FILLIN' THE HOLES I DUG (A BICYCLE BUILT FOR TWO)

(from the Pollywog Papers 1998)

I dug holes for seven bucks an hour.  Now I fill them for seven seventy-five with obsolete mothers and fathers.  I dug ditches to take human waste away from ugly houses that cost a million dollars.

I dug holes, now I walk wasting humans to the holes, I walk them down pleasantly painted halls where the smell of urine and feces often rises.  I lead them toward the holes I dug and gently push them in once they are too tired to roam the halls of this world searching for some moment, any moment from their youth that eludes them now.

Some families react very well, they come and walk with us, they walk their parents with dignity and love into the holes I’ve dug. 

But most saw this place, these hallways, the tiny apartments within as a welcome hole in which to dump the waste of their parents.  They pushed their parents in the hole of this place and sped the car away from the discomfort of seeing their parents so wrinkled and confused.  They shut their ears to the precious life stories of growing up in one bedroom apartments in New York city with seven brothers and sisters.  They let a stranger hear of the days without any money, with little  food over decaf coffee and ginger snaps, singing:

“Daisy, Daisy Give me your answer do, I’m half crazy all on account of you…”

Walking down the hall hand in hand with a young stranger with short red hair and an awkward smile, toward the holes…

“It won’t be a stylish marriage,

I can’t afford a carriage,

but you’ll look sweet upon the seat,

of a bicycle built for two”

bum bum...

Bataan Faigao, R.I.P.

Naropa University has a history of attracting seekers and teachers.  I was saddened to hear of the loss of Bataan Faigao, one of its favorite teachers who kept seeking right up to his death.

I remember Bataan doing a demo of Tai Chi in Shambhala Hall in the historic main building.  A really big, cynical guy challenged Bataan after he talked about being as hard as steel or being extremely loose, depending on what the circumstance called for.  He invited the big guy forward and he towered over Bataan.  Bataan invited the big guy to try and push him over - the big guy tried with all his strength, but he couldn't budge Bataan, he was immovable like a mountain.  Bataan paused and asked the big guy to try again, this time Bataan stayed hysterically loose and flexed and bent as the big guy nearly fell over as he pushed hard and found no resistance.  The big guy looked stunned, confused, everyone laughed awkwardly then applauded loudly... I have many pleasant memories of witnessing Bataan doing Tai Chi, even practicing with him on occasion.  I practiced Aikido w/ Bob Wing, but was always in admiration of Batann's skills and wisdom and his practice and his stance in life... sometimes standing like a mountain, sometimes bending like a willow in the breeze.  Peace to you and yours and to Bataan.

Conan Malone

from Tambi Harwood, daughter of Bataan and Jane Faigao

I am finally posting what I read at Dad's memorial.

Both of my parents died the way they lived their lives. My mother went out in a blaze of glory. My father slipped away quietly. My mother was here and her death was tangible, witnessed and felt by a multitude of people, visitors who came to see her until she was too tired, her mind too far gone. My father died in a place of imagination and poetry. We can only imagine what it was like where he died, how he died. We make it up in our minds, like we have to do when we read poetry. We see images in our minds. Wu Dang Mountain, birthplace of T’ai Chi, happy when they brought him dinner the night before, and when they woke him up, no breath, no breath. We make up stories in our minds about how he died exactly where he wanted, when he wanted and how he wanted. And for us, it is true. And it is an illusion. They both died dramatically. My mom died a loud, dramatic death, yelling at Bataan for poisoning her, hitting, slapping, kicking, spilling water. And then she was burned at the stake, she always imagined herself joining her sisters being burned at the stake. My father died a quiet, equally powerful death. Powerful in its silence. Dramatic in its setting.

