Friday, January 22, 2021

The Muse of Lady Liberty: Part I

Plato noted a particular risk for tyrants: that they would be surrounded in the end by yes-men and enablers. Aristotle worried that, in a democracy, a wealthy and talented demagogue could all too easily master the minds of the populace. Aware of these risks and others, the framers of the Constitution instituted a system of checks and balances. The point was not simply to ensure that no one branch of government dominated the others but also to anchor in institutions different points of view.
 Timothy Snyder “The American Abyss”
     New York Times Magazine Jan 17, 2021
Statue of Freedom at the top
of the Capitol Dome

Seize the Moment
But the spirits of those who die before their time will live, for the sake of our present incompleteness, in dark hordes in the rafters of our houses and besiege our ears with urgent laments, until we grant them redemption…
            —C.G. Jung The Red Book p. 297
We are in a major moment in American History. We have seen an Insurrection Breach the Capitol and had to realize how fragile our democracy is. Lady Liberty lay bleeding in the halls of Congress. But then, just two weeks later, She picked Herself up, got Herself all decked out in as a Native American Warrior Woman, and presided over a peaceful—if armed to the teeth—Inauguration Day at the very place—the scene of the crime—where she had been rampaged.

We who have survived the last four Years of Outrage, the Year of the Pandemic, of Economic Collapse, and the final insult—the Insurrectionary Breach of our Capitol—have been taken on a terrifying but illuminating tour of the Great American Shadow. In this underworld, where all that has been denied, not taught in our schools, forgotten, lied about in our history—the genocide of our indigenous population, slavery, Jim Crow, voter suppression, the theft of wealth from those who built our country, our Capitol, our White House, shows up in the cultural unconscious as furious, grieving shades, who haunt us, possess us, take on demonic forms.

The Statue of Armed Freedom, a manifestation of Lady Liberty, which graces the top of the Capitol Dome, holds some of the shadow truths we like to forget. She was created just before the Civil War, when the Capitol Dome was being rebuilt. Her creation was facilitated by a brilliant slave, Philip Reid, “who came with the idea of using a pulley to move the statue, was then paid $1.25 a day by the federal government to ‘keep up fires under the moulds,’ according to the architects records.” His owner pocketed the money. But when the final cast of the Statue was raised in 1863, Reid was a free man. It took until 2014 for his contribution to be recognized in a ceremony on the anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. 

When you look at this statue, you’ll notice that Freedom wears feathers in her hair, and a beautiful blanket wrapped around her, Indian style. Wikipedia comments that many who see her assume she is a Native American. Was the designer, Thomas Crawford, haunted by the spirits of the indigenous dead, who died before their time?

Statue of Freedom

With Lady Liberty, we find ourselves blinking in the light of a cold winter Inauguration Day—peaceful—though filled with armed soldiers. We are disoriented, relieved, joyous but still afraid. Will we return to our denial, our lies to ourselves, our unwillingness to do the hard work of Truth and Reconciliation? Will the demons return to do more damage? Or will we seize the moment, as our new President urges, to make America live up to her promise and bring Lady Liberty’s gifts to all our people?

In this blog, which I’ve been fussing with for months, I’m seeking the roots of the Great American Trouble with Truth, as experienced in my life and in that of my husband, Dan Safran. I’m covering a lot of ground, so this will come in several installments.


Attempted Insurrection Breaches the Capitol: January 6th 2021
All Lost Causes find their lifeblood in lies, big and small, lies born of beliefs in search of a history that can be forged into a story and mobilize masses of people to act politically, violently and in the name of ideology.
            —David W. Blight “Will the Myth of Trumpism Endure?”
                New York Times Sunday Review 1/10/21
Recent American history has been a runaway train, driven faster and faster by a Berserker Conductor until it flew off the rails and threw us passengers into violently splintered versions of reality. We who sit in the progressive cars of the train were flung out of our familiar compartments into an unknown landscape, one in which we seesawed from euphoria to outrage and terror, from Georgia giving us two democratic senators—the first black man—Raphael Warnock— and the first Jewish man—Jon Ossoff—elected from that state—to the carnage at the Capitol. Now the Democrats control the Senate by the slimmest of margins—requiring the vote of our first African American, first Asian American, first female Vice President—to break a tie. This gives us a bit of leverage and hope that the Biden–Harris administration will be able to deal with the overwhelming issues that the outgoing administration has neglected or abused—the pandemic, economic inequality, millions of citizens out of work, the Racial Justice Movement and Climate Change. We weren’t given long to take pleasure in that hard won victory, to praise the activism of Stacy Abrams and her dedicated volunteers who brought out the vote, or to relish the realization that Mitch McConnell will no longer be able to block us at every pass.

Georgia’s Lady Liberty
Photo by Jim Bowen

Notice, this Lady Liberty is wearing a “Liberty Cap,” following the Roman tradition of wearing such a cap to indicate being a freed slave.

Our Berserker Conductor—He Who Would “Repeal Reality”—to borrow Nancy Pelosi’s phrase—purveyor of the Big Lie that it was he who won the election—invited and incited his followers to join the insurrection that took over the Capitol. This horde of militias and Trumpists came straight out of America’s worst nightmares—they bore arms, waved Confederate flags, dressed as eagles, clowns, wore face paint and horns, wore “Camp Auschwitz” hoodies and tee shirts that read “Six Million Jews Were Not Enough.” They chanted “Stop the Steal!” and “1776!”

Capitol Riot

Wait. What? Let’s step out of the chaos for a moment to reflect. What possessed the Trumpist insurrectionists to chant the year of the American Revolution? Our country’s mythic heroes are the rebels who stood up to that Tyrant, King George of Britain, and, in 1776, penned a litany of accusations we call the Declaration of Independence against the King’s “repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States” which is read religiously every July 4th on NPR. Our American rebels created a democracy in a world full of monarchies. How did this horde of wannabe revolutionaries get the story turned inside out—rebelling against democracy to support a would-be Tyrant? Were they fueled by the misinformation perpetrated by a lying leader and by social media set up to cultivate echo chambers of opinion without regard to the Truth? Or were they put into trance by a Cult Leader, following him into a conspiracy laced splinter faction of lost souls in which his enemies are the Devil’s Spawn, the rapists of Lady Liberty, and he is the only one who can save them?


Back at the Capitol, the would be King had promised he’d lead his followers in person, but true to form, could only be found on Twitter until Twitter cancelled him. His mob of Proud Boys and other White Supremacists, folks who buy into his Big Lies, had set up a noose to make their point very clear. They breached the barricades, climbed over walls, used bicycle racks to break glass and bust through doors, attacked Capitol Police with American flagpoles, fire extinguishers and bear mace, threatened news reporters, Senators, Congress People and their staff members. They planted a sign reading “Pelosi is Satan” in a conspicuous spot. The Senate had to make an archetypal descent into the underworld of the building, where they were held in a secure area.

