Every being in the universe
is an expression of the Tao.
It springs into existence,
unconscious, perfect, free,
takes on a physical body,
lets circumstances complete it.
That is why every being
spontaneously honors the Tao.

The Tao gives birth to all beings,
nourishes them, maintains them,
cares for them, comforts them, protects them,
takes them back to itself,
creating without possessing,
acting without expecting,
guiding without interfering.
That is why love of the Tao
is in the very nature of things.

- Tao Te Ching,#51, Translator: S. Mitchell via Daoism Depot -

Tuna Boy floats by in a boat.

From The Jewel in the Moment, recent scribbles. . .


Monks chanting tantras
from my stereo speakers.
Outside, street sweepers hum.


***

My arm around you -
rising, falling as you sleep.
My breath becomes yours.

- for Sarah, of course -


***

Downtown San Francisco (from the 38 Geary)

Tall, blonde and golden,
'cell 'phone in her ear, she glides
completely unaware
right by the huddled mass
begging change at her feet.

Atrocities happen everyday.

Photo may show intelligence officers in charge

Abusive treatment under the supervision of military intelligence officers may have been intentionally used as part of the interrogation of Iraqi captives at the Abu Ghraib prison, according to a previously unpublished photograph of U.S. soldiers and other personnel.

- MSNBC -

Especially, it seems, if one is engaged in CIA fieldwork in a time of complete corruption of power and war for peace.

Leader by leader and member by member, Al-Qaida is being hunted down in dozens of countries around the world. Of the senior al-Qaida leaders, operational managers, and key facilitators the U.S. Government has been tracking, nearly two-thirds have been taken into custody or killed. The detentions or deaths of senior al-Qaida leaders, including Khalid Shaykh Muhammad, the mastermind of 9/11, and Muhammad Atef, Usama Bin Ladin's second-in-command until his death in late 2001, have been important in the War on Terror.

Despite these successes, we cannot rest until al-Qaida has been fully dismantled.

- snipped from: Progress in the War on Terror, Today's Presidential Action - Office of the Press Secretary, January 22, 2004 - via The White House.gov -

What do you suppose a government which considers hunting down and killing people a positive action, a success, is capable of?

Atrocities?

Family Demand U.S. Answers Over Beheaded Son

The parents of Nick Berg, the American civilian beheaded in Iraq, said on Tuesday their son might be alive if he had not been held for nearly two weeks by Iraqi police and they were angry at the lack of information from the U.S. government about his detention.

Their congressman, Republican Rep. Jim Gerlach, said after visiting Berg's parents that they had been frustrated by lack of information from the U.S. government when Berg was detained without charge by Iraqi police from around March 24 until his release on April 6.

- Reuters -

Why do I find myself wondering if Berg was ever really released from US custody? Fantasy prone personality, no doubt.

After all, I quote The X-Files:

"No matter how paranoid you are, you're not paranoid enough."

- The Unusual Suspects, Series 5/Episode 1 - Suzanne Modeski to a future Lone Gunman -

The Bones of Long Dead Poets

I know a place where they keep
the bones of long dead poets piled deep
upon dusty shelves meant for books.

I go there when I find
inspiration in short supply and,
pretending to browse and nothing more,
I steal those bones by the score.

William Blake's lower jaw, Clavicle of Millay,
two of T. S. Eliot's lower vertabrae.

All of these and more too numerous to say
have traveled home in my pockets
rattling all the way.

I keep these mortal pieces of transient genius
in a box beneath my bed,
hoping at night some lingering residue might
seep into my head.

No luck so far!

Sung to the tune of Amazing Grace (after a few beers, perhaps, or 15 minutes of spinning in place):

Monkey shines
my shoes tonight.

Monkey sings the blues tonight.

Monkey swings
behind the bars in my private zoo

tonight.

And when he feels the time
is right

Monkey climbs upon my back
and whispers in my ear. . .

Hey now, Monkey,
what you're sayin',
I don't wanna' hear!

No more stories of horrors
and glories too long deferred.

No idle chat from monkey lips
chronicling my decay!

No matter that every word
whispered on banana breath
I, myself, taught you to say.

Oh, Monkey shine my shoes tonight.

Monkey, please
shut up and sing the blues tonight.

Monkey let me loose tonight,
at least until the morning light
from this private zoo

where, like you, I am
a prisoner
though I hold the key.

I am.

A pillar of fire.

A lion of flame.

The phallus of the sun.

Avatar of Yang.

You are.

An ocean of limitless Grace.

The Lamb that tames the lion's flames.

The secret Yoni from which all begins.

Avatar of Yin.

We are.


Thank you, Sarah, for those soft, cool spaces where Love erases you and me and writes instead, we.

Buddha made of stone
meditating in the rain. . .


