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The Irreverent Lady

October 13, 2009 at 3:15 am | Posted in 1 | 4 Comments

by S. A. Adams

The dark hole against the bank had to be the cave they had been searching for. She ploughed her way through the two feet of fresh fallen snow. Where were the others? she wondered. She looked behind her down the mountain only to see a bare escarpment where the avalanche had fallen and destroyed their camp. Are they safe? She couldn’t go down. Not without the equipment from the destroyed camp. My backpack … our tent. Oh God, please let them be alright.

The sun was just now casting its rays between two blue peaks of the Himalayas. The rest of the sky remained silently dark. She stood in suspicion of the cave opening and adjusted her goggles. Are animals hibernating? she wondered with great seriousness and crept ever so closer. An approach from the side was deemed best, in case animals came charging out. Her fingers searched the zippered pocket of her red parka jumpsuit. Ah! Never leave home without it. She grasped the nail file sturdily in her hand as if soon to be engaged in a street fight. For an upstate New York forty year old mother of one college student and on her first mountain tour, this was the best sense that her vicarious TV cop show experience had to offer. OK. Time to make camp! she exclaimed to her inequity. But pausing, she wondered how to do that. Oh God, please don’t let there be bears!

By laying down in the snow she was able to peek her head around into the cave opening. The goggles were removed slowly so her eyes could adjust to the blackness within. They were repositioned a top her head. She might just have looked like a fictionalized alien to an uncultured, Americanized, eye.

Inside, Sampava Ningh Po, the Tibetan, thought he might just have seen a giant toad. From his lotus position seated on top of the old tiger skin and grass mat covering, he wasn’t sure if this was an illusionary prank of his master’s or not. But he would watch in stillness. He would wait and see.

Rebecca checked her hiking watch. 6:30. She still could not see in very far or discern any movement, so she decided to eat snow. It was an act really for gathering courage, continuity, and oneness with the event about to occur. Snow balls! I’ll find out what’s there! She intermittently tossed in six snowballs in six different directions, each time hiding to the side of the cave opening for fear of retribution.

It was the fifth snowball that hit Sampava smack in the middle of his chest, his bare chest, over the heart. The snow dripped down to his abdomen and groin and he decided the situation was in need of further pondering.

The toad is gone now. It had an arm! He was sure he saw that. It meaned to provoke him out of his meditation, he reasoned. I will not be provoked by a toad! he vowed and continued his asana steadfastly and with diligence.

Since nothing stirred within the cave Rebecca decided to once again peer into it. Within a half hour of peering her eyes could make out shapes that appeared like rocks. A stalagmite seemed to protrude from the center clearing. I have to try. I will not sleep in the snow tonight! I can not. After all …the weather. Maybe there are sticks, dry brush in there. Damn, where is my lighter? She hadn’t had a cigarette since her train disembarked in Kashmir and was proud of it. Did I slow them down? Is that why we didn’t reach the cave last evening? She felt sudden guilt and sank into the snow wondering whether or not she would die up here on the mountain and not be able to say goodbye to her son and not get her dog Poochie out of the kennel.

Sampava stared once again at the figure. He could see that it was red but now it sat in the snow and faced the sun. It is testing my perseverance, he decided.

The two of them sat and remained sitting, even as the sun moved into the western sky.

Suddenly Rebecca jumped up and hurried through the deep snow. When she returned she was zipping up her jumpsuit and Sampava then knew it was human. Rebecca checked her watch. 7:22.

“Alright,” she said, hands on hips. “God help me please,” and she entered the cave , grasping the nail file firmly in front of her as a blind man would his cane.

She waited for her eyes to clear a little more. The stalagmite was looking more and more like a statue. Perhaps the guides were bringing me to a shrine, she thought. Oh how delightful! Maybe there will be people coming! Maybe there is some hope! She walked cautiously, fearing bugs and bats, to the shrine to see if she could tell whether or not it was Buddhist or Hindu.

Sampava blinked his eyes.

“Ahhh!” Rebecca screamed, and retreated and stumbled and fell backwards onto the floor of the cave. Her head hit hard and she was out cold.

