Jonathan Swift

Today is Jonathan Swift's birthday. He was born in 1667 in Dublin. The Writers' Alamanac remembers the best part:

Swift was also a wicked satirist; his most famous — or infamous — example is "A Modest Proposal." Its full title is "A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland Being a Burden on Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick." Published in 1729, the essay proposes a solution to the problem of Irish poverty: Encourage the Irish poor to sell their children to the English nobility for culinary purposes. The essay begins: "I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout."

A ragout indeed.

Completion

The journey began in earnest in Ireland at Sliabh na Caillí, or Loughcrew in Co. Meath, Ireland. Yes, before I went there I was "working" on the book. But it was a sporadic effort: sometimes writing, sometimes letting the manuscript sit in a drawer gathering dust. Truth be told, much more of the latter. But in April, 2009, the situation changed. As I wrote at the time:

Sliabh na Caillí... is a sacred site with cairns dedicated to or occupied by the Crone, or the Hag, or Garavogue. It is far more than 4000 years old. There are, of course, many details. But the important part is the personal, the intuitive, the spiritual.

When I visited Sliabh na Caillí with an international band of Shamanic friends... I made an offering to the Crone in her cairn, and I asked her whether she had anything to tell me. And she did. I am to finish the draft of my novel in process before the end of the coming September. No excuses. No extensions of time. No dogs eating my homework. I take this seriously. I do not wish to run afoul of the Crone's wishes. I do not wish to incite her to anger. I do not wish to taste her wrath.

To make sure I wouldn't let the time slip by, to make sure that my vow to follow this message and to complete the task would be kept, I told my friends what the Crone had to say. They are my witnesses. And today, a couple weeks later, I am writing it down. Forgetfulness, unconsciousness, being busy, lack of mindfulness, other seeming necessities, all forms of practiced sloth, are not to deter me. Nor rain, nor gloom, nor dread of night, stops this courier from the prompt completion of his appointed rounds. And you, dear readers, are witnesses also.

The working title of my book is "Tulum," which is a Mayan town in Quintana Roo, Mexico. I won't tell you about the book, except to say that it is about the friendship of a US expat with a shady background and a Mayan curandero. There are 30,000 +/- words on my key drive as I write this.

And so, I have a task, a quest, an imramma, a journey to perform. I am honored to carry this out.

That was 2009. That was more than a year and 50,000 words ago.

I finished a very rough draft in that September. And after many revisions and changes and editing and rewriting and far too much staring at the ceiling and making excuses and worrying about it, on February 13, 2011, I uploaded the manuscript to the publisher. And today I uploaded the other required materials. And now I am finished. The rest of the task is merely mechanical. Or proofreading.

Well, not really. It's not that simple. There remains something else. Something else that's extremely important. Something that I don't want to leave out. It's the real conclusion of the imramma.

Even when the book is in your hands or on your Kindle, even then, even when you've read it, even when you've passed it on to others, or maybe even forgotten it, my task won't be completed. I realize that. There is something else that has to be done. My journey won't really be completed until I have taken this book in digital form, placed it on a key drive, and personally delivered the drive to the Crone by placing it discreetly in the rocks in her cairn. Only then will all of the assigned tasks have been completed. Only when one returns after the quest to the very beginning is the journey completed.

When one accepts a challenge or inspiration or advice and chooses to embark on a quest, and then carries out one's assigned tasks, there remains one more, final step. It remains important afterwards to return to the very beginning, to the very person who inspired or commissioned the effort and to stand before him or her. And upon returning, it's important to say aloud to that person, "I have done it, I have completed it, and I have returned to tell you this." It is then important to offer one's gratitude for a journey so remarkable it qualifies to be called a quest. It seems to me that it's this mythic return and the expression of gratitude that really completes the journey.

I will now look for airfare for April, 2011. It's been two years, and I am at last ready to return.

Feliz Dia de San Patricio!!

