The truth about giving is that it is the one thing that is almost guaranteed to make us feel good. It works that way because it takes our thoughts out of ourselves and focuses them on someone else.
I guess this is the secret that the truly selfless souls have discovered.
I have spent so much of my life thinking only of me--of furthering my career, of tackling my next project, of self promotion, of whatever.
During this holiday I have been forced to spend more time thinking of others than of myself. This was not something I tried to do; it happened by necessity. My two sons, my wife and my mother have all somehow needed my attention. Not that they've asked for it, they've just needed it. So I've had no choice but to obey my conscience which has made me realize just how lacking I've been in this area.
Maharishi's words come to mind. I heard him say many times that following the path of the householder is far more difficult than the path of being a monk. It seems like the trials we go through in our families are far more frequent in coming than during those blissfull and serene days when as a young man I lived on a mountaintop in Switzerland and meditated much of the time.
Lately I've been longing for those days with their simplicity. But for now, my schedule is full with household duties and I'm trying as hard as I can to accept them. I'm expecting that the lessons to be learned along this path will be great and lasting. Anyway, it's the path I've chosen and I think it's too late to turn around.
And then there's that thought of giving which is capable of taking me out of my own head.
I sat through most of a 12 Step meeting today, secretly having trouble with the people who shared as well as the others. People in these meetings out here are different than the people were back East. Back in Westport the people seem to be more refined. First of all, most of the men wear ties to the meetings and almost all the women wear designer dresses.
No comparison here. This is the wild west and not only do the folks dress like it, they act like it too. They are much more rough around the edges than what I'm used to. A lot of them haven't had a bath in a while. Several are just out of prison and you sense a heavy dose of anger in the room.
But in a lot of ways I think this is good for me. I am the kind of man who can puff himself up with no trouble at all. Like I was saying, I was sitting in this meeting today, thinking basically, that I was better than everone else.
I know that I'm not--at least I know it when I'm reminded of it. Which I need to be, continually.
Ever since I've been out here, I've been thinking of Indians. I've taken a pile of books about Indians out of the library and they are helping me to become more connected with this place which was, not all that long ago, Indian territory. As a matter of fact, the meeting I sat in today was run by an Indian.
About getting humble, here is the beginning of "Black Elk Speaks" maybe the greatest spiritual book ever written by an American. This is from the first chapter called "the Offering of the Pipe."
Black Elk Speaks:
My friend, I am going to tell you the story of my life, as you wish; and if it were only the story of my life I think I would not tell it; for what is one man that he should make much of his winter, even when they bend him like a heavy snow? So many oher men have lived and shall live that story, to be grass upon the hills.
It is the story of kufe tgat us holy and is good to tell, and of us two-leggeds sharing in it with the four-leggeds and the wings of the air and all green things; for these are children of one mother and their father is one Spirit.
This, then, is not the tale of a great hunter or of a great warrior, or of a great traveler, although I have made much meat in my time and fought for my people both as boy and man, and have gone far and seen strange lands and men. So also have many others done, and better than I. These things I shall remember by the way, and often they may seem to be the very tale itself, as when I was living them in happiness and sorrow. But now that I can see it all as from a lonely hilltop, I know it was the story of a mighty vision given to a man too weak to use it; of a holy tree that should have flourished in a people's heart with floweres and singing birds, and now is withered; and of a people's dream that died in bloody snow.
But if the vision was true and mighty, as I know, it is true and mighty yet; for such things are of the spirti, and it is in the darkness of their eyes that men get lost."
What could be more humbling, and more eloquently said than this: "for what is one man that he should make much of his winter, even when they bend him like a heavy snow? So many oher men have lived and shall live that story, to be grass upon the hills."
I am continually being humbled; sometimes I wonder why do I bother to write at all?
I may have said this before. Because I’ve felt like this before. Most likely because I’ve read his books and read about his life. He keeps cropping up in my consciousness. There his house was on a "This Old House Classic" this morning. His house in Hartford, Connecticut.
