California Dreamin'

Hollywoodland - 1920s

Los Angeles History, Part 2

My family is visiting L.A. this week, which makes me wonder: How long do I have to live here before I feel like more than a visitor myself? I didn’t really get comfortable in southeastern Virginia until I started learning about the local history… so I’ve already started digging into the history of Southern California, hoping that this will make me feel more grounded. My first history guide is an excellent (and, sadly, out-of-print) book by Carey McWilliams called Southern California: An Island on the Land.

McWilliams moved to Southern California during the population influx of the 1920s. For decades, “boosters” had been selling the image of Southern California as a permanent vacation spot… but it was not love at first sight for the author: “When I first arrived in Los Angeles, I hated, as so many other people have hated, the big, sprawling, deformed character of the place. I loathed the crowds of dull and stupid people that milled around the downtown sections dawdling and staring, poking and pointing, like villagers visiting a city for the first time. I found nothing about Los Angeles to like and a great many things to detest. Without benefit of chart or guide or compass, I had to discover the charm of the city and the region for myself (one reason, doubtless, why I like it so much today).”

McWilliams does his best to encapsulate the culture of the region – plowing right over the mythologized history of the Spanish missionaries, and exploring instead the conflicts between the natives and the Franciscans, Spanish rancheros and Mexican “immigrants,” pioneers and tourists, the wealthy and the working class. He argues that, just as Southern California is geographically isolated from the rest of the United States (making it an “island on the land”), many different communities have isolated themselves within the region (creating islands within an island). Consequently, there is not one Los Angeles; there are many: “Within the city limits of Los Angeles today are numerous areas that have many of the characteristics of distinct communities: definite boundaries, a common business or service district, and specific population characteristics, such as age levels, sex distribution, and so forth. There are also numerous ethnic colonies or communities. But the problem has always been to define the larger unit to which these communities are theoretically related. Where does all this bustling life center?”

Perhaps more to the point: What is it that truly characterizes the region, and continues to draw people to Southern California? I suppose I’ve always assumed that the main attraction is the entertainment industry – and, undoubtedly, this has been a major factor since the 1920s. Kevin Starr, author of Inventing the Dream: California through the Progressive Era, writes that Hollywood was born out of the Anti-Trust movement. Rogue filmmakers who didn’t want to give a portion of their filmmaking profits to the Edison Trust came to Los Angeles because it was close to Mexico, and far from East Coast lawyers. Starr writes: “Hollywood – as a concept, as an industry, as a mythic place – developed from an embryonic acting troupe pursuing its ancient bohemian lifestyle of itinerant performance, hostelry life, intrigue (sexual and otherwise), and improvisational creativity under the disciplining guidance of its troupe leader, in this case thirty-year-old David Wark Griffith, who, whether he knew it or not at the time, was setting in motion a process that would eventually bring the production of American film once and for all to Southern California.”

Within a few short years, a cultural symbiosis developed between the filmmaking industry and the West Coast Dream that boosters had been selling for forty years. D.W. Griffith, the godfather of American cinema, embraced the local history and landscape in more than a hundred films made between 1910 and 1916, culminating with the epic Intolerance – for which Griffith’s crew constructed a replica of ancient Babylon at the corner of Sunset and Hollywood boulevards.

Intolerance was a commercial flop, ruining Griffith’s career, and the three-story set was deemed a fire hazard: “The set, after all, despite its masterly design, was more illusion than architecture. Even as Griffith delayed its dismantlement, the set began to crumble. Soon weeds were growing in the place of Belshazzar and Hall’s mighty elephants were trumpeting over torn reliefs, collapsed stairs, damaged statues, walls where wood and cheap gypsum showed through a semblance of marble.” Sounds like the setting of a Nathanael West novel, doesn’t it? Or maybe Hunter Thompson: Hollywood was a creature too weird to live and too rare to die. This larger-than-life setting gave rise to larger-than-life celebrities, the embodiment of the 20th century American Dream: Theda Bara, Mary Pickford, Lillian Gish, Lionel Barrymore, Douglas Fairbanks, and Charlie Chaplin.

