Today we drove up to the in-law’s ranch—the place we’ve been spending our summers for the past 20 years. The place we’ve raised our kids in part—the part that’s been in nature.
On the wall in the hallway of the house are pictures of those summers—of our kids and those of the other grand kids—on the rope swing flying in the air above the water of the swimming hole, performing skits on the deck behind the house, parties with the kids swinging sticks at a pinata—those kinds of joyous summer activities.
Today it was just the adults walking the dogs on the quiet road leading down to the creek after lunch.
The one thing, which remained the same as all those busy summer days, was the bigness of nature up there in the Mendocino Forest. The quiet, the stillness of nature.
I found a moment today where I sat along on the deck in the sun just looking out across the valley towards the trees on the other side. I felt a familiarity with the place and I realized that the familiarity I felt was with nature itself—with the and the stillness that resonates with the quiet and stillness inside me—inside us all.
It is always wonderful to me when I recognize that state of being where my consciousness reflects the consciousness of nature. What is more perfect, more blissful than that? To be aware of being a small part of the huge cosmos. Moments like that happen for me when the world becomes quiet and unhurried.
I recognize that feeling when I’m in a place where the world has retreated and asks nothing. Where I feel no need to compete or to create something new or follow through on some idea I might have—that place where I really don’t want to DO anything at all but Be.
This is what my wife calls it. Those moments when you are overwhelmed by bliss. When you feel how good, how right life can be.
I had one of these yesterday. My younger son, Andrew, and I drove down to the airport to pick up my older son, Evan, who flew in from L.A. On the way back we stopped at the Santa Rosa Mall where we voluntarily jumped into the busiest, most crowded—almost insane—ocean of shoppers I had ever witnessed. Somehow, we made it out alive and relatively unscathed—although the mental impressions of too many people in too small a place crowded my head for much of the trip up to Mendocino County. Evan gave me high marks for sticking it out for a full three hours of he and his brother trying on just about every jersey in every sports store.
Both boys are wise shoppers compared to me. Most of the purchases they made were in the Dollar Store. I usually panic when faced with so many selections, and buy something, anything, just to feel I’ve done it, so I can escape.
It was during the ride north, while I sat in the back seat of the pick up, that the experience came upon me. Andrew drove with Evan selecting the music. At one point I realized that, for me, this was life at its peak—a father witnessing his two sons enjoying themselves together—no bickering, no competition, just driving and listening to music. As we headed through Hopland, I stretched out across the back seat pretending to be asleep just so I could witness the scene and feel the bliss.
It was just pure feeling; no thinking necesary. The music was too loud for that. I refrained from yelling my usual, "turn down the music!" I just went with the flow and; let the experience overcome me, even with the sub woofer vibrating just inches below my head beneath the seat. I felt like the bassists in Guns ‘n Roses and Alice in Chains were plunking the strings somewhere inside my brain. But it didn’t matter. Finally, I realized, I had learned how to let go.
A few days ago I found this picture I took last May in the main room in one of Saddam’s palaces. For some reason when I saw the image I pictured Saddam standing silent and deep in thought staring out over his swimming pool across the Tigris River. I had heard this was one of his favorite palaces—one where he often spent his weekends.
As much as I try to imagine what Saddam might have been thinking while standing in his living room, I really can come up with no idea at all that might be close to the truth.
I think of the tremendous evil he was capable of. And I try to think of what might have caused it—tremendous unhappiness, tremendous discontent, a tremendous feeling of inferiority?
And then I think, maybe I should just let these thoughts go. I’ve thought enough about Saddam Hussein. It’s time to give up the ghost of Saddam; to let the sad man live his life, such as it is.
It made me happy when I saw that on the cover of Time Magazine that the U.S. soldier had been chosen as the Person of the Year. It seems like the staff who decides these things at Time had pencilled in a vote in the "Good" column for the tally of "Good VS Evil". That is always heartening to me; probably to a lot of folks.
Having been a soldier—I believe, "once a soldier always a soldier"—I know what it feels like. Between the many hours and days and weeks experiencing other emotions, being a soldier is an especially proud thing. There are those quiet moments when a soldier just knows he is doing the best possible thing he or she can be doing.
