At a wedding party, Harmony got an offer: “I have an extra $300 lying around if you want to spend the night” – the bride’s father.
Mirrors aren’t windows …
How flattering to get a letter from a guest who found me too beautiful. Was told by Swami, “You must not look so pure and perfect before female guests: you must do something to look muddy and imperfect.” Be hard or mean? To be real?
In a small town, when children peddle products to your door, you buy even if you don’t want to.
“He’s tense as an E string on a fiddle,” said Uncle Emerson, who never played fiddle but knew the folk expression.
At one of my great-grandma’s funeral, a man in overalls, paintbrush in hand, showed up: “I can’t say I rightly remembered the woman, but I thought I’d pay my respects.” Small-town duty.
At Grandma’s funeral, so many woodwork relatives I didn’t know: “We should get together more often.”
Sez a sailor: there’s much time to read on a cruise / most seafaring men cannot swim / 86-foot waves in the Norwegian Sea / wear beard, smoke pipe, speak Anglo / Polaris Jack the dolphin who for 20 years piloted ships through treacherous Australian reefs [Wikipedia has Pelorus Jack, New Zealand, 1888-1912, 24 years]
Self-hate = masochism.
Yesterday, I led an old-style Lakshmy hatha class: was afraid I’d kill them but they thanked me, even those who couldn’t keep up.
Pre-Oct 14: while mimeographing, watched an oak tree change from fainting yellow into majestic gold, from morning to midafternoon: the seasons flee before our eyes.
In a Zen temple, a godo [the guy with the stick] / here, Swami Cedar.
ON MY RETURN FROM OHIO, Swami was talking to Mary Russell (a double Sagittarius), who asked, “When’s Jnana going to become a swami?”
“Oh, he’s got it all. He had to go through a long purification, though.”
Two hours later, as I was preparing brunch (guess that was in my tenure as head cook), Swami returned from a drive to the rock festival (we had set up tents the night before and fed the (200,000) freaks rice, soybeans), and asked, “Jnana, how’d you like to be a swami?’
To which I replied, “If it’s required.”
And, apparently, I didn’t even bat an eyelash.
That night, I worked nine hours heavily (no break) at Jerry’s Diner, washing dishes until 1:30 am … very pooped!
And now the responsibility. YOU MUST BE MORE HUMBLE THAN EVER BEFORE!
My yoga name written in Sanskrit.
FROM MARY’S READING of my astrological chart:
Greatness/genius
Strong editing
Quicksilver mind. Mercury one of my ruling planets (“mercurial” = intellectual, flexible, adaptive)
Very orthodox though I appear strange to many people; I enjoy coming off “freaky”
Strong intuitive inductions, leaps
Very attractive to women; will marry “the most perfect woman in the world,” perhaps an Aries.
“Honor” women: leads to strange expectations
Worry too much (worry denies God), a born worrier. “Let it go!”
In five years, money; but things MOVE before that. [Fostoria, Bloomington, and then Yakima as the five-year mark; not really money, but some security/comfort.]
Follow the royal road of the heart, not the mind
Ambition: be humble!
When you were 13, you were the fastest thing on wheels
Summer of ’70 brought the “dark hole of the night” when past karma came due
MEDITATION TECHNIQUES:
Concentrate on chakras, hold 3 long breaths on each point (21 minutes)
Do pranayama before or, as Buddhists do, during. Or count breaths.
Concentrate on flame.
Begin at top of head and pull light to heart and radiate
Recite mantra or chant silently
Concentrate on others
Mantra or biblical phrase or line from a hymn
And then sit tight.
As for Swami quotes?
To staff: “There’s only one person in the ashram who can pull himself around quickly when he’s down.”
Who’s that?
“Jnana-Devananda.”
You mean Levi-Devananda, don’t you?
“No, Jnana-Devananda.”
Reading my hand: “He’s so good-natured it almost hurts.”
And here I’d been feeling in a funk.
To me: “You’re giving out vibes now, but you must learn to receive them. I tried getting through to you last night, and you were like a brick wall.” (I was concentrating on my chakras, trying to get high. Don’t know how to accept them, tune in. Frustration!)
Yet on August 4, Swami imposed a two-week silence me – said she’s been watching me for two weeks, waiting for me to pull myself together. Been racing, withdrawing. Tired of guests seeking easy answers or asking questions, “Where’s the vacuum cleaner hose?” Too many words racing through my head: difficult to meditate.
OTHER BITS:
Eyes heavy: resentment.
Swami so obvious with Levi in front of guests.