My master is testing my compassion! So! He unfolded his legs, stood up with ease, and went to her. He withdrew the hood from her head, as well as the goggles. His dark fingers gently lifted her eyelids as he looked into her pupils. He checked the time of day by the sun’s position and the feel of the air and started clearing a spot outside the cave door for a fire. Content that he had done everything that he could, he resumed his meditation. All of a sudden he opened his eyes again.. Jumping up, he hurried to the rear of the cave and found the piece of linen that served as a loin cloth. He quickly tied it on.

Rebecca was rousing herself. “Jesus. What the heck?” she muttered. She saw a dark figure standing before her. “What,” she exclaimed, annoyed at his stillness, his silence. She managed to sit up and when he offered no hostile moves, she recanted. “Uh, I’m Rebecca Monroe. And, uh, … on tour here.” She flashed her widest smile which had always won them over at the PTA.

“Missy, (it is late in the day. Has my master sent you? For what reason, pray tell, are you here disturbing my meditation?)” asked Sampava in the Pali language.

“Is this a shrine? Do you have a telephone here? I’ve got to call for help. My guides are … gone. Gone! Do you understand?” she asked.

Sampava reached out slowly to touch her face. And she let him, though somewhat reluctantly. Then he felt her forehead. And she felt calmer. He set about gathering some twigs and branches that had dried within the safety of the cave. He put them outside in the cleared spot. He seemed to be looking for something else when Rebecca remembered her lighter. She pulled off her jumpsuit, boots, and cotton sock and ripped it to shreds. Sampava watched as she got the fire going. It was night. He returned to his seat of meditation, content that he had now done all that was required, and she sat down by the fire.

“Oh God! I’m suddenly so hungry! Are there any moose here?” she turned to him. “Any deer maybe? God, I could eat a horse!” and she proceeded to eat some snow.

Sampava opened his eyes on the syllables “oh god” and saw her gulping snow from her hand. His rations would not be renewed until his master’s assistant brought them. And he couldn’t say when that would be. Perhaps a month. Once again my master tests my compassion! So! He hopped out of his lotus posture, went to the back of the cave for the rations, and brought them to the lady.

“Missy, (eat and be happy. It is my honor to serve.), he said and pretended to eat, to show her his intent.

“Well … thank you. What is it?” she asked, taking the dried food that had been wrapped in cloth. Sampava went back to his seat. He needed to practice the yoga of the psychic heat in order to stay warm through the night.

“Thank you,” Rebecca called to him. “It tastes kind of like dog food. You know, dry dog food? Full of corn and millet, maybe?” She forced a smile but he was unresponsive.

Later on when the fire went out Rebecca came inside and lay down next to the wall of the cave, across from Sampava. Her jumpsuit had warmed sufficiently and she fell asleep. Eventually, towards dawn, he lay down for an hour’s sleep as well. It was his practice to be alert during the dream process.

“Oh Jesus! Son of a bitch! God damn it! Get off! Get off!” yelled Rebecca. Sampava sprang to attention. “Bugs! Get them off!”

Rebecca scrambled outside into the morning sun and pulled off all her clothes down to her underwear.

(Master, why do you test me this way? With a crazy woman, no less! My compassion is run out of wisdom!) Sampava said out loud.

Rebecca heard him mutter and responded. “I’m sorry but there are bugs in my bed! See…” She looked into the snow and on the clothing but there were only particles of clay that had fallen from the top of the cave. She gave him a sheepish grin and put on her clothing very carefully, still checking for particles and bugs.

It was the day to find a way home.

”Are you the curator of this shrine?” she asked as she sat down in front of him. She leaned to the side balancing herself on her right hand. How can we communicate? she wondered. “Parlez vous Francais?” and after a moment, “Well me neither!” And then she laughed hysterically of her own amusement. It was nerves.

Sampava decided to take control of the situation, for his own sake, and began chanting very loudly The Jewel in the Lotus chant. “Om!” he bellowed. “Om!” He continued with more words in Pali.

“Oh Jesus, please help me,” Rebecca prayed.

Sampava’s chanting of foreign words came so very strong that they filled the entire cave with thick resonance. She almost thought she couldn’t hear herself think. The rhythm of the chants reminded her of the Gregorian chorales she sang in elementary school, but she couldn’t remember the words. It seemed a good thing to pray for help. It seemed the only thing to do. After all, he was totally occupied and the day was still young.

