Grub

Profile - a formerly widowed and remarried returned Peace Corps Volunteer who served in Nepal; have been a stay-at-home father for the past 16 years; am afflicted by a serious autoimmune condition, but can manage with a cane or walker; have four children ranging from 14 to 19, three sons and one step-daughter; play guitar (not too well, but enjoy it); live in the mid-atlantic region, but prefer the west coast; have been a vegetarian of various stripe for over 25 years, but currently consider myself a 'carrion-vegetarian,' that is, one who will occasionally eat the flesh of fish, fowl, or beast if it has been leftover and forgotten in the fridge well past anybody's intent to consume.  These are some of the things that I carry.

Sometimes it feels like my life experiences, both big and small, will separate me in ever smaller groupings till this unique little snowflake melts or blows away.  But then I will reach out, talk to another homo sapiens sapiens and find that in fact the chasm which divides really isn't there.  How vast our shared humanity is.  However, there are some issues I might broach that almost without exception will paint me into my tiny idiosyncratic corner.  Such as this post.  Why do I persevere in this manner?  Is it boredom, a desire to shock and awe my dear reader?  To stand up and be counted, occupy myself?  Probably some pedestrian blend of the above, and more.  Or perhaps less.

Without further ado, back to the 'meat' of this post.  What is an entomophagist?  (And, will this discussion wedge me off even further from the 99%?)  It's a nice new (to me) word I recently picked up from an article in the New Yorker with the same title as this post.  And means one who eats insects.  As noted above, I've practiced vegetarianism for much of my life, mostly lacto-ovo, and for some years I also ate fish.  Recently went back off fish, due to the very dire state of worldwide fisheries.  However, I will occasionally eat the leftovers off the plate of a friend or relative, right after they tell the waiter 'sure, I'm done.'  Maybe a crunchy fish head, some fat off of a steak, salmon skin - whatever, before it goes to the trash.  That's me, the last stop before the dumpster.

Well, some many posts ago I mentioned trying the 'chapulines', or grasshopper tacos at the gourmet Mexican restaurant Oyamel here in D.C.  I was working on my 'life list' of bizarre foods (not to mention taking my then girlfriend/now wife Dwan out for a Valentine's day dinner.  Go figure, I ate bugs, and still she married me!).  And they were pretty good.  Recently we returned to the restaurant with a gift card we'd received from a friend.  True confession, I ordered the 'hoppas' again!  To be honest, it didn't taste as good as the first time, so I probably won't be going back for more anytime soon, if ever.

I have a question though, namely, are bugs people too?  That is, are they sentient beings?  And, more specific to my brand of vegetarianism, are they endangered?  According to the New Yorker article (as far as my weak memory serves) they are a very healthy source of protein and other nutrients.  And have been eaten throughout the ages, both cooked and raw, even to this very day in some cultures.  There are even entomophagists in this country, and they meet for occasional cooking competitions, serving up morsels both savory and sweet like the delectable pictured here:

The article claims that insects are an ecological source of these nutrients, but I wonder just how sustainable they would be if everybody started eating them.  I mean a lot of them every day.  And, if they had to be transported hundreds of miles, freezer packed, or otherwise processed, for the average consumer to be able to incorporate them into their busy lives?  (For more about the article, and some cool audio and video, check out:  http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2011/08/eating-insects-entomophagy-video.html - it's pretty short.) 

If this sounds like a bit too much bother, for little or no gain, how about this?  Drop a roach into your next smoothie, blend it beyond recognition, and if there is a crunch, tell yourself it's a blackberry seed.  Still feeling skittish?  Maybe start with an ant, and work your way up the food chain?  I can feel the chasm widen as I think of you pondering this...  But wait, let me paraphrase Solzhenitsyn: the line which separates disgusting from delicious runs through the heart of every bug!

Anti-materialistic

You think shopping for the 'guy who has everything is hard'? Try the guy who hates everything! Which would be me.

Well, sorta kinda. Not quite everything, so much as most 'things.' And hate is a bit of an exaggeration.  For my birthday, my wife gave me a compact disc she burned with some of my all time favorite songs.  (Oh right, and a delicious Nepali meal delivered, and cake.  Mmm.)  Those are examples of the kind of 'thing' I like.  Or the letters 'D', 'A', and 'D' that my sons fashioned with their bare hands a few years ago out of the relatively hard sand and sediment layer under the great Salt Lake where we went for a dip.  Or the skateboard broken in half and re-glued into the shape of a heart from Eli.