When you are soldiering, and doing your best, there is nothing else that can compare because you are giving totally, unselfishly, everything you have. It’s not something you even have to think about—which is why it is such a selfless act. Being a soldier means you that although you are playing just one person’s role; your small part is crucial to the success of the bigger mission and effects the greater good. So much is beyond your individual control—almost everything, in fact—that you learn to act almost without thinking, purely instinctively, spontaneously. You have had so much intense training that soldiering becomes ingrained in your very being—which is why, "once a soldier, always a soldier.
In a real sense, this way of acting is very "Buddhist"—an enlightened way of acting and being. I remember attending a weeklong series of lectures by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (who comes from a Hindu not a Buddhist tradition) at MIT shortly after I’d returned from Vietnam and left the service. He had a couple of Army Generals on the stage with him, which was causing a lot of consternation in the press—especially with the alternative newspapers. I was feeling so proud in my heart seeing the Generals up there and yet I was secretly hiding the fact that I was a Vietnam Veteran. In Cambridge in 1970, it was not a very popular thing to be.
One afternoon, a woman reporter approached the audience microphone in the aisle to ask Maharishi how he could possibly have these "warmongers, these baby killers" up on the stage beside him. A hush fell over the audience of a thousand or so people—people who had come to learn more of Maharishi’s method of finding inner peace.
I think we all expected Maharishi to say something other than what he said. I will never forget his words when he began responding quietly to the reporter’s barbed question. "There is no higher goal a man can aspire to than to be a soldier."
There was a collective gasp in the hall. Maharishi had gone far beyond merely defending the role of a soldier. For me, he had defined exactly what I knew in my heart to be true but had never formulated as a thought. I tried to hide the tears that welled up in my eyes. My two years in the Army and my year in Vietnam had now suddenly been transformed in my mind from something I had felt ashamed about to something I could feel proud of.
The conscience of our country—sometimes reflected by our journalists—in its better moments, recognizes just what Maharishi voiced as the truth. We need a symbol for what we are feeling so we find someone to turn into a hero. The editors at Time, having tuned into the collective heart of our nation, are merely reflecting what is, I believe, in most people’s hearts.
It is always a proud moment for our country when we recognize selflessness in any form. This is a victory of the human spirit.
Since I’ve moved my family to a much more rural setting—from a New York suburb to bucolic Mendocino County in Northern California—I find that I watch more television than I used to back East. What I seem to watch are two cable news channels which are closely grouped: MSNBC and CNN.
Ever since Saddam was captured, I’ve seen the inside of his mouth maybe (a rough guess) three hundred times. It’s driving me insane. Not just the shots of his mouth but the shot where he grabs his beard (thoughtfully) and pulls his fingers down to the bottom. I had many different emotional responses at first—disgust, pity, even nausea (once).
But now, I find it necessary to turn my head and eyes away from the screen. If I guess a shot of him is about to fill the screen, I quickly turn the channel but, of course, I’m never quite fast enough. So I’m forced to get a glimpse of him—and, it’s driving me insane!
It’s also making me watch less television, which, I guess is a good thing.
It occurred to me—just now in fact—that the inhabitants of Baghdad must have felt the same way as I do, when they had to view Saddam’s face everywhere they turned. Not only on television, but on every street corner almost.
SADDAM ON A BILLBOARD
When I was in Baghdad in May, most of Saddam’s images had been removed by then. But it seemed people must have grown tired with tearing down posters, toppling statues and climbing posts on which his likeness stared down at them. Maybe Iraqis had become numbed by the sight of his face to the point where his picture became just a generic item, like a tea cup or a pencil or a whatever.
Or, maybe his face had made them temporarily insane.
Taking this one step further, if Saddam was (is) insane, perhaps just looking at him gives the viewer a kind of contact insanity. Think about this for a second: we are affected by everything we look at. For instance seeing a pretty girl’s face makes me happy. Seeing a picture of a horrible act being committed, sickens me.