I want to tell you a story about my father’s death. The night after he died, I got a call from his tour guide. He explained in English with a strong Chinese accent how hard it was to bring my father down from the mountain, how much work it was, how much money it cost for all of the laborers. He explained in broken English that it would be very difficult to get his ashes and his belongings back to the United States. But he could do it for $15,000. He needed it right away. Just wire the money to New York, and his friend in New York would wire it to him in China. It was partially my fault, because when I found out that Dad had passed on in the hotel and told him to do whatever it would take, no matter what the cost, to take care of him. I took it back, that night. I said, I don’t have $15,000. What about $10,000 he said. Just wire of $10,000, but I need it immediately. Wire it to New York, and my friend in New York will wire it to me. My husband said, he’s trying to run the Nigeria scam with your dad’s body.

I did not send any money to this man who dressed my father in t’ai chi clothes, with socks, and t’ai chi shoes, at considerable cost to himself, and put a jade turtle in his mouth. None of this do I see with my eyes, it all happens in my head, in the landscape of my mind. It is poetry. My father is not just a poet, he is poetry.

The misty mountains in Wu Dang, birthplace of T’ai Chi, poetry. When I asked my father what he wanted to have done with his body after he died, because we talked a lot about life and death when he found out he had liver cancer this summer. When I asked him what he wanted, he said, just burn my body, and bury me in a cardboard box. He always talked about living in a cardboard box. That is exactly how we will receive his body from China, in a cardboard box. My father was not just a poet. He is poetry.

I thought this thing about the money was hilarious. I think my father would have found it funny himself. When he went to the Philippines 12 years ago, he told me a story about how he got lost and ended up in a whore house. They kept sending girls to his room. No, no, he said. I don’t want a girl. So they said, a 12 year old? No, no, he said. A man? No. He locked his door. But it was a good story. Like this, this is a good story. The story of my father on a pilgramage to the Wu Dang Mountain, the birthplace of t’ai chi, dying where he wanted, when he wanted, how he wanted. Not being a burden to his daughters who had already lost a mother. Because, after all, he wouldn’t be there to take care of it. And the story of the tour guide trying to run a Nigeria scam on his daughters with my Father’s body. My father was not just a poet, he was poetry.

When a Giant Falls pt. 1... in memory of Mike Sterchele

When a Giant Falls…

Anytime someone dies, a part of you dies with that person.  Thankfully a part of them lives on in you, in your memories, in the fabric of who you are, the closer they were to you the deeper the interweaving of their lives and yours.  I think this is why it hurts so much when those who have touched you, shaped you, always been there for you die, the tear in the stitching, the rip in the fabric goes right up your spine detouring along your ribs and ending in your heart.  The whole process seems to bypass your brain, other than then the memories that come to the forefront some of which may be ten, twenty, thirty or more years old.

This is how it was for me when I got the news that Mike was dead.  It hit me in the gut, in the chest, but my head really couldn’t even begin to process the reality of the situation.  I was at work and both of my brothers called within the space of half an hour.  Though the Cassidy’s were a small St. Al’s family, it seems there was a brother or sister who was in one of our classes, or in between grades – any big news to anyone in any of the families tugged at the hem of our shared upbringing and our shared mortality.  This was the case with the Stercheles and us.  Chaunce was close in grade to Steve, Tim and Tony were in the same class, Mike was in the class ahead of me and Jackie was in my class.  The shocking passing of big, strong Mike was an instant rip, tear across the St. Al’s family fabric, and all words fall short, far short, “the spoken word is a jacket too tight... –the only thing that speaks the truth is the eloquence of passing time…”

I sat at my desk, paralyzed unable to work.  I thought the news must be wrong, but the network of friends and family was reaching out and word was spreading fast and it was real, Mike Sterchele was dead.  I’d witnessed the death and dying of my father first hand, arriving just minutes after his last breath, sleeping the last couple of weeks on the family room floor in vigil should he need anything – seemingly countless relatives had passed, even a few young friends dying before their time like Mike, but this was Mike, Meesh, Moose, Sterch, though not Irish, my honorary Big Fellah. 

I remember piling into the Sterchele station wagon heading out on an adventure, to the Warren Dunes, to my first concert – Bruce Springsteen 1986 Soldier’s Field - or just going to a party or a friend’s house in Palos or nearby – every time out was an adventure with Mike.