There are moments of startling clarity,
wherein the moment itself ceases
to exist
and all things
stand revealed
as one formerly concealed.

Radiant.
Eternal.
Now.

Then there are, more frequent by far,
those moments wherein I feel
not unlike a Buddha made of stone:

gray and opaque,
unable to get in from the rain.

Commission to question Rice publicly on Bush's pre-Sept. 11 anti-terrorism policies

"It's not necessarily ... what Condi Rice said to us in the four or five hours we had with her" in a private interview early this year, Kean told reporters. "Sometimes it's some of the things she said to all of you."

- Clipped from (03-31) 11:29 PST WASHINGTON (AP) PETE YOST, Associated Press Writer; Wednesday, March 31, 2004, SFGate.com -

According to the list below, compiled by The Center for American Progress, Condi Rice has spun herself quite an intricate web of contradictory stories. Will she get stuck in her own web, or will she wriggle free?

* RICE CLAIM: "I don't think anybody could have predicted that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile." National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, 5/16/02
* FACT: On August 6, 2001, the President personally "received a one-and-a-half page briefing advising him that Osama bin Laden was capable of a major strike against the US, and that the plot could include the hijacking of an American airplane." In July 2001, the Administration was also told that terrorists had explored using airplanes as missiles. [Source: NBC, 9/10/02; LA Times, 9/27/01]

* RICE CLAIM: In May 2002, Rice held a press conference to defend the Administration from new revelations that the President had been explicitly warned about an al Qaeda threat to airlines in August 2001. She "suggested that Bush had requested the briefing because of his keen concern about elevated terrorist threat levels that summer." [Source: Washington Post, 3/25/04]
* FACT: According to the CIA, the briefing "was not requested by President Bush." As commissioner Richard Ben-Veniste disclosed, "the CIA informed the panel that the author of the briefing does not recall such a request from Bush and that the idea to compile the briefing came from within the CIA." [Source: Washington Post, 3/25/04]

* RICE CLAIM: "In June and July when the threat spikes were so high. We were at battle stations." National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, 3/22/04
* FACT: "Documents indicate that before Sept. 11, Ashcroft did not give terrorism top billing in his strategic plans for the Justice Department, which includes the FBI. A draft of Ashcroft's 'Strategic Plan' from Aug. 9, 2001, does not put fighting terrorism as one of the department's seven goals, ranking it as a sub-goal beneath gun violence and drugs. By contrast, in April 2000, Ashcroft's predecessor, Janet Reno, called terrorism 'the most challenging threat in the criminal justice area.'" Meanwhile, the Bush Administration decided to terminate "a highly classified program to monitor Al Qaeda suspects in the United States." [Source: Washington Post, 3/22/04; Newsweek, 3/21/04]

* RICE CLAIM: "The fact of the matter is [that] the administration focused on this before 9/11." National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, 3/22/04
* FACT: President Bush and Vice President Cheney's counterterrorism task force, which was created in May, never convened one single meeting. The President himself admitted that "I didn't feel the sense of urgency" about terrorism before 9/11. [Source: Washington Post, 1/20/02; Bob Woodward's "Bush at War"]

* RICE CLAIM: "Our [pre-9/11 NSPD] plan called for military options to attack al Qaeda and Taliban leadership, ground forces and other targets -- taking the fight to the enemy where he lived." National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, 3/22/04
* FACT: 9/11 Commissioner Gorelick: "There is nothing in the NSPD that came out that we could find that had an invasion plan, a military plan." Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage: "Right." Gorelick: "Is it true, as Dr. Rice said, 'Our plan called for military options to attack Al Qaida and Taliban leadership'?" Armitage: "No, I think that was amended after the horror of 9/11." [Source: 9/11 Commission testimony, 3/24/04]

Clipped from Fact Check: Condi Rice's 60 Minutes Interview @ The Center for American Progress; thanks to Moveon.org -

Or is that sticky web illustrated above merely Democratic spin in a crucial election year? Ah, what a world of illusions, what a "tangled web" indeed!

Just remember Condi, cross your fingers if you plan to lie under oath.

And if California slides into the ocean
Like the mystics and statistics say it will
I predict this motel will be standing until I pay my bill

- Warren Zevon, Desperadoes Under The Eaves -


"Where goes California, so goes the nation."

- attributed to unidentified pundit or pundits -

Now this from the folks at True Majority:

Support a Real Peace Plan

Lynn Woolsey, Congresswoman from California, has introduced legislation providing a positive vision for America's national security. It's a thoughtful and comprehensive view of how to make us safe here at home and throughout the family of nations across the world, calling for the United States to, for example:

Work with the U.N. and NATO to root out terrorist networks and lead international efforts to cut off financing for terrorist organizations; Pursue diplomacy, enhanced inspection regimes and regional security arrangements; Integrate peace building and conflict prevention into developmental programs; Reduce dependence on foreign oil and promote long-term energy security through greater investment in sustainable and renewable alternatives.