Followers of gurus in India carry a likeness of their gurus on chains around their necks. They believe that just looking at their enlightened master is experiencing darshan (the master’s presence). So, why would Saddam’s likeness then not carry with it a certain intrinsic power to impart some of his insanity to those of us unfortunate enough to have to see his face which unfortunately includes most of the free world these days.
SADDAM ON A SIGN ABOVE A BRIDGE CROSSING THE TIGRIS
The first of the two unfinished mosques Saddam was in the process of building was huge. It covered several acres of land. The scale was disproportionately large to the city. When we stopped the car to photograph it, we dubbed it the "Mother of All Mosques" just because its size was so overwhelming.
THE MOTHER OF ALL MOSQUES
But when we headed down a long tree lined boulevard the vicinity of the upper class neighborhood we’d just been through, we came upon a huge construction site on the grounds of the old Sporting Club and horseracing track. There loomed a construction site where an even more mammoth mosque dwarfed even the other mosque. This we named the "Mother of the Mother of All Mosques".
THE MOTHER OF THE MOTHER OF ALL MOSQUES
Dr. Badhri told me that as Saddam grew older—and the rumor was, sicker—he began building these mosques in order to secure his place in heaven. As the saying goes, the highest places in heaven are reserved for those who build a mosque.
And it seems quite obvious where Saddam would chose to sit in heaven.
As our car passed through the wealthy section of Baghdad, I questioned what kind of mind would have created houses that really seemed like they belonged on another planet. They appeared to be more suited to Beverly Hills, California—or a movie set.
I had the feeling that these are houses that were created when endless funds were available to people who had no idea about the basic principles of architecture, or even of good taste.
There were multiple angles and curves, used within the same structures that simply didn’t fit together.
I photographed two houses beside each other to illustrate my point. I don’t think that I’m exaggerating when I use this as just another example of Saddam’s madness. I don't think it's only a hunch that he most likely had final approval for the architectural styles—especially because these houses were in the neighborhood where most of his top government officials lived.
ONE HOUSE, STRANGER THAN THE OTHER
On a scale of bad vibes the Secret Police Headquarters scores a perfect 10. The front gates looked like they had been crushed driven through by an M-1 tank and the modern low-slung building in the distance had a creepy feeling even from a distance. Our driver told us, through our translator Doctor Badhri, that "those that went in never came out."
As we approached the building, we could see looters in the windows pulling the window frames out. The structure seemed to be fairly in tact unlike almost all of Saddam’s other official buildings. It seemed to have suffered from looting more than anything. There was an evil-looking black smoke stain along the front above the windows. It made me think angry citizens had set the building on fire.
Dr. Badhri, seized by patriotic fervor for his country, yelled at one of the looters. The man yelled back and then ran towards our car. He lifted his shirt and showed us his scars across his stomach. "Saddam, Saddam!" He pointed and made his point. Then he and the doctor had a heated but good-natured political argument.
The altercation gave credence to my guess about Saddam’s insanity. The man, who had spent time in the prison, carried the proof under his shirt.
SITTING ON SADDAM'S BED
Although I never met Saddam Hussein, having visited Baghdad this past May gave me some insight into the man’s mind. Just driving around the city, seeing the buildings, the statues, the billboards, the parks—all in some way, being extensions of Saddam’s mind, gave me some insight into the man who will go on trial before the world.
His palaces, more than any other thing, were the most revealing manifestations of the man we are discussing here. Because they were representations of his dreams, of his true Id and Ego. I must say, in fairness to accuracy, that the state of the palaces, as well as the state of the city in general was no longer in the condition that he’d originally intended. All of the buildings were missing parts where U.S. bombs had landed. There were gaping holes in roofs, swimming pools filled with detritus, dining rooms with tables and chairs, which had been flattened and chandeliers that had fallen from ceilings. Although perhaps seeing the structures with their skeletons exposed in this way revealed, in some ways, even more about the man’s mind than if they’d been completely intact. The fact that they’d been bombed should be considered part of the whole picture here. After all, if the buildings had been the products of a normal mind, they wouldn’t have been the targets of air strikes to begin with.
My point here, is that, even had I never known who Saddam Hussein was, it would not been difficult to tell that whoever had built what we are talking about here, was in fact, as crazy as a loon.
