May 22: "The Gift," Storytelling, Singing Bowls

Mary Oliver finds a small gift from the sea . . . 

The Gift

by:  Mary Oliver

After the wind-bruised sea

     furrowed itself back

          into folds of blue, I found

               in the black wrack

a shell called the Neptune--

     tawny and white,

          spherical,

               with a tail

and a tower

     and a dark door,

          and all of it

               no larger

than my fist.

     It looked, you might say,

          very expensive.

               I thought of its travels

in the Atlantic's 

     wind-pounded bowl

          and wondered

               that it was still intact.

Ah yes, there was

     that door

          that held only the eventual, inevitable

               emptiness.

There's that--there's always that.

     Still, what a house

          to leave behind!

               I held it

like the wisest of books

     and imagined

          its travels toward my hand.

               And now, your hand.

Oliver finds the Neptune and gives us its story as only she can--full of wisdom and astonishment.  Everything and everyone in this world has a story, from the tiniest of seashells on a beach to the Himalayas.  It's very easy to walk through a day without thinking of any of those stories.  Let's face it, human beings are pretty self-absorbed creatures, myself included.

Perhaps that's why I like hanging around poets and writers.  Poets and writers train themselves to tell stories that nobody else may notice or care about.  In a poet's hands, a tiny shell on a beach suddenly becomes an astounding odyssey of survival akin to anything that Homer sang about.  (Yes, I just used the word "akin."  I'm a poet, so I'm allowed.)  There's real power in storytelling, because it's difficult to dismiss the worth of anyone and anything if you know the "once upon a times."

This evening, I attended a session of singing bowls meditation.  If you don't know that that is, don't feel bad.  Until a couple years ago, I had never even heard the term before.  Singing bowls are bowls made out of hammered metal that, when struck with a mallet, create a ringing and chiming.  The sound creates vibrations that are supposed to heal and relax.  When you have many of these bowls (and gongs) singing together in a space, it creates an energy difficult to describe.

The most amazing part of a singing bowls meditation is that the bowls make different sounds, depending on the people present.  Each individual brings a unique story and energy to a place, and the bowls respond to that story/energy.  The gentleman who led the meditation tonight told me a story.

Once upon a time, he was leading a singing bowls meditation at a local Episcopal church.  He set up his bowls and gongs in the basement of the building at first, and they did their thing, singing and vibrating.  But then he moved into the sanctuary of the church.  When he began striking his instruments, the man said, "The energy was so powerful."  The pastor of the church told him, "When you pray in a place for over 100 years, that prayer has to make a difference."

Think about that.  All the sick and dying relatives.  Griefs and joys.  Baptisms and funerals and weddings.  Christmases and Easters.  All those stories swirling around you as you sit in a pew.  When I attend Mass at my home church, I can sometimes still hear my mother's soprano voice above the organ, feel my father sitting in his place in the choir loft.  Their stories are still there, the wisest of books, as Oliver says.

The singing bowls vibrate with those stories.

We should all do the same.  The next time you see a homeless person sitting in a library or outside a gas station, remember that person has a story, just like you, full of happiness and heartache.  When you see a dandelion growing on your lawn, think of the impossible process of photosynthesis that allows it to exist.  Your story.  My story.  The dandelion's story.  The homeless person's story.  They're all chambers of the same Neptune shell.  Chorusing and humming.

Saint Marty hopes you all sleep happily ever after tonight.

May 22: This Fiction, Storytelling, Power in Voice

Santiago and the boy indulge in some fiction . . . 

"What do you have to eat?" the boy asked.

"A pot of yellow rice with fish. Do you want some?"

"No. I will eat at home. Do you want me to make the fire?"

"No. I will make it later on. Or I may eat the rice cold."

"May I take the cast net?"

"Of course."

There was no cast net and the boy remembered when they had sold it. But they went through this fiction every day. There was no pot of yellow rice and fish and the boy knew this too.

I think we all do this sometimes.  When reality is a little too painful, we engage in a little storytelling to make life a easier.

