Remembering Cleo

Our rambunctious and affectionate cat Cleo passed this morning.

There is something that touches us all in the passing of a loved one.  In this case, she died with me cradling her head in my hand.

In fact, nothing quite captures our relationship with Cleo as her passing.  For Cleo was the most generous of all cats I have known.  She was the most eager to meet us halfway in our differing needs.  Indeed, if humans and animals can communicate at all, Cleo taught me the most in how to go about it.

Case in point, as Manya and I both realized at pretty much the same moment that today was the day, we huddled around her on the kitchen floor trying to comfort her.

She had much to say on this subject...

Cleo:  Howl!  (Transl: Stop petting me!)
Us:  Sorry!  (Cleo then went back to purring, if with increasingly shorter and shorter breaths.)

Cleo:  Howl!  (Transl: Where did Manya go?!)
Us:  Sorry!  (Whereupon, Manya quickly returned and gently rested her hand on Cleo's back.  Cleo then went back to her labored purring.)

I, for my part, was still cupping her head in my hands.  For well over two hours.  In fact, once when I needed to ease a leg that was cramping, we had this surreal conversation...

Cleo:  Howl!
Me:  For crying out loud!  I've been sitting here for two hours.  Cut me some slack!
(After I had adjusted my leg, Cleo went back to her purring.)

At the moment she passed, there we still were, precisely where she demanded we be - in the litter she had insisted we create within our home.

My god, I will miss her.

The Artist and Mu (II)

Who knew there would be so much interest in Mu?

That serenity known through lack of fear or desire.  How do we get there?  Specifically?

Well, it's a lot like baking cookies.  Really.

Before we go there, however, it's probably best to talk about what we don't need to get to Mu...

• a special room, sound-proofed from the neighborhood
• painted in a special color
• with Om and Yin/Yang symbols 
• and burning candles and incense

Nor do we require...

• a special haircut or robe
• sitting in a special posture
• with our hands turned in just the right manner
• chanting a particular sound or prayer

Nor, either, do we need to...

• find a labyrinth or
• do so many circuits clock-wise (or non) around a stupa
• breathing in some sort of esoteric pattern

Nope.  None of these.  Getting to Mu is quite simply a matter of practice - wherever, whenever, however.  And the more you practice teaching your mind not to give way to fear or desire, the less your mind will.  

Which brings us back to baking cookies.

After all, the more you bake cookies, the better you get at it, right?  Fewer burned cookies, not so much sugar that everyone's teeth hurt, or forgetting the egg or mistaking baking soda for baking powder, etc.  Surprisingly common, isn't it?  

Which makes us wonder whether it really could be all that simple.  After all, we are talking about an ancient Asian religious belief.  And yet...

Cue the artists again.  

This is a concept every artist knows.  For our job as artists is to make sure that our brushwork (so to speak) is excellent and not embarrassing.  And there is only one way to get there: spend those hours in the studio working it, practicing.

We get to Mu in precisely the same way.  Practice.

The Artist and Mu

I'm getting a number of questions about Mu.  Not least, the overall question of... "Say, what?"

First, Mu.  To use Christian language, I would say that Mu is like Ecstasy.  (No, not that ecstasy.  And not that one, either.)  Nevertheless, they are similar.

Mu is that inner peace that comes through lack of fears or desires.  You get there through practice, disciplining the mind not to give way to fear and desire.

As a result, you know greater clarity of sight and mind (because you are no longer distracted with useless clutter).

That's the textbook answer.  There's a deeper one, too:  Mu, like Ecstasy, is a metaphor.

Which isn't too surprising.  I've long thought that all religious concepts are handy metaphors for the feelings we struggle to explain.  Mu is no different.

Take Salvation, for example.  All faith traditions that I know of focus on Salvation.  From what, though?  From either a burning Hell or the absence of God altogether (Judaism, Christianity and Islam).  From the curse of rebirth, from daily fear or desire (Buddhism).  From delusions that you exist apart from the Brahman (Hinduism).  From rigidity in thinking and, therefore, life choices (Taoism).  The list goes on...

Interesting how universal the question.  Also interesting how different the answers turn out to be.  And that's the cool part.

Cue the artists.

