A Middle-World Practice

it's never too late to start again. today, i went for a long walk by myself in my neighborhood. i noticed the old towering redwoods, liquid amber, maple, pepper trees, gingko, birch, willow, acacia...and the blooming shrubs and bushes - hydraengeas, roses, lemons, clematis, yarrow, willow, salvia, lavender and more. i looked up and praised the horse-tails and the blue sky. the warm sun bathe me. the streets were quiet. the wild blackberry bushes are pregnant. the neighbors' vegetable gardens are a delightful assortment of artichokes, sweet peas, tomatoes, basil, herbs.

i have lived in this neighborhood for 29 years. but i wasn't paying attention. walking around the neighborhood was just for my fitness. oh sure, i've noticed how it has changed over the years -- more houses, more development, more grocery stores, more people and cars, more of everything. except Land that hasn't been developed.

recently, i made a conscious decision to cultivate my relationship with this piece of land. it is a conscious decision because prior to this, my idea of land, as in homeland, has been located elsewhere where my body isn't. it makes sense that that my love of home-land, must include the earth beneath my feet.

and perhaps that is the point of developing this practice: the earth beneath my feet is literally my homeland.

as i was walking i thought of how i've spent the last three decades growing my intellect. read hundreds of books. learned academic jargon. wrote and published a lot of words. participated in online listserves. everything has been about words.

what about the language older than words? what has been my connection to this language? how do i reclaim it and befriend it?

i feel the answer closing in on me.

Quotes from Martin Prechtel

All quotes are from The Unlikely Peace of Cuchumaquic. An elder asked me recently: Leny what do you love to do most? and I said: I cook and feed people. So I have been meditating on this since the question was asked and it leads me to remembering the life of seeds....and next thing I know someone hands me Prechtel's new book which is about the parallel lives of people as plants and keeping the seeds alive. It is both literal and metaphorical. The list below will keep growing....
**
Find the seeds of your people.
Find their stories and their scientific origins.
Find their mythological origins.
Ask the seeds if they are willing to die, planted in the ground to feed humans.
Seeds as funeral whose generosity feeds us.
**
Learn to cook beautifully and feed your neighbors.
**
Unstoried, unfed, modern mechanical inventions....
**
Debt of insult to the past beyond dismal spiritual back taxes we already owe on account of our disrespectful and invasive times...
**
Now that you're one of us, you will always feel lonely and betrayed by what humans value, but loved by the echoing Holies. Get used to it!
**
The need for slow development and gradual initiation causing deeper remembrance of our non-human origins, where we could keep conscious and alive the learning humans need, to know how to ritually feed the world in a time-articulated existence ...
**
Be beautiful and spiritually useful to the universe.
**
Time divination - to remember the Beauty and privilege of being allowed to live...
Time shamans/diviners - those who kept the seeds of Time as existence alive. Diagnose the unseen and unaddressed aspects of spiritual conditions of the present in order to find out was was needed to heal as individuals, as families, as entire villages...to heal the tattered holes we left in the Holy Net of Time.
**
Divination - to understand the hidden life of the present. Segments of Deferred Time. Body as Earth.
Ritual - feeding the Divine through creations of beauty made by our hands and language. World eats the Beauty we make.
**
Everyday Beauty as an obligation of remembering that even in just how we walk, we feed God.
**
Takes a lot of time, know-how, and non-returning gift giving -- late payment for the grace of living...

dear paysbuk,
i wish i know how to quit you.
it was better when i was blogging and connecting to folks based on mutual interests.
now hardly anyone visits this blog anymore because i don't take time to create the links and tags to other people's sites like i used to.
it was better when i didn't have to spend so much time scrolling thru people's updates, events, news items, announcements, birthdays.
i had more time reading and reflecting and then writing more than 140characters. i got quite a bit of writing done then that eventually led to longer pieces that ended up in books, anthologies, ezines, and  listserves where there were meaningful discussions going on.
i think someday soon, your bubble will burst, too, paysbuk.
just like everything else in this simulated reality that has kept us numbed and distracted.
one at a time, we will say
i miss my face-time with my best friend
i miss the phone contact with family
i miss the touch and hug of a loved one
i miss being present to my own life
i miss gardening and touching the warm soil
i miss pulling weeds in the garden
i miss sitting in the backyard without my laptop
i miss walking around the neighborhood

oh yes, time to make time for these things again
summer is here

orphaned koans are waiting

wise counsel from an indigenous elder that i have been meditating on:
-- academic to cultural practitioner
-- standing your ground to move the work forward
-- when doing spiritual work, relying on rules/policies/norms don't work well
-- concentrate on relationships and process
-- servant, not leader
-- forms will change as energies shift
-- what brings you joy? find the root myth
-- humility
-- kapwa as a cultural and social concept is inclusive
-- kapwa as spiritual concept has boundaries

Partial List of Books by the bed:
The Unlikely Peace at Cuchumaquic
The New Imperial Order: Indigenous Responses to Globalization
Shrouds of White Earth
Liberation and the Cosmos
Verbal Arts in Philippine Indigenous Communities
A Xicana Codex of Changing Consciousness
Indigenizing the Academy
Blackfoot Physics
The Wayfinders
The Turquiose Ledge
Tending the Wild
Shadows in the Sun
Postindian Conversations

resource

State Recognition or State Appropriation?

Land Rights and Land Disputes among

the Bugkalot/Ilongot of Northern Luzon, Philippines

Lullaby for Rising by Oscar Penaranda

Lullaby For Rising*

Anak,

the well of memory runs deep

malalim

a bottomless spring

you must dive into and explore

like a healing hilot's hand

or perish

You have to steel yourself, prepare

growing into it

struggle without losing the spirit of gratitude

always saying po and salamat

for that is a healing too

paghihilom din yan

like giving 

and getting comfort from the friendship of

self, family, community

and ancestors

birthing and baptizing

yourself anew

Find the tanglad that will flavor whatever nourishes you

for we are all of mixed heritage

many colors  in our diversity

and we are all of one heritage

one color in our humanity

once you find our indigenous connections

learning the wonderful force of bayanihan

from our manongs and manangs

and kaibigans

Mabuhay ka, my child.

Oscar Peñaranda

April 28, 2012

Santa Rosa

Sonoma County,

California

*(poem composed from the one-word contributions of participants at the Asian Community Forum, at SSU, on 4/30, organized by Karen P/FANHS, CFBS, FACSCI, FAASSU).

sonoma county  salamat   comfort  connections kaibigan, mixed heritage, family, friendship, diversity, bayanihan tanglad  growing  wonderful  learning, paghilom, malalim, manong