Harmony loves clutter and noise.
Cedar so severe, rigid; sadomasochistic at times; fanatic’s eyes, yet at times wisdom from her lips
Levi is better dressed than the other swamis, always at her side. She is always asking what he thinks or if he will comment: in group wedding photo, he is betrayed: he looks only at Swami. Am surprised nobody picks up on it. Bhaktivananda did detect Swami’s worldly passions. He merely fingered the wrong one.
I would like to extend the silence, two months perhaps?
Sit in forest, on rock, quiet a long time. Start to move, see big black snake, neck and head upraised, alert / my own silent fear, sidestep quickly.
That movie: El Topo, the mole (underground man). Still haven’t seen it.
The newsletter: no wisdom. What Swami likes today, she’ll revile tomorrow; what’s too long, too heavy today is too short, too sugary tomorrow.
A spice rack as the arsenal of argument.
“Help me plant weeds,” Cedar tells the gardener.
When I’m speeding: don’t listen, don’t let people finish,
Why are people so self-destructive?
Because they want to be noticed, sez Swami.
The selfish man can never find happiness. Selfishness and happiness are mutually exclusive.
A caterpillar moves on middle legs, contracts the rear, and pushes / the front half of a caterpillar floats, doesn’t touch much, let’s the back half do the work / the strobic rhythm of fireflies / blips like the scratches on a worn cinema projection /
Sanskrit Dhyana was corrupted into Chinese Ch’an and thence, in Japan, into Zen.
The sixth patriarch insisted there would be an awakening in prajna (transcendental wisdom) rather than in mere absorption of quiet sitting …
~*~
My name, Jnana, also appears transliterated from Sanskrit as Gyana, meaning the “wise use of knowledge,” among other nuances Here, in an image by Yulem via Wikimedia Commons, is an Indian hook hanger made of bronze with rudraksha beads showing one of the most frequently used hand positions, or mudras, during the practice of pranayama and meditation to symbolize the movement of human consciousness toward holy light.
The next spiralbound notebook covers summer ’72, ashram, and well into autumn.
As I inscribed in the inside cover: More tracings in the water into Sannasyn, 8:VII:72 11:45 am
Much of the following was from a trip home for the funeral of my grandmother.
Regarding my mother: she slapped me when I stood up to her / “We are poor,” she kept saying / “Don’t touch girls” /
SHAME / too thin and ill-dressed in hand-me-down clothes or my three-a-year new too-short trousers
She was inwardly jealous of each girlfriend, waited up for her 22-year-old son, furious when I came home at 3 am …
Resented me, says I nearly drove her insane: two years all alone with me while Dad was working / an interference with her own depending on her own dad: her insecurities as a conceived out of wedlock and therefore overly protected child
Mom makes herself so unhappy: nobody is better / does more / has less / she thinks too much of herself, “How poor!”
I cannot return home: there’s no room to grow
In high school, R.R. so sexy / at 22, a skinny mother, so sexless.
Even the green beans become heavy and dull in their passions .
The one-eyed pacifier (TV).
(My diatribes) Trying to comprehend the outside world.
The Christian suffers constantly because he can never be as good as Jesus.
The silent grace of Hap and Pauline Moon, a meditation so strong in one minute a rush, you don’t know what hit you.
Everybody on 3rd street walks as if under a burden: dead and unhappy, unlike New Yorkers who exhibit style and confidence. Such a shock to discover I prefer New York.
Virginia at the Journal-Herald was into yoga with Mishra and Vitaldas 20 years ago, takes another drag on her cigarette and is cool.
Surprised by this entry of meeting with Jim Millikin, at this point assistant managing editor at JH.
“I didn’t recognize your face (the long hair etc.) but I recognized your eyes.” 400 applications on file & he said, “Look me up when you leave the ashram. If I can’t help you, I may know somebody who can. There are so few sensitive, creative people in the business.”
“Yeah, that’s why I came in to see you!”
“When a man if 50 is willing to uproot, he’s usually a wino or something.” (Many [more] desk jobs than reportorial [open].)
Down (very) on Gannett, where we both had worked. And his own “lame” desk as well as the “flak” reported rather than “story.”
Kathy Hoerstein (leo/virgo cusp): “Oh, I just read some of your letters!”
Grandpa: “And he had nine children and 42 grandchildren, just a regular army of (offensive term now deleted).”
Clifton Gorge: such a piddly canyon “But it’s all we got”
Rundown house in Yellow Springs, windows open, no screens / artifacts carefree & lazy / memories of Olaf and D-Man in our ghetto summer stoned in the mountains.
