Pure Fire

From the mountains of the Central Coast of California, where I'm living now, I've watched handfuls of fires pop up unexpectedly. Sometimes they are distant but still visible--a volcano spurting a surreal coal-like orange glow over the ridge behind Monterey (over 80 miles away) in the huge Basin Fire in June. Others seem to lurk around nearby, closing roads and stinking up the air like an ashtray, but never showing their faces or flames. They move fast, OR they might move slow; they change direction, they jump; they burn in areas unreachable and thus un-fightable; they ask you to stay on alert and pay attention but they give you no solid information to work with. I've found that the most frustrating aspect of fire energy is the "hurry up and wait" feeling: my car sat packed, a potential evacuation hanging like a drawn out farewell, making all normal activity or conversation seem useless, or forced, or repetitive. All we could do was check in on the current state of the fire, discuss it from some new angle, and carry on with the day. I kept thinking about the phrase "putting out fires" which is often used to describe the mode of operation in a dysfunctional system like an alcoholic family or a corrupt political system. It's a panicky survival--just a low-grade maintenance, no rich or meaningful life-living. I'm familiar with it, and I hate it.

I noticed, too, how different it is from the extreme blizzards or hurricanes I'm used to on the East Coast, where everyone knows it's coming and then buckles down and waits it out until it ends. Those affect whole towns, states, regions. But the fires here are unannounced and unpredictable, inexplicably hopping around and swiping off parts of the earth like a layer of dust. Strangely, in that, something very clean and total is felt when the fires blow through because something about it requires that you just give in to impermanence and chance.

I wrote this poem seven years ago, after experiencing my first wildfire, and my first winter, in California. I've gotten to know the intricacies of fires a bit more, but this first impression still holds.

Purifier
On the day of the eternal sunset
I awoke,
ashes softly falling from the sky.
A pink haze greeted my eyes
and I couldn't tell you where I was.
My first thoughts trickled out...
purposeful destruction...
pointless devastation?

I woke up
but it seemed the sun was going down,
and my sleepy headed, east coast reality
read:
A Southern California Snowstorm
in the skies that morning.

Collecting my logic,
I rewrite a new story
and I choose this to remember:
That December is still a time to die,
to leave our preconceptions behind.
Cause if it's not the cold, the heat'll get you
down,
choke the air from your throat
and leave you lonely--
yet proud!--
that at least you have yourself
(and no small task at that...)

Sometimes our hope for warmth
becomes the winds on a raging fire.
So, are you ready
for the death and dying?
For the purifying
-Heat-
that melts your need
to search
and learn.
It says give up and start again.

It wants to shed your skin.

Revolution

It is a lazy Sunday afternoon. It is the kind of contented afternoon that feels rich with meaning early in the day, so that the rest of the day is gravy…borrowed time…just extra hours intended for enjoyment. Earlier today, I traded a dish shift with one of the members of the yoga community in which I live so she could have her Sunday morning off. Normally, I don't work with the crew of people working today, and there is always a different feel, a different dynamic depending on who is working and the schedule of the particular day.

The shift was smooth, and I sailed, smiling, through my sink of stainless pots and pans. My mood was encouraged by the selection of traditional gospel bluegrass and the singular sense of home I could hear in the crisp, modest voice of the songstress. One of the crew, Vishwanath, had put the music on for us this Sunday morning. Vishwanath is an older man; I don’t know how old, but he has a full gray beard and long gray hair. He has taken a vow of silence, so he communicates via a pocket-sized blackboard and while he has a boisterous laugh and pleasant demeanor, I consider him a serious man. We chat for a bit (I speak, he writes) about music and bluegrass and then I return to the dish room for the final task of mopping.

So, I am in the process of mopping, and notice myself thinking, “Uh oh, what if I’m not doing this right?” (By the way, the amount of thoughts you can have on just ONE shift, WHOA! Not a good place to try to escape from yourself!) And then I think, “I should slow this down so that Vish will see that I am a good worker (and approve of me).” But I catch myself--trying to impress someone I respect. I realize this with some humor, and tell myself that I just need to slow it down and benefit from the practice myself. I am not trying to rack up brownie points, I came here to deepen my spiritual practice. These dishes, this soapy puddle are my Karma Yoga--selfless service with no attachment to the result of one's actions. And here I am cheating (myself) by trying to get the instant gratification of Approval! And what a booby prize approval is...will I just sit around hoping someone will recognize my goodness and offer me salvation...? At this point, Vish taps me on the shoulder, showing me his chalkboard which says, “Revolution has to come from inside.” Now I’m speechless, so I just nod.