She started reciting the Our Father and then moved on to the Hail Mary. She couldn’t remember the Apostle’s Creed, but soon she found herself smacking her chest in unison to the rhythm of Kiriye Eleison, Christe Eleison. Sampava found this exceptionally curious.

What yoga is this? he wondered. “Missy, (I am curious, who is your guru?) he suddenly asked.

Rebecca abruptly stopped her chanting, too.

“Sir, my name is Rebecca. You can call me Missy, but, really, it’d be nice if I knew your name and you knew mine,” she smiled. “Don’t you think? Re- bec-ca,” she intoned, all the while tapping her chest with her fore finger. Seeing he was nonplussed, she said, “Well anyway. I really have to get out of here. Phone?” And she held up her hand to her ear in imitation of the way she’d seen the guy do it on the Comedy Channel.

First she uses mantras, thought Sampava, ….now mudras. Definitely. Definitely she has been sent by my master. An apparition to test my wisdom! Ah ha! Obeisance to the guru! Dear master, please come and take her away. I have found you out and she is of no further use to my progress on the path. Revered sir, hear my plea, please remove her from my sight, my cave, my life. Dear master, quickly make it so!

And he pronamed on the cave floor.

Rebecca stood up and bowed to him, Hindu style, the way she had learned in Bombay. It was only polite to return the gesture. Then she turned away from him and cried out, “Oh God! I want to go home! Please help me if You can! Please!” She fell down sobbing uncontrollably on the cave floor and didn’t care if the man thought she was crazy or not. They just couldn’t communicate.

It took two days, but Sampava’s master and several disciples finally reached the cave opening to take the lady down the mountain.

It was a bright September morning.

THE END

Untitled

October 5, 2009 at 1:40 pm | Posted in 1 | 3 Comments

( writer’s note: I came across excerpts of a beautiful poem called The Hymn of Jesus and it is said it dates to very early Christian times. The format is such that, first the individualized soul speaks, and then is responded to by the Eternal Christ. It is a dialogue, like others, for example that between Lord Krishna and Prince Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita. In these modern times, I replicated that format with different words:)

I would be furious

And I would be Fury

I would be outraged

And I would be Outrageous

I will be needy

And I will be Needful

But I will forget

And I will be Remembrance

Church Services

October 4, 2009 at 12:30 pm | Posted in 1 | 1 Comment

by S. A. Adams

My mother leaned my way and then bent over to pick up the hymnal. She patted my leg like a little kitten and whispered “Sit up straight” with a smile. I squiggled up in the pew but the pew was as hard as the smack of a baseball, at least when Matt hits it. I wish I were outside. The only light in here is soured by those stained glass abominations. Yes, that’s what granny said. Abominations, because they were modern art and abstact. We learned that stuff in art last week. “It’s creative”, I told granny. She said,”It should be beautiful.”

The milky mouthed baby in front looked over her father’s shoulder and stared at me. It had whispers of hair and the tip of one of its little tiny ears flipped over, kind of like a dog’s will when its curious. Our dog Pal had that look and Matt cried forever when it died.

I was figuring how long the baby would stare at you if you stared back when all of a sudden it burped up some cottage cheese. This happened just as the pastor said “Praise God” and ended one more of his palatable sermons. My mom said they gave you something to think about and something to swallow. But anyway I let out a laugh which sounded like a cat spitting up a fur ball. I couldn’t help it. The baby looked at me with a gritty face and immediately began to wail. And continued to wail all through the next hymn. People turned and cast grapefruit faces at the family. Nobody knew it was really my fault. Suddenly I was alive and feeling singularly invincible. I stuck out my tongue at the wailer.

My father’s hand reached across two people to smack me smartly on the back of the head.

I know the baby saw my gritty face now. She stopped wailing. Her eyes smiled right at me.

Did I Tell Thee

October 3, 2009 at 11:47 am | Posted in 1 | 3 Comments

When I awoke

From fancy thought

And playing in my pictures

Did I tell Thee I loved Thee?