The mob

Members of the House sheltered in place, cowering under their seats as the mob tried to break into their chamber. They pushed heavy chests against the doors to keep the horde from storming in. They put on gas masks to protect themselves from tear gas the police had deployed in the Rotunda. They were finally evacuated just before the mob entered the chamber and they too made their descent into a secure underworld where 200 members were piled into a small room. This outrage was not only the result of our Berserker King rousing his followers to an insurrection against the country he was supposedly leading and defending, but of a large group of Republican Senators and Congress People poised to throw out the legal and valid election results of millions of voters, simply because they didn’t like the outcome. Their accusations of voter fraud had been adjudicated in the courts and been thrown out over and over again as having no merit.


You wonder why I keep using the word Berserker? Berserkers were ancient Viking warriors, who wore bear skins, or nothing at all, drove themselves into a rages to prepare for battle. It seems the most appropriate words for what we’ve experienced with our 45th President and his followers.

Berserker

On that wild train ride some of the outgoing President’s most loyal supporters were suddenly thrown to the other side. Vice President Pence refused to join those who were objecting to the certification. He insisted that his role was to do the bidding of the American people. And Senator McConnell said that hijacking the voting process would “send Democracy into a death spiral.” It was too little too late. On the Day of the Attempted Insurrection American Democracy was a train wreck—lying in pieces all over the land. Since then I’ve been working on this blog to try to get my bearings. The news keeps shifting, changing. Where are we? Where are we headed? That day looks worse and worse as more details are gathered. For example, it seems that some Republicans gave insurrectionists a reconnaissance tour of the building the night before the coup attempt, and that other Republicans refused to wear masks in the tight quarters where members of the House had to huddle and to share the air. Several who were there have since tested positive for Covid.

In hindsight it seems a miracle that no one from the press or from Congress was seriously hurt. However, many were badly traumatized. As the call to impeach the Inciter–in–Chief, again, was addressed in the House a week after the Coup attempt, the word was that many Republican members of Congress were afraid to take a stand against the would–be Tyrant, not only for political reasons—they were afraid for their physical safety and that of their families. Lady Liberty lies bleeding in the Temple of Democracy.

Noose

How in the world was this violent breach allowed to happen? Nobody has been allowed into the Capitol since the beginning of the pandemic. These confederate flag waving terrorists were not wearing masks. Yet doors were opened for them. Some Capitol policemen took selfies with them. The murderous mob, shouting “Hang Pence!” and “Where’s Nancy?” was actively hunting down our Vice President and the Speaker of our House. They rifled through Nancy Pelosi’s papers, put their feet on her desk. They defecated in the hallways. Their purpose was to desecrate the People’s House. Quick thinking by the Secret Service and Capitol police saved our elected representatives from being slaughtered. Most of the line of presidential succession was in that building—they got Pence, Harris, Pelosi and Hoyer to safety, protected the Senate and the House. There was hand–to–hand combat with vengeful invaders. One brave Capitol policeman, Eugene Goodman, a Black man and a Veteran, led the mob away from its prey by risking being its prey. They chased him upstairs, downstairs and through hallways as he craftily steered them away from the Senate Chamber, where members were still being evacuated, and showed them the exit.

We all saw this train wreck coming. The Inciter–in–Chief had been tweeting for weeks that Jan. 6th would be “wild” in Washington. Why wasn’t there more protection and defense for our lawmakers and journalists? Any peaceful Black Lives Matter demonstration would not gotten anywhere near the Capitol. I shudder to think what would have happened to them. And those Proud Boys, tough guys, who desecrated the Senate chambers and sat in Nancy Pelosi’s office chair, were sent off with a kiss and a declaration of love from our White Supremacist–in–Chief, who told them it was “time to go home.”

The contrast!

Thankfully, no groups from the left came out to counter the insurrectionaries. But all of America was glued to phones and computers, watching in horror and dismay, as the Great American train crashed into our Democratic ideals, and is lying in pieces all over our land. How did we get here? Who allowed a Berserker King of Bedlam to drive our train?

Bobby Kennedy for President
This is America. This has always been America. If this were not America, this wouldn’t have happened. It’s time we face this ugly truth; let it sink into the marrow of our bones, let it move us to action.
            —Roxane Gay New York Times Sunday Review Jan. 10, 2021
Who allowed a Berserker King of Bedlam to drive our train? I have been pondering that question since the 2016 election. It was brought into focus after the 2020 election, when my husband, Dan Safran, and I watched a remarkable documentary, made in 2018— Bobby Kennedy for President—which took us both back to our youth. Dan and I are both war babies—he was born in 1939; I was born in 1943. Radio newscasts about the war are the background noise of our earliest memories and terrors. We were Jewish babies, breathing in our parents’ anxiety and horror as the realities of what was happening to European Jewry began to be understood. 

Now our grandchildren are young adults. Many of them have had their lives stalled by the pandemic, by the train wreck of American leadership which has failed to provide a coherent plan to protect all of us from the virus. Our grandchildren’s college years or career development have been rudely interrupted. Our hearts break for them. As we watched footage from 1962—Jack Kennedy and his brother Bobby stood facing each other as the horrifying reality of the Cuban Missile Crisis sank in— it was as though a portal had opened for both of us, into our young adult selves.

RFK and JFK facing each other
during Cuban Missile Crisis

At that moment in time, we were both early in our first marriages. I was pregnant, and terrified that the world would end before my child could be born. Dan and his new wife Barbara, were at Bryn Mawr College, studying Social Work. Dan was President of the Student Body of the Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research. Earlier, in college, he had helped organize Students for a Sane Nuclear Policy. He had protested nuclear testing. He remembers a gathering of his fellow Bryn Mawr students, including Barbara, all in a state of terror, as they contemplated the unthinkable possibility of nuclear war. For thirteen days the world held its breath as Soviet nuclear missiles intruded into our hemisphere. Cuba had suffered an attempted invasion by the United States—the Bay of Pigs debacle. They asked the Soviets to protect them with missiles. Two nuclear nations faced each other. How could this issue be resolved without risking the end of the world? Bobby, who was good at diplomacy, came up with the trade off—the Russians remove the missiles, in exchange, we won’t invade Cuba. Dan and I realized that our souls had been badly bruised during those thirteen days, when we were so young, so frightened that we would never get to live out our destinies as the fate of humanity hung by a thread.

In a helpful synchronicity, we heard Lawrence O’Donnell of MSNBC, commenting on the Day of the Attempted Coup. It was fourteen days before the Inauguration of Biden and Harris. O’Donnell noted that Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer are old enough to remember those 13 days in 1962. They don’t want to relive that terror, and that is why they were pushing for an early departure for the outgoing Berserker. This helped me realize the obvious— our whole generation was shaped by the events of the 1960s, which were both an inspiration and a train wreck for America.

One year later President Kennedy was assassinated—a terrible crime that has never been solved. Two years after that Malcolm X was assassinated. Fifty-five years after his murder his case has been reopened by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office—there are ongoing questions about who murdered him. Three years after Malcolm’s murder Martin Luther King was assassinated. The F.B.I. fingered James Earl Ray, a career criminal and supporter of segregationist George Wallace. Ray has said he was not guilty. The family of Martin Luther King believes to this day that Ray was framed. There is evidence, they say of a conspiracy including the Mafia and the government. Two months after that it was Bobby Kennedy’s turn to be assassinated. Again, the accused gunman, Sirhan Sirhan, a slight Palestinian with no history of criminal behavior, has always claimed his innocence; there are many theories of who might really be responsible.