Well, I come from Connecticut too. He explored some of the same parts of the world as I have. I lived in the small town in Switzerland where he lived. I did not know when I went there, by the way, that he’d ever been there.
Then I read in a book about his life that he worked for a San Francisco newspaper. Currently I am working on an article I am going to submit to the San Francisco Chronicle magazine. I have written my first column—part of a tri-weekly arrangement I’ve made—for the Ukiah Daily Journal.
And… I’m seriously thinking of building a boat to sail the Pacific. Didn’t Mark Twain sail the South Pacific? I know he got as far as Hawaii, anyway.
Do you think I might be following him? Stalking him, long after his death? Or maybe just identifying with him the way one might with anyone who has come before that they might admire—the way President Clinton identified with President Kennedy.
I’m not sure about my motives—they’re not bad ones, anyway. It’s all part of my spiritual quest as I like to think about it. In this case thinking of Mark Twain somehow helps put my life into a context.
Right now this is helpful because at the moment my life seems to be something like free-floating, stream of consciousness poetry. It’s good that thinking of Mark Twain kind of helps to ground me.
Does this all sound pretty crazy? Maybe it is, but it is what it is.
Anyway, I think I’ve found a topic for a future blog: It is "Life as free floating, stream of consciousness poetry!"
"We drove northward along the Russian River, toward the low mountains that had been visible for some time. Soon the road branches away and upward from the water. The car labored as we began the ascent; the road climbed, twisting and turning until it cut through a narrow pass.
"Suddenly a beautiful valley, completely encircled by mountains, opened below to us. It lay like a park surrounded by steep brown and tawny velvet hills. The valley floor was a golden carpet, with ancient dark green oak trees evenly set about; it was cultivated land, in a variety of colors and geometric designs, seemingly planned by a man to enhance the valley’s natural beauty. The Russian River, with its green borders of shrubbery and trees, bisected the valley from north to south.
"A short ride brought us to a rather typical northern Californian town, halfway between modernity and the horse and buggy days. Along the main street were the usual chain stores—Montgomery-Ward, J.C. Penny, the dime stores, as well as churches of several denominations, a movie house, one modern and a few rather ancient hotels, some restaurants, gasoline stations and bars. Trees lined the streets; the houses represented a mixture of styles from all parts of the United States…giving the town an unmistakable American look…
The next paragraph begins, "It was early in the summer of 1934."
The proceeding is the beginning of a remarkable introduction to a book called "Deep Valley by B.W and E.G. Aginsky—a book I was handed by the reference librarian at the library in Ukiah when I asked for books about the Pomo Indians.
As I read the words, I related to them, maybe because I made my own entrance into Ukiah just a few weeks ago. What the authors described still seems to ring true 70 something years later.
My own cross-country journey ended here with me and my dog Dixie coming across the low inland mountains which frame the eastern side of the Ukiah valley in my pick-up on Route 20—the end of a long day’s drive begun in Winnemucca, Nevada.
When I’d decided to move my family from Connecticut this past summer, my wife along with my younger son Andrew, flew out a couple of months earlier for the start of the school year. I stayed behind to sell the house.
Although we’ve been coming out here summers for 20 years, it has always been a whirlwind two-week trip involving long flights. This time it was just me, and the dog in the seat behind me, her jowls resting on the center console.
I can’t tell you how much we looked forward to reaching Ukiah. Being reunited with my family alone would be enough. But beyond that was my head full of expectations—all the dreams I’d been dreaming about what I was going to do when I got here.
I had what can only be described as a religious experience, which began as we topped the Sierras north of Lake Tahoe and descended into the Sacramento Valley. The feeling grew stronger and the experience became more real as we headed north on Route 5 after passing Sacramento.