By 1926, “Hollywood” was the fifth largest industry in the United States. It continues to dominate today, as a psychological influence as much as a financial one. But it’s interesting to note that the “boom years” in California began forty years before the film industry moved in. One historian writes that the mass exodus to Southern California in the 1880s was “based on the simple fact that hereabouts the good lord has created conditions of climate and health and beauty such as can be found nowhere else, in this or any other land, and until every acre of this earthly paradise is occupied, the influx will continue.” McWilliams agrees – he delights in pointing out the ridiculous exaggerations of early settlers about Brobdingnagian fruits and vegetables, and the restorative powers of the climate… but it seems as if he’s just as captivated by the landscape as any tourist:

“When the sunlight is not screened and filtered by the moisture-laden air, the land is revealed in all its semi-arid poverty. The bald, sculptured mountains stand forth in a harsh and glaring light. But let the light turn soft with ocean mist, and miraculous changes occur. The bare mountain ranges, appallingly harsh in contour, suddenly become wrapped in an entrancing ever-changing loveliness of light and shadow; the most commonplace objects assume a matchless perfection of form; and the land itself becomes a thing of beauty. The color of the land is in the light and the light is somehow artificial and controlled. Things are not killed by the sunlight, as in a desert; they merely dry up. A desert light brings out the sharpness of points, angles, and forms. But this is not a desert light nor is it tropical for it has neutral tones. It is Southern California light and it has no counterpart in the world.”

Hollywood pioneers were just as entranced. Director Cecil B. DeMille writes: “To the north rose primitive, desert mountains, unchanged for centuries; green in February and March, but burning a russet brown through the arid summer heat. A few steps outside of town and you were in desert country. Sitting in the patio of your home after dinner you could hear the coyotes howl as if they, too, felt the romance of the place.”

My girlfriend says that Southern California already feels like home to her – that she is no longer enchanted by the sight of the mountains on the north side of the San Fernando Valley. But I’m still awe-struck by the unreality of this landscape. I’ve heard it suggested that it takes anywhere from five to ten years for the land to make a native out of a newcomer. Longtime residents say that a person only becomes a true native once the novelty has worn off. At that point, a person may begin to take for granted the unreality of the landscape. The scenery can even become tiresome. Ditto for the “monotonous” weather.

There are those who say that the culture of Los Angeles, at its worst, can be equally tiresome. McWilliams talks about the “informality of existence” in Los Angeles, explaining that “social neuroticism is a distinct phenomenon” here. This is hardly surprising for any city where so many people from different parts of the world are gathered. Since the 1880s, expansion has been the defining business of the region and, in order to maintain its allure as a new and exciting place to live, Los Angeles is constantly re-inventing itself. It’s not just the home of the Hollywood dream machine – the city is a product of the dream machine. Before I moved out here, a friend who spent several years here suggested that it’s important to feel “grounded” somewhere else… because it’s impossible to get grounded in L.A. I think it’s safe to assume that many people are unable to get beneath the slippery surface. It’s easy to drift in Los Angeles – easy to get lost.

But among those who stay long enough, there are some who begin to see the subtleties that define the region, and fall in love with them. Take, for example, McWilliams’ observations about the weather: “Most people believe that there are only two seasons in Southern California: ‘the wet’ and ‘the dry.’… Actually, Southern California has two springs, two summers, and a season of rain.” It breaks down like this: The first spring – the premature spring – follows closely on the early rains in late fall. In November, the dry season begins to bear down. Then come the first rains – “the little spring,” “like a baptism.” These are followed by the “real rains” in January, February in March. A “second spring” or “aborted summer” comes in April, followed by the desert winds. Afterwards, June is cool and gray, with day-long mists. July presents the full blaze of summer, followed by the oppressive, desert-hot spell of August. Then the whole thing starts over.

It’s raining today in Los Angeles – a rare lazy day for reflection. So far, it’s not difficult for me to understand why some people think of Los Angeles as an island, a world apart. The city itself is impossible to define. That makes it potentially exhausting... but endlessly fascinating

Intolerance

A modern-day Babylon, at the corner of Sunset and Hollywood.

A Tribute to Charlie Chaplin

Mixed Results

Yesterday, USA Today ran an article on a new phenomenon popularized by YouTube. It began in 2005, when Robert Ryang, a 26-year-old movie editor from New York, remixed scenes from Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining," to create a trailer that sold the movie as a family melodrama. Since then, hundreds of remixed movie trailers have been posted on the Internet. Below are a few of my favorites: "Mary Poppins" as a horror movie, "Back to the Future" as a gay cowboy movie (yes, Brokeback jokes are a little tired... but I find this one particularly amusing because it undermines one of my favorite childhood films), and a fusion of "Toy Story" and "Requiem for a Dream" (which is sure to undermine someone else's childhood memories...).