John F. Kennedy


Malcolm X

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Robert F. Kennedy

We on the progressive side of the political world are suspicious of contemporary conspiracy theories. They are mostly Big Lies, devoid of any factual truth. But what if there were actual conspiracies in the ‘60s to assassinate all the potent leaders of those days? What if we have lived with Big Lies all our adult lives, most of us in denial of the terrible truth—we have never come to grips with how those murders happened, we have never had a Truth and Reconciliation process to make sense of our history.

Watching Bobby Kennedy for President, I was suddenly overcome with a wave of grief for our generation—how traumatized we’d all been by the assassinations of our leaders—those who carried our hopes and dreams that we could work through America’s great and terrible evil—the crimes of four hundred years of slavery, and the genocide perpetrated against our indigenous population. America’s efforts at Reconstruction in the late nineteenth century were derailed by White Supremacists who took away the voting rights of African American men, stole their promised forty acres and a mule, stole their rights and their power in their personal and political lives. The civil war had been fought to right the wrongs of slavery. But new forms of slavery emerged—Jim Crow, segregation, voter suppression, redlining, block busting, mass incarceration—all manipulated by white supremacist policies pretending to be normal politics. In 1962, Jack Kennedy and his brother Bobby sent federal marshals and U.S. Army troops to protect James Meredith, an African American who had enrolled in the University of Mississippi.

James Meredith at Old Miss

There was enormous resistance to desegregation, though the Supreme Court had made school desegregation the law of the land in 1954. Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy all challenged the web of lies and racist ideas which were running the country; they dared to shine a light into what kept us in the dark about our own shadow. No wonder all those issues they spoke of so eloquently, the issues that Bobby came to understand so profoundly as he ran for president in 1968—starving children in Kentucky and Mississippi, inequality, segregation, poll taxes, lynchings—the entitlement claimed by rich white men over men of color and men who were poor—fell into an abyss of history.

RFK during his 1968 presidential run

Bobby allowed himself to change, to become a different man, as the terrible unfolding of his life ground him down he opened his heart to grief and to the terrible truths about America. His friend John Lewis was with him in Indianapolis on the day Martin Luther King was assassinated. Bobby was slated to speak to a mostly black crowd. Lewis told him he had to tell the people what happened. Here is a small part of what Bobby said, just two months before his own assassination
I have bad news for you, for all of our fellow citizens, and people who love peace all over the world, and that is that Martin Luther King was shot and killed tonight.

Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice for his fellow human beings, and he died because of that effort.

In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it is perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in.

For those of you who are black--considering the evidence there evidently is that there were white people who were responsible--you can be filled with bitterness, with hatred, and a desire for revenge. We can move in that direction as a country, in great polarization--black people amongst black, white people amongst white, filled with hatred toward one another.

Or we can make an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to understand and to comprehend, and to replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand with compassion and love. For those of you who are black and are tempted to be filled with hatred and distrust at the injustice of such an act, against all white people, I can only say that I feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I had a member of my family killed, but he was killed by a white man. But we have to make an effort in the United States, we have to make an effort to understand, to go beyond these rather difficult times…

My favorite poet was Aeschylus. He wrote: "In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God."
RFK speaking to the crowd
in Indianapolis

We in the field of psychology understand that if you can’t confront your past, what has shaped you, what has traumatized you, if you allow family secrets to fester in the dark, if you live in denial and complacency, the demons will out. They’ll get you in the end. You’ll find yourself reenacting the horrors that were done to you. At the level of the culture those nasty shadows will grab the steering wheel and drive the country’s train like a Berserker Conductor and send us all off our rails.

How do we take up the truth again, deal with the history we’ve denied and revised? The light we can see now comes from Georgia, where Stacy Abrams and her group of activists and organizers just won us three important elections—one, in November 2020, for President Biden, the others, in January 2021 for Senator Warnock and Senator Ossoff? How do we keep that flame burning? That is when it occurred to me that I should talk to my favorite ‘60s activist, sitting on the couch beside me, Dan Safran, about the history he experienced.

RFK shot (June 4, 1968)



To Be Continued.

Tuesday, September 15, 2020

The Muse of Fire

The Sister from Below is Pleased to Announce

A Political Poetry Reading

Naomi Ruth Lowinsky and Dale Jensen
will read from their chapbooks


Oct. 1, 2020 7-8:30 pm

To attend please register at:


The reading will be available on YouTube after Oct. 1: https://tinyurl.com/newsfrommuse

* * * * * * * 

The Muse of Fire

And so we had to taste hell
C.G. Jung The Red Book

Photo by Jessica Christian, The San Francisco Chronicle

Rage

the haters will crawl out from under their rocks
the “white only” nation come out of the woodwork
You won’t know whose country you’re in

                                “Wishing in the Woods     with Hillary"

We wake to the taste of ash in our mouths. The sky has an ominous sepia glow. Day never breaks. Our devices tell us its morning, but it is dark as night. The air quality index is dangerously high. We are filled with a primal fear our ancestors would recognize—what if the sun doesn’t rise?

What world are we in? Some call it Apocalypse. Some call The End Times. Some say it’s the fever dream of our Mother Earth—grievously ill. Some call it Wednesday, September 9, 2020 in California’s worst fire season yet.

Photo by Jessica Christian, The San Francisco Chronicle

Dan and I have been sheltering in place since the Ides of March. We’ve developed the rituals the lucky ones can afford in these times. I work from home. We have weekly family gatherings on Zoom. We get our groceries delivered and our kids help us out with farmer’s market produce and runs to Costco. We’ve learned to live in an introverted seclusion that has its pleasures. But crises keep erupting like new heads on the monster. Count them:

There’s the climate change crisis. That’s been a worry for at least forty years, though it has only recently been taken seriously, at least by some of us. In California decades of drought caused by rising temperatures have left the forests and the wild lands urban interface desiccated—ripe for wildfire.

Photo by Gabrielle Lurie, The San Francisco Chronicle

There’s the political crisis we’ve been in since the 2016 elections, which many of us think were stolen with help from the Russians or by voter suppression—or both—giving us a berserker President who yanked our country out of the Paris Climate Accords because, he claims, climate change is a hoax.

Since March we’ve been in the grip of an invisible killer—intent on inflaming our lungs— who has driven us into our caves. This too, says our leader, is a hoax, and the fault of the Chinese. According to Bob Woodward’s new book Rage, the President told him—on tape in February—that he lied to America about how deadly the virus is.

Rage is the right word for this time. It’s a fire that burns hot in me and everyone I know, outraged and beside ourselves with the corruption, cruelty, mendacity and greed of this administration. Rage is the fire that engulfed the country when we were witness to George Floyd’s terrible death, which ripped the veils of denial about systemic racism off many people’s eyes. We had a moment of hope. There were people of all ages and ethnicities in the streets, protesting the ongoing crisis of black and brown people murdered by police.