THE PARK SADDAM BUILT FOR HIS MOTHER
At one point during my tour of the city, we passed lines of palm trees that seemed to go on forever. It was an orchard of palms, long, perfectly straight rows, smack dab in the center of Baghdad. My friend and interpreter, Dr. Rafal Badhri said simply, "that’s the park Saddam built for his mother." I had a hard time imagining Saddam’s mother—or anybody’s mother, or anybody at all—enjoying a stroll through a park that was a shadowy forest of trees, the kind of place that when you walked into it, you’d immediately be lost because all directions would appear to be the same. More of a sick joke than a pleasant place to spend an afternoon.
Passing by this park turned out to be one of the first hints that old Saddam just might be one card short of a full deck (no pun intended).
I write in order to understand the world, the universe, and my place within it. I write because a lot of things don’t make sense to me until I write about them. I write because I need to, in order to explain things to myself. I write to make the invisible visible. I write, also, because it feels good to do it—because the more I do it, the easier it becomes and the more I know.
Sometimes—there are definitely times—when I don’t feel like writing. I think that’s perfectly okay. I’m trying not to put any pressure on myself to keep at it. Usually it just comes especially when there is something I’m trying to understand. But I think it’s equally important to give writing a rest.
The thought came to me last night, that maybe a period of silence would allow me to get to the next step, whatever that is. It makes me think of the years I spent with Maharishi living in Switzerland where there was more silence than activity. In a way those years of experiencing the deepest parts of me, kept me going for years afterwards. The deep rest they afforded my body were priceless and allowed me to walk through the next twenty years with a much deeper understanding of myself.
Maybe it’s time to do that again.
Real life is my guru. At times when I’ve needed them, I’ve had spiritual guides. I never needed to search for them—they came to me. They were put in my path like policemen who come when you call.
As much as I’m willing to listen, there are guides who are willing to talk. Sometimes our guides do not appear as holy men or women dressed in white robes; they are parents and teachers and mentors—people who are always willing to help—especially, your best friends. Anyone, we run into who is willing to listen and willing to share. Even our adversaries come into our lives to teach us things; such as how not to be. I’ve had my share of these.
There is sickness, which teaches us lessons—about how precious life is. Sometimes just living does that too. Living teaches us that living itself is truly the best thing we can do.
Being alive and in a body is where we learn everything we need to know. It is just necessary to be awake—to stay awake and stay open.
"He who is awake, the Richas (the Laws of Nature) seek him out."
I drove over to the ocean this morning. There is a road in Fort Bragg that takes you right to the edge of a cliff overlooking the ocean. Yesterday a big storm had rolled through and the waves today were big, and were crashing into the coastline one right after the other. Even a quarter mile before I reached the coast big, white plumes of foam were leaping up over the cliffs.
I parked my truck and walked out to the edge of the cliff above the ocean, which made me feel vulnerable and a little afraid that the dirt might give way under my feet. I leaned over the edge just enough to be able to peer down to the water. The precariousness made me back away quickly—just not wanting to feel like some small human life the ocean could easily swallow up.
Sitting in the truck some safe distance back felt like a much better place to view the power of the Pacific. "Mild of temper, peaceable," is a definition of the word. Certainly, if you lift up your eyes a little and take the long view of the ocean—looking out towards the horizon—you get the idea. It’s just so damn huge, so flat when you attempt to take it all in.
To use the example above, I think maybe the best idea when looking at anything—any situation—is to lift up your eyes in order to take in the wide view. To see the whole situation. To stand on the edge of a cliff, looking down at the huge waves below is frightening. But seeing the whole ocean changes everything.
While much of the world goes crazy focused today on the war in Iraq and the recent capture of Saddam, I am happy in my simple-minded way, just to be staring out across the Pacific.
What’s been happening to me it this: Ever since moving to the peaceful mountains of Northern California I’ve been flashing back to the scenes of wars I’ve experienced: Going backwards in time—Baghdad 2003, 9/11 2001—all the way back to Vietnam.
The more I settle into this peaceful existence here, the more the loud bomb blasts are heard in my head, It’s so weird. There I am—I’ve come here to find peace. And all I want to do is to try to figure out what war is all about.