Certainly there are other 'things' - hand-made or not - that have found their way into my relatively Spartan lifestyle, which have gathered to them feelings and memories.  And a certain emotional gravity that I will not discount.  Or even necessarily feel burdened by. In fact, these are the things that can be triggers for joy, sorrow, poignancy, and other emotions.

However, in general I can be described as 'thing-o-phobic.'  I readily acknowledge that this predilection to eschew the material is not in any way spiritually superior to acquisitiveness.  I find that either direction can be as 'materialistic' as the other.  The degree to which one finds suffering through aversion on the one hand, or clinging on the other seems for all intents and purposes equivalent.  And the challenge at either extreme also seems equal:  can one be surrounded by material possessions without attaching to them?  And by 'attaching to them' I don't mean to value them, or use them, or admire them - but rather to feel an undue sense of grief if they should be lost or broken, which is an inevitable outcome, whether in one's lifetime or after.  And can one live in relative austerity without feeling a sense of moral superiority, and disdain for the few things that do come into one's possession?

Buddhists speak of a 'middle way,' which in this arena might be understood as neither Spartan nor cluttered.  But I think it refers rather to an ease with either extreme (or middle), a peace that is borne of understanding the true nature of all things and non-things.  Namely, that they are in their very nature holy, spirit - just like all of us.  Ultimately we are of this earth, we are this earth, and ultimately we shall lose everything and everyone we know, love, or feel attached to.  Can we know, love, and attach to that which is our timeless perfection?  The god we all already are?

Fund drive!

Yes, it's that time of year here in the D.C. metropolitan area.  Our local station, WAMU is soliciting funds.  And in a time of shrinking governmental support, it's more important than ever.  If you haven't done so already, pick up the phone, or go on-line, and pay until it hurts.

Because public broadcasting - especially NPR and the local affiliates - seems to be the last bastion of independent journalism.  There is an overabundance of opinion (much of it right-wing nut-job).  Our very democracy hangs in the balance.  You know it, I know it, all of us choir members know it, so as the demigoddess Nike says, just do it!

And if you listen regularly to NPR, there is an even more immediate reason to make your donation:  self interest.  Once you've called and made your pledge (or payment), then you can go on listening to the shows - Morning Edition, This American Life, Car Talk, etc. - even as they are holding the telethon.  Then notice the lack of guilt you feel, even as you enjoy the clever promotional 'spots' done by various celebrities.  And not feel the urge to change the channel, or turn off the radio, just to avoid the guilt.

Monsoon

It seems we've had a fortnight or so of sticky humidity and light rain - very reminiscent of the monsoon season in Nepal.  Sure, climate change:  a 'theory', like evolution, contested by many right-wing industrial capitalists and their nut-job lackeys; however, considered an anthropogenic fait accompli by the vast majority of heliocentric-leaning scientists.  Which I am sorry to admit is quite the mouthful of a sentence.  Worry not, such polemic is not the direction in which this post is headed.

Our meditation teacher sometimes intones the acronym 'r-a-i-n.'  We are advised, while sitting in meditation (or running about our days), if an emotional storm or difficult mind-state, or set of problematic circumstances should arise - we are invited to recognize, allow, investigate, and non-identify with these phenomena.  (I'll leave the 'non-identify' word alone, syntactically awkward as it may be.)

WARNING: Pointless and mildly droll paragraph follows...

I can think of other helpful acronyms:  non-identify, allow, investigate, let-go (NAIL);  inquire, recognize, allow, non-identify (IRAN);  and while the order of IRAN does actually feel more intuitive to me, the acronym is less alluring than RAIN.

END of distraction.

Eckhart Tolle, latter-day purveyor of Buddho-Christo-Sufist insight, in works such as The Power of Now, uses the phrase 'what you accept, you go beyond' (or something like it).  The idea is not to passively sit back and accept abhorrent conditions, and do nothing about them.  Rather, the pilgrim is instructed to open to the conditions - however beautiful or tragic they may be - just as they present in the moment.  To complain that 'it shouldn't be like this' is to invite suffering, and typically does not lead to wise - and possibly corrective - action.  Accepting the present to be just as it is, allows us to go beyond it, and even sometimes to act wisely.