More about Lynn Woolsey and The SMART Security Resolution right here.

If you are a citizen of the U.S. and would like to send a fax to your Representative in support of Rep. Woolsey's very Californian notions for a better world, those helpful people at True Majority make it very simple:

Support a Real Peace Plan

The Night Trains

The freight trains at night
Haul a different load
Than that carried by day.

Following moon silvered tracks
Over a landscape of gloom
They shriek around the bay.

I hear them in my sleep,
In dim hours before dawn,
And my dreams trail down those tracks -

Behind engines stoked by men
With shadows in places where faces should be
And angry flames licking their backs.

An old one, previously unpublished, as we say in the Poetry Business. Hearing the trains hooting and wailing in the distant dark as I walked home this evening brought it to mind.

Now, I bring it to yours.

I've met some pretty interesting people in some pretty dull places. Artists and musicians, for instance, trapped in day jobs like myself and wandering a gray maze of fluorescent lit cubicles, committing crimes against the sacred presence of the moment by wishing (hoping, praying) for 5:00.

Or, as is the case in the office where I have been employed for the last 18 months or so (which shall remain nameless in this space), 6:00. Everybody in this office has a story to tell, a fire burning in the heart or mind, sometimes both. The fire closest in nature to my own, however, is probably that of Bill Dunlap, one of the artist/musicians mentioned above.

"Sex, death, and booze," admits San Francisco painter Bill Dunlap. "That's basically what I'm about." As easy as it is for Dunlap to deconstruct his iconic depictions of virtue and vice, there's a deeper resonance within the cartoonish nature of his work that arises from the unsettling but inevitable acceptance of life's temptations. There's also a not-so-subtle sense of humor and irony evident from both the colorful, rubbery style of his subjects and the seemingly incongruent subtitles that often accompany them. These childlike expressions actually reveal damage and danger, but it's the kind of danger that's welcome, necessary, human; the kind that's overcome by a good hazy binge, until tomorrow's first disappointment.

- from This is the Path You Chose:The Dark Cartoonery of Bill Dunlap by Jonathan Zwickel @ SFSTATION -

Bill hopes to leave the clock watching behind soon and devote his life to his art (don't we all? Which reminds me, I need to check my lotto tickets!).

We have talked about collaborating. In fact, he has read a certain number of my short fictions with an eye toward illustration. Artistic collaboration is a concept that has intrigued me for some time now. Bill's work, such as I have seen, appeals to the dark streak that runs right through the middle of me. I think his fraught cartoon renderings (or maybe something more abstract? Or?) might just suit some of the strange scenes I have transcribed from the far, dim fields of my mind.

I wonder. Does an artist have a responsibility for the dark visions and/or dangerous ideas he/she brings into the world? Another concept that has intrigued me for some time.

And another post.

SPLASH

I wanted to be a TV star,

not a raindrop.

Maybe next time I'll come out on top.

The Widow's Ballad

Now the black crows circle round and round
Above that patch of fresh turned ground,

And my hands are blistered from the work
Of bending low and shoveling earth.

My brow is wet and my back aches
And when I laugh my voice shakes.

Tired, I sit me down on the grass
And wonder how much time has passed.

How long since I did it, the stone in my hand?
I can't tell you, perhaps the crows can.

Two birds on the ground, ten more in the sky,
Squawking and flapping will draw curious eyes.

Folks in town will see far on such a clear day,
And old man Brown not two miles away . . .

He'll come to see why crows circle my place
And I'll laugh to see the look on his face.

Folks from town will frown at my long linen skirt,
Spattered up and down with blood and loamy dirt.

"To think," they'll say, "she could do it at all,
Her so quiet spoken and small."

"To think she did it, her so mild
And eight months pregnant with his child."

Lying down to sleep
with this cold in my head -
drowning in bed.

No surprise I'm sick again with the bug that's been making it's way around the small office in which I work finally getting to me a few days ago. Of course, being sprayed by germs on the bus last month probably didn't improve my chances for good health here near the heart of February. Then there was the fellow sneezing in the elevator last week. Just me and him and the monster made of phlegm which squirmed behind the mask of his face, going up.

And coming down with the shivery chills and fever flushes of ague, a soft ache massaging my muscles, and the same viscous creature growing in the cavities of my skull.

Where does it all come from? I want to breathe!

What else?

Good news came in twos this Friday the 13th. First from Molly (Sarah's youngest and a sweeter creature you would be hard pressed to find) and then from my boss (it's nice to respect the man who signs your check). All that we here at Notes from a Life in Progress are revealing about these items at the moment is that they regard, respectively, health and money. More later. Maybe.

