Shining Light on the Shadows

This morning with coffee and notebook on the old green rocker, I was getting in touch with my feelings and thoughts for the first time in several days. A house full of people and animals is not conducive to meditation but it is conducive to material to meditate on when you finally get the opportunity.

This time of year seems to be especially volatile.   Expectations heightened and resentments based on disappointed hopes and unfulfilled socially generated desires explode to the surface like lava boiling up beneath the garden of hope. Then there are the terrorists who seem to have upgraded their activity.

My inner voice said- Don’t look too much at terror and destruction. There are good things, eternal things all around us. There are people being kind, people being healed of cancer, people putting their life on the line for other people, love between dogs and cats, children of poverty helping other children, and  rain falling on parched ground after years of drought.  

My writing companion

We are encouraged to focus on inequality, poverty, rabid terrorist groups, government corruption, increased police brutality, copycat mass shootings, global warming or the fragile condition of the economy. The list is quite long. 

Our conditioning tells us to see news as bad news. Our curiosity magnetizes us to fear horror, loss and destruction.  I remember the scene from childhood when my uncle slaughtered a cow, or sometimes just medicated a cow against its will. The other cows formed a ring around one of their own in distress and bellowed in unison.  It’s instinct to concentrate on a threat and try to eliminate it or at least announce it in hopes of challenging it. But, if there is too much emphasis on the threat, after a while that’s all we notice.  Attention is drained from life, the lights dim and darkness settles over our thoughts. 

I’m not recommending a state of denial. That is another form of domination by darkness. We must not deny the truth, but the point is we must include the whole truth and aim at balance.  Although light and dark are always with us, they are not equal.  Light shines on the dark and it goes away. Darkness takes over as the light goes dim and triumphs only when the light goes out. Darkness has a passive background quality.

Of course, dark and light are always cheek by jowl but don’t think they are equals or of the same substance. Darkness has no energy of its own. Absence of light is what it is. It snuffs out energy, gobbles it up. Light is the good, the beautiful, the courageous, the creative and even evil wouldn’t have a stage or a script without the creative vitality of light.  Real life is of course a blend of light and dark.  Our everyday world is made of shades of grey.  Love fuels life and light and its absence is very dark and empty.  We need to feed our hearts and mind with love and its creative flame. Without light, we become hungrier and hungrier until starvation drives us mad.

This world and its creatures are a work in progress in a universe in process. Because it’s not complete and perhaps never will be, its role in the universe is not set in stone and weeds are still growing on the other side of this metaphor.  Sometimes the unwanted growth of weeds is suffocating to whatever is trying to grow among them and sometimes they are protection for whatever is sprouting in their shade.

Why does God allow misery, destruction, ISIS terrorists, crooked politics, the sudden death by drunk driver of a loving parent and an innocent child, or the extinction of a species, and a rain forest destroyed for short-term gain?  Still, the source never dies.   Only the forms die and they will come back again and again with gracious variation. 

When I was a child, I enjoyed sick days alone on Mom and Dad’s bed. That was when our house didn’t have bedrooms and I generally slept on the couch. Sickness was an upgrade. I had my watercolors, paper, pencils, and kaleidoscope.  Even if my vision was blurry from fever, the kaleidoscope was a source of endless fascination.  Breathtaking mandalas appeared with each twist of the simple tube, colored pieces of glass and mirrors in endless variation.  Maybe God likes kaleidoscopes too. Perhaps God  is twisting the tube and yet each stone is also God experiencing the ride.

However, we mortal creatures tumble hard with each twist and God must be reminded that every small piece is part of the total effect and each tumbling stone adds to the great design.  It is the feedback every creator needs.

  

AWAKENING IN TAOS

 Many of you have asked about the completion and release of Awakening in Taos the biopic of Mabel Dodge Luhan. Well, here it is. This film and the process of its creation has been an important part of our lives for five years. We have made friends that are like family over this time and it is hard to believe that completion of the goal is so near. Here is the information that will be in the press release. It may be edited a bit more for The Santa Fe New Mexican-- Pasatiempo but this is the essential information.

Santa Fe, New Mexico

Awakening in Taos World Premiere at LensicTheator

Date: November 18, 2015

Pre-Screening Party at Blue Rain Gallery 5-6:30 PM

World Premiere Screening at Lensic 7:00 PM

Tickets: $25 for Premier

               $75 for Premiere and Pre-Screening Party at Blue Rain Gallery

Screening will be attended by Mayor Javier Gonzales, actors Ali MacGraw and Marsha Mason. Awakening in Taos is narrated by actor Ali MacGraw and features Marsha Mason as the voice of Mabel. Taos actor and photographer Zoe Zimmerman portrays young Mabel in historic re-enactment sequences. Project producer Awakening in Taos, LLC, has a mission to make meaningful films about extraordinary people who live or have lived in New Mexico. This film was created in partnership with New Mexico PBS.  Heading the project are producers Katie Peters, Pat Hall, Jill Drinkwater and writer-director Mark J. Gordon. Support comes from a unique consortium of creative independent women, actors, film professionals and volunteers who believe in this story about one of New Mexico’s most remarkable women: Mabel Dodge Luhan.