All this peace is driving me crazy! It’s making me search my soul for answers for everything—especially about war.
BAGHDAD, 2003
Peace, war. Peace, war. War. Peace. How, what, why? What makes us go from what is so soft, so quiet, so safe, to the insanity, the noise, the tears, the hate? What is the road that takes us from peace to war? What is the line we cross—why do we cross it?
The hills of Northern California. I sat out on the deck the other day—the same deck where I witnessed a beautiful double rainbow. And as I sat beside the small mandarin orange tree a hummingbird flew over and stopped, hovered right in front of me. He watched me. I watched him. So cool, so Zen, so peaceful.
Then I am running, running across the plywood floor of my hootch. It’s Thanksgiving night, it’s 1968. We all stayed up getting stoned. We went to sleep comatose. The mortars began exploding all around us—on all sides of our hootch. It’s late, who know what time. What day. Time stops for chrissakes!
Bombs explode all over our small LZ. Satchel charges planted by the VC. The enemy is in the wire. Charlie is here. I run. My legs are caught, tangled in my poncho liner. I grab my M-16 and think of running for a bunker. I trip over a body on the floor. Then I get to the doorway. I clear my head. I look down in the light of the flare at the guy on the floor and make up my mind to go for the bunker. I know where it is. I’m new in-country. I’ve been in Vietnam only a few weeks and I’ve never imagined anything like this. I start to run. More mortars land just where I was going to go. Hell, this is like Hollywood. I remember having that thought, exactly. Explosions everywhere.
Noises louder than I’ve ever heard. Breaking the air on top of me, in my ears.
I’m sitting on my deck here in Northern California. The hummingbird darts away over the railing. Disappears into the persimmon trees. Down into the quiet, quiet orchard.
War and Peace.
The other day, I thought I’d try to win the Nobel Peace Prize. I thought that I’d open a discussion which attempted to engage people in trying to find the root causes of war. I thought, I’d offer my blog space up as a forum. And I know, from the statistics, there are a fair number of visitors to the blog. Hundreds at least, on any given day.
But not much of a response. Yesterday, however, a thoughtful email appeared in my mailbox. From butuki. (He has a beautiful, thoughtful site at butuki.com)
"Over the last few days I kept coming back to your site to read and re-read your
posts about war, and my thoughts were so muddled and out of reach that I just didn't know how to start to say anything in comment. Part of it, I guess, is exhaustion with the insanity that Bush and his likes are pushing on everyone, as if we can all keep being force fed and not get fed up. I think even the staunchest supporter of Bush cannot go along with this nonsense forever... it is anti-life, anti-sense.
Maybe the question should not be why does war start... I think we all know why (and all your suggestions over the last few days perhaps stated the obvious). Maybe the question that should be asked, what can we do to encourage peace and maintain it?
I am not furious with Bush for his stupidity or foolishness, but for his hubris. And for his damn pushing of unending war. War is not what people anywhere in the world need to get on with their lives, calmness in the face of great troubles, cooperation, and carefully thought out understanding are."
Thank you butuki for sending me the medicine for my recent headaches. I was looking at the causes of war when I should’ve been thinking of creating peace!
Could it be that people are just plain tired of talking about war? After all, as I was just reminded, peace is free for the taking. So maybe that is what I should concentrate on.
Yesterday I began by sitting in on a session where the monks were chanting the names of Buddha at the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas. I should be doing more of that sort of thing.
I'm tired already, of thinking about war. I came out here to California, to get away from all those old thoughts that gripped me to the past.
God brought me here...
To give me longer life. To let me feel more free. To release the shackles of my past.—to live life anew.
We are only an hour from the edge of the Pacific if we should want to go there. We are as far West as we need to be in this place where the ground still feels new, not used up, not trampled on.
The place renews my spirit, renews me. It asks little of me, it just lets me be. This place is better than taking a vitamin. For here, there is the air, the breeze, the tall trees, the sun baking down on the ground.
All this speaks of life everlasting. This is a place to grow and a place to be.
