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This brings the question of what it means to be any -ist or to be considered a member of an -ism. My life’s pattern has been not to join, and these days I am feeling a return to those roots. My eyes land first on the foundational work of Zen in America, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind (Shunyru Suzuki). Right next to it is The Haiku Handbook (a little volume on how to teach and foster the writing of Haiku). These are leaning up against a stack of books with cultural ties, most of them books chronicling The Grateful Dead. There’s also a book of loose poems and drawings by John Lennon, Skywriting by Word of Mouth. These are cradled by a hardcover book by Carlos Castaneda, The Active Side of Infinity, one of his later books spawned by his relationship with Yaqui Indian shaman Don Juan. In the shelf below are two tiny books having a huge influence on my post-teenage years, Voice of Silence and At the Feet of the Master, published long ago by the Theosophical Society. These rest on Thus Spake The Buddha and Peterson’s Guide to North American Birds. The bookshelf is further populated by works of Hemingway and Jim Harrison. Front and center on my desk, I see a framed autograph of Henry Aaron, along with his Baseball Heroes card, obtained in the company of my father at County Stadium in 1957. Above the desk are framed photos of two 20th Century Indian “Vedic” Masters, Ramana Maharshi and Papaji. On the table to my right are two copies of The Bible, The King James and an old German edition from my grandmother, which I can’t read. On top of those is a copy of The Tao Te Ching, given by a dear reader. My computer bookmarks labeled “spiritual” include many schools of Buddhism, various perspectives of Islam, Christianity, Hindu, indigenous peoples’ shamanic lore, Celtic and Druid, the list goes on. I cull this list a couple of times a year, and it never stops getting longer unless I do. There’s an article that has stayed with me in memory for many years. It’s about the “love on the walls” of an old house, a tour of a beloved home and all the keepsakes that are pinned to the walls. My simple place is quite the same. Most of the stuff is original. There is the Huichol yarn painting by the tribe’s pre-eminent artist and shaman, Jose Benitez Sanchez, some pressed copper likenesses of Chinese royalty passed down in my family and always on a wall where I’ve lived since birth. There’s the exquisite mandala given by a dear friend who taught in Nepal a couple of years ago. It is a fine piece and worthy of any wall anywhere, and I am deeply moved to have it.
Around into the short hallway, there are Southwest Indian pieces topped by an inverted horseshoe, and in the bedroom there’s a photo of St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans, and two watercolors done by a neighbor who found art after cancer found him. The little kitchen cubicle even has a 1960’s era photo of a long-gone band, where I was the drummer in another incarnation. |