If you want to kill a few more hours of your life, there's a database of remixed trailers on www.thetrailermash.com.

Scary Mary

Brokeback to the Future

Toy Story 2: Requiem

Apparent Silence

This is the first music video from The Distants (L's brother's band). For those who are interested, they're playing with Veruca Salt at Safari Sam's in Hollywood this coming Friday. They also cover "Killing Moon" by Echo and the Bunnymen on the new "Blood and Chocolate" soundtrack, in record stores on Tuesday.

Underworld

Lately, I've been indulging my addiction to two things: YouTube and mid-1990s techno. This is another addict's homage to the band Underworld, using images from the 1982 documentary "Koyaanisquatsi." The title is a Hopi Indian word for "life out of balance." Great documentary, great song.

Thoughts for Desperate Writers

"Stories are for joining the past to the future. Stories are for those late hours in the night when you can't remember how you got from where you were to where you are. Stories are for eternity, when memory is erased, when there is nothing to remember except the story."

- Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried

The House Between

It’s been over two years since I met John Muir, known to pop culture enthusiasts as John Kenneth Muir – “not because I’m pretentious,” he explains, “although I am pretentious,” but so that people don’t confuse him with the renowned naturalist who shares his name.

John was a featured guest at the inaugural MonsterFest convention, organized by Rob Floyd and Jim Blanton at the Chesapeake (VA) Public Library in October 2004. At that time, he had completed 15 published books on television and film, including critical assessments of John Carpenter and Wes Craven that I read while researching my own book on American horror films (published in April '04).

I would not have introduced myself to John Muir as a writer, because John was a real writer. My book (as one reviewer for Video Watchdog noted) was little more than a college thesis; John was already setting a new standard for pop culture studies. Nevertheless, Jerry Harrell – who was at the convention in full “Dr. Madblood” regalia – did not hesitate to introduce me as a writer... and John and his wife Kathryn could not have responded with more enthusiasm and encouragement for my goal of someday turning a writing hobby into a career. I was thrilled to meet someone so down-to-earth who had managed to do just that.

I was not the only one in awe of John that day. He drew sci-fi and horror genre enthusiasts like a magnet. A year later, he returned to the Chesapeake Public Library with a proposal for his new friends. By then I was working as a producer on the Discovery Channel’s docudrama series “A Haunting,” so he included me in his proposed venture… to produce an original, low-budget science fiction series called The House Between.

The conceit was simple: Five strangers trapped in a house with no way out, and no idea how they got there. He said it was partly inspired by his frustration with the ABC series “Lost” – which was continually resorting to flashbacks, rather than dealing with the present dilemma of its characters - and partly inspired by Jean Paul Sartre's play No Exit. I immediately thought of Night of the Living Dead, the brain-child of ten friends who volunteered their time and money to make a film that transcended its minimal production values.

To his credit, John understood that minimal production values did not necessarily reduce the scope of storytelling possibilities. He was determined to explore questions of physics, psychic phenomenon, mysticism, religious fundamentalism, politics, greed and good old fashioned personality disorders… on 2% of the budget of the famously low-budget Night of the Living Dead. Of course, George Romero will be the first to say that it’s much easier, in the digital age, to create your own movie or television series. The real hurtle is distribution. But John had an answer for that too – he is thoroughly convinced that original Internet productions, “consumer-made television,” are the wave of the future. His friends were more than happy to help him test the theory.

A six-member cast and an eight-member crew converged on Charlotte, North Carolina, in June 2006. For the next week, we would be trapped in an empty house with blacked-out windows, completely oblivious to the “real” world. It was like being thrown into a dream reality, with a very sobering mission: We had seven days to shoot seven (dialogue-heavy) episodes. No easy task. I appointed myself task-master.

From day one, I was amazed by the talent and dedication of everyone involved. It was as if every single person there had been waiting for an opportunity like this, and when the cameras started rolling, they all became consummate – and passionate – professionals. Somehow, John must have known that it would happen like this. The actors learned their lines on the spot. The crew knew exactly how to get around any problem that presented itself. As on any good production, the team simply gelled.