I felt a lot like John Steinbeck. Almost like I was reliving "Travels with Charlie" with Dixie. After all, we’d driven 3,700 miles to get here. We’d had our own adventures. We left a visit to my friends Victor and Judy Raymond in Wyoming during the first snow storm of the season which eventually dropped 12 inches.
But having started across western Nevada early on our final morning on the road, and having climbed up and through the spectacular Sierra Nevadas, we were grateful beyond compare when the road gradually settled down into the Sacramento Valley. We stopped in Wilson to gas up and wash the truck.
But once we were cruising along through the heart of the Sacramento Valley, we’d felt we were safe. That is the best way for me to describe the feeling. It was as if some Higher Power or a Great force of Nature was present to welcome us home—to California.
The feeling remained as we headed west on Route 20 winding through the mountains until we reached our destination, Ukiah, the Pomo Indian word for deep valley.
I am a lot like everyone else in the sense that I am grabbed by headlines—"The biggest," The Richest," "The Bravest," and in this case, "The Tallest".
Ever since arriving here in Ukiah, I’ve been exploring all the things that seem interesting and unique about this place. I’ve made it a point to take road trips in all four directions of the compass and to see what many who have lived here for years might not even consider going to see. It’s the old story: the native New Yorker who has never visited the top of the Empire State Building or taken the ferry out to see the Statue of Liberty.
A life-long local might never think of visiting a grove of redwoods about 15 miles west on Orr Springs Road—the grove which I read in the "Mendocino Visitors Guide" was home to the world’s tallest Redwood tree, billed as "the world’s tallest living thing."
It would take the "new guy in town" to take the time to drive the curvy, continually narrowing and often precipitous road to see a grove of redwoods—one, which to somebody who grew up in these parts, might possibly look like just another bunch of redwoods. To me, this grown-up kid from Connecticut, redwoods—any redwoods—are spectacular. I could string out a line of adjectives: awe-inspiring, thought provoking, massive and way taller than I imagined.
Speaking of what "I imagined" before hand, my first memory of redwoods was on a trip to California which I’d taken with my family when I was fourteen. It was one of those views, which would better be called a glimpse, from the back seat of the rented Chevrolet convertible, a place I certainly did not want to be at the time.
Now, here I was four decades later, pulling into the small dirt parking area beside a stream the road had been following down and down into this hollow. With the carrying strap to my trusty Nikon slung over my shoulder, I headed up the trail taking me into the musty woods happy to be alone. When I decided to pause, a young woman hiker caught up with me, happy, as I was, in the lonely place to have a companion to walk and talk with. My first question to her, as you might expect was, "do you know which is the world’s tallest tree?"
Lauren, studied journalism at Berkeley, had a wealth of information to impart. We got to be fast friends as often happens in places like redwood groves, and shared our stories quite easily as we continued along the path which lead from one redwood grove to another. I asked her to take my picture beside the tree that, I thought just might be the "tallest in the world." In return, I took a picture of her, which I promised to send.
In the silent spaces between the words we spoke, I caught glimpses of the real beauty of the place. The beauty didn’t come from the fact that the tallest living thing lived somewhere—unmarked—in that grove. It was subtler than that. It was contained in the soft feel of the redwood bark, the lush floor of the grove carpeted by huge ferns and the biggest clover leaves I’ve ever seen.
Since there really was no way to see the tops of the magnificent beings that were the trees, I had to be content with human scale pictures of the giant tree trunks which had been seated calmly and firmly there.
Lauren pointed out the rings on a fallen tree that had been sawed through. There were thousands, as she showed me, which showed that many of these trees had stood in the grove even before Christ walked on earth.
After that I looked up—feeling like a little kid again—trying to see the tops of the Redwoods. "I guess I’ll have to climb one to find which is the tallest," I told my friend, only half-joking.
I’m not sure if I’ll ever make it to the top of a redwood but I do think I’ll be paying another visit to Montgomery Woods. It’s the most wonderful place I’ve been lately to put a life into perspective.