Hmmmmm. . . If it's already Friday the 13th of February, then February 4th must have come and gone right by. And no mention that, as a blogger, I turned 2 years old on that date.

Now we are two. In blog years, at least.

The blue dog returned later that night.

Gordon gaped, amazed as the animal (or was it?) limped toward the veranda and squatted at the bottom step, casting it's rueful gaze up at him through the late Autumn twilight.

The lantern above the parlor door flickered. Light and shadow dosie-doed around the veranda and Gordon rose from his creaking chair to wary feet.

"Hey, what's wrong with the lights?" Darby's voice drifted from a distant room.

Gordon glanced from the dog to the faltering lantern and back again. But where the animal (it was an animal, right?) had been only vacant shadow remained, a darkness made more complete by the dog's absence than the night which deepened around it.

The Reasons Why

by

Richard Cody

For

Sarah Cody

No. 4

I love you because
loving you is completely natural for me.

I take air no easier.

And if I have ever loved you thoughtlessly
it is only because,
like the air we breathe,
the dearest things are taken too much for granted.

My post of 12/18/03 regarding my intermittent struggles with anxiety and depression, and the post-hypnotic suggestions (planted by an unknown agency) responsible for those black states of mind - or, as I referred to it, the poison program in my mind- was best summed up by the emoticon Ray left as a comment:

; )

I was, indeed, winking as I typed that post. None the less, there is more truth than not in those words. The depression and anxiety, for instance, are all too true. And the poison program that is responsible for them? Also true, though I will leave it to anybody who cares to try to decide whether or not I was serious about the post-hypnotic suggestions.

I have struggled with depression (off and on) for most of my life now (since it first manifested, I think, as more-or-less typical teenage angst and alienation) and I have long felt - even before I was capable of articulating it as such - that my dark turns were the result of negative patterns of thought - or a negative program (of course, it is also possible that the depression is at least partially related to the mild Tourette's which haunts my brain). Observe, if you will, a piece of juvenilia, written by myself at approximately 15-16 years of age (these are the opening lines of a slightly longer piece):

I'm grinding down like some fatal machine,
finely tuned to self destruct. . .

Evidence of that urge to self destruction can be found on my forearms, where the scars of razor blades applied during teenage episodes of self-mutilation remain. The extent to which that urge has been indulged is not a subject I am willing to address in this blog at this time (suffice to say, I'm still here!). Nor are the real reasons for the urge and the depression that spawned it, only recently - as in two days ago! - revealed to me after a lengthy process of introspection and, primarily, discussion with Sarah - my lover, my wife, my best friend, soulmate and therapist.

Thanks to Sarah, I now have a name for the beast that has tormented me all these years. I now have the code to the program that has been oppressing my mind. But, as I say, I am not prepared to reveal that name here and now, due mainly to the sensitive nature of this topic and the public nature of this blog. I have considered beginning an anonymous blog for the dissection of my depression, but that is not likely to happen as the maintenance of this blog - in addition to my writing and life in general - are more than enough to keep me busy.

In summation, this post is basically an announcement, vague as it is, that I have made a breakthrough in understanding the cause of my depression, and a big THANK YOU to my beloved Sarah for helping me to make that breakthrough.

12/18/03

@ the Transbay Terminal

Racing down the ramp

arms akimbo, there she goes!

woman in wheelchair.


1/6/04

@ the Bus Stop (SF)

Headphones on, she moves

hands carving air, feet here and there -

Tai-Chi Disco dance!


1/7/04

Full Bus (NX1)

Standing room only

and man behind me sneezes

for the entire trip.

Ugh. It's true and, though I feared contagion, I wrote it down - last of the three most recent scribblings from The Jewel in The Moment.

These scenes come to me and, as I say, I right them down. If I was a painter you might see that young Asian lady dancing in acrylics, or possibly charcoal, instead of words - stilted, static words poorly conceived to describe dance of any kind. A dance is a dance. Even the best of words can only approach the fluidity of dance with oblique references, sidelong glances at the periphery of vision as the dancer weaves itself by.

The moment, by the time I have written it down, is already dissipated, an event moving out of time and space through memory and all too soon into the great black wash of forget.

But this moment was written down. Think of all those that are not, trailing like a wake behind us as we make our ways through time, many barely glimpsed, most unrecognized completely, some of our better moments lost. . .

Winter Commute

How sad and sullen the houses seem
from the windows of the morning train.

How dull and dreary my passenger kin
after a night long and wet with Winter rain.

Our tickets stamped and validated
we commute through Death's favorite season.

Through cold and gray we move daily forward
though I forget the reason.

An old one, though it might have been written yesterday. The mood remains a familiar one. I am, however, taking the bus these days.