The project quickly became a collaborative effort that relied on everyone there for its continued success. There were times when the production seemed like a house of cards. If any single member of the team hadn’t been fully engaged, the whole thing would have come crashing down. But everyone we needed was there, and giving 110%. By the second day, we were moving forward at full speed. By the fourth day, we were circumventing production problems with relative ease. (Many of the problems stemmed from our lighting equipment, which didn’t weather the 16-hour shoot days quite as well as the actors and crew). By the fifth day, everyone was comfortable enough for wild improvisation – making for a great episode that renewed everyone’s energy for the home stretch. (Truth be told: The lack of sleep was starting to make us all a little loopy.) By the seventh day, our nerves were frayed… but everyone maintained an air of professionalism, and we managed to get the last show in the can just before a summer storm swept into Charlotte, and provided us with some great moody exterior shots.

Afterwards, we all went to John’s house for a late dinner, and sat around talking into the early hours of the morning. It had been an absolutely grueling week, but nobody wanted it to end. Perhaps it was because we couldn’t quite believe what we had accomplished… It’s an amazing thing to realize that you are capable of more than you ever thought you could be.

So now the big question: How much of this ambition, talent, enthusiasm and labor will show up onscreen? I think that some of us who were involved in the shoot may have a tendency to preface the result with a disclaimer – apologizing for low budget, rushed schedule, and lack of production experience. At the same time, we will be effusive in our praise of the things that work. There are some remarkable achievements in acting, lighting design, videography, special effects, music, and – perhaps most significantly – storytelling.

As I watch the finished episodes, I am consistently amazed by the subtleties of John’s storytelling… hints of longer character arcs and larger conflicts that I somehow overlooked on the page. I think it’s fair to say that there will be plenty of moments in the series that don't work as well as we'd like, but equally fair to say that there is a very strong vision that becomes increasingly apparent with each episode – something that inspired every member of the cast and crew to become engaged with the project on a very personal level.

Before we left Charlotte and returned to our respective “real worlds,” I thought it was important to share my awe of the project: Things like this don’t just happen. Everyone has a story... but John and Kathryn managed to convince a group of people to spend a week of their lives (a week of vacation time, for most of them) in a musty house, testing themselves mentally and physically for 16 hours a day, to bring this story to life. I can think of plenty of vacation alternatives that would be more enticing… but none that would ultimately be more rewarding. John and Kathryn deserve a lot of credit for making the proposal, and the cast and crew deserve a lot of credit for showing up and making it a reality.

I hope that those who view the finished product will be able to share some of this enthusiasm. A few months ago, John wrote on his blog: “I would prefer to sit in a theater and view something new and exciting and different (even if flawed...) rather than something mainstream and uninventive.” I believe that viewers who agree with this perspective will find plenty to love in The House Between.

You can check out John’s trailer for the series on YouTube. The full-length episodes will begin posting in mid-February.

For further updates, see John's blog.

Sideways Country

Happy New Year!

We rung in 2007 in Santa Ynez Valley, the heart of Santa Barbara wine country – known to movie geeks and wine connoisseurs as the filming location for “Sideways.” Apart from the shenanigans of those mischievous middle-aged troubadours Jack and Miles, the region is acclaimed for the production of top-shelf Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Syrah. (I read in a tourist brochure that vineyards on the western side of the valley also produce Merlot, but we didn’t see very many bottles of Merlot while we were there… I can only assume that Miles’ heated rants against that varietal haven’t been good for sales.)

As anyone who knows me can attest, I’m a movie geek, not a wine connoisseur. When it comes to wine, I can only say what I like… I can’t always explain why. So, in order to narrow down the intimidating selection of more than 70 vineyards in the valley, we planned our weekend getaway around locations from three towns featured in the film: Solvang, Buellton and Los Olivos.

Solvang is a “quaint Scandinavian enclave,” founded in 1911 by Danish-Americans from Iowa (!). At first glance, it looks like a theme park… though that observation may be partly due to the fact that, on the day we arrived, the town was completely overrun with Japanese tourists. The clash of cultures was a little disorienting, so we ate quickly at Heidelberg Inn (just down the street from Solvang Restaurant, where Jack and Miles ate), and escaped to adjacent Santa Ines Mission. There is a long brick wall separating the town of Solvang from the peaceful retreat of Santa Ines, the 19^th of 21 colonial Spanish missions along California’s coast. On either side of the wall, it’s hard to believe that the other is so close.

Afterwards, we drove west to Buellton. In “Sideways,” this town – allegedly home of the world’s best split pea soup (if you’re into that sort of thing) – serves as the base of operations for Miles and Jack, who stay at the Windmill Inn overlooking the 101. We weren’t bold enough to stay there ourselves, preferring the creature comforts of the Marriott - conveniently located next to the Firestone Brewery and Buellton Self Storage, which (if I’m not mistaken) is now home to the tree that Jack drives Miles’ car into at the end of the movie.