Listen to the classic “Canción Mixteca,” sung in Spanish by the Mexican supergroup Los Tigres del Norte, accompanied by [Irish] accordion, bajo sexto, tin whistle and uilleann pipes.

“How far I am from the land where I was born! Immense longing invades my thoughts, and when I see myself as alone and sad as a leaf in the wind, I want to cry. I want to die of sorrow.”

The New York Times writes:

What brings this juxtaposition to mind is “San Patricio,” a new album from Paddy Moloney of the great Irish traditionalist band the Chieftains. It commemorates a historical footnote: the San Patricio battalion of Irish-immigrant soldiers who deserted the United States Army and fought for Mexico in the Mexican-American War of 1846-48. They picked the losing side, were captured, executed or branded as traitors, and then forgotten, except by Mexicans.

Mr. Moloney, a musician of restless curiosity, saw it as a tale of tragedy and loss, but also a chance for creative collision. “If the Irish were there, there would most certainly have been music,” he says. The same goes for the Mexicans. He invited Irish, Mexican and American musicians to play and sing, to see what would happen.

What happened was not all dolorous lamentation, though there is some of that. The rest is joy, thoroughly Mexican yet utterly Irish, carried aloft by tin whistles, skin drums, pipes, harps, guitars and stomping feet. It’s a mix you’ve never heard, but eerily familiar. ...

Th[is] old song, woven into the Mexican soul, is as Irish as it gets. And it’s an American song, too. We are all people who have lost our land in one sad way and found another. Whether we lament and celebrate in a pub or cantina, whether our tricolor flag has a cactus on it or not, we are closer to one another than we remember.

So today we are all Irish. And Mexican. And everything else. Salud!

------------------------
simulposted at docuDharma and dailyKos

The Next Great Irish Band

has arrived in the US, and it's Bell X1:



This is so reminiscent of Talkin Heads. This is great stuff.

The details:

Bell X1 released their fourth studio album Blue Lights On The Runway in early 2009. It is scheduled for a U.S. release on March 3 through their American Yep Roc label. This follows a Feb. 20 release in Ireland. Blue Lights on the Runway will include songs such as "Light Catches Your Face", which was played during a recent episode of One Tree Hill in the U.S. (November 2008), "Blow In's", "How Your Heart Is Wired" and "One String Harp" which have all been played at their recent sell out shows in Vicar Street, Dublin. Blue Lights On The Runway was preceded by its lead single, titled "The Great Defector". The Great Defector became the bands most successful single yet peaking at number 3 in the Irish singles chart, dropping 2 spaces to 5th before regaining ground the following week landing in at number 4.

Your Bloguero On Top Of The World

See that rattle in my hand? What a sweet and powerful sound. May it bring into being whatever you dream. May all beings be happy. May all beings be free from suffering. May all beings be free from hatred. May all beings be well. May all beings be safe. May all beings have peace. May all beings realize their enlightenment.

Ireland: The Global Vigil Fire

The End of the Fire (photo by Jón Ágúst Guðjónsson)

A three-day vigil fire by shamans from across the world was held April 24 through 26 in Dunderry Park, Co. Meath, Ireland. Additional fires in support of the vigil-- as many as 100 or more-- were held in other parts of the world. The idea was for about 40 trained shaman of many traditions to gather in Ireland and to dream the world into being, to shift the world into greater peace, abundance, and collaboration, to turn from a personal or community focus to a broader, worldwide one, to put our focus on walking in beauty and gratitude on the earth. We had done this before. We will, I hope, do it again.

When we have such a fire, I am reminded of the Hopi prophecy that when there are a million fires there will be peace on earth, and Pachamama will be healed. I think about this often.

