Hilom: Ending 2013 with Peace

Hilom
Justine C. Tajonera

It is mid afternoon, the bamboo hut is dark.
I can smell the soil and the grass from inside the shade.
Coming from nowhere I know that this kitchen is some place
I could live. The sign said "Organic Fresh Cow's Milk" but
I end up in a half-remembered dream where everything
is measured by hand, by barefoot step. There is some
smoke coming from the wood stove.

"When you're retired," she says when I ask about her life,
"and not on active duty." But why wait? The end of the world
leads here. Back here. When everything is done.

The lettuce, by the kilo, lies on the kitchen table, still
unwashed. The half-ripe tomatoes are not for sale.
She hands me several stalks of arugula and a brick pot
with a mint plant. I don't know if she sees our cramped
condominium life. But we do need a corner for herbs,
right by the window.

We find excuses to stay, buying a small bottle of turmeric
tea, tasting the fresh milk, breaking off a mint leaf and
chewing what tastes like a cool early evening.
When we leave, heading back to the city, we know
we will find ourselves here again.

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I guess this is a moment to mark the end of my 2013 and the beginning of 2014. I was in a flurry of reading during the Christmas break starting with Crazy, Rich Asians on the 25th of December. But what really got me going were a series of books by Charles Eisenstein. I am still reading The Ascent of Humanity but I finished his Transformational Weight Loss in a day. I also have Sacred Economics waiting in my iPad. I am fully engrossed. He paints a picture of a world that has shed its obsession with (rapacious) growth and consumerism and separate-ness. I couldn't agree more. But instead of calling people to do something about it --too little too late-- he just says that what will come to pass will come to pass. All we can do is prepare for the aftermath: for a civilization that has abandoned traditional economics in favor of what he calls "gift economics," for a time when we will no longer be separate from the earth and ecology but intrinsically part of it. He does not hanker for explanations or answers (I've found myself always looking for answers) but he asks us to be attentive to what is. Because what is...is profoundly sacred.

I've never seen it this way before. But I've always known that it is what I have been looking for all this time. That biological gestalt that I saw so long ago in a Twilight Zone episode in the 80s. And there's no need to gather forces...the forces are already gathering. What I'm now deeply focused on is my own role and my own gifts that need giving.

So that was the end of my 2013. Towards the end of December, I began a frenzied search for answers. I bought a book meant for people in their midlife: Coming To Terms (edited by Lorna Kalaw-Tirol) and then I ended the year with a very peaceful bunch of books (Eisenstein). Not only did I experience peace in the books I was reading...I had a very lovely afternoon in Tanay Rizal at this little organic store where the poem above is based on.

A Meditation on "Each Moment A White Bull Steps Shining Into The World"

EACH MOMENT A WHITE BULL STEPS SHINING INTO THE WORLD
by Jane Hirshfield

If the gods bring to you
a strange and frightening creature,
accept the gift
as if it were one you had chosen.

Say the accustomed prayers,
oil the hooves well,
caress the small ears with praise.

Have the new halter of woven silver
embedded with jewels.
Spare no expense, pay what is asked,
when a gift arrives from the sea.

Treat it as you yourself
would be treated,
brought speechless and naked
into the court of a king.

And when the request finally comes,
do not hesitate even an instant—

Stroke the white throat,
the heavy, trembling dewlaps
you’d come to believe were yours,
and plunge.

Not once
did you enter the pasture
without pause,
without yourself trembling,
That you came to love it, that was the gift.

Let the envious gods take back what they can.

(From her book, The Lives of The Heart)

I credit my friend, Eileen/ Peripeteia (her blog), for prompting this blog post. I truly love the poetry of Jane Hirshfield and when I saw her post, I was delighted with the gift of the poem above.

Recently, I have been through some much chaos and turmoil. But all of these things I have accepted as gifts, as blessings. There was potential loss in each of these events but we were spared. And that brings me to the core of this poem. It is about things I came to believe were mine. It is an illusion. There is nothing, really, that belongs to me. If anything, I belong to the ether, to the earth.

But there is a gift in all of these: that I came to love. Love has nothing to do with possession. It has everything to do with giving up, letting go, thriving in generosity. Everything to give, nothing to lose. I adore the ritual in the words of the poem: "Say the accustomed prayers/ oil the hooves well..." It is in gestures that something becomes precious, not the thing itself. It is the silence that accompanies the moment, it is the drawing of my hands together, the act of saying the words aloud.

The last line makes the poem so moving..."Let the envious gods take back what they can." When has anyone not thought this? Especially when a loved one lies sick in bed, hovering over a line that one cannot bear to behold. "God giveth, God taketh away." It is full of rage and yet it is also full of the love that cannot be taken away.

So, tears came to my eyes today. I have been given not just one gift but several. Let the envious gods take back what they can. There is no diminishing the light of love.

No Small Gifts

by Justine C. Tajonera

He sings me the Happy
Birthday Song, off key
and all.

I look at his radiant face
and imagine all the
wonderful stories
in his life.

I will be at the start
of his song
but his lyrics
will take on
a life of
its own.

I may not see it
to the very end
but I love every little
line, every little
stanza.

Nothing he could ever
give me would be
small.
Not the slices of
pancake,

not the Fuji Apple Mentos
dragees,
not a single smile
or a solemn offer
of a yellow block
to keep
in my bag.

(Jan. 25, 2010)
For Badger
Inspired by the song Five Loaves and Two Fishes by Corinne May performed by Hangad last Jan. 23, 2010.
Image from http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikefischer/3532629536/

Birthday Gift

By Justine C. Tajonera

We were at a loss over
what to give you.
You haven't read
all your books,
you have too many
toys and we don't have
enough space.


But when you
opened your eyes
and smiled
at us,
we realized
that there is no
gift
quite like
you.

You're the most
wonderful thing
that happened
to us,
little one.

There's nothing
we can give you
that would ever
approximate
your very
existence.

So, we didn't worry
over things like
presents, though
we gave you one,
anyway.

We linked hands
and gathered you
in our
arms
in
gratitude.

(Dec. 9, 2009)
For Badger

Image from http://www.flickr.com/photos/marcelgermain/2267526122/