Could it be possible that the truth about what is happening in Iraq is the same as what Black Elk saw when the Wasichu (the white men) came into the lands of the Lakota in the 1800s? Could it be all about greed?
This is what Black Elk had to say:
"When I was older, I learned what the fighting was about that winter and the next summer. Up on the Madison Fork the Wasichus had found much of the yellow metal that they worship and that makes them crazy, and they wanted to have a road up through our country to the place where the yellow metal was; but my people did not want the road. It would scare the bison and make them go away, and also it would let the other Wasichus come in like a river. They told us that they wanted only to use a little land, as much as a wagon would take between the wheels; but out people knew better. And when you look about you now, you can see what it was they wanted."
It was such a simple thing that set me off. I was attempting to get my high school age son up for school and he wasn’t responding. I’d been trying in vain for half an hour. He had his head tucked under the quilt, protecting himself as best he could from my impending attack. He held onto the quilt with a steel-like grip when I tried to pull it off. My intention was to let some of the cold air of the day into his warm cocoon.
When I finally succeeded, he bounded out of bed, his anger suddenly matching, then exceeding, my own. My voice had risen an octave. His voice raised two. Then came a shoving match. He shoved me, I shoved him back.
The war had begun.
What this was all about was control. Me trying to control my son. Could it be, I wonder, that wars between nations are about control? Control of territory. Control of beliefs.
Could my little mini-war be used as a model? Or is it just a father trying to get his son off to school, not knowing how to do it properly?
I had one of those crazy ideas this morning: it is to use my blog—at least for awhile—as a forum for the above—understanding war. Iraq has been in my mind again, as I’ve just written about, probably because it is always on TV. There is no escaping it and I suspect it will continue to be in our face at least until the coming presidential election. The political battle will certainly keep it there.
But my mission in trying to gain a deeper understanding—for me and anyone else who cares to join me—goes beneath politics. Politics might be the forum for discussing issues of war but my belief is that the root causes of war, the blood flowing in its veins, is way beneath the level of politics.
I think, given that my journal (my blog) started out as an exploration of this man’s inner world, that a frank discussion of war won’t be off-putting. The way I look at it, is that war is something that affects us all—whether we like it or not. So discussing it might be somewhat unpleasant and difficult, like discussing one’s sexual life with a therapist. But, like that, once you get the discussion rolling, it is very freeing and begins to feel good.
For me, anyway, there is no escaping war. My year in Vietnam defined much of the remainder of my life right up until today. And certain other experiences, notably, the one on 9/11/2001 when it became my job to photograph the World Trade Center disaster from an Army Black Hawk helicopter, have only served to convince me that one of the reasons I am on this planet is to write about, to understand, to get to the bottom of the subject of war. I am not a sophisticated political thinker, I may not even be such s thoughtful writer, but I will, in my own way, do my best with this subject. As always, it is mostly a selfish enterprise, done for the benefit of one persons’ understanding—my own.
Since we’ve moved out here to California, I’ve had a renewed interest in leaning about Indians—Native Americans. I ran into a copy of BLACK ELK SPEAKS while unpacking. This morning I happened to read a chapter written about a battle scene as well as anything I’ve ever read.
To understand what war is all about, what better place to start than to put ourselves in the middle of a battle—jump right in, so to speak. (Note: "Wasichu" is what the Lakota’s—Black Elk’s tribe—call the white men.)