We began acknowledging inequities, how many more black and brown people were dying of the coronavirus, how much more they suffered the financial fiasco caused by a pandemic run amuck, with no leadership or responsibility taken by the Federal Government.

In the perverse way new heads keep growing on that monster, we watched in horror as peaceful protests were broken up by brown shirted officials without identification who arrested demonstrators for no reason, or by right wing thugs, whose fury was ignited by the racist–in–chief. He blames racial tensions on the left, especially on anti-fascists, known as Antifa, which makes no sense, since Antifa is not an organization, has no mission statement, no meetings, is essentially a right wing fantasy. He calls systemic racism—you guessed it—a hoax, and in his inimitable way, steals the media thunder and turns the protests into riots. The man is a walking crisis. Whatever he touches explodes in Rage.

Symphony Fantastique by Brad Tepaske

And then, as though the weather were enacting the dangerous fires of our politics, California was struck by lightening—1100 strikes—causing hundreds of wildfires in lands that hadn’t burned in years. Many had to evacuate. Many lost their homes. This in the midst of a frightening heat wave that kept us indoors. Not to mention the heavy smoke in the air—full of toxins, the remains of people’s houses, the remains of beloved forest lands. What has happened to temperate golden California? Our habitat is turning against us. We bought more air filters and turned up the air conditioning.


Photos by Scott Strazzante, San Francisco Chronicle
 
Crises collided with crises, as though the monster’s many heads were attacking each other. We watched our grandchildren struggle to find their way as colleges sent them home to study in isolation on screens, and their paths were obscured by ash. We worried about those less fortunate than we are. There is an ongoing housing crisis in California. As people lost their unemployment insurance and the extra money the government had been providing, how would they pay their rent? The Republicans in Congress are dead set against helping the economy by helping the poor. We have an ongoing crisis of homelessness. How can the jobless pay their rent? Where are they supposed to go? Live with relatives and give each other the virus? The words of the psalmist come to mind:

Lord… How long shall the wicked exult?
They gush out, they speak arrogantly;
All the workers of iniquity bear themselves loftily.
They crush thy people, O Lord,
And afflict Thy heritage.
            Psalm 44: 3–7



The Surrealist by Victor Brauner (1947)  

Cultivating Fire

You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. It provides the opportunity to do things that were not possible to do before. Rahm Emanuel

In another life—post election 2008—in another crisis—the Great Recession—Obama’s Chief of Staff made this wise remark. But he said “crisis” in the singular. By my count I’ve just named 10 crises, as though it’s the Passover Seder and we are naming the plagues:

1. Climate Change
2. The Pandemic
3. Systemic Racism
4. Economic Inequality
5. Right Wing Extremism
6. Drought
7. Wildfires
8. Homelessness
9. Unhealthy Air
10. The Hoax in the White House

How do we confront all of these raging interlocking crises at one time? When I feel overwhelmed and unsure of how to proceed, I often look up the word I’m pondering in the etymological dictionary. It’s my way of calling up the magic of the ancestors, the wisdom embedded in the roots of language, to help me. “Crisis” is related to words that mean to separate, to discriminate, to judge. It’s also related to the word “riddle.” This calms me. I recognize that we need to use our fire strategically, that we need to separate careful judgment from our terror, we need to acknowledge the puzzling nature of the riddle of our times. Our ancestors have been through many crises. They knew fire as a deity, as a trickster, as a healer; they knew fire as trouble and fire as passion, fire as destroyer and fire as what cooks your food. “It is through fire, “wrote Eliade,” that Nature is changed, making it the “basis of the most ancient magics” (The Book of Symbols).


Fire, we are told by indigenous people, can be cultivated to tend the land so there won’t be wildfires. What has happened in our politics is a wildfire, because we haven’t done controlled burns—we haven’t faced our history, taken responsibility for genocide, slavery, racism and the catastrophic destruction of habitat and species. Many among us are engaged in that work, but not yet the powers that be—the ones with the money, the media, and the wherewithal to change things. As we approach the 2020 election I’m counting on the fire in all of our bellies, and the clear judgment and discrimination to sort right from wrong, corruption from policy, greedy self interest from the common good, our own habits and appetites from the needs of the planet, which must be obeyed if we are to survive.

We heard the fire and the judgment in both Michelle and Barack Obama’s speeches at the democratic convention. We heard Kamala Harris’ blazing tongue taking on the outrages of the current administration. And we heard Joe Biden’s righteous rage about the hoaxes perpetrated by the current president, his refusal to fight the virus in a strategic way, using the judgments of science, his refusal to confront the horror of so many people dead and gone, who had to die alone, because of the virulence of the crowned virus. Those that survive them, couldn’t say goodbye. Where are the rituals of mourning? Where is the wailing and the moaning? Where are the lowered flags? Where is the reading of names? How long would it take to read 200,000 names? It’s Joe Biden who speaks for the lost and the grieving.

Grief and empathy are qualities of maturity, of the capacity to hold complexity. The Hoax in Chief beats an angry drum that rouses the fire in people to say “No!” Like a tantruming two-year old or a rebellious teenager you can’t make them wear masks, you can’t make them stay home to protect themselves and others. They insist on their guns and their freedom to spread germs. But they are not the majority. If we can use our cultivated fire to listen to those who are lost, angry, isolated, alienated, who feel that their vote won’t make a difference, to acknowledge their hurt and their losses, perhaps we can light their fire to vote for a better world.




Uprising Time in America


We’ll make a fire    talk story    remember our mothers’
invisible powers

            “Wishing in the Woods with Hillary”

I remember that night, long ago, in the Before Times—election night, November 2016. I drove home from work. Dan opened the door to the garage as I drove in. His eye-roll said it all. I gasped. I hadn’t wanted to believe what I’d begun to hear on the car radio. We weren’t about to drink that bottle of champagne. We were about to descend into a national hell realm with a misogynist rabble–rouser in chief who was about to destroy most of what we held sacred in our democracy. None of his atrocities seemed to leave a mark on him. His base was his base no matter how corrupt, cruel, shameless and crass he was. The refrain among my circle was: “How can 40% of Americans support these outrages?”

Four years later, having experienced horror upon horror, we need to remember the seats we won in 2018, because of our strategic use of political fire. We can’t allow our discouragement, our horror, our exhaustion to stomp out our fire. We need to do whatever is in us to do to win this election and begin to cut off the many heads of that monster. Whether its donating money, being a poll worker, sending postcards to voters in swing states, or telling everyone in your life to get out and vote, vote early! your involvement is essential. We are at a crossroads in the history of our country and our world. I think of James Baldwin’s remark about middle class white America:
…we must realize this,
that no other country in the world has been
so fat and so sleek and so safe and so happy,
and so irresponsible and so dead.
                        I Am Not Your Negro
This time of crisis is an opportunity for us to wake up to reality and begin protecting the earth, facing the truth of our history, taking seriously our responsibility to one another and to the common good. That is what I believe Hillary was working toward. That is what Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are working toward. They need our help.