He pushed my edges, he took me beyond my comfort zone, he laughed with me, maybe even sometimes at me, but he always pulled back just in time so I knew he always had my back. 

The tough guys rallied around Mike, but so too did the sensitive guys, they all did.  Mike attracted action, sometimes trouble, almost always fun.  I remember one summer we let ourselves into a recently abandoned school on 127^th Avenue in Palos that has since been replaced by townhomes.  It took some doing to get in, but we got in.  Mike was the one who found the chink in the armor and he was also the one who boosted one of the slighter guys up to scurry in through a boarded up window near the roof.  He then helped us force open a door.  From there, for several weeks we enjoyed a secret gathering place, complete with air conditioning and lights once we turned the power back on.  There was a small atrium outside the bathroom window.  It was completely walled in by brick in the middle of the building and a weed tree had sprouted up through the opening. 

Mike went out the bathroom window into the secret space and climbed up the tree, then used the wall where there was a foothold, back to the tree, back and forth, laboring until he got his stomach over the roof and disappeared from sight.  Mike had a natural instinct to explore and to seek the higher ground.  “Cass, come on up.”  It was difficult to refuse Mike even though I wasn’t quite sure I could make it, I started up the tree, used the same footholds and handholds until I was very close to the roof… but my arms weren’t long enough to reach the lip of the roof.  I was stuck.  I considered my options, a possible path back down, but Mike read my mind, “come on, you can do it.”  He lowered his hand – I could only make it if I grabbed his hand and let loose my foot and handholds and trusted him.  I knew he was strong, but I hesitated, he seemed certain, but I doubted. 

“Cass… grab my hand.”  I did.  I let out some sound, looked desperate, something, and Mike started laughing.  While laughing he couldn’t pull me up, I was dangling a couple stories up, my life in Mike’s hands, at least my ankles and unbroken bones, Mike couldn’t stop laughing and he couldn’t pull me up, but he didn’t let go.  I swore at Mike and he laughed even harder, he didn’t mean to, but it was truly funny, he couldn’t stop laughing, I couldn’t stop swearing, so I swung from side to side and Mike tried several times to pull me up, but he had no air as he was laughing and he did his best to hang on.  He did. 

He hung on, dropping me wasn’t an option.  Letting me sweat a little may have been, but dropping me was not possible, Mike had my hand and eventually he pulled me up.  He was still laughing, I punched him in the arm then I started laughing too.  We were only a couple stories high, but we were on top of Palos, we were on top of the world.

The night of the wake I was anxious.  I was uncomfortable in my skin.  I had a vodka or two before we left I’ll admit.  I sat in my house and cried, I balled, hard.  I hadn’t really cried since my father died, before that probably not since being a kid.  I’ve contemplated death with the Buddhists in Boulder, I’ve alter boyed many funerals, and seen death many times up close, but this was Mike.  I hadn’t seen Mike much in the past ten years, really the last fifteen, but no matter, this was Mike.  When I did see him last, it was as if nothing had changed – “Cassssssss” followed by his laugh which would shake his body and move his head down.  Next his arm would be around me – “I love this guy.”  I felt the same, no matter how many years had passed no matter what differences in philosophy we might have; this was the Big Fellah from my childhood.  It was the Mullin’s summer party and Mike was there with several characters from our childhood.  Mike ended up driving me home with Brian Bandyk and we of course went over the time Brian pushed me into his pool, late autumn on a dare.  Mike’s memory was he said wouldn’t it be funny if someone went in – and apparently I dared someone to push me in, Brian did.  When I got out of the freezing water in shock I chased Brian, but he locked himself inside his house.  I think I may have thrown some lawn furniture in the pool in frustration, Mike laughed the whole while – looking back I can’t really blame him, but he brought forth mischief like a trickster Lakota Shaman or crazy wisdom lineage Buddhist monk without trying.  I think this night I made peace with Brian… we laughed, they dropped me off and they drove off into the night – that’s how life is, you never know when it’s the last time you’ll see someone, if you did you wouldn’t let the night end.  It was late, we did our best to keep the night from ending, but it had to end and it did.  I think back now and I see Mike pull himself up and over the roof edge at that old school in Palos.  Mike disappears from sight.  The sky is empty where he was, I tell myself he is on top of Palos, on top of the world, but there’s a hole in my heart as big or bigger than the empty sky where Mike was.