When I performed the rituals

Of bodily habituals

Did I tell Thee I loved Thee?

Did You taste these tears

When I took thought of Thee

And how far off Thou art

Or seem to be

Did You see me then?

Oh what joy

When I unite this body this mind

In unity

No longer will I be

What I want

Or what I did

But what I am

When I am Thee

(writer’s note: written many years ago after finding my precious guide of yoga corresponding to unity in the above poem)

Searching for Sophia

October 2, 2009 at 1:07 pm | Posted in 1 | 6 Comments

by S. A. Adams

QUESTION:

I had an idea

that fleeted by

it left itself

in my memory

like a rainbow left in the sky

A tree could be

a symbol of Thee

and all that I perceive

with my organs of sense

are like that tree

I walk among the symbols

daily among the stars

envisionong galaxies

and space

capillaries and waste

You alone are the Living Entity

The only One who lives and breathes

while cannot see the Forest

for the trees

Symbols, I wonder, don’t really exist

so why on earth

did You show them to me?

REPLY:

Can I speak to you,

little girl, confidentially?

For your consciousness mirrors Mine

I thought and there you were

albeit, after a billion years of time

What amuses Me, little girl,

is that you thought

and here am I

QUESTION:

The symbols, Sir, are still curious to me

a tree is not a tree

its atoms are but vibrations

frozen by Thee

and yet there are other symbols

in my mind that come free

as visions and smells

and words heard only by me

and dreams and other

mental anomalies

and thoughts and painful

suffering

Is this mind but a receptacle

for symbols of Thee?

REPLY:

This mind mirrors Mine,

an image of Me.

QUESTION:

Is it caught in space and time

this mind of mine?

It is not three dimensional

so it occupies no space

if there is no space, there is no time

I see

The symbols it vibrates ….

I am like Thee!

Who gave me these words

this fallacy untrue

me, myself, and I

that serve to deny

its You, You, You!

REPLY:

you are free

do what you like

with the universe

if need be

but do you think you’ll ever

get rid of Me?

who am not free

for if I fail

where would the universe be

A thin veil has been lifted

but not by Me

Tis yours alone

this discovery

QUESTION:

You say I’m free

but I

need You

sometimes needs hurt

a mind that exists

not in time nor space

or vice verse

what then is touched

by such an ache

that no surgeon’s hand

can replace?

What then longs for this Something Unknown

What Sweetness was tasted and by whom

long ago

What Candy unwrapped, that I reach out to grasp

and find is not there?

Oh mind be clear

and still,

like the lake in winter

Freeze up

the symbols of me

that I might step apon them

and reach out to Thee

I conclude this Existent Other

is beyond my mentations

beyond my imaginations

and beyond

beyond the now

yet here

Oh time, did you lift your veil?

Awareness, did you blink

leave the gravitational pull

of this little girl’s mentations

dilate your camera’s eye, slow down time

and catch a glimpse of her Eternal Skirt?

REPLY:

Ah, to Love and Quietude, to Her, you drift away

The Sabbath Bride comes on any given day.

And just when, I, Sophos, have come out to play

“A dillar, a dollar

A 10 o’clock scholar

What makes you come so soon?”

“You used to come

At 10 o’clock

But now you come at noon.”