The fire was tended in two-hour shifts. I arrived at about 2 am on Saturday morning in a light but windy rain and fog to find Lisa and Bob and a large, hot, wild fire. My shift with Sinead was to begin at 4 am. All of us stayed until after 8 am to listen to the first birds singing, to watch the sun rise (an important reason for taking the 4-6 am shift), to play, to tend the fire, to talk, to drum, to dance and sing, to offer to the fire and ourselves whiskey and incense and stories and jokes and anecdotes, to send through the fire and out across the planet our desire for peace, abundance, healing and cooperation, our prayers for Mother Earth, Santa Tierra, Pachamama.

Tending the fire might be sacred work, or it might be profane, or it might be a delightful, lovely human mixture of the two. There are no real rules. Except one. It is important to have fun while preventing the fire from being extinguished by rain and wind. The fire must be fed and nurtured. It ought not to go out.

The character of the fire changes, depending on who is tending it. I find that fires I tend are large and wild and quite hot. I like that. Others make the fire peaceful and calm and receptive. Some fires are masculine; others, feminine. Some fires listen, others speak. Some fires bring out singing, others like silence. Some fires bring introspection; others, expression. Fires have qualities reminiscent of personalities, and are both as different and the same, as members of the same species.

In the midst of our tending the fire, a sudden, strong gust of wind managed to rip a tent from the ground and throw it into the pasture. We immediately decided to retrieve it. Bob and Lisa went after it and easily ducked under the electric fence to get the tent. For reasons I do not fully comprehend-- I have an electric fence at my home and have had it for many years-- I thought that the fence must definitely be turned off. And here is the strange part: I decided to check this hypothesis. I have no idea what I may have been thinking, if anything, at the time. Accordingly, I intentionally placed my bare, wet right hand on the already very wet wire. This was not a good idea. In fact, it was a very stupid one. I was immediately treated to a gigantic shock of high amperage and low voltage. I was shocked. Literally. And figuratively. I do not accept that there was a blue spark that jumped from the wire to my hand. I do not perceive that I started to glow. I did immediately growl and roar. And curse. This, I am sure, disturbed the donkeys. I do not think it disturbed my companions, all of whom were surprised by my outburst. There is an irony, of course, that the fence was there to keep jackasses in or out of the pasture. You can draw whatever conclusion you wish from this. I was not, however, mortally wounded. I was ever so embarrassed by the large outpouring of energy I experienced. I consider myself unworthy of such electricity, of such energetic attention. I am now seriously considering becoming a Luddite. I have also reaffirmed my position that electroshock therapy is inhumane and barbaric in all cases.

At the end of the fire, on Sunday morning, we all stopped feeding it, so that it could slowly consume itself. We placed around it all of our prayer bundles, mesas, and malas in blessing, as you see in the photo. When the fire was out, I collected in a small plastic bag some of the ashes. These ashes contained ashes of other sacred fires, fires from Tibet, fires from Africa, fires from North America, fires from Australia, hundreds of fires from sacred sites across the world. I brought the ashes home. They are sitting on my altar. When we have a fire this week, I will add the ashes to my fire circle, and that will add my fire to the web of past and future vigil fires across the world, all asking for peace, abundance and the healing of Pachamama, Santa Tierra.

Sliabh na Caillí

Sliabh na Caillí, or Loughcrew is in Co. Meath, Ireland. It is a sacred site with cairns dedicated to or occupied by the Crone, or the Hag, or Garavogue. It is far more than 4000 years old. There are, of course, many details. But the important part is the personal, the intuitive, the spiritual.

When I visited Sliabh na Caillí with an international band of Shamanic friends-- more about them in a later post-- I made an offering to the Crone in her cairn, and I asked her whether she had anything to tell me. And she did. I am to finish the draft of my novel in process before the end of the coming September. No excuses. No extensions of time. No dogs eating my homework. I take this seriously. I do not wish to run afoul of the Crone's wishes. I do not wish to incite her to anger. I do not wish to taste her wrath.