By the way, I’m quite glad that the one tree that stands 367.5 feet remains unmarked. Because it isn’t, it takes away some of what is so dumb about our time—the need to know what is the richest, strongest or tallest. Life is not finite; it is much more of a relative thing
I don't like saying goodbye. I've often left places in my life, including college, without saying goodbye to my closest friends. So when my friend Dean called to invite me to dinner at the Peppermill, although I said yes, I didn't like the idea that I'd have to say goodbye to the guys I've grown the closest to. Dean said he'd be calling Michael, Michael (Ellsworth and Montecalvo) and Jerry (Vergara).
This (including Dean Builter himself) comprises my vets group.
Almost fifteen years ago I found these guys--or they found me is more like it. Now that I'm 30 years back from Vietnam, that was halfway back to now.
I owe these guys my life back, it's that simple. Together with Linda Reinberg, our therapist who loved all of us back to life, they gave me a sense of self and of a new reality that I could fit into. Up until the time I joined the group I was wallowing in a kind of warm water bath of self pity, drunken dreams and a generally unrealistic view of living; one also filled with deep rage.
This group got me sober and helped me to stay there. There is no way I could exaggerate the gift these guys gave me.
There is a bond that veterans of the same war have in common that is as strong as any bound that exists. There are things Vietnam Vets know about themselves that cannot be explained nor that I can even sometimes understand. I'll tell you just one story.
When I was the new member in the group, Michael Ellsworth got married for the second time to Maggie. Michael's wedding was the first time I'd sat with our group in public. Michael had given us a table of our own, which he joined from time to time, set to one side of the large outdoor gathering.
For some unexplained reason I felt a real feeling of power just sitting at the table with these guys. It wasn't something I was imagining when others at the wedding seemed to notice the same thing I did. People looked over at us from time to time and commented quietly amongst themselves. We seemed to be set apart from the group in a most real way, exuding a quiet, sober strength.
I still feel this today. I am proud I do.
At the Peppermill a few weeks ago, the night before I began my trip across country, I couldn't tell these guys the gratitude I have for them. Not in person anyway, because I know I would've lost it right there in the restaurant. So I'm doing it now.
What I know absolutely about these men is that I trust them to "cover my back." There are very few people we meet in life that we really trust this much. I think the reason for this trust comes from their individual honesty. I know who they are down deep and I admire what I know.
What a lucky man I am to count Michael, Michael, Dean and Jerry as my friends. Even though I'm moving across the country I'm bringing a lot of who these guys are with me--in who I have grown to be, myself.
I hope someday I will learn to embody the quiet dignity and strength that each of them lives.
This is your day guys; thanks for the gift and happy Veteran's Day.
We sold our house just a few weeks ago and the day of the closing, I started a drive across country with our dog Dixie to join my wife and younger son in our new home in Northern California.
Making this move has proved to be a lot of things besides just plan difficult. It's been freeing, enightening and a breath of pure fresh air. Enlightening in the sense that it is evident we have left quite an unenlightened life for a place which seems to contain all possibilities.
I now sit about 3000 miles farther west than I used to. And the view is quite different from this end of the country. I sit facing the mountains to the east of here--on the eastern side of the valley. In a way, it feels as though the mountains are protecting us from the "old" that was our life in Westport, Connecticut.
This area of northern California--Mendocino County--by contrast feels so new and vibrant. The land itself seems to sing with all possibilities. The place seems open and accepting.
As Dixie and I headed down the western side of the Sierras on the last day of our journey; when we reached the bottom, the Sacramento Valley, immediately I felt safe. I felt a sense of well-being as if this place was protected by nature. It felt as if we'd driven down into a natural sort of womb of the earth.
I'm happy to be hear and at times even excited. It seems as if we--Dixie and I had passed through some invisible membranes at points along our route. We'd transcended time and space in a wonderful kind of cosmic breakthrough.
I kept my journal along the way and am anxious to share it here in the coming days. It is good to be blogging again. I feel like I have some interesting things to say.