Damsel in Distress

October 1, 2009 at 12:33 pm | Posted in 1 | 7 Comments

There was a damsel

In distress

Or was it just a dirty dress

She couldn’t eat

She couldn’t pray

She really didn’t know what to say

I met her on the street one day

And took her to the hospital right away

The ER nurse was quite a bore

But the young doctor on duty

Was something more

My hair is falling out, she sobbed and cried

There’s been a nuclear war and everyone died

The doctor sighed

A psychiatrist was called to see her

This damsel in the dirty dress

It was

Two hours later

Your brain is accessing the wrong thought

He told her

For whatever reason, havoc is being wrought

Apon your thought

The hair falls out

Quite natually so

But not by war, he swore

She smiled and trusted his confident demeanor

The pills would make her mind a bit keener

He’d say

And then took her away

For a stay

Well I was happy

Just to leave her

But I saw her later

Maybe six months or so

The same dirty dress

But now she was thinking

Like all the rest

Of us I guess

I have to wonder and believe me its confusing

Are the Buddhists correct when they call life illusion

When consciousness shifts to another awareness

What thoughts can we access to explain the weirdness

A guide would be nice

And I saw it thrice

On Kung Fu the show

I have to go

I bid her farewell

She waved me goodbye

My damsel in distress

With the dirty dress

Crazy Woman

September 30, 2009 at 4:12 am | Posted in 1 | 6 Comments

by S. A. Adams

I would like to tell you the story of Crazy Woman. A long time ago, about 200 years or more, there lived an old woman who belonged to my mother’s ancestral lodge. My mother is Iroquois. The old woman was different in that she could have no children and her husband had died many years before of disease.

The sons of the other women would bring home game and skins to her from the hunt as they did to everyone in the lodge. They wished to give her her share. But this woman, who was about 70, said to them: No, no. I will only take a little, because tomorrow I die.

When the old woman went to fetch water from the brook, she would say to the brook, which offered to fill up her pot: No, no. I will only take a little, because tomorrow I die.

This story is true. She would say: No, no. I will only take a little because tomorrow I die.

When the old woman went to pick berries from a certain patch in the wood, the berries practically fell into her basket as her skirt brushed against the tiny leaves. But she said to the bush: No. no. I will only take a little because tomorrow I die.

She continued in that way for many more years. The other woman in the village thought she was crazy and foolish because she never did die on the morrow. That’s when they began to call her Crazy Woman and no longer brought their infants and children to her to tend. She no longer sat with the other woman to make baskets and pottery. She no longer tilled the soil with them, or tanned and sewed hides.

In the Season of the Leaves Falling she followed the woman to the corn field. Since she only picked a couple ears, they offered her some of what they had in order to fill up her sack, but she said: No, no. I will only take a little because tomorrow I die.

One day she said to the sachem, the chief, that she wanted to go up to the big mountain called White Face. Because tomorrow I die, she said.

But many of the warriors said it was too far and that the white settlers were too frequent over the land. The sachem considered this, and said no to the old woman.

That evening the old woman left the stockade when all were asleep and walked silently through the maple, oaks, and pines to the river alone. It is tomorrow, she said, and lay down.

The sachem and two warriors followed her in order to protect her dignity and safety. As they left the stockade not even a dog barked that night.

They crouched quietly at a distance watching Crazy Woman lie at the river bank. A frost was forming on the leaves where they sat. But they watched and waited.

Suddenly they heard the Great Voice of the Mysterious Creator come out of the night sky. It said: Crazy Woman. Be still, and I will only take a little.

And next they saw her whole body engulfed in a white light. The light then condensed into a tiny holy spark, as bright as the moon, yet as little as an acorn. It rose up from her face, higher and higher, only to disappear into the evening stars.

The sachem took Crazy Woman to a place in the woods for burial. He took his bear skin cloak from his back and laid it carefully over her body. Then the people covered her with the black soil of the earth.

In the evening the sachem visited the old shaman, the spiritual guide of the people. He sat at his camp fire and asked about the light he and the other two warriors saw. The sachem asked for the meaning.

The shaman listened to the concerns of the sachem. He focused his eyes on the bowl of water set before him. As he gently swirled the water in the bowl, his mind soared high like an eagle.

The shaman then spoke. He said: It was a great boon for the sachem and the two warriors to hear this Voice of the Mysterious Creator and to see this tiny holy spark. The League of the Iroquois is friends with the Great Spirit. This wondrous earth is His, yet He takes but a little from it. Now hear these words, I can see the ancestors welcoming us.

The sachem considered the old shaman’s words carefully. He met with many other sachems; Cayuga,Onondaga, Seneca, Oneida, Mohawk. They talked and made preparations. Eventually some moved north and some west as the white settlers took the land. They hunted with sacred ritual and traded with honor. They fought bravely. But soon very few were left to dwell on the earth.

One hundred and fifty years later, the white settlers uncovered the bones of Crazy Woman and the skull of the bear skin cloak. They were put under glass in a museum. They admired and possessed them and called them their own for a very long time; until the day came that they, too, would hear and see.

This is the story of Crazy Woman. I speak true words.