Flight from Death ~ The Quest for Immortality

I woke last night in a thunderstorm, started some work and somehow found myself on Netflix.  One movie cover caught my eye.  An alabaster sculpture of an angel collapsed on a rectangular column or alter made me recall instantly the beautiful shores and woods of Gabriola Island, BC where I first viewed the film Flight from Death ~ The Quest for Immortality.

I was attending a gathering of holistic learning centers just weeks after my youngest was born.  The trip had been planned almost a year before and I couldn't get out of it.  I found myself in the eerily beautiful Northwest, that had always struck some chord of loneliness within, intensely missing my family, feeling alone in a strange dark land surrounded by the water.

"Human beings find themselves in quite the predicament.  We have the mental capacity to ponder the infinite, seemingly capable of anything, yet housed in the heart pumping, breath gasping, decaying body, we are godly, yet creaturely..."  This film draws much from the work of Ernest Becker's Denial of Death and is a must see.  It has hauntingly beautiful cinematography, silence and space between deep thinkers pondering the human condition, being an apparent fluke of survivalism and evolution, positioning us at once for greatness and great sorrow.

There is a book or project floating out there for me that is much related to the subject matter of this documentary, Becker's work and my own search for meaning amid madness or at least happenstance...  no matter your view towards this life and an afterlife, this documentary is well worth seeing.

http://www.imdb.com/video/hulu/vi398919193/
Flight from Death ~ The Quest for Immortality

Other related film suggestions: The God Who Wasn't There and The Atheism Tapes

Future article/book from Conan Malone:  Coming Out: An Atheist in the Closet, The Story of a Catholic, Pagan, Buddhist, Agnostic, Humanist

Becoming a Buddhist

By Guest Contributor Shiwa Oser

The most mysterious thing about becoming a Buddhist is becoming a Buddhist.

First of all, let me start by saying that Shiwa Oser isn’t my real name… or the name I go by when I’m dressed in my business outfits, hair styled neatly, in my office, typing away at my university marketing job. Not the name I use when hanging out with my family, working out at the gym, or hiking in the mountains.

Nope, Shiwa doesn’t get to come out and play all that much these days – a few miles too far from her spiritual community, or sangha. In fact, I only just met her in 2004, when I took my vows and became a Buddhist. And Shiwa was the name given to me by my new teacher… my guru.

Shiwa Oser – Peace Gold Light. She’s my alter ego, my better self, a make-believe representation of what I can become. (Or the me I haven’t fully realized or recognized.)

The strangest thing about becoming a Buddhist is becoming a Buddhist. If you had read me the above paragraphs just 9 years ago, I would have looked at you like you were crazy. Really crazy. I might have liked where you were going, I might have even played along. 

“Yeah, and I’m going around chanting ‘ommmmm’ all the time, sitting on my butt in the mountains.”

“Well, yeah, you did that.”

“And meditating for like 30 days straight.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And taking part in all sorts of mysterious rituals. Woo woo.”

“That too.”

Now that I’m away from the mountains of Vermont, the retreat center where I spent the best years of my life, and away from the weird little Buddha-town called Boulder, Colorado, it all seems like a dream… which is sort of the point I suppose. After all, isn’t that all life is? A dream that fades moment by moment? Isn’t it the goal to realize that everything is ephemeral and illusory?

In the new day-to-day conservative reality I find myself in, that’s the way it feels. Like I was riding in a shiny, multicolored bubble that has burst. But in a friendly, spontaneous sort of way, not in a ‘now what will I do?’ way. I’ve learned to be curious about my path, to accept that there really is no ground under my feet, and to try to be welcoming of the inevitable moment of my own death.