After we checked into our hotel, we went immediately to our first wine tasting – at Sanford Winery on Santa Rosa Road. The tasting room is an unassuming little shack that sits in the shadow of a mountain, and is beautifully rustic. Sanford was also the first stop for the Sideways duo -- it’s where Miles teaches Jack how to conduct himself during a wine tasting. (“Are you chewing gum?!”) Our server was quick to say that she didn’t care much for the film, though it has been good for business. Our assessment of the wines we tasted: “quaffable, but far from transcendent.”

For dinner, we went to The Hitching Post steakhouse, which is down the street from The Windmill Inn on East Highway 246... right next to the ostrich farm. We made reservations well in advance, and it was worth the planning. Restaurant owner and head chef Hartley Ostini designs his own wines – The Highliner Pinot Noir is featured prominently in “Sideways.” (And, accordingly, it's the most expensive wine on the menu.) While all of the wines were good, the best part of our trip to the Hitching Post was undoubtedly the food. Every morsel of food that the servers placed in front of us was carefully designed to wake up our taste buds. The entire meal was exceptional. On top of all this, the waiters treated us like family. If you’re anywhere within a few hundred miles of this restaurant, it’s well worth the trip. And if you’re going, get there early… wine tastings end at 6pm.

On Saturday, we headed north to Los Olivos. It’s easy to do a wine tour in Los Olivos because there are seven wineries on one beautiful stretch of road. Foxen Canyon Road is home to Koehler Winery, Fess Parker, Zaca Mesa, Foxen Vineyards, Rancho Sisquoc, Curtis Winery & Firestone Vineyards (the county’s oldest winery).

We stopped at Fess Parker, named for the star of television’s “Davy Crocket, King of the Wild Frontier.” Immediately, we recognized the lavish tasting room as part of the “Frass Canyon” winery... where Miles pours a bucket of discarded wine down his throat and shirt, after finding out that his book has been rejected. We decided not to reenact the scene, and left quietly with a bottle of Chardonnay.

Unfortunately, most of the wineries on Foxen Canyon Road closed early on New Years Eve (which was probably safer for us since we were driving), so we headed straight for downtown Los Olivos and had lunch at the Los Olivos Café, where Miles and Jack met Maya and Stephanie for dinner. An entire wall of this restaurant, from ceiling to floor, is stacked with bottles of local wines. The restaurant also brews their own beer. So in the end maybe we weren't safer....

On the way back to Solvang and Buellton, we happened to pass a winery that was open later than the others. They proudly flaunted their connection to the movie “Sideways” on a banner at the front entrance, so we decided to stop. Blackjack Ranch turned out to be our favorite winery… even though they had sold out of their Maximus Syrah, the “killer juice” that Miles drinks in the film. We were most impressed with their Double-Down Syrah.

As it turned out, Buellton shuts down completely on New Years Eve. All of the wineries and brew pubs were closed before nightfall. Presumably, the locals all go to private parties. Tourists have to fend for themselves… which was fine with us. We retreated to our hotel room with a few bottles. When we woke up, it was the start of a new year…

Now if only I could get used to being back at work.

DIMINUENDO

Part I – Literary Landscape

Standing on the edge of Walden Pond,
It is possible to wonder
What all the fuss is about.

Thoreau came here to escape the industry of the nineteenth century -
restless, nervous, bustling, trivial nineteenth century America.
He came to live as deliberately as Nature,
To develop living poetry like the leaves of a tree
Standing at the still point of a turning world.

The Tao Te Ching says that
When men lack a sense of awe,
There will be disaster.
Walden was a refuge
From mechanized life –
A piece of untamed land,
Where the trees had not been cleared,
Where the soil had not been stripped,
And the waters still mirrored
Endless sky.

In the pioneer days of America, settlers hesitated
For forty years on the edge of the prairie.
They made their homes among miles of
Unbroken forest – beech, sweet gum, sycamore,
Oak, pine, magnolia – Tall and slender,
Struggling to reach the sunlight. There,
Where the land was cleared by the touch of God,
The pioneers stopped because the trees stopped.

We can only get a sense of a place
By comparing it to some place we’ve already been.
Cultural identity requires memory.
Cultural identity requires history.

As they moved west, the pioneers
Civilized the ground,
Grave by grave.
Thoreau was simply
Looking for home.