I turn back to my mop, but with tears in my eyes. (My tears…always popping out whenever Truth stings me unexpectedly!) I think for a second how special this place is, but really, I wonder if amazing things are always happening around me and I only need to change my routine and slow down to recognize them.

Young swinger

I really love linguistics and especially wordplay. You know—puns, pidgin, double entendre, esoteric languages between friends. I could nerd out forever on this stuff and in fact, I do. My friend, Andy, is an eager wordplay teammate (in fact, the name of this post came from him) and we like to make up words like beleaguerent, for that variety of drunk who is displaying both the angry belligerent and the beleaguered victim at the same time. Or he might say something like, “Let’s get down to the pool so we can relaxificize ourselves!” because somehow it’s funny to make words longer than they need to be. (By the way, I learned that this process was especially rampant during the Revival days in America when attempts to describe the glory of Lord Jesus apparently necessitated the hijacking of grammar. I learned about this practice on San Diego public radio’s “Away with Words” but I cannot remember the actual word for it. Please help me out if you know what it is!)

SO, the experience I’m about to describe was such a treat for me! But first, have you heard the word "unadulterated"? Well, I looked it up and it means: pure; undiluted; without qualification, ie: milk can be described as unadulterated. But when it's used to describe fun, I have devised my own definition. I discovered the meaning of the word on a summer evening bikeride, warm flowery air at my face as I careened downhill in bare feet. Ever since that night, I have understood “unadulterated” to mean: "not tainted by the rules of the adult world; pure childlike expression." Ahhhhh...remember unadulterated, good time, butterfly in the belly fun??

Well, I babysat a 4 year old today. I am pushing this little boy on his swingset and he is having that kind of fun--laughing in a giggly, spazzy way that is part fun and part fear from the height of the swing.
He is SO HAPPY to have someone to push him on his swing!

Then he looks at me with a huge grin and big brown eyes, his arms and legs twitching with the sensation, and says, "My peepee feels exciting that you're here!" I have to ask him what he said to make sure that I heard him right and then of course I burst out laughing.

By far, my highest compliment this month! And spoken by someone blissfully unaware of the rules of adult etiquette as well as basic grammar. Unadulterated times two.

Lovers

Let the lover be disgraceful, crazy,
absentminded. Someone sober
will worry about things going badly.
Let the lover be. ~Rumi

If intimate connection could be a religion, I would try to worship at that church. To me, most things pale in comparison to the richness of truly getting to know a person—the geniuses, scars, contradictions and all. I am embarrassed to say that I am only just understanding the ins and outs of true love (no dirty pun intended here, although I think the vulnerability required is just as naked, just as raw and messy). I’d like to accept love in all its confusing glory, instead of telling myself I am crazy for having such feelings, or worse yet, trying to fit it in to some small box where it could live happily ever after with my preconceptions of problem-free friendships, stable marriages, and parents who never disappoint. It seems instead to require both warrior skills and meekness. And lots of faith and patience. And a commitment not just to be there for another person, but also a willingness to confront the demons when they block the path, even if those demons happen to be inside yourself instead of the person you love (where we would prefer them to live).

So, of course I found my way to Jalaluddin Rumi. Perhaps you know of him—the 13th century Sufi poet whose firey love poems make Sade seem cold-hearted by comparison. He’s been read for centuries, but he’s enjoying a rebirth recently in the West (see esp.Coleman Barks). Lately, his words are ubiquitous on cards and journals, and they are still just a sampling of the tens of thousands of lines of poetry he wrote! But the detail I appreciate about Rumi is that his work and his life were inspired by a relationship of spiritual proportions. In simple but gorgeous language, his poetry describes a love affair with a mystic, a wild dervish named Shams-e Tabrizi. Ultimately, the story of the fateful relationship between this rogue sage, Shams, and a trained scholar and theologian, Rumi, is really the story of transcendent union. It describes a spiritual path, and the necessary death of the ego that accompanies the movement toward divine union with another. And it is no quiet storm; it is a violent disillusionment, a ripping away of the mask of false identity. As another Rumi scholar, Andrew Harvey, describes, “Rumi had to be shattered by Love to become Love itself, emptied and broken to be filled and remade, burnt away…” Their relationship was certainly unconventional, but the themes are universal.

Desperation, let me always know
How to welcome you
And put in your hands the torch
To burn down the house. ~Rumi

I know there are many paths and roads and means to enlightenment, to the realization of our true nature as Divine creatures. I’m trying them all! I’m at least considering them. But I can really relate to Rumi's portrait of love, which is not without its bloody fangs. And mostly, I like the idea—and I believe it—that true intimacy, truly loving, truly being present for someone can be the path itself.

As Rumi says, “Let your teacher be love itself.”