It was a whim that brought me to the Green Mountains. It was the mystery, the companionship, the sanity, and let's be honest, the fun that kept me there. I long for it, but also know I have to be a warrior in the world. Not a warrior in the protected bubble that makes me comfortable, but the bodhisattva in the fire. I am trying to bring my best to situations I find uncomfortable, tedious, and sometimes even offensive. I may still have some trouble with the world, but Shiwa is taking it all in stride.

The hardest thing about becoming a Buddhist is becoming a Buddhist. The second hardest thing is no longer being part of the religion you grew up with. From one day to the next, I had to stop thinking that God would be listening to, navigating, and ultimately solving my problems. You see, Buddhism is mostly about good old-fashioned self-reliance. No one is going to do it for you, whether “it” is being happy, finding and accepting love, or being healthy. You have to take your life in your own hands, while aspiring to be virtuous. (Emerson would be so proud.)

Changing my previous idea of God was the biggest loss for me, and in some ways one of the most profound blessings. It’s a little bit emptier in places, but my life is more genuine and I seem able to accept my quirky experiences without trying to force things to be perfect – and chastising myself if they aren’t. (Or waiting for the deus ex machina to sweep in and save me.)

The best thing about becoming a Buddhist is becoming a Buddhist. The world looks a little bit different, even if I’ve taken a short detour off my Buddhist path. It’s still there waiting for me to wake up.

I take refuge in the Buddha. I take refuge in the dharma. I take refuge in the sangha.

They are my example, my truth, and my friends. 

Joy Flows Through me like Water

Joy flows through me like water.  Without it I would dehydrate and die within days.

On an extremely hot day, or after hours of basketball - I cannot get enough of it,  it is delicious in a bland, wet way, I cannot swallow it fast enough - but it has no taste and it has no calories.  It flows through me quickly, within minutes.  Like a compliment or praise, joy flows through me in a moment.

Conflict, criticism and doubt on the other hand, stick to my ribs like lard and fried meat, satisfyingly savory, when coupled with fatty, sweet chocolate desert, a cup of highly caffeinated, honey whole milk, Tibetan chai, bloating my being for the evening, half a week, a forte night, a decade or four.

Joy flows through me like water, the lack of Belief, a solid belief that purpose is fiction ~ Purp Fiction ~ like life, joy is fleeting, but somehow suffering constant and real amid stories of santa, satan, free market charity and the trinity.

I wish I could cross myself, absolve myself of original sin, rewire myself to absorb joy in at least equal measure with the rib sticking gristle of pain, for I'm too lucky, too blessed to be this joy thin.

Drowning

I'm not drowning, not now, not literally, not metaphorically.

Two weeks ago, we went to the quarry to swim and I dove in enthusiastically, waiting for that wonderful sensation of shock, of warm water still cooler than hot summer air, of the rush of the senses, of brief calm, then "SWIM!".

At first I was relatively calm, my intention being to swim across the 50 or 100 yards to the other side to my kids.  Ten or twenty strokes into it though, I panicked, fatigue set in, I was out of oxygen.  I'm not in horrible physical shape, but freestyle exhausted me and the realization set in, "oh shit, the bottom is fifteen feet, do I turn back or swim on to the other side - no way, I'll never make it, but I can swim to the floating pier half way, I think..."

I waved to my boys, played it off ligit, and gasped for air with the sixteen year olds sunning themselves on the pier.  Tok Tok Batjargal came to mind.  A man I had just met some summers ago, briefly before he drown in the summer of drownings and wild fires, Boulder, CO.  He came to an international conference on microfinance and drown in a very indistinct apartment pool only moments after jumping in. He drown in front of his colleauges, who being from Nepal were terrified of water and could not swim. The same week Kobin Chino Roshi had drown trying to save his daughter who also drown in a pond.  Tragic, none of them could swim.