My fire is poetry. I hope you’ll join us on October 1 to hear fiery political poems. One of them, “Wishing in the Woods With Hillary” is a women’s healing circle for her and for all of us, to reconnect to our Mother the Earth, to our values, to our backbones, to our sacred fires. I offer it to you:

Wishing in the Woods    With Hillary

I wish you’d surprise me    in the woods     Hillary as you did
that young mother     baby daughter on her back    the day after we lost you
for president     She took a selfie      My daughter sent me the link
Who will we be without you     in your moon bright pantsuit?
Who will stand up to the strongman    when Michelle and Barack
walk out of the White House    and speak to us only in dreams?

My wish is to see you among trees    their leaves gone gold
and crimson    or dry and dead on the earth      Your little dog
will sniff me    And you    who’ve been pilloried
your goodness debunked    as though working
for women and children    lacks gravitas      As though gravitas
is a loaded scrotum    whose natural enemy    is a woman with powers

Mother trudged from father’s study    to kitchen    to bathroom
and back when he whistled      I kid you not     He whistled      She typed
his manuscripts    cooked    bathed children    darned socks    Hillary
She was the air we breathed    the water we swam in
the earth we walked on    our hearth    our heart beat
Her powers invisible    to the kingdom of men      But O

she was fierce    about voting for you in ‘08
Now she’s lost    her way in the woods
lost my name     your fame    lost the whole world
of visible powers    lost to the outcry

the pandemonium    the kids walking out
of their schools shouting     “Not Our President”

The trees raise their boughs    and prophesy
When the moon comes closer to earth
than it’s been since the year you were born
the haters will crawl out from under their rocks
the “white only” nation come out of the woodwork
You won’t know whose country you’re in


Maybe our time is over    Hillary      All that e-mail evil
because you’re attached to your old familiar    that Blackberry
you refuse to waste time    learning new smartphones    I’m with you
But my dear    the world is passing us by     That young mother
in the woods     after we lost you for president    posted you
and her baby daughter on Facebook      It went viral     My daughter sent me the link

Hillary    my wish is to surround you    with sisters
of the secret grove     We’ll sit in a circle    kiss the earth
with our holiest lips      We’ll lift up our hands and pray

for your healing    our healing   the healing of the dis–
respected    disaffected    molested     undocumented    Jim Crowed
And let’s not forget    the trees     the bees    the buffalo

We’ll breathe into our bellies      Our backbones grow
into strong tree trunks    our roots descend       While I’m wishing
let’s throw in a chorus of frogs    and the smell
of the earth after rain      For it’s downgoing time    in America
underworld time    time to hide out in a cave
How I wish for your company in the dark    Hillary

We’ll make a fire    talk story    remember our mothers’
invisible powers      Maybe we’ll sink into dreamtime    Maybe Michelle
will visit      She’ll wear a wonderful dress    remind us of grace    of joy
She’ll speak from her heart      Though the weather’s becoming
a banshee goddess      Though the “white only” nation
is trolling the web      Though the emperor elect


is tweeting our downfall      My wish is      Remember
The way of women     is our way       The moon swells
the moon goes dark     pulling the tides    in and out
The way of the trees     is our way       So raise up
your branches    sisters    for we are one    gathering
Soon sap    will rise    apple trees flower

We’ll weave us a canopy    all over this land
It will be uprising time    once again
                in America




Sunday, July 5, 2020

The Muse of Breath

The Sister from Below is pleased to announce the publication of



Dreaming Night Terrors

Political Poems
on the eve of the 2020 Election

Who will speak truth    to the Master    of Mendacity?
“The Spirit of Elijah Cummings Speaks”

Stuck in the cloistered terror of a pandemic, it’s hard to remember the brawling days before and after the 2016 election, the furies released by the Kavanaugh hearings, our stunned grief at the death of Elijah Cummings in October 2019. That seems lifetimes ago. Yet the 2020 election, perhaps the most consequential of our lives, is looming.

Dreaming Night Terrors, is a chapbook of political poems from the time before Covid 19, before the murder of George Floyd and the protests about police brutality and American racism. Written in outrage and sorrow, these poems are Naomi Ruth Lowinsky’s offering to the spirit of Elijah Cummings. He advised us to “speak truth to abuse.” He reminded us that our resilience comes from our constitution, which is based on the separation of powers. Were he alive today he would urge us to organize, raise money, write rants, vote, do everything it’s in us to do to remove the current administration, its chaos and corruption, its mendacity, cruelty and cult of personality. This is our moment, even as we shelter in place and gather on Zoom, to defend our democracy, honor Elijah, and reclaim our responsibilities to each other and to the earth.

############

The Muse of Breath

Like Emmet Till in the casket, the Floyd
image made clear no black person could be safe.
Carol Anderson
author of White Rage
NY Times Review, June 28th 2020

Emmet Till painting by Lisa Whittington

(Dreaming Night Terrors is dedicated to the spirit of my father, Edward Elias Lowinsky, whose politics were the hard-won truths of a refugee from the European slaughter of his people.)

Breath is Spirit
Father, your spirit takes over my reverie with ravenous cravings for news—of the pandemic, of the protests, of the tsunami of change that is sweeping away the world as we know it. You insist that I track the terrible stories, make something of them—poems, blogs, a chapbook. You keep disturbing my introverted sheltering in place, stirring my outrage. It’s been a half life since we talked. Come to think of it, have we ever really talked, ever really had a dialogue? You lectured. I listened. My responses were always carefully crafted not to incite your rage. My spirit hid out in your presence. Your spirit wandered off into the Beyond. I always think of Jung’s mother telling him that his father died in time for him to become himself. You did that for me, and I’m grateful. You haven’t been around me much in all those years. Why are you making such a ruckus now?

Why do you assume it’s my call? You’re the one who pulls me out of the Beyond by breathing my spirit, obsessing about words and their roots, working for musicality in your language, seeking the humanism and creativity to which I gave my last breath—finding it even in the realm of politics. You speak of spirit, yours and mine. The word spirit comes from the latin “spirere,” to breath. You have come to a place in your life where you can breathe, fully, in the presence of my spirit. Perhaps my spirit has evolved to allow you the space to breathe.

I come to remind you it’s not enough to hide out from the virus. You need to speak out about the truths the virus reveals. How is it possible that America is still such a racist nation, that unarmed black people get killed for no good reason, that black and brown people die of Covid 19 so much more frequently than do white people? Didn’t we fight for racial justice in my lifetime? What happened to Martin Luther King’s long arc of the moral universe bending toward justice? Has it been twisted backwards?