Saints and monks through the ages have shown such peace and faith in the face of very grave situations.  I read of a Tibetan nun, who, while being tortured, says prayers of loving-kindness for her Chinese captors.  Her mouth is taped shut, but still her lips keep moving.  Clearly, her life of practice in opening to the present moment - come what may - enables her to recognize the dire situation she faces, and instead of wishing it to be other than it is - other than what it simply and irrevocably is at that moment - proceeds instead directly to the only positive action she knows and is able to accomplish.

In our day to day lives, we are generally spared from such harsh or life-threatening situations.  To take a recent commonplace example in my life, I had lost an important piece of jewelry.  You see, our wedding was coming up, only days away, and the evening before, Dwan had asked on the phone - tongue mildly in cheek, though past experience gave her question at least some relevance - 'do you still have your ring?'  I'd said sure - which was technically true - but in fact I couldn't say just then exactly where it was.  Or even approximately.  So I looked and looked and looked, till my eyesight and body were exhausted.  Brushed my teeth, and dropped into bed.

The next morning, I resumed the search, now more frantic, our nuptial event just one day away.  I finally dropped into the recliner, closed my eyes, and a light 'rain' began to fall, almost spontaneously:  Recognize the bodily sensations I perceived due to this loss - a sort of weary tightness in the belly, harshness in the jaw, etc.  Allow the situation to be as it is, for try as I might to change or resist it, this situation was exactly as it was in that moment.  Even my resistance to the situation was just as it was.  Investigate the myriad emotions and mind-states which arose - regret, self-recrimination (how stupid of me!), etc.  Non-identify, or let go of attachment to these emotions, sensations, and thoughts, which you can imagine is much easier said than done.  However, simply opening to such an intention - to see a larger whole in which these stories played themselves out - allowed me to feel just how I was identified with, or attached to, these conditions.  And with such recognition came a release, a letting-go, even if only partially.  As waves and ocean currents rage with a tropical storm on the surface, deep down the fish swim through waters as calmly as ever.

After this little 'meditation,' I dropped to my knees, and crawled over to a sort of hutch/secretary in my bedroom.  I'd already looked in it, so didn't really know what I was doing.  I opened the right cabinet door, and pulled out a small drawstring pouch made in Nepal (there are several other such keepsakes in there).  I could feel there was something in the pouch, reached in, and pulled out a small black velveteen ring sleeve.  Now the warm summer rain felt like elixir.

Though I lost and found one other item this summer in like fashion, I also was unable to find something rather valuable after trying the 'rain method.'  (Fortunately I did accidentally come across it two months after losing it.)  I suppose that two out of three ain't bad, but I think the larger point is, though the process is a rich one, attaching to an outcome - such as locating a lost object - can be perilous.  What we may find instead is a heart that feels, eyes that may cry or smile, and a mind that dreams.  It seems that opening up to our present moment is never wrong.

Tick-Tock

I enter triage, take my number, and sit down.
The man seated to my right is large - in a healthy way - his expression placid and warm.
Drifting through space, I'd felt his gravitational pull:  his planet, his star so familiar.
Perched on each knee is a toddler, leaning back.

   As if from a ventriloquist comes the sound -
   a loud, erratic clock.  The man's eyebrows move:
   not in time,
   as if to bury the trick even deeper.
   It seems unlikely - here, in the hushed and busy  
   hospital - but clearly, it emanates
   from this gentle giant.
   Gentle, timeless giant.
   The sound seems to placate the boys, an ancient lullaby.
   Until the older brother asks - he is three, maybe four -

What's taking mommy so long?
The soft, almost whispered response comes tumbling, bathing baritone like swich licour.
The man and sons rise to fetch her, she's just done at the
window with her chemo appointment check-in;
they walk away, small hands in large.

Petrus

Early this summer on a Saturday morning, Miller had a Bat Mitzvah service to attend up in Potomac, a neighborhood northwest of Bethesda.  I dropped him off and drove to nearby Carderock, a favorite 'natural area' destination of mine.  Occasionally I will walk some small portion of the Billy Goat Trail along the sometimes mighty, sometimes docile Potomac river.

However, this time I felt drawn instead to the considerable rock outcroppings.  There were at least two climbers out with ropes and harnesses.  The morning was cool and clear.  I set down my cane, and 'bouldered' up to something of a ledge, perhaps chest high from the trail, and sat, legs crossed.  I was out of view of the climbers, though their voices drifted over me.  "Belay on," said one woman's voice, then "on belay" came her companion's reply.  Then just their chatting - softer than the climbing calls.  The rope they were using was anchored on my side of the massive dark gray rock face.