This constant drive to do more / never satisfied to rest, to be / ambition is a hunger that devours the host / an inner fire.
Midwestern women trained to be sweet, smiling, o my! Tight curls and cut, print dresses. Do the right thing and worry about neighbors.
On this trip] find girls looking at me with desire – a free, long-haired fantasy of unfathomable sensitivity
So difficult to be alone and not lonely
The attraction of HIGH art etc / genius /
Mother of myself
The attraction and repulsion of pornography
The women in my life get more beautiful.
Keep demons
in place
under rocks
~*~
The farmlands around us retained a Pennsylvania Dutch character, though not necessarily of a Plain identity. The Delaware Water Gap and higher Wind Gap were dominant features in the horizon to our east. Photo by Chuck Walsh via Wikimedia Commons.
It’s a remote land of icebergs, northern lights, puffins, and moose, the easternmost part of Canada. Now, for a few details.
Although the province also includes Labrador, making it larger than California, the usual focus is on the island itself, the world’s 16th largest, ahead of Cuba, Iceland, or Ireland. The island aka “The Rock” sits at the mouth of the St. Lawrence River, creating the world’s largest estuary.
It has the only verified Viking settlement in North America, around the year 1001, possibly with Leif Erikson. The UNESCO World Heritage Site is on the northern tip of the island and includes restored sod buildings; for a sense of the size of the island, it’s an 11-hour, 20-minute drive from St. John’s. Legend has Irish Monk St. Brendan arriving in the 6th century, and Englishman John Cabot may have landed in 1497. Portuguese fishermen were also prominent explorers.
Newfoundland was an independent country before joining the Canadian confederation in 1949. It’s one reason it’s not considered a Maritime Province like Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island.
It has its own time zone, a half-hour ahead of Atlantic, although, strangely, it appears a half-hour later, as in “9 a.m. Atlantic, 9:30 Newfoundland.”
Getting there can be convoluted. Flying from the U.S., for instance, generally takes nine hours; driving, 36. There are two ferry routes from Nova Scotia – the shorter one runs six- to seven-hours; the longer one, 16 hours.
Just 12 miles away, off the southwestern coast of Newfoundland, are the islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon, technically part of France and a vestige of what was once New France.
The Newfoundland dog and Newfoundland pony are symbols of the province.
As for those striking North American puffins, 95 percent of them live in Newfoundland and Labrador, a good reason it’s the official bird of the province.
Between 400 and 800 icebergs a year typically get as far south as St. John’s. Hamlets further north, such as Twilingate, get even more.
It’s pronounced NEW-fundlund. Its people, informally, are Newfies – and Canadians second.
While we’re at it, do note that the Rock has some eye-raising town names. Here’s a sampling, without explanation or commentary:
Dildo.
Goobies.
Tickle Cove.
Blow Me Down.
Come by Chance.
Witless Bay.
Cow Head.
Gander.
Placentia.
Botwood.
St. John’s, the provincial capital and largest city, is not to be confused with St. John, New Brunswick. Both are significant seaports.
The next volume, beginning Winter ’72, begins with our first week-long intensive seminar. Some really bizarre group action, both from the guests and the staff.
The volume also includes my trip to Ohio for Grandma’s funeral; she died June 21. 1972.
~*~
Afterward, reading my seminar notes aloud to Swami, Cedar flipped out. “You just kind of pass through my life, but from your reading, I realize I’ve had you completely wrong.”
Now I know why I write: it’s the way I can be me, release my inner voice.
In mid-February, Swami announced she was closing the place, sending us into a tizzy. On the 17th, I recorded: Swami sez I have so much hate. [My unspoken reaction, I’m guessing.] It is necessary energy arising from saturation, frustration; I am different, and anyone who tries to make me like them is desexing me, perverting my love.
On the 22nd, I noted a Binghamton trip, believe it was my first of manicotti (when I wanted pizza) and spending the night with Celeste. Among other things, she said she cannot kiss someone she cannot look in the eyes and know she’s communicating with. (She is so much more than her body, which is where I too often stop communicating.)
In bed, to me: “and we will never marry,” in a positive voice. “Sometimes I think you’re too self-critical.”
I TRY TO POSSESS BECAUSE I AM INSECURE
24 February went to Philadelphia with Swami to sell her diamond wedding ring. “Everybody is so slow (unlike NYC), but dead eyes, no smiles except a fleeting twinge …
In meditation: WE ARE ALL LITTLE FISHES IN A VAST OCEAN OF AIR.