Portrait of George Floyd by Eme Freethinker

Breath is Life
Father, your great grandchildren are out in the streets protesting. They’re wearing masks and chanting George’s Floyd’s last words: “I can’t breathe” as his life was crushed out of him by a policeman’s knee. Why? Because a cashier in a store thought he was passing a forged twenty dollar bill. His image is all over the world, including in Germany. He joins the list of names, tragic names that fill me with grief and shame: Eric Garner who died in a police chokehold, saying “I can’t breathe.” Why did the police stop him? On suspicion of selling individual cigarettes illegally. Breonna Taylor, a young Emergency Medical Technician, was shot eight times in her bed in the middle of the night. The police had bad information and no warrant. Ahmoud Arbery, a young man who liked to jog to clear his mind, was gunned down by two white men. His crime? Running while black. Walter Scott, stopped on some traffic technicality, was shot in the back running away. He was unarmed. Tamir Rice, a twelve year old boy, was playing with a toy gun. Shot by police. I could go on and on. All of these people would be alive today if they were not black. A sign seen at a recent protest: “Legalize Being Black!” How can this still be happening, in the America that saved you and our family?

Have you noticed all this commotion is about breath? Covid 19 is a respiratory disease. It attacks a person’s lungs. If you’re sick with Covid you can’t breathe. Racism is a disease of the collective breath. Air is something we all share. But racism stops the oppressed from breathing freely, from living their lives with joy and purpose. If you’re black or brown you’re constantly feeling under assault. George Floyd can’t breathe. Eric Garner can’t breathe. Black and brown people can’t breathe because they are always at risk. Their spirits are crushed by the burden of such hatred, such constant danger. What did I always tell you? Eternal Vigilance is the price of liberty. What happened to your vigilance?

When I saw you last, father, you were curled up like a fetus in that hospital bed. Reagan was on TV, well into his dog whistle assault on the multicultural America you fought for. You were too sick to rant against him. It’s been 35 years since the cancer devoured you, since the cancer of white supremacy devoured the civil rights and liberties we had so recently achieved. I kept thinking the backlash would be over soon, the Age of Aquarius would finally begin. Our liberal America would triumph. I wasn’t vigilant enough to get it—things kept getting worse. In the ‘90s, during the democratic presidency of Bill Clinton, welfare was undermined, and mass incarceration stole black men out of their families, destroying young lives and ripping up communities. So many young fathers were in jail for meaningless, made up offenses. You can imagine what this did to their women, their children, their breath, their spirit. I didn’t understand that racism in America is systemic, and that I, even with the best of intentions, am complicit with a system which privileges me over black and brown people. I didn’t comprehend the Phantom Narratives, to borrow my friend Sam Kimbles’ phrase, that had America and me, in their grip—the ghosts of the American civil war and the ghosts of the Shoah telling competing stories. I didn’t begin to see that we were witnessing a resurrection of the chain gang, of the plantation system with slaves, until recently. I’m ashamed that it took me so long.

It takes spirit to confront unwelcome truths.

A graphic account of America's love affair with prisons

Breath is a Song
Father, you were in my dream the other night. You were so young and tender, the age you were, 33, when you got your first job in America, teaching Musicology at Black Mountain College; the age you were when I was born. We are on a fast moving train, sitting at a table in the dining car. You are headed forwards, me backwards. I’m the age I was when I visited your deathbed. There is sweetness and ease between us. We are headed South, to North Carolina. I wake to remember my favorite story of you.

Photo of Father, Mother, my baby brother, Si, and me (1946)

I was a toddler. You were recently off the boat, finding sanctuary at a small liberal arts school in the South. Like most of your colleagues, you were a refugee Jew, escaped from the Shoah. I have fleeting memories of all those European musicians, painters, weavers, Bauhaus builders in world changing times speaking many languages in the cafeteria. We were a community spat out of the mouth of Europe’s monstrous hatred of the Jews, lucky to land here on the shores of Lake Eden. But this was the South. Jim Crow reigned, which outraged you. Looked to you like how Hitler treated the Jews. You invited Roland Hayes, an African American tenor, to sing at a desegregated concert. Hayes sang the European repertoire as well as spirituals. He had been received by the crowned heads of Europe, but given little attention in America. Mother told me that you and she were afraid the Ku Klux Klan would burn Black Mountain College down. That didn’t happen. Hayes gave his breath, his great spirit, to Schubert’s “Du Bist die Rüh” and to “Go Down Moses.” That was 1945. The war was still on. Your parents had died in the year of my birth. That must have been such an assault on your breath. How did you have the chutzpah to take on segregation?


I knew I just had to keep on breathing, keep on living my life. My mother died in a concentration camp in Holland. I didn’t know what had happened to my father, though later it appeared he was in a cattle car on the way to Auschwitz when the allies bombed the train. What a terrible irony, to think my father was killed by America. My spirit rose up in fury and told me to do something! So I desegregated Black Mountain College—the first school in the South to open its doors to black people of color. I did it with the Roland Hayes concert, and with a campaign to invite black students. It was my intention to help America honor its promise. I had so much faith in America. What happened? 

Black Mountain College faculty

Breath is Inspiration

We elected a black president in 2008, with a musical name—Barack Obama. He is brilliant, eloquent, elegant—a man with a strong moral compass. He has a beautiful, high spirited wife and two lovely daughters. It was inspiring to have such a loving, admirable black family in the White House for eight years. But racism was alive and well in America and Obama had a terrible time trying to govern. The Republicans blocked him at every turn. Obama is still deeply beloved. But the backlash was the election of the anti-Obama— a blatant racist, a master of mendacity, of chaos and corruption, a demagogue, a narcissist, the crazed center of a cult of personality. He follows the playbook for dictators. His self-serving and incompetent administration has made us the laughing stock of the world, and revealed the underbelly of American racism and inequality. He has not even attempted to lead the country out of the dreadful pandemic we’re stuck in. The body counts keep growing. The numbers of the sick keep growing. Other countries refuse to let Americans in. Not that we want to travel these days.


And what are you doing, my daughter, to confront all this horror?


I am putting my poems to work for the election of a good man, a man who has a moral compass, a man who understands suffering and grief, Joe Biden. I hope the poems will inspire people to do whatever is in them to do—especially to vote to oust the worst president we’ve ever had.

Worse than Nixon? Worse than Reagan?

Much worse. I wrote a poem during the spring of 2016 which expresses how dangerous I understood him to be even before he was elected. At the time mother was far gone into her dementia. She had no idea what was happening in the world. But the child in me yearned for her protection.