A few hikers passed right in front of me, their tongue foreign - maybe Dutch.  Did they ask, 'what's with the old gray Buddha?'  Very doubtful they would.  In my world travels, it often seemed that only Americans would assume that nobody understands them and say such dorky things out loud, right in front of people.  (However, one technical caveat must be remembered, namely, that I am able to understand at most German, Nepali, and the various dialects of English.)  And it is assuredly a rather harsh observation, one I remember having as a young man in Germany:  taking pride as I'd blend in with language, dress, and the mannerisms of the modern Teuton; and cringing at the midwestern tourists talking in the U-bahn about what? - the 'stupid conductor?' - or some other such inanity.  Over half a lifetime ago.  I should know better by now:  insensitive dorks aren't just American, they come in all nationalities!  Ba dump bump.  No, the wisdom of years seems to be that people aren't so easily defined by stereotypes.  That these stereotypes aren't solid as rock.

Sitting for some minutes, eyes closed, a cool breeze, no mosquitos or bugs of any kind - a minor miracle.  The voices of the two climbers.  And then falling into the memory of lying on top of a similar promontory high above 'Deep Creep' in Running Springs, a small resort town where my family lived for a couple years in the San Gabriel mountains of Southern California.  A place where friends and I - age ten - would fish, swim, climb, skip rocks - boy stuff.  Or sometimes I would go there alone, and having swum in the pool below, climb up, lay my skinny belly on the wide smooth boulder and dry off.

That rock, this rock, several lifetimes ago.  These rocks seem so ageless and timeless, but I've heard that the terrestrial variety aren't really so very old.  Moon rocks, for instance, can be over a billion years old.  The rocks we climb on, or collect and save on top of our dressers - these are relative newbies, having been heaved up from volcanoes, eroded, crushed a few million years, and metamorphosed many times again before we come to see them.  Rest on them.  Hold them.

What do we really see in them?  Are we looking into and feeling that timelessness we all carry, our Buddha nature, our grace of God, our Allahu akbar?


Rock of ages, cleft for me...we are stardust, we are golden.

I.V. Drip

Just heard a stunning This American Life (TAL) episode about the patent wars raging in the Bay Area.  Stunning on many levels.

Let me begin with an innocent tale of a cutting edge company I read about some years ago, Intellectual Ventures.  The idea was to bring together varied thinkers from the tops of their fields, and convene them around a table, to discuss real problems and issues of the day.  There might be an oncologist, an engineer, a physicist, a molecular biologist, a visual artist, etc.  And on the agenda might be a range of topics including MS, or breast cancer, say.  The neurologist might lead off with the state of science surrounding MS to date - or perhaps just a description of the demyelination process.  This is then bandied about by the meeting of disparate minds - the sculptor might ask what in fact nerve tissue actually feels like, in a tactile sense, while the engineer might ask exactly by what mechanism the flow of blood into the brain is 'filtered' and prevents immune cells from gaining access in one without the disease.  A discussion might ensue that opens up new directions for further research, or even for bona fide applications.  Which then might be patented and sold, leading to the betterment of the condition of us all.

What a lovely idea I thought.  But according to the TAL episode, Intellectual Ventures (IV) has become possibly the biggest and most powerful 'patent troll' in Silicon Valley.  Very few of their own patents have come to see the light of day, and in fact the company now spends most of its resources purchasing patents from other inventors, and selling them to other companies which use the same or similar technologies.  Or more often suing them.  Many of these companies are hit broadside; and faced with possible ruin of their small startups, will agree to settle out of court rather than face millions in legal fees.  Meanwhile, IV was started with billions of dollars of venture capital, investments which are hoping for huge returns.  IV has found that being a patent troll a far more lucrative endeavor than the actual pursuit of ideas to solve problems and alleviate suffering which got them started.  Of course they don't admit this, and their VEEP's and PR people claim that their efforts do even more to encourage innovation.

The investigative journalism provided by TAL, however, presents a far different conclusion, even suggesting that, to the contrary, patent troll's (especially ones 'on steroids' as IV is described), actually inhibit innovation.  Amazing story, I recommend it to all.  Archived TAL stories can be found at thislife.org beginning a week after airing, and listened to on-line, or pod-casted, for free.

Does IV break any laws?  If not, one wonders whether the patent system in general should be reworked so that innovation is truly encouraged once again, as it may have, in days of yore.