Some say that men and women on the frontier
Have a better chance of knowing a Supreme Being,
A more intuitive understanding of Eden,
Prelapsarian majesty, freedom,
The American Dream.
Keep the land,
The older generation says,
They aren’t making any more.
New communities are built on the growth of the soil,
Nourished by blood and bodies.
Our identity comes from those
Who surround and protect us as we age.

This truth cannot be unmade.
It lingers in our bones
Until we become one with the earth –

Our words and spirits are natives,
Absorbed in the landscape.

Part II – Time Past and Time Future

When I was a child,
Death seemed ever-present.
Perhaps it was because the world was new,
Because I myself was new –
A seed of oblivion,
With no remembered experience of continuity.

My grandmother collected clocks,
Insistent reminders of every dissipating second.
They kept me awake all night long,
Fearful that morning would never come.
Precedent meant nothing to me. At the time,
The world was De-substantiation:
Dematerialization, Attenuation, Liquidation, Vaporization…..

Now I know:
Nostalgia for the Past
And Hope for the Future
Exist in Time.
I know
This world was here long before me
And it will be here long after.
In a sense,
I exist only in Time.

Time is the only thing
Not susceptible to Time,
Because Time exists only in the mind
That perceives Before and After,
And allows us to function in the Now –
In a million moments of distraction,
In a million moments of contemplation –
As we struggle to impose order
On our thoughts and impressions,
To find meaning in our lives,
And seek meaning beyond.
Time disappears only when we forget
What we know.

We discover ourselves when we unlearn.
There is only one moment.
Let the world dissipate.

Heraclitus says
God is day night winter summer
War peace satiety hunger,
Fire mixed with spices
Named according to the scents of each.

One summer day,
I stood on the shore
Of a lake where my ancestors lived.
In a sense, they are still here and,
For me, this is sacred earth –
A fountain of youth. I am
One blood, many bodies,
Divided by Time.

Months later, I fly over the place
Where my ancestors settled
On my way to somewhere else.
From the air, all settlement looks haphazard.
So what am I,
Looking down on those scattered trees
Beside a meandering river – one body of water,
Seemingly arbitrary in its course,
Seemingly arbitrary in its separation from land
And air – a speck of dust?
A reflection?
Arbitrary?

I exist only in the Now-Moment
We call Experience –
Experience of a still lake, a meandering river,
Roots, branches, earth, fire,
A conflagration, a mélange of hope and memory –
All these things in
A single moment,
A single thought,
A seed of oblivion,
Dissipating.
Gone.

This is the moment for which we wait.

Part III – The Awful Daring of a Moment’s Surrender

Headed west,
I am overwhelmed by vastness:
The expanse of the prairie,
The height of the Rockies,
The depth of the Grand Canyon.
There no use in trying to explain this feeling.
Words are not fit to the task.

At times, the silence is terrifying.

Months or years later,
I will try to remember these first impressions –
But memories of grandeur are fleeting.
Like smoke or spirit.
Instead, I will remember the names
Attached to the peaks and valleys –
Jupiter, Juno, Apollo, Venus
Buddha, Confucius, Osiris, Thor
Krishna, Vishnu, Shiva, Ra –
Names that conjure a less frightening
Feeling of awe.

This moment – when
Myths and legends are
Here and Now – is not here
if we try to hold on to it.
When the Soul knows something,
It loses its unity.
Therefore we must go beyond knowledge,
And hold to unity.

Meister Eckhart says
There is the soul’s day
And God’s day,
And nothing in all creation is so like God
As stillness.

I remember a day, ten years gone, when I was
Standing in an open field
Half a mile from my childhood home,
And a family of deer ran past me
Soundlessly.
It was an ordinary event, but
I am not thinking of the event.
Something in my mind broke loose
Like the tip of a melting iceberg.
I was empty.

Ever since, I have sought proof
That this was not a unique experience.
Others have tried to find words
To dispel the fear that arises from seeing without knowing:

In that unitive state, one sees without seeing,
Hears without hearing, thinks without thinking,
Knows without knowing…

We are saved by hope,
But hope that is seen is not hope…

When I pray for something, I do not pray.
When I pray for nothing, I really pray…

So the darkness shall be the light,
And the stillness the dancing.

When I first saw the sun setting over the Pacific,
I tried to remember when I had first seen the sun rising over the Atlantic.
But memory fails me.
I close my eyes
And imagine sunlight,
The way it dances on the face of the water.

There is nothing else in all the world.

I focus on this
Until the sunlight is gone –

Without fear,
Without hope.