Think about it.  When you're on a new diet, you try to convince yourself that the shredded cauliflower flakes taste like mashed potatoes.  When you're performing a mindless task at work, you listen to music and suddenly you're back in the high school gym, dancing with your friends.  You lose people you love, and you swear you hear their voices calling you from another room.

Stories can be vehicles of healing.  At times in my life, I have dealt with incredibly difficult personal issues.  I walked around for months holding these troubles close, not talking about them, putting them in a drawer, closing the drawer, and pretending they didn't exist.  Not the healthiest coping strategy.  It was only after I started talking, sharing my story (with family, friends, therapists), that things got better.

Today was sane.  I hosted my book club this afternoon.  We talked about Anthony Doerr's Cloud Cuckoo Land and ate a lot of good food.  Then, in the evening, I led a poetry workshop.  My son and wife attended, along with some other poet friends.  I got to write and speak my truth.

My son isn't going back to school tomorrow because of the threat of a possible fight.  He's got one more day of not worrying, of being himself, before he heads back into the war zone of his school life.  Over the last five or six days, I tried to give him ways to deal with bullies and negative impulses.  Of course, it would be so much easier to keep him home for the next two weeks.  But I'm not going to make that choice for him. 

On Tuesday when he gets to school, he will meet with the school superintendent, and my son will tell the man his story.  There will be power in that for him, hopefully.  Perhaps a sense of relief.  In the big picture, it will make no difference.  The school has already taken away experiences that my son will never regain.  I can't change that.

BI know things are going to get better.  Not tomorrow.  Not the next day.  But I'm going to keep telling my story, and my son's story.  Because there is power in narrative.  In voice.

Say it with Saint Marty:  "Once upon a time . . . "

July 19: Jonah, Storytelling, Truth

Reference was made to the historical story of Jonah and the whale in the preceding chapter. Now some Nantucketers rather distrust this historical story of Jonah and the whale. But then there were some sceptical Greeks and Romans, who, standing out from the orthodox pagans of their times, equally doubted the story of Hercules and the whale, and Arion and the dolphin; and yet their doubting those traditions did not make those traditions one whit the less facts, for all that.

One old Sag-Harbor whaleman's chief reason for questioning the Hebrew story was this:- He had one of those quaint old-fashioned Bibles, embellished with curious, unscientific plates; one of which represented Jonah's whale with two spouts in his head- a peculiarity only true with respect to a species of the Leviathan (the Right Whale, and the varieties of that order), concerning which the fishermen have this saying, "A penny roll would choke him"; his swallow is so very small. But, to this, Bishop Jebb's anticipative answer is ready. It is not necessary, hints the Bishop, that we consider Jonah as tombed in the whale's belly, but as temporarily lodged in some part of his mouth. And this seems reasonable enough in the good Bishop. For truly, the Right Whale's mouth would accommodate a couple of whist-tables, and comfortably seat all the players. Possibly, too, Jonah might have ensconced himself in a hollow tooth; but, on second thoughts, the Right Whale is toothless.

Another reason which Sag-Harbor (he went by that name) urged for his want of faith in this matter of the prophet, was something obscurely in reference to his incarcerated body and the whale's gastric juices. But this objection likewise falls to the ground, because a German exegetist supposes that Jonah must have taken refuge in the floating body of a dead whale- even as the French soldiers in the Russian campaign turned their dead horses into tents, and crawled into them. Besides, it has been divined by other continental commentators, that when Jonah was thrown overboard from the Joppa ship, he straightway effected his escape to another vessel near by, some vessel with a whale for a figure-head; and, I would add, possibly called "The Whale," as some craft are nowadays christened the "Shark," the "Gull," the "Eagle." Nor have there been wanting learned exegetists who have opined that the whale mentioned in the book of Jonah merely meant a life-preserver- an inflated bag of wind- which the endangered prophet swam to, and so was saved from a watery doom. Poor Sag-Harbor, therefore, seems worsted all round. But he had still another reason for his want of faith. It was this, if I remember right: Jonah was swallowed by the whale in the Mediterranean Sea, and after three days' he was vomited up somewhere within three days' journey of Nineveh, a city on the Tigris, very much more than three days' journey across from the nearest point of the Mediterranean coast. How is that?

