I was never pretty, but the heterosexual dance of attraction and flirtation had always been an important part of my life, a background thrum that brightened and sharpened all the rest. My closest friends and colleagues had all been men.

More than anything, though, I was a mother. I’d had a son at 23, and then two more in the years that followed. For me, raising children had been the most intellectually interesting and morally profound of experiences, and the happiest. I’d had a long marriage, with a good man who was as involved with our children as I was. Our youngest son was on his way to college.

I’d been able to combine these different roles, another piece of good fortune. My life’s work had been to demonstrate the scientific and philosophical importance of children, and I kept a playpen in my office long after my children had outgrown it. Children had been the center of my life and my work—the foundation of my identity.

And then, suddenly, I had no idea who I was at all.

My children had grown up, my marriage had unraveled, and I decided to leave. I moved out of the big, professorial home where I had raised my children, and rented a room in a crumbling old house. I was living alone for the first time, full of guilt and anxiety, hope and excitement.

I fell in love—with a woman, much to my surprise—and we talked about starting a new life together. And then my lover ended it.

Joy vanished. Grief took its place. I’d chosen my new room for its faded grandeur: black-oak beams and paneling, a sooty brick fireplace in lieu of central heating. But I hadn’t realized just how dark and cold the room would be during the rainy Northern California winter. I forced myself to eat the way I had once coaxed my children (“just three more bites”), but I still lost 20 pounds in two months. I measured each day by how many hours had gone by since the last crying jag (“There now, no meltdowns since 11 this morning”).

I couldn’t work. The dissolution of my own family made the very thought of children unbearable. I had won a multimillion-dollar grant to investigate computational models of children’s learning and had signed a contract to write a book on the philosophy of childhood, but I couldn’t pass a playground without tears, let alone design an experiment for 3-year-olds or write about the moral significance of parental love.

Everything that had defined me was gone. I was no longer a scientist or a philosopher or a wife or a mother or a lover.

My doctors prescribed Prozac, yoga, and meditation. I hated Prozac. I was terrible at yoga. But meditation seemed to help, and it was interesting, at least. In fact, researching meditation seemed to help as much as actually doing it. Where did it come from? Why did it work?

I had always been curious about Buddhism, although, as a committed atheist, I was suspicious of anything religious. And turning 50 and becoming bisexual and Buddhist did seem far too predictable—a sort of Berkeley bat mitzvah, a standard rite of passage for aging Jewish academic women in Northern California. But still, I began to read Buddhist philosophy. READ MORE

As Yogi Berra noted, it’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.  “Science and economics have no real way to value the fact that people have lived for millennia in a certain rhythm,” says Bill McKibben in his latest book, Falter, “have eaten the food and sung the songs of certain places that are now disappearing. This is a cost only art can measure, and it makes sense that the units of that measurement are sadness and fury — and also, remarkably, hope.”

For this issue, we seek poetry, stories, and essays that recognize and respond to how the reality of adaptation will affect our perceptions and worldview—ideological, environmental, political, scientific, societal, global. We seek writing that starts the conversation about this new world order as we are coming to know it.  As Canary editor Gail Entrekin shares so eloquently in an article  about the impact of art: “I believe that there are other occasional readers who are just now receiving this news in a visceral way that argument and scientific information have not been able to impart.” Share a piece that exemplifies a cause you are passionate about. Remind readers of the simple things that freedom ensures. Pay attention to the details of a thriving society. A solid civilization and vibrant community look to art for their inspiration.