Throughout all time and place, it's the artists who come up with the metaphors that give us a handle on abstruse explanations to...well, you name it:  Resurrection, Detachment, Divinity, Damnation, Delusion, Creation, Redemption, Singularity, Grace, whatever.  Point to any religious concept and you'll find a bevy of artists who've crafted wildly different metaphors to help us all get a handle on it.

(They can't help being wildly different.   They're artists, after all.)

Even so, that the question is universal to all religions, inevitably leads to some similarity among the answers.  Take Mu again  - with its serenity borne from lack of fear or desire - one does not have to search very far among the mystic traditions in any of the religions to find similar metaphors.

For example, in Christian mysticism, Mu strikes me as remarkably similar to the Ecstasy one knows from union with God here and now.  (Rather than waiting until after you die.)

Funny, that.  I expect it will always be that way, so long as humans continue to dream up their own faith traditions.

Which means, I suppose, artists will be helping us grapple with our religious dreams...well...forever.

Peace Alighted Where?

Ouch!  That was humbling.

I just read my poem, Long Have I Chased Inner Peace to an old classmate.  Her reaction?

She thought I was teasing her.  Apparently, she thought it so good there is no way in the world I could have written it!

You can always rely on your friends to bring you back to earth, no?

Fun With Mu

Mu, the character at the center, is a central Zen concept.  (For Zen, think Buddhism meets Taoism.)  

Mu refers to that inner peace that arises from the absence of fears or desires.  

How do we do it?  Why, we practice our way there, of course.  ô¿ô

A Shattering Heart Matters Naught

A shattering heart matters naught
To a teeming planet's pursuits.
An orb's cares of little note to
A nebula's galactic routes.
That clusters are splintered complete
By black holes be universal.
One has to ask the question, then:
Why risk we the heart's dispersal?

Because we must.


© Jeff Stilwell 2012

(For the Meadowdale Players as they embark on their next show.  Long will they reign in my memory, numbering among the brightest talents I have worked with on the stage.)

Bosatsu

My fearless adventurer bosatsu, skateboarding his way through the universe, popped into my head last year.    But up to now, I haven't known what to do with him.

Here's the first rendering of a new concept that showed up around breakfast time this morning.  I hope he likes it!  More on this later...

(Note: bosatsu is Japanese for buddha or "the Enlightened One.")

Just A Speck (I)

Here's a background sketch from my new character Zeb... 

Zeb stared up at the dark sky.  And began shrinking.

As far as he could see, the pinpricks of stars radiated across the far-flung heavens.  Heaven.  He smiled at the thought, wondering just where God's Mansion was supposed to be - somewhere in one of the radial arms of the Milky Way?  Or maybe in the Andromeda Galaxy, our near neighbor?  He kept looking up, toying with this idea and that, finding himself growing smaller and smaller as a result.  Well, shoot, he thought.  Aren't there over fifty galaxies in our little backwater block of the universe?  At least from what we can see of the universe, anyway.

Then, a fun thought:  What if Heaven is inside Sagittarius A*, that massive black hole at the center of our galaxy?

On and on he thought, staring at that impossibly huge sky, knowing that the longer he stared, the smaller he would get.  So small, that he began to feel like no more than a jot.  A speck of dust.  Completely crowded out in significance by all the galaxies, super-clusters, planets, comets - and whatever the hell dark matter was - that combine into making up the universe as we know it.  Just a speck.  Nothing more.

And that's when Zeb had his Cosmic Moment.  He realized that he may be just a speck, but that's still something.  Which is better than nothing.  That means that in this universe with its teeming billions of components, he numbered among them.  He belonged.

© Jeff Stilwell 2012

Whither Cattle Ranching

I am often asked by admirers of my novel Fighting For Eden: Where did I learn so much about cattle ranching?