Awakening in Taos is a documentary about the extraordinary life of Mabel Dodge Luhan, influential writer, solon hostess, patroness of the arts and catalyst for cultural change.  Inspired by the native culture and distinctive landscape of Taos, New Mexico she promoted a vision of social transformation. She broadcast this ideal by inviting to Taos many famous and iconoclastic artists, writers and social activists, in her words, “the movers and shakers” of the early 20^th century. Her list of guests included D.H Lawrence, Georgia O’Keefe, Willa Cather, John Collier, Marsden Hartley, John Marin, and Carl Jung among a host of many.

Mabel was born to a wealthy family in Buffalo New York at the height of the Victorian era. As a child and young woman, she experienced little warmth and no sense of meaning within the confining social conventions of the age. The role of women was passive and secondary in a world ruled by men. Literally tricked into her first marriage, she became a widowed mother when her husband died from a hunting accident. Confused and depressed, her mother sent her to Europe, the customary cure for emotional distress among the Victorian upper class.

 In Paris, she met architect Edwin Dodge who became her second husband, and in her quest to experience aliveness, she acquired a villa in Florence Italy and soon launched a salon. She met Gertrude Stein and hosted many now famous modern artists, musicians and poets on the cutting edge of social change in pre-World War One Europe.  In this heady milieu, Mabel charged into the complexities of self-discovery.  In the ensuing phase of her life, she experienced several failed marriages and disappointing love affairs before eventually taking responsibility for her own happiness. Producer Kathleen Peters notes, “Mabel grew up a tormented young woman. For her to expand from repressed Victorian into a leading exponent of the modern age was a huge character arc. She did so using the tools of Modernism—art, psychiatry, travel, marriage and divorce.” 

Intuition and a sense of adventure were the impetus that first brought Mabel to the remote New Mexico town of Taos. While visiting third husband Maurice Sterne in Santa Fe, at that time beyond the outer edge of civilization by east coast standards, Mabel made up her mind to take the 17-hour trip to Taos. She found the stark natural, almost supernatural purity of the place in exquisite contrast to anything she had previously known.  To her, Taos seemed a harsh mirror exposing all that was false strained and without heart in the world from which she came. She soon rented a house in Taos and before long began visiting the Red Willow (Tiwa) People in nearby Taos Pueblo. 

It is hard to overemphasize the impact that this ancient pyramid of rectangular mud homes had on the new visitor. Soon after discovering the Pueblo, Mabel met her last husband, Antonio Luhan a full-blooded member of Taos Pueblo. Their marriage lasted 40 years ending with her death. Tony passed the following year.  Such a pairing was almost inconceivable for their time.  Tony especially sacrificed his considerable tribal powers to be with Mabel and share her vision. 

With Tony she campaigned to defeat the Bursum Bill of 1924 that had it passed would have taken hundreds of thousands of acres away from the 19 New Mexico tribes.  This campaign set into motion the events eventually resulting in the return of 45,000 acres including their sacred Blue Lake to the Taos Pueblo.  Mabel also made many contributions to the Town of Taos including the donation of a building once constructed for her son to the Town for Holy Cross Hospital.  Her greater vision of the intuitive, earth based spirituality of Taos Pueblo as a model of wholeness for a civilization that had lost its perspective and humanity remained beyond her reach in time.

PRINCIPAL PARTICIPANTS:

Kathleen (Katie) Peters, Filmmaker—Producer

Mark J Gordon, Filmmaker—Director, Screenwriter

Michael Kamins: Executive Producer at New Mexico PBS

Marsha Mason, Actor—Voice of Mabel Dodge Luhan
Ali MacGraw, Actor/Activist—Narrator

Zoe Zimmerman, Actor/Artist—Appearing as Mabel in re-enactment scenes

Blue Spruce Standing Deer, Voice of Tony Luhan--Taos Pueblo Consultant

Bob Willis: Cinematographer
Pat Hall, Filmmaker—Producer
Jill Drinkwater, Financial Advisor—Producer and Story Consultant

Nancy Kenney, Filmmaker—Producer, Sound Track Supervisor
Jennifer Schiffmacher, Grant Writer—Script Consultant
Ellen Bradbury, Executive Director of Recursos de Santa Fe, a Non-Profit Fiscal Agent
Kathryn M Davis, Art Historian—Writer, Editor, Script Consultant

Beth Kennedy-Jones, Script Consultant, Actor, Dramatic Coach

Lois Palken Rudnick: Script Consultant, Biographer

Flannery Burke: Biographer

Suzanne Campbell, Art Historian—Script Consultant
Cindra Kline, Writer/Editor—Script Consultant
Martha Corder, Pharmaceutical Sales Manager—Funding Development Director

Carole Baker, Internet Consultant—Social Media Director

Marti Fenton, Artist and Blogger—Story Advisor

I wish that all of you could come to the premier, but hope that those of you who live near by can make it.

