go through the ear and to the center where sky is

(written, mostly, on sept. 11, 2010, finished on the 12th because i had some whiskey and had to go to bed.)

A Wished-For Song

You’re a song
a wished-for song.

Go through the ear and to the center
where sky is, where wind,
where silent knowing.

Put seeds and cover them.
Blades will sprout
where you do your work.

-Rumi
(originally in Persian. tr. from translations by Coleman Barks)
(courtesy of dan)
———————-
“well, you know how your politics tend to kind of go latent here, but i do in fact have them,” my friend f said a couple years ago. we were talking about latin american justice struggles and globalization, topics which were, at one time, common enough for both of us but the details and urgency of which after a few years at denali had been mentally replaced with excessive knowledge about this years’ (and last years’, and the year before that) blueberry crop and whose car broke down where. and on anniversaries like this one, i always think of these imagined separations between worlds as we see them, and what, if any, part of my consciousness is suffering at not having actively, visibly protested or campaigned or spoken out against (or for) anything in years. i get those emails from the obama administration telling me to organize a rally in denali national park, and i laugh at the absurdity , though i kind of think people would show up just because it’d be something to do, if there was beer and cookies. i worked the polls on the august 24th elections. it was a great time to catch up and knit with some other marginally-employed women, and it felt like one of the least politicized activities i’ve done for money all year. bringing some sort of baked good was part of the job description. “the best part of voting!” tw said as he walked out the door holding a slice of m’s cranberry bread.
september 11, 2001, was, by all accounts, a beautiful fall day at denali. those few with access to news media formed the grapevine through which that morning’s news traveled. a friend who was driving bus in the park told me years ago of trying to decide if and how to break the news to hikers he picked up on the park road, not knowing what meaning the events would have to them in the context of a brilliant blue sky, red and gold subarctic tundra, the alaska range filling the near horizon. what makes something matter? for whatever reason, and it must have been more than the presence of TV, i felt an immediate personal connection to those who died in new york that day, to the people of the vague assemblage of middle eastern countries whose names were tossed around like dice in those first weeks following the attacks, to the voices around the world who knew what could–and did–come of this and spoke against it, and i immediately responded and engaged: shock to rage to empowerment. and i don’t know why being 17 in flagstaff, arizona, allowed me to feel those connections more directly, more acutely, than i do now. i try to stay informed, if not active. i boycott certain companies out of habit. i sign online petitions. it’s a pathetic form of activism, really, but the immediate world is just so full that the rest of it sometimes fades from sight.
i worked with a woman this summer, m.d., energetic, radical, just out of college. one of my increasingly rare nights at home in my cabin on the hill, i invited her over for wine and kale chips and we talked about revolution, about shifting paradigms and capitalism. she came to me at the perfect time: i needed someone in my life to remind me of these conversations, to bring them into new places, to use words like “hegemony” as she sits in my rocking chair, her dog curled up next to the woodstove. she echoed snyder’s words: the most radical thing you can do is stay home. she grew up in fairbanks, and returning home from dartmouth college and seeing the taiga, she said, “it just looks right, you know?”
we talked about subsistence and sustainability, about neo-colonialism, the peace corps, berry picking, monogamy, and the brilliant red of low bush cranberries against lichen in the fall. i lent her the ethical slut and the lay of the land, and she reminded me that idealism and contentedness are not mutually exclusive. she got me thinking again. i want to find somewhere between latency and praxis where, perhaps, these gorgeous subarctic fall days will signal not the distance from the rest of the world but the intense beauty the world can and does contain, where cookies on election day will be a subtle disarming of the political status quo, small scale signs of some kind of sustainable peace.