But was there no other way for the whale to land the prophet within that short distance of Nineveh? Yes. He might have carried him round by the way of the Cape of Good Hope. But not to speak of the passage through the whole length of the Mediterranean, and another passage up the Persian Gulf and Red Sea, such a supposition would involve the complete circumnavigation of all Africa in three days, not to speak of the Tigris waters, near the site of Nineveh, being too shallow for any whale to swim in. Besides, this idea of Jonah's weathering the Cape of Good Hope at so early a day would wrest the honor of the discovery of that great headland from Bartholomew Diaz, its reputed discoverer, and so make modern history a liar.

But all these foolish arguments of old Sag-Harbor only evinced his foolish pride of reason- a thing still more reprehensible in him, seeing that he had but little learning except what he had picked up from the sun and the sea. I say it only shows his foolish, impious pride, and abominable, devilish rebellion against the reverend clergy. For by a Portuguese Catholic priest, this very idea of Jonah's going to Nineveh via the Cape of Good Hope was advanced as a signal magnification of the general miracle. And so it was. Besides, to this day, the highly enlightened Turks devoutly believe in the historical story of Jonah. And some three centuries ago, an English traveller in old Harris's Voyages, speaks of a Turkish Mosque built in honor of Jonah, in which Mosque was a miraculous lamp that burnt without any oil.

Sorry for my absence these last couple days.  Yesterday, I was having dinner at my parents' house.  Got back home late, and then I had to help my daughter get ready for her trip to Missouri.  She left this morning with her boyfriend's family.  By the time I finally sat down, it was past ten o'clock at night, and I was brain dead.  Anything that I attempted to write last night would have sounded something like this:  "I believe the tofu tree next door is dropping Bob Dylan on top of my house, where he's peeing lemonade into my rain gutters."

Tonight, however, I'm a little more cogent.  The chapter from Moby-Dick is all about the story of Jonah from the Bible, and the relative historical truth of its details.  Melville, after pointing out the inconsistencies of the Biblical account, comes down squarely on the side of believing that Jonah was swallowed by a whale near Joppa and vomited onto the shores of Nineveh, despite its impossibility.  Melville chooses to believe in miracles.  So do I.

Tonight, I am attending a poetry/storytelling open mic.  It's one of my favorite events of the month.  People show up, papers in their fists, and share some remarkable work.  It never ceases to amaze me that there always seems to be some thread that connects every poem and story that is shared.  One month, everyone was talking about loss.  Another month, summer was the topic.  This past January, we all shared holiday tales.  None of this synchronicity is planned.  It just happens.

I do believe in the power of storytelling.  A story doesn't have to be true to be truthful.  Moby-Dick is true, but it's also fiction.  For me, the standard I use to judge poetry is truth, as well.  A poem has to somehow ring true, even if it's about Bigfoot meeting Albert Einstein.  If it doesn't meet this test, the poem is a failure for me.

I think that's why most people make the assumption that all poems are "real."  Because of this truth standard, to which most people subscribe.  All the poems I'm going to read this evening are true.  Ditto the stories I'm going to tell.  I may talk about the time I was swallowed by a giant lake sturgeon in Lake Superior.  How it coughed me up on the shores of Canada, where I found the Aurora, goddess of the borealis, and ate pancakes with her.

And it will all be true, every last word.

Saint Marty is thankful tonight for Jonah and Bigfoot.

January 16: Storytelling, Haki R. Madhubuti, "Rwanda: Where Tears Have No Power"

It is a dark night, and I am pretty weary.  When I got home this afternoon, I spent an hour-and-a-half shoveling.  By the time I was done, it was almost dark. 

Because I am so tired, I'm having some difficulty stringing together my thoughts into something coherent.  The poem I have chosen for today is an interesting hybrid of free verse and prose poem.  It's about race and violence and genocide and refugees.  In short, it's perfect for tonight in Trump America. 