RENEGADE MONTH

Our neighbors probably think we have a new car.

We hoped for another visit to our Arizona retreat before the weather changed, but it wasn’t to be.  Yet, if we have learned something, it is not to invest much in expectations.  Two weeks ago, we were T-boned by a big Ford SUV. Now we are driving a cute Jeep Renegade rental until the Subaru gets out of the hospital.  I like the way it looks but it is shorter than our Forester, with a rougher ride and smaller gas tank. The electronic gadgets on it are fun though.

Summer came to an abrupt end this week. I suppose it’s the tail end of the tropical storms but the rain was very welcome. So while the hurricanes are too much weather for those at landfall, we benefited. On the downside, I’m afraid that coffee on the patio is over for 2015. To compensate, the turning trees have been especially colorful this year.  As the warm weather fades, the film project, Awakening in Taos is drawing to completion. We have been involved in this story for five years and its producers for longer. Everyone involved is like family and I hope we can stay in touch even after this movie launches into the larger world as a young bird flies from its nest. The premier showing will be at Lensic Performing Arts Center in Santa Fe (http://awakeningintaos.com/premiere/) on November  18,  7p.m.  There is a pre-screening party from 5:00 to 6:30 p.m. at Blue Rain Gallery.

PQ and Brazilian Guitarist Zooga Malaga

This weekend we were in Santa Fe for a recording session for the movie. The first day was rehearsal with guitar, violin, drum and flute. The second day was serious recording. Nancy Kinney, our music person was in charge and I was impressed by her choice of musicians and the way she created and wove certain musical themes in and out throughout the entire movie score altering them to the mood, location and time period. 

On an entirely different theme, we just learned that PQ’s oxygen delivery company is now restricted to delivery once a month and he must choose either large tanks or small.  They are no longer allowed to deliver both sizes. This is apparently a limitation newly imposed by Medicare. Once again, poor people are cut back so that the wealthy won’t be impacted by economic shortfall.  PQ had to go with the larger  tanks because we often have power outages in Taos, sometimes lasting all night or all day when he can’t use the electric concentrator and small tanks don’t last long. However, it is so much easier to handle a small tank when out and about.  

Although the oxygen tank cutback was a surprise, I’ve been feeling subdued about our country and for that matter, the state of the world.  I don’t really want to let my imagination go beyond the present,  because the thought of the political, money obsessed global economy driven by human nature in its current state of un-development suggests a looming catastrophe greater than the results of global warming.  However, sometimes humans find their better qualities in the most challenging times. Nevertheless, I’m glad I’m not a young person as of now. I know this rings of cowardice, but I’d like to ride out a few centuries (maybe more) before returning. Perhaps next week I’ll feel more courageous.

Beautiful Cottonwoods along the Rio Grande

Mabel Dodge Luhan and husband Tony had a vision for cultural soul retrieval. It didn’t happen in their time and it may still be far in the future but I’m glad that it is coming back for another review  in our time. After all, it was a vision that didn’t belong just to them. It was for the world. Perhaps, four years shy of a Century it is time for the vision to reincarnate.

LATER IN SUMMER

PQ has been painting, "18 drum $350 if  you are interested
This drum has a greaat sound.

Taos is now  lush in a maximum display of gorgeousness just as the sun is beginning to distance itself from us. The effect is a love affair barely one day beyond its prime.   Fall is sneaking in and with it is that intense tickle in the heart that is ecstasy mixed with pain of anticipated loss.  There is something unique about Taos summers and this summer especially takes me back to the summers of my first years in Taos.

Sometimes it seems that Taos is the Garden of Eden right after the fall. In the valley are overgrown willows, tall grass and late summer flowers of gold and purple. In my garden, the grasshoppers are eating our flowers as fast as they bloom. Every afternoon the mountain displays itself in back-lit jade, azure shadows, with touches of lavender and mauve resembling a piece of Art Deco.  It is the perfect movie set for all the human soap operas churning in its shadow.

I think Taos works on people like a honey-dipped flytrap. Even though most of us don’t have the resources to get ourselves out of this trap, there is plenty of entertainment while we anticipate the next episode in our story, the one that just might bring resolution. But, experience says the story will run through numerous seasons. Really, most of us get addicted to the drama and forget that we are victims of our projected hopes and fears.  