(an excerpt)
Leaning into Belle's ass, feeling the sudsy soap that they had washed around Belle's vulva dripping down her shirtfront, she heaved the leg up.  Belle kicked a leg out in protest, but Jessie kept tugging until, grudgingly, it moved up toward her.  Blowing out a sigh, she attached the other catch to that, too, then stepped back leaving the chains hanging out Belle's backside like some kind of an appendage.  Just like a pap smear from hell, she grinned.  She shucked the rubber gloves and pulled on the rawhide ones from a back pocket.  Angel, not needing a word, was ready for her and signaled Felipe to reach over the flanks to gently stretch the lips of Belle's vulva for the coming pull.  She grabbed the handles of the chains, braced one boot up against Belle's haunch, let Angel grab her around the waist and they pulled...

Well, as they say, writers write what they know.  In my case, I know that I've grown to love, from horseback, the Yakima Valley.  Then, too, my father-in-law, John Schilperoort custom-fed cattle for a number of years in his long, storied life as a rancher.  (In fact, go back to the family farm, and you can still stand on John's underground molasses tank, used for the custom-feeding.  Bet it still has molasses in it, too.)

Also, John's good friend Harry Kwak, raised Angus cattle, just as my characters, the Van der Vaals, do.  Long retired now, he once gave me a tour of his spread, letting me pepper him with questions about feed lots, black leg, hardware disease, "raising pounds" and a thousand other details.

The rest, as they also say about writers, is imagination.

Zeb's Brownstone

Which reminds me, we're probably going to need a pic of Zeb's brownstone apartment.  Yes, that's Snickey snoozing on the front stoop.

Ol' Mrs. Masland must be inside enjoying her afternoon cordial(s).

I'm using this to keep me focused as I write my new novel...

Girdie?

Is this the Girdie from my new novel?  Perhaps.

She's a bit of a kick.  She lives in the Eternal Now so fiercely that each moment of every day must reflect that.  Or so she believes.

Oh, one more thing:  Girdie is a total thrift store nut...

Teacup Tipsy Prologue

It was two years ago that rehearsals began for my Teacup Tipsy.  The Driftwood Players saw enough in the play to mount it on their Alternative Stages.  A salute, then, to those happy memories.  Here is the prologue...

Catherine Bailey as Lyla in
Jeff Stilwell's Teacup Tipsy.
 Photo by Wendy Enden.

MAN IN THE BOX
(to audience, adjusting hearing aid)
Come, O gentle hearts, and turn up your ears
For I've a fable to tell this fine morn.
'Twill reduce some to tears, others to cheers
On this day like all too many, save one:
The day our loveless Lyla loved anew.

(Lyla enters dancing, sadly.)

This morn she danced in as usual, wiping
Drops from her sorrow stainèd cheeks that on
Fertile ground might have blossomed forth flowers
Of any hue, scent, or wondrous beauty!
But not this ground.  Nay.  For lo! dreaded Starbucks
Cast its dark shadow on the rosy dawns
Of her younger years, dooming her mother's
Pride and joy, the most charming wee tea shop,
Vibrant center of life and love to a
Bustling and grateful neighborhood.
Dispenser of delightful teas and talk
St. Teresa's Teacup Tipsy, shattered.
No blade of lush grass, nor dew-dropped petal
To adorn this benighted vale of pain since.
Woe follows woe, then, unstemmed.  Luckless Lyla's
Mama passes from this sorry, sore place
To join her gentle Papa, far long gone,
Leaving lonely Lyla sweeping up fragments.

(Reginald enters.)

Enter the unlikely hero, a man
With much to say about a better world
If only this tim’d soul could find his voice.

Two Hearts

Two Hearts This World Have I Known

The first so parched I could weep
The second so deep I could drown
Whene'er I dare embark in each.

The first, mailed, stares out from her keep
Ne'er frail, ne'er weak, ne'er stripped is she,
Nay. Nor is she lush, nor teeming,
Nor verdant, nor dreaming to be.

To know her is to break upon
Stony walls cracked, dry, pitiless.
Your single cheer tear-smeared folly,
Anguish, ever thirsting distress.

The second's undefended shores
So bare, so rash, so little concealed
So little craft, bubblingly daft
All too often recklessly real.

To know this heart, then, is to plunge
Risking the self midst endless charms
Diving mystery fathoms deep
Bewitched, drowning, snared in her arms.

By each heart the hardy hero
Is changed utterly, forged anew.
This, the ordeal: Chancing love's font
Better the trickle or deluge?

© Jeff Stilwell 2012