I can swim, quite well I thought, but here I was contemplating drowning as muscles locked up most unexpectedly on a casual (albeit, perhaps declaratively bravado) swim.  I recalled the 1 (or 1.5 I like to say) stretch of the South Platte where my roommate and I managed to tip our canoe... I remembered to hold on to my oar, in fact I never let go even when my lungs and muscles locked up as the ice melt waters deprived me of air.  My roommate saw I was in trouble, but he was further ahead of me, the white waters moving him down river.  Somehow I got close to the rock ledge wall bordering the river, everything slowed down and I thought to myself, "you grab on and hold this rock wall or you die".  I grabbed, I held I pulled myself up, oar in hand and scrambled up the rock wall dripping wet, slowly warming up in the Idaho summer sun.  My roommate made his way out of the river some ways down.

Another time I was in a pool as a young boy with the older boys and a neighbor kid held me under the water, under a raft for a long, long time.  I always thought he did it on purpose.  I swallowed water and had to punch him to break free.

In Florida, post hurricane again as a boy, the huge surf knocked me down and pulled me out, I remember again everything slowing down, a calming, I thought "this is it", but I felt quite peaceful.  My friend's older brother was in his late teens and he caught hold of my shirt as I floated past him in the rapidly retreating water.  He barely kept his feet and we both struggled to shore.

In Hawaii it took quite some time for me to get over claustrophobia with the snorkel before I could relax and explore off shore.  Finally, I noticed the colorful fish and how they simply went with the current, swaying back and forth without much care.  I had a break through, I relaxed and I swam above eels, tangs, angels and turtles... after quite some time, say about 40 minutes, I realized I was tired.  I tried to get the attention of my friend, but he was in pursuit of a turtle.  I turned back to shore.  But shore was quite far, farther than expected.  We were in about 40 foot water and I had no flippers.  I started swimming and then I felt the current pulse out, away from shore.  I remembered hearing this might happen, and waited and then swam as it surged back in.  I did this several times, open - swim in, close - wait again, I made slow progress until my mask took on water, I tried to adjust it, but it filled up with water, I choked down some salty water and panic raced through my muscles as adrenalin.  I decided I was swimming for it, and not stopping till I hit the beach.  I was exhausted, but I couldn't look, if shore was still far off I'd surely drown.  My wife was on shore unaware of my predicament.

I swam as hard as I could, I couldn't see, I panted, I kept going until my chest dragged upon the sand and stood on my knees.  There in front of me was David Hastlehoff, yes Baywatch, huge in Germany, David Hasselhoff.  I almost drowned in front of David Hasselhoff.  He was oblivious to my struggle.

I offer all of this, not to encourage fear of water, but as I'm just back from the gym.  I swam a quarter mile without touching the bottom, without kicking off the walls as I wanted to make sure I could still swim if I had to.  I could.  I can.  But only if the water is not freezing, only if panic doesn't set in.  I told myself, the water is deep, the sky is dark, but I could see the bottom, I knew I could stand if I had to, I worked in freestyle to raise my heart rate and settled back to breast stroke, but I could't reproduce panic, I calmly went about my work, stopping at a quarter mile as it was getting late, not because I was really tired.  A quarter of mile, late at night vs. 20 yards just weeks before, what was different.  Water temperature?  Likely colder this night in the pool.  Fatigue? Sure, but it was my mind that was different, calm, trusting of my body, not concerned with my own mortality.

I'm not overly fearful of water - actually I love it.  I have fond memories of sinking in swimming pools, into a contemplative, altered state tank only to bolt for the surface to breath and do it again.

I offer all of this on drowning, both literal and metaphorical as it presents itself to the living, the air dependent as some sort of primal reminder of just how LinkedIn we are to the elements and how close at hand is death.  In the summer of drownings and wild fires, teachers told us construction had upset the water dralas.  I likely thought of past lives in which I must have drown, rather than the front and center impression left on a lung bearer who suddenly is without air.