What I Want To Tell My Mama

Only she’s gone     a slight rustle of reeds
at the edge of the pond    a paw print in the mud

Sometimes she takes my hand    like a curious
two year old    tracing my veins     touching my rings

Mutti     you’ve dived down below    your German
gutterals     found your own    Ur tongue
Crim crutz
Olam Bolam
If you were who you used to be    Mama
I’d tell you about that Scary Man

that Chaos Man    with Caterwauling Hair    who beats
his chest and threatens

to drive us back
into the Tohu Bohu

He’d build a Golden Wall    high as the Great Wall
of China    Impenetrable as Negative Space

A Magnificent Wall to keep the likes of us
Refugees and our Rabble children    out

of America      Mama    he’s a Huckster
a Big Hunk of Catastrophe

Flasher Man    Slash Her Man
Hair sprayed into Caesar’s Brass Helmet
Olam Bolam
Crimini Crutz
All the ghosts we keep in the closet
rush in shrieking
“It’s the Nazis
It’s the Fascists
It’s the Cossacks
It’s the Huns
It’s Joseph McCarthy as Hair Spray Man
come to eat our young     Run!”
He is the King of the Hoax     the Prince of Evasion
Makes sausage

of our worst fears
We eat it

What he eats
is cotton candy
Rim Ram
Crimini hachts
There’s a gargantuan Wall of Broken
Glass    between his lovers    and his haters

yet we are spell bound     Mama
How can I explain

He has hula dancer fingers
He curls them

unfurls them
We watch     mesmerized
“On Day One    Hour One
You’ll all be gone    Every last one of you
                                             Enemy Aliens!”
Crimini crumini
Olam Bolam
Mama    make him
be gone…

That’s quite a language your mother developed in her dotage. Makes me think of another word that comes from the Latin, “spirare”— inspiration. Sounds like your mother was casting powerful spells.

Yes, I’ve had the same intuition about it. Speaking of inspiration, your passion for the political in its deepest, widest, most humanistic form, has inspired me to publish this little book. I want you to know, father, that I’ve dedicated my chapbook to your spirit. 


Have you ever dedicated anything to me before?


No. But this train is moving swiftly. I’m nearing the age you were when you died. I want you to know that I am your daughter, that I feel your spirit moving in me. Your passion for life, for justice, and for song inspire me in these terrible times. I’m grateful.


Tuesday, February 18, 2020

The Muse of St. Francis and the Turtles



Saint Francis of Assisi reminds us that our common home is like a sister with whom we share our life and a beautiful mother who opens her arms to embrace us… 

This sister now cries out to us because of the harm we have inflicted on her by our irresponsible use and abuse of the goods with which God has endowed her… We have forgotten that we ourselves are dust of the earth (cf. Gen 2:7); our very bodies are made up of her elements, we breathe her air and we receive life and refreshment from her waters.
Pope Francis Encyclical Letter Laudate Si
On Care for Our Common Home

San Pancho, a charming coastal town north of Puerto Vallarta in Mexico, has been a haven for Dan and me for fifteen years. We come for a couple of weeks in the winter, to get warm, to slow down our frenzied American minds, to open our beings to the color, music, and sensuality of a place where the tapestry of life is woven slowly, by different gods so it seems, than our own. This year especially, we were glad to get out of the US during the so–called impeachment trial, when the separation of powers was sacrificed to the growing tyranny, greed and corruption of the executive. Mexico is no example of fairness and democracy but in this little town we have found a rare blend of influences which create unusual harmony.

San Pancho is a nickname for San Francisco—the town’s official name. Its patron saint, of course, is St. Francis. Its small Catholic Church is a bastion of tradition. But the Huichol beadwork jaguars for sale in the square speak to other traditions, as does St. Francis himself; on murals all over town he is in harmony with the birds, the fish, the turtles who lay their eggs on the beach, and are protected by an environmental group— Grupo Ecológico de la Costa Verde —I call them the Turtle People, who harbor [protect the turtle] eggs until they are self sufficient hatchlings, and then in a sacred ritual, release them to the sea.

It is as though St. Francis had a vision of a place without poverty, where earth, sky, sea and their creatures live in harmony. San Pancho works at being such a place. The local people who own the stores and the restaurants go back to the four families—some say as many as ten families—who peopled the original fishing village. Many people from Mexico City and Guadalajara as well as from the US and Canada own houses here and are engaged in the community. They support the Turtle People, San Pancho Animales, which rescues animals and runs a spay and neuter clinic and Entre Amigos, which runs the recycling program, a program to help local families pay their children’s school fees and send them to college, and much more. Dan and I sponsor a youngster. Her animated drawing of land, sea, sun and birds brightens our refrigerator at home. It has been for us a blessed place, one of those magical spots that draws positive energies. But in recent years St. Francis’ vision has been threatened.


The visible manifestation of that threat is an ugly block of condominiums plopped down on the beach by some developer from another country, against the will of the townspeople and against the law of Mexico, which claims the beach for the people. This monster is in total disharmony with its environment—the palapa covered restaurants, the ocean, the surfers, the frigates high in the sky and a skedaddle of pelicans (sometimes 13 at a time) skimming the waves with their wings, who make Dan and me gasp with pleasure. We are, as is our ritual, on the beach to watch the sunset. But even more, we are here to participate in a demonstration against the monster, Punta Paraìso (Point Paradise), held in synchrony with a release of turtle hatchlings. What a scene this is:

A band of drummers, the Batalá Mundo, associated with the international samba reggae group begun in Brazil, wearing red, white and black clothing, beat their red, white and black drums ferociously, joyously, fiercely, shaking their drumsticks in the air like fists, clearly enjoying the threatening sound they make.


A tall, gaunt St. Francis, towers above it all, looking as though he’s been painted by El Greco, casting his sorrow like a shadow on the people, mystifying the children who approach him warily.



Saint Francis by El Greco
St. Francis is mourning our beautiful beach, the beach that belongs to the dogs who leap and run, to the laughing babies in their daddy’s arms, to the mother who pulls out her breast to nurse her newborn, to the vendors selling sweets, snacks, beaded earrings in vibrant colors, to the turtle hatchlings crawling over each other in two plastic pails, in a rush to get back to the sea, to the children with awed faces reaching into the pails—“can we hold them?”— to the people on their knees in the sand shaping large turtles —offerings to that great animal spirit of peace, patience, endurance and harmony among all forms of life—sacred to San Pancho, sacred to St. Francis.












The surf roars, the sun gets lost behind a cloud, is reflected in the sea. St. Francis dances with the children in front of the big monster building and its effigy—a piñata—which the children will soon destroy with fierce sticks.

The newcomers who bought condos stand on their decks, taking photos of the angry crowd. Did they know what they were getting into? St. Francis speaks for peace but knows that fierceness is required to stand up to the forces of greed, corruption and the desecration of our earth, our sea, our sky.

The drums beat. The crowd shouts “Playas Libra! No a Punta Paraìso!” (Free the Beaches. No to Point Paradise!) TV cameras are the eyes of the world as St. Francis hugs Turtle. A drone hovers over the monster looking like a huge mosquito. Our friend Bill, who lives here, who works hard for the people and the animals of San Pancho, tells us that somewhere, in a courtroom, the monster is on trial. Bill is hopeful.

Seems it takes the endurance of Turtle to defeat a monster. The children keep banging on the piñata. The drums keep on drumming. The hatchlings keep crawling over one another. The Turtle People keep admiring them, enchanted by their fragile beauty. St. Francis keeps shaking his mournful head as the sun slips out of the cloud and spreads rays of glory down to the horizon, creating a pyramid that becomes a circle of light at the horizon. Soon the sun will go down, the children will break up the monster piñata; releasing candy for all. When will the hatchlings be released?