"Fire Thunder Speaks:
I was 16 years old when this happened, and after the big council on the Powder we had moved over to the Tongue River where we were camping at the mouth of Peno Creek. There were many of us there. Red Cloud was over all of us, but the chief of our band was Big Road. We started out on horseback just about sunrise, riding up the creek toward the soldiers’ town on the Piney, for we were going to attack it. The sun was about half way up when we stopped at the place where the Wasichu’s road came down a steep, narrow ridge and crossed the creek. It was a good place to fight, so we sent some men ahead to coax the soldiers out. While they were gone, we divided into two parts and hid in the gullies on both sides of the ridge and waited. After a long while we heard a shot up over the hill, and we knew the soldiers were coming. So we held the noses of our ponies that they might not whinny at the soldiers’ horses, so that the soldiers would think they were worn our. Then the men we had sent ahead came running down the road between us, and the soldiers on horseback followed, shooting. When they came to the flat at the bottom of the hill, the fighting began all at once. I had a sorrel horse, and just as I was going to get on him, the soldiers turned around and began to fight their way back up the hill. I had a six-shooter that I had traded for, and also bow and arrows. When the soldiers started back, I held my sorrel with one hand and began killing them with the six-shooter, for they came close to me. There were many bullets, but there were more arrows—so many that it was like a cloud of grasshoppers all above us and around the soldiers; and our people, shooting across, hit each other. The soldiers were falling all the while they were fighting back up the hill, and their horses got loose. Many of our people chased the horses, but I was not after horses; I was after Wasichus. When the soldiers got on top, there were not many of them left and they had no place to hide. They were fighting hard. We were told to crawl up on them. And we did. When we were close, someone yelled: "Let us go!" Then we all cried, "Hoka hey!" and rushed at them. I was young then and quick on my feet, and I was one of the first to get in among the soldiers. They got up and fought very hard until not one of them was alive. They had a dog with them, and he started back up the road for the soldiers’ town, howling as he ran. He was the only one left. I did not shoot at him because he looked too sweet. But many did shoot, and he died full of arrows. So there was nobody left of the soldiers. Dead men and horses and wounded Indians were scattered all the way up the hill, and their blood was frozen, for a storm had come u
This description of a young Indian warrior in a battle in the late 1800s could have been, with a few changes in weaponry, written about a firefight in Vietnam. What is so telling to me is the mention of the dog, which the warrior didn’t shoot at—"because he looked too sweet. But many did and he died full of arrows." This allows us to feel the warrior’s emotion, something which enters into any battle ever fought.
But about war—what are its roots? Why do we end up in battles? I believe wars—in some ways—are similar to natural events like earthquakes. When the tension and stress builds up enough, it must be released. The tension that builds between nations is just a larger example of the tension which builds up between people and released in anger.
Is it ever possible to prevent anger? I don’t know.
It was in May that I flew to Iraq on the first humanitarian aid mission to land at the Baghdad Airport. It is a landing I won’t easily forget. After all, I was crouched in the bombardier’s window that hung beneath the nose of a giant Russian cargo plane—an Ilyusian-76, it was called.
People have asked me how I felt being in Baghdad: "Was I afraid? Was it exciting? What was it like?" It’s strange, but I’ve found myself answering them by saying something like, "I enjoy being in war zones—I was more excited than afraid."
The truth is, there was never a moment where I felt afraid in Baghdad. Strange as it might seem, I actually like being in places like Baghdad because of the exzcitement. I’ve heard it said that once you’ve experienced a war—I was in Vietnam for a year in 1968 and ‘69—there’s no feeling quite like it!
That means, subconsciously, we old warriors are looking for an adrenaline rush to equal what we’d once experienced. Being in Baghdad in May wasn’t exactly like being in a war. After all, the war had recently been declared over. It’s true there was shooting going on—mostly at night, small arms fire, somewhere in the distance. Also, there were tanks rumbling through the city streets. Every twenty minutes or so at night, two Abrams Tanks sped along the street right below my hotel balcony to remind me where I was. It was hot and there was no electricity for air conditioning so the sliding doors were always wide open.
Driving through the chaos in the streets during the day, passing the endless cars being pushed by angry men in mile long gas lines, being bombarded by all the strange sights and sounds of a city in confusion, all these sorts of things were part of experiencing an occupied city rather than one under siege.
Seeing the buildings charred by bomb blasts, the over turned cars and trucks on the road side, the dazed and confused looks on the faces of the people—the sorts of things you see after the act of war has happened—is what I witnessed.
There was still looting going on. Our driver wanted to show us Saddam’s Secret Police Headquarters and when we were there, in the heavily fortified compound, there were a half-dozen or so men, pulling off the last of the aluminum window frames. The Iraqi who traveled with us as our translator Dr. Badhri, yelled something up at the men in the windows, something that angered them. One of the men came running towards our car. With his fists raised, he argued back at Dr. Badhri about his right to take something back from the building where he’d been held captive.