“Truth can be reached only through a comprehension of opposites.”
Swami Sivananda was a fruitcake.
(2 days later: all of us here but Swami are fruitcakes)
Beware of the vegetables.
Ria (and others) said they like my hatha classes “because you give long rests”; tonight I gave a hold-the-position (once) class, and she (and they) said “you were like a drill master.”
25:III:72, after one of our spring break seminars, Swami laid it on me heavy; Levi said he felt apologetic in asking me to do anything – a reading fast, for one thing …
Sometime later, Swami: “Jnana, he’s solid. He doesn’t always look it, when he’s walking around here, looking like he’s not doing anything, but he’s like Levi. Don’t worry about it. Also, he can’t say what he’s thinking. What’s in his head is very beautiful, but it just comes out different. His tongue gets him in trouble. As I said, he’s solid and as much a part of the ashram as the stone. He won’t collapse until the stone does.”
Harmony talked about her being pimped experiences.
Cedar: Can’t you accept the idea that someone might be superior to you?”
“Very difficult.”
Swami: loud, crass, crude: nouveau riche. Wants to be a big shot. And we are her playthings.
A dream of climbing up a glacier (or frozen stream/gorge like Buttermilk Falls / years before Rainier! – one of our party slips and lands far below, not dead: Rainbow, nude, as usual. Johnny Cash comes up behind her, singing …
This photo by Doug Kerr via Wikimedia Commons shows Interstate 80 rammed through the Delaware Water Gap, where the Delaware River cleaves the long ridge along the edge of the border between Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The gap was the route between us and New York City, the route for many of our visitors .
As it was seen by artist Granville Perkins and engraver Robert Hinshelwood, via Wikimedia Commons.
~*~
To continue:
Since we lowered our rates, the people who used to come and stay free (because “we have no money”) now pay; so now we probably come out about the same as before, except now everybody contributes.
36 people for brunch after everyone had left from a crowded weekend
On my trip to Grandma’s funeral, I slipped off to Quaker Meeting in Yellow Springs: such a high!
The members look weak and shaky, nervous and overly intellectual, almost ineffectual: but also strong in their vibrations!
“The other day, a 7-year-old Quaker came in the house and asked her mother, ‘Do we Quakers believe in God?’ After hemming and hawing a few minutes and saying essentially yes, the mother asked what brought this question on. ‘Oh, my pal at the playground says they don’t believe in God, they believe in revolution”
(Ten minutes or later:) Mention of a vigil at Wright-Pat the previous day and how a mocking bird singing from within the base reminded her of a verse about how out of the mud and mire a song always rises.
Next message: how many woes arise out of either/or thinking. There are so many more alternatives.
And finally: “Our Father! I am grateful for the world the way it is! For all of its riches, and for all of the problems we can apply ourselves to. Let us use our goods and riches for others, to make the best use of them, to share and multiply them. Bless our fellowship and interaction!”
Girl afterward: “I had given up on religion. I had tried everything, including Bahai, then last week I went to Meeting. I feel like I just smoked marijuana.” (Yep!) She thought I was in yoga; the straight back, closed eyes.
Nikki assumed art to be religion … were it so, artists would not be so fucked up, so neurotic and selfish! (Malcolm Frager’s wife told him his work as a pianist is no greater than anyone else’s work, including the janitor; that deflated him, until he saw its wisdom.)
Fay? “Kissin’ F, the Witch Goddess, the Lid … she stood me up the night before I left for IU …
Norman O. Brown: negation begins with the denial of being born, separated from the womb …
Mistake of many: the Good Life depends on things.
Susan Sontag: “Of course, a writer’s journal must not be judged by the standards of a diary. The notebooks of a writer have a very special function; in them he builds up, piece by piece, the identity of a writer to himself. … The journal is where a writer is heroic to himself. In it he exists solely as a perceiving, suffering, struggling being. … Solitariness is the indispensable metaphor of the modern writer’s consciousness.”
Paradox of self-hate: you can’t decide to get rid of it, that leads you to hate yourself for hating yourself. You must accept the self-hate. By loving it and yourself, you no longer hate yourself.
Music written with distinctive shapes for each pitch became a way of training American amateurs to sing harmony in a choir. Fa-so-la plus mi, rather than do-re-mi, for starters. Known as shape-note singing, it led to a distinctive style of hymn performance called Sacred Harp, especially popular in the South. Here’s a bit from the Easter Anthem by colonial New England composer and tanner William Billings. I learned the piece with Mennonites and can attest that shape notes can be so much fun.
Jnana's Red Barn 