To make sure I wouldn't let the time slip by, to make sure that my vow to follow this message and to complete the task would be kept, I told my friends what the Crone had to say. They are my witnesses. And today, a couple weeks later, I am writing it down. Forgetfulness, unconsciousness, being busy, lack of mindfulness, other seeming necessities, all forms of practiced sloth, are not to deter me. Nor rain, nor gloom, nor dread of night, stops this courier from the prompt completion of his appointed rounds. And you, dear readers, are witnesses also.

The working title of my book is "Tulum," which is a Mayan town in Quintana Roo, Mexico. I won't tell you about the book, except to say that it is about the friendship of a US expat with a shady background and a Mayan curandero. There are 30,000 +/- words on my key drive as I write this.

And so, I have a task, a quest, an imramma, a journey to perform. I am honored to carry this out.

The Mirror And The Mask

Carrowkeel

I thought I wrote this article before. But when I was in Ireland last week, I wanted to show it to a friend, and I couldn't find it here. I carefully searched this blog; it had to be here, but it was not. How, I wondered, could I be so confused. How could I have such a clear recollection of something I had written, only to find out that, in fact, I hadn't written it at all. Was my memory playing tricks on me? Maybe I thought I would write this piece, but never did it? Hardly. I remember making revisions. I'm disturbed by this. I have no explanations.

In the Book of Sand (El Libro de Arena) (1975), Jorge Luis Borges gives us insight in "The Mirror And The Mask" into what it takes to be a great, wandering poet. The King of Ireland, having won an important battle, wants the poet to write a poem about the victory. Would the poet undertake this task and make both the King and the poet immortal? Does the poet have the necessary gifts? The poet responds:

Yes, great king, I do," answered the poet. "I am Olan. For twelve winters I have honed my skills at meter. I know by heart the three hundred sixty fables which are the foundation of all true poetry. The Ulster cycle and the Munster cycle lie within my harp strings. I am licensed by law to employ the most archaic words of the language, and its most complex metaphors. I have mastered the secret script which guards our art from the prying eyes of the common folk. I can sing of love, of cattle theft, of sailing ships, of war. I know the mythological lineage of all the royal houses of Ireland. I possess the secret knowledge of herbs, astrology, mathematics and cannon law. I have defeated my rivals in public contest. I have trained myself in satire, which causes diseases of the skin, including leprosy. And I also wield the sword, as I have prove in your battle. There is but one thing that I do not know: how to express my thanks for this gift you make me.

After the poet successfully completes this initial task, the king speaks:

I accept this labor. It is another victory. You have given to each word its true meaning, to each noun the epithet bestowed upon it by the first poets. In all the work there is not an image which the classics did not employ. War is 'the fair cloth wov'n of men' and blood is 'sword-drink.' The seas has its god and the clouds foretell the future. You have marshaled rhyme, alliteration, assonance, scansion, the artifices of erudite rhetoric, the wise alternation of meters, and all with greatest skillfulness. If the whole of the literature of Ireland should-- omen absit-- be lost, well might it all be reconstructed, without loss, from your classic ode. Thirty scribes shall transcribe it, twelve times each."

What competence. What gifts. What language. But of course, of course, of course things take a turn toward the infinite in the story. Borges after all is the writer. I will not spoil it for you. It deserves to be read in full.

My point here is incredibly modest: I loved this story before I ever saw Ireland. And now, having seen Ireland, I love it all the more. Amidst all of the island's antiquity, and its long, oral tradition, a story about the love of language and writing fits surprisingly and beautifully.

Epistle To the Bloguer@s From A Traveler

Querido Amig@s en la Blogosfera,
In 1999 I was traveling in India when Columbine happened. Everywhere I went, and I went to some pretty remote places, people I met, well at least those who had televisions, wanted to know one thing. That one thing, loosely translated, is WTF is wrong with the US anyway? What kind of crazy batshit country produces these kinds of homicidal maniacs? And why? I didn't have a good answer. If we had a few beers or got to know each other a little, I would might have a chance to begin to try to explain it, but I couldn't. And that's not because I'm inarticulate. It's because