Lifting his shirt, he revealed a ladder of scars across his stomach. "Saddam, Saddam!" he yelled to make us understand.
This is another vision that sticks in my mind, six months later. The man posed no danger to us really; he was only eager for us to understand why he was looting.
For some reason, maybe because six months has passed, these images are returning to me. Now is the time for me to start to understand the significance of it all. It is time for me to attempt to fold these images—kind of like when I used to watch my grandmother folding different ingredients into the dough of the bread she was making.
All the ingredients somehow, of war, must be combined into the whole of the man I am. I really don’t understand why it is that God has given me the blessing to witness these sorts of scenes, but He has and I’m sure it is for a reason.
I returned to Montgomery Wood, as I knew I was going to. This time I was with my wife and we brought along Dixie the dog.
Monika, at one point, went off on her own into a sea of tall ferns searching for mushrooms (chanterelles) while Dixie and I continued up the path into the groves deeper in the wood.
At one point where the path rose up a bit to give a magical view of the trees, I stopped to listen to the wind my wife had mentioned as it pushed through the branches on the treetops.
I was captured. The wind was a murmur. It was like a song about life, letting whoever was listening sink inside themselves, because the sound resonated with something inside.
I looked up, not able to see the tops of the trees. But what I saw was their huge structures gently swaying—more-so higher up—like they were giant instruments built to play this music of life.
Think of it, there must be a reason these trees live longer than any other living thing. Imagine, they push up towards the sun slowly watching as the centuries pass! Maybe it’s the slowness of their growth that is their secret to long life. Or maybe it is the music they play—or is played on them—that soothes them and lets them understand life.
Whatever it is that happens in the redwood grove, it silenced me. There was a moment when I realized how quiet I’d become—as if I was meditating with my eyes wide open.
And when I notice the dog sitting perfectly still beside my leg, I realized we were in a holy place—that she was feeling it too. Then I knew how real my feeling was. It was something that would touch any living thing.
I think the trees themselves feel it. Why wouldn’t they? They must be far wiser in some way than we mere mortals. After all, by our standards, they are the immortals on this Earth.
Out here in the Wild West, where the mountains are higher, the trees taller, where the sky is bigger and the ground sometimes rumbles—I’ve noticed that the Laws of Nature are more powerful.
As a result, it feels like the power of thoughts is greater. Or maybe it’s not that the thoughts are stronger but, for whatever reason, it seems like they are because they are fresher, clearer and more "right in your face."
I don’t know if this will make sense to anyone—or if anyone has experienced what I’m talking about. But I bet you have! Nothing is new under the sun.
The past few days have been pretty horrible for me. My 17-year old son took off in my new pick-up truck for a ski place high up in the Sierras with five of his friends. I lent him the truck just because he exhibited such great enthusiasm for the idea of snow boarding on powder snow for the first time. Remember, we just moved from the ice-covered slopes of the Northeast.
While they were gone over the weekend the weather was miserably dark and rainy down here in the valley. Where they were, of course, it was snowing. My son called on Sunday morning to say they wouldn’t be able to make it back. The roads were icy and there were 1000-foot cliffs to the sides. I think he also mentioned there were no guard rails—or maybe I just imagined the worst.
My vivid imagination went into high gear. I picked up a pack of cigarettes and started puffing them just to calm my nerves and I don’t smoke!
Anyway, the point is that the depth of the thoughts I had was deep. Today, now that he and the kids are back in town (they rolled in last night after 10:00PM—well, almost rolled in—they ran out of gas about ten miles from here) the new heights of my thinking (the feeling of relief) matches the depths it had sunk to in the past few days.
I wonder, could the relative power of my thoughts be related to the relative power of nature out here? After all, California is home to both the lowest and highest elevations in the continental United States—Death Valley and Mount Whitney.
I am praying to keep my thinking on a higher plane. I have a feeling, that if I can, the power that it is possible to experience out here is fairly unlimited! At the same time (and I want my Higher Power to know this!) I also pray for an easy as possible climb up to my mountain top. I pray this for you too—wherever you are, even if you don’t happen to live in the wild, wild West.