Colette Obrien

The clouds have come and gone, sprinkling the mountainside with the inevitable scent of things to come. Like squirrels gathering nuts the sounds of carpenters and gardeners, stonemasons and roofers echo across the canyon walls. I must remember to call for firewood and clean the gutters. But the sun is shining beguiling me to reflect, to sit and stare, seeing only the beauty of trees and sky, the graceful curves of beloved Mt. Tamalpais that fill my windows. I really should wash them, but not today. Today is sweet and quiet even with all the sound and activity. Driven inside by the morning rain, it is me that is quiet, perception is everything. Joie, my Cavalier King Charles – dog—has stolen a chewy from his best friend Mojo, a shorthair pointer three times Joie’s size who lives in the house below with my daughter Heather and her husband Mike. Mojo watched him carry the chewy away without taking it from him. He must not be hungry. But when Joie tried to bury it on the side of the hill, Mojo stole it back. My dear Joie hasn’t yet noticed his treasure is gone, he continues to dig his hole for the burial ceremony. But this is a line of thought I would rather not follow. We have yet to bury Anna and I choose to stay quiet inside. Maybe crying for the week is the source of my internal peace. I don’t feel empty though, just sweet and under that, sad. We had all looked forward with innocent hope to my daughter’s daughter’s arrival. I did say I wasn’t going to follow that line that goes down to the bottom of things. In an earlier conversation today we imagined that at the bottom of the bay live all the cell phones and computers and assorted technological objects that people have thrown in exasperation when they weren’t able to get them to work. That’s a better line to follow. But I see that if I continue I’ll get caught again so let this be enough for today.

Beginning; dawn, start, new leaf, creation, the big bang, how does one draw the first line? Just do it, put your fingers on the keyboard and go. Easy and yet, a beginning defines the end; like a note of music, the tone will persevere and resonance gives the felt sense to a piece. The sense I long for is like the mystic poet Kabir’s; “Held by the cords of love, the swing of the Ocean of Joy sways to and fro; and a mighty sound breaks forth in song. Mingle the double currents of love and detachment, like the mingling of the streams of Ganges and Jumna. Do you know how the moments perform their adoration? Waving its row of lamps, the universe sings in worship day and night.” I had thought to begin with the experience of love and sorrow in my family this last month. It is still so close I believed that sharing it would be good. But on second thought, having not yet put fingers to keyboard, it was too close and the swing between love and sorrow too extreme for any music one would choose to listen to. So let us begin with mystic poetry, that refinement of feeling that heals the heart. For all broken hearts heal in the resonance of compassion. And sorrow, wherever it arises in a life, is universal; breaks us open, and freed from the constraints of daily life’s struggle for survival, we remember. What? Remember what? Open your heart and answer the question. It’s only waiting for us to ask. At a reading given by Jacob Needleman, a philosopher I admire, he raised a question in the title of his new book; “Why can’t we be good?” By the end of his talk he’d not answered the question, so I asked him. He seemed delighted that I’d been emboldened to ask for an answer to what he himself was asking, giving him the opportunity to remind us of a fundamental philosophical truth; the question is the point, not the answer. As I thought more on the subject I realized the question takes us on a journey of discovery that is unique to our individual consciousness. So I propose that the tone for this piece be both personal and poetic, that it be an exploration of the relationship between the mundane and the profound; the swing between love and detachment which has us know we are one and we are all, and it is only a matter of where we are on the swing as to which we momentarily identify with.