Medicine Bird, "22X"48, $2,100 (Acrylic)

We are stuck here for a while (notice the refusal to accept defeat) and are making the best of it. Actually, I’ve uncovered some of my original feelings about this place. A divorce drama that seems it will never end has snagged PQ’s youngest son, Jay. Thus, we often have his three girls while he attempts to find a job and a vehicle that will last. It has been a corkscrew roller coaster ride but things are looking better at the moment. On the upside, he and his daughters have discovered the Pueblo.  Could it be this is the most important reason we have been stuck in Taos these past two years?  Both of PQ’s sons have now lived in the ancestral pueblo house. Being a bridge between the world of his traditional parents and their grandsons may be PQ’s most important work at this time. I often feel that we have failed to stay on track concerning PQ’s medicine heritage, but I’ve got the beginning of an inkling that the real medicine is just being available for how spirit chooses to use us.

PQ has had increased physical challenges after experiencing that first intense exacerbation of his Pulmonary Fibrosis last spring. My wish was to get him to Arizona as soon as possible, but our life contract had writ a different agenda. His health has leveled off some since it plunged in June and is now holding steady.  I have settled into the present and find that it stretches and contracts as needed.

Recent life has been ordinary but something extraordinary is growing in the background. It isn’t visible out front yet is changing everything from the inside out. Sometime this month I gave up worrying about money. I’ve noticed that the more I try to control it, the more likely it is to jump over the fence. I ought to know by now that thinking smaller and smaller makes the need larger and larger. There is a trickster element involved and when I’m thinking caution, appliances breakdown, relatives need help, and the Taos Pueblo clinic quits carrying one of  PQ’s  more expensive meds.  I’ve given up. The unknown is uncontrollable. This doesn’t mean I throw all reason out with the drifting leaves, but I now acknowledge that the real issue is self-confidence and belief in my own path. Will I be loyal to the life I chose with PQ, or try to appease an old demon? That is the real issue.

POWWOW AND MORE

It’s been a long time since I have had time to write. Probably only two weeks but time is an experience not just a measured process. Suddenly, we have arrived at Powwow weekend.  The summer is surging forward at breakneck speed. Soon we will be looking backwards toward today.

I’ve always been fascinated by time. It is a mystery that won’t allow possession, much like a rainbow; time is always just ahead or just behind.  My dreams lately have been too strange to remember. Actually, it’s not that dreams are strange in content so much as strange because they don’t always wait for sleep but come in flashes during the day.  Are the dimensions actually becoming close enough to cross over here and there? According to a number of seers, the turning point was 2012.

Powwow Kid

An experience of realities crossing over:  I recently had the thought that I must contact a young man that I know well with some news (I don’t remember what it was) of  importance to him, and then I remembered that he had passed away and it was too late to deliver any news, and then that scene or dimension suddenly changed and I realized that I have never known this person, at least he wasn’t in my identifiable memory. His face was very distinct and he did not resemble anyone I’ve known as my familiar self.  This was just one of a number of strange time glitches experienced recently. I’m mentioning this with the awareness that some of you might think I’m a bit schizo but that is a common tag for experiences that don’t fit conventional reality.  If I hailed from the fundamentalist perspective of my upbringing, I might blame God or the devil. It all depends on the version you prefer and they are all perceptual conventions. I personally suspect that conventions themselves are under attack by a much larger reality.  Our accustomed shell is too small and it is beginning to crack. Perhaps we already live in a much bigger egg but the membrane has yet to break and reveal it.

PQ has been experiencing a lot of muscle pain since we came home to Taos. After much coughing, his neck and shoulder muscles became inflamed. The new doctor at the Taos/Picuris clinic gave him a number of muscle relaxants, anti-inflammatory, and pain killing drugs and we discovered a new lozenge that seems to be more effective on cough. But, the times are inflamed as well and our bodies do reflect our environment.   His youngest son is going through a challenging family crisis. We can love and support but nothing from our love and good will can make his struggle go away.  It is his, and a part of his own life process and yet it affects all of us.  That is one of the mysteries of life and relationship. 

The new doctor reiterated what we have heard many times, “you need to be at a lower altitude” but this isn’t yet possible with the current circumstances and in the meantime, it seems that we are

supposed to be here in Taos. PQ seemed especially hungry for the medicine of the powwow. This year we went for two days and one evening. The weather was wonderful and touching our feet to that rich primal soil near the mountain refreshes the soul.  All the while the drums were pulsing, children tossing neon toys in the air and people milling to and fro  meeting up with old friends encountered while making the rounds, somehow the big mountain, the sky and even the grass meadow on which we were walking maintained that miraculous repose and power. It graciously allowed us our ride on a piece of eternity.