Seems it takes the patience of Turtle to wait for the right time. The keeper of the hatchlings explains: “We need to wait for the end of twilight, when there is almost no light, to let them go, or the fish swimming below them will see their silhouettes and eat them up.” None of us want that to happen. Soon, the keeper of the hatchlings will mark out a space in the wet sand. No one may cross this line—this belongs to the babies. Soon we will watch him, who brings the love of St. Francis to these creatures, release them out of the plastic pails in the near dark. We strain to see them, such tiny beings, heading into the surf. We Turtle People gasp, cry out with joy when a wave comes to carry these babies home. Our babies, our brother turtles, as our sister the sickle moon drifts across the sky, carrying the vision of St Francis—all creatures are kin, pelicans and turtles, dogs and the buyers of condominiums, drummers of Batalia Mundo, mothers and fathers of baby humans, we are all brothers and sisters, all hatchlings of the universe.


Wednesday, February 12, 2020

The Muse of St. Francis and the Turtles



Saint Francis of Assisi reminds us that our common home is like a sister with whom we share our life and a beautiful mother who opens her arms to embrace us… 

This sister now cries out to us because of the harm we have inflicted on her by our irresponsible use and abuse of the goods with which God has endowed her… We have forgotten that we ourselves are dust of the earth (cf. Gen 2:7); our very bodies are made up of her elements, we breathe her air and we receive life and refreshment from her waters.
Pope Francis Encyclical Letter Laudate Si
On Care for Our Common Home

San Pancho, a charming coastal town north of Puerto Vallarta in Mexico, has been a haven for Dan and me for fifteen years. We come for a couple of weeks in the winter, to get warm, to slow down our frenzied American minds, to open our beings to the color, music, and sensuality of a place where the tapestry of life is woven slowly, by different gods so it seems, than our own. This year especially, we were glad to get out of the US during the so–called impeachment trial, when the separation of powers was sacrificed to the growing tyranny, greed and corruption of the executive. Mexico is no example of fairness and democracy but in this little town we have found a rare blend of influences which create unusual harmony.

San Pancho is a nickname for San Francisco—the town’s official name. Its patron saint, of course, is St. Francis. Its small Catholic Church is a bastion of tradition. But the Huichol beadwork jaguars for sale in the square speak to other traditions, as does St. Francis himself; on murals all over town he is in harmony with the birds, the fish, the turtles who lay their eggs on the beach, and are protected by an environmental group— Grupo Ecológico de la Costa Verde —I call them the Turtle People, who harbor [protect the turtle] eggs until they are self sufficient hatchlings, and then in a sacred ritual, release them to the sea.

It is as though St. Francis had a vision of a place without poverty, where earth, sky, sea and their creatures live in harmony. San Pancho works at being such a place. The local people who own the stores and the restaurants go back to the four families—some say as many as ten families—who peopled the original fishing village. Many people from Mexico City and Guadalajara as well as from the US and Canada own houses here and are engaged in the community. They support the Turtle People, San Pancho Animales, which rescues animals and runs a spay and neuter clinic and Entre Amigos, which runs the recycling program, a program to help local families pay their children’s school fees and send them to college, and much more. Dan and I sponsor a youngster. Her animated drawing of land, sea, sun and birds brightens our refrigerator at home. It has been for us a blessed place, one of those magical spots that draws positive energies. But in recent years St. Francis’ vision has been threatened.


The visible manifestation of that threat is an ugly block of condominiums plopped down on the beach by some developer from another country, against the will of the townspeople and against the law of Mexico, which claims the beach for the people. This monster is in total disharmony with its environment—the palapa covered restaurants, the ocean, the surfers, the frigates high in the sky and a skedaddle of pelicans (sometimes 13 at a time) skimming the waves with their wings, who make Dan and me gasp with pleasure. We are, as is our ritual, on the beach to watch the sunset. But even more, we are here to participate in a demonstration against the monster, Punta Paraìso (Point Paradise), held in synchrony with a release of turtle hatchlings. What a scene this is:

A band of drummers, the Batalá Mundo, associated with the international samba reggae group begun in Brazil, wearing red, white and black clothing, beat their red, white and black drums ferociously, joyously, fiercely, shaking their drumsticks in the air like fists, clearly enjoying the threatening sound they make.

A tall, gaunt St. Francis, towers above it all, looking as though he’s been painted by El Greco, casting his sorrow like a shadow on the people, mystifying the children who approach him warily.


Saint Francis by El Greco
St. Francis is mourning our beautiful beach, the beach that belongs to the dogs who leap and run, to the laughing babies in their daddy’s arms, to the mother who pulls out her breast to nurse her newborn, to the vendors selling sweets, snacks, beaded earrings in vibrant colors, to the turtle hatchlings crawling over each other in two plastic pails, in a rush to get back to the sea, to the children with awed faces reaching into the pails—“can we hold them?”— to the people on their knees in the sand shaping large turtles —offerings to that great animal spirit of peace, patience, endurance and harmony among all forms of life—sacred to San Pancho, sacred to St. Francis.





















The surf roars, the sun gets lost behind a cloud, is reflected in the sea. St. Francis dances with the children in front of the big monster building and its effigy—a piñata—which the children will soon destroy with fierce sticks.

The newcomers who bought condos stand on their decks, taking photos of the angry crowd. Did they know what they were getting into? St. Francis speaks for peace but knows that fierceness is required to stand up to the forces of greed, corruption and the desecration of our earth, our sea, our sky.


The drums beat. The crowd shouts “Playas Libra! No a Punta Paraìso!” (Free the Beaches. No to Point Paradise!) TV cameras are the eyes of the world as St. Francis hugs Turtle. A drone hovers over the monster looking like a huge mosquito. Our friend Bill, who lives here, who works hard for the people and the animals of San Pancho, tells us that somewhere, in a courtroom, the monster is on trial. Bill is hopeful.

Seems it takes the endurance of Turtle to defeat a monster. The children keep banging on the piñata. The drums keep on drumming. The hatchlings keep crawling over one another. The Turtle People keep admiring them, enchanted by their fragile beauty. St. Francis keeps shaking his mournful head as the sun slips out of the cloud and spreads rays of glory down to the horizon, creating a pyramid that becomes a circle of light at the horizon. Soon the sun will go down, the children will break up the monster piñata; releasing candy for all. When will the hatchlings be released?


Seems it takes the patience of Turtle to wait for the right time. The keeper of the hatchlings explains: “We need to wait for the end of twilight, when there is almost no light, to let them go, or the fish swimming below them will see their silhouettes and eat them up.” None of us want that to happen. Soon, the keeper of the hatchlings will mark out a space in the wet sand. No one may cross this line—this belongs to the babies. Soon we will watch him, who brings the love of St. Francis to these creatures, release them out of the plastic pails in the near dark. We strain to see them, such tiny beings, heading into the surf. We Turtle People gasp, cry out with joy when a wave comes to carry these babies home. Our babies, our brother turtles, as our sister the sickle moon drifts across the sky, carrying the vision of St Francis—all creatures are kin, pelicans and turtles, dogs and the buyers of condominiums, drummers of Batalia Mundo, mothers and fathers of baby humans, we are all brothers and sisters, all hatchlings of the universe.