It makes me think about how important it is to tell our stories, no matter how ugly or brutal they may be. Stories are a way to instruct and warn and heal.  And listening is an act of revolution.

Saint Marty is always ready to listen.

Rwanda:  Where Tears Have No Power

by:  Haki R. Madhubuti

Who has the moral high ground?

Fifteen blocks from the whitehouse

on small corners in northwest, d.c.

boys disguised as me rip each other’s hearts out

with weapons made in china. they fight for territory.

across the planet in a land where civilization was born

the boys of d.c. know nothing about their distant relatives

in Rwanda. they have never heard of the hutu or tutsi people.

their eyes draw blanks at the mention of kigali, byumba

or butare. all they know are the streets of d.c., and do not

cry at funerals anymore. numbers and frequency have a way

of making murder commonplace and not news

unless it spreads outside of our house, block, territory.

modern massacres are intraethnic. bosnia, sri lanka, burundi,

nagorno-karabakh, iraq, laos, angola, liberia, and rwanda are

small foreign names on a map made in europe. when bodies

by the tens of thousands float down a river turning the water

the color of blood, as a quarter of a million people flee barefoot

into tanzania and zaire, somehow we notice. we do not smile,

we have no more tears. we hold our thoughts. In deeply

muted silence looking south and thinking that today

nelson mandela seems much larger

than he is.

October 11: Moon Men, Storytelling, Female Orangutan

The curves were smooth only when seen from a distance.  The people climbing them learned that they were treacherous, jagged things--hot to the touch, often unstable--eager, should certain important rocks be disturbed, to tumble some more, to form lower, more solid curves.

Nobody talked much as the expedition crossed the moon.  There was nothing appropriate to say.  One thing was clear:  Absolutely everybody in the city was supposed to be dead, regardless of what they were, and that anybody that moved in it represented a flaw in the design.  There were to be no moon men at all.

Here we have it.  Vonnegut's science fiction mixing with fiction mixing with historical essay.  All of the elements in Slaughterhouse come together in this little passage.  It seems like something that shouldn't be real, that is beyond fantastic.  Yet, it is the absolute truth.  Vonnegut witnessed it.  He was a moon man in Dresden on February 16, 1945. 

One of the reasons I love Slaughterhouse Five is my inability to fit it into any pigeonhole.  Yes, it's science fiction.  But it's also serious literary fiction.  AND (in some ways) memoir.  Vonnegut pops up a few times in the novel as a character.  AND social criticism.  AND political commentary.  Like I said, it defies normal categories.

I think that's the point, however.  Vonnegut is trying to describe something that he really can't wrap his mind around.  Human devastation at such a level that normal words fail.  So he turns to aliens and flying saucers and time hopping.  That makes more sense than the truth.

I feel like I'm sort of living in a similar situation in the United States right now.  People have compared Trump America to Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale.  The current season of American Horror Story is grappling with the aftermath of the 2016 presidential election, too.  The creators of that show have invented a murderous cult of clowns led by a fear-mongering narcissist.  Sound familiar?

It's a very human reaction to turn to storytelling to try to understand puzzling or troubling experiences, like the election of Donald Trump.  Most everyone can pretty much agree that the current President of the United States is, at best, more than a little unpredictable.  At worst, he's leading the country into nuclear war and the establishment of a Nazi state.  Pick whatever narrative you want.  None of them seem that appealing, unless you are a rich white male or a deluded middle class male (if the middle class even still exists).

I wonder who is going to write the Slaughterhouse Five of the Donald Trump era.  Who is going to make sense of all this insanity, now that Vonnegut has been dead almost ten years?  Certainly, if he were still alive, Vonnegut would have more that a few things to say about the current leader of his country.  Maybe he'd write a novel about Tralfamadorians kidnapping Trump and putting him in a zoo to mate with a female orangutan. 

I am grateful for writers who try to make sense of senseless circumstances through their work.  I am still trying to come up with a narrative that helps me understand how millions of people supported Donald Trump last November.  I still can't quite get there. 

So somebody, please, tell Saint Marty a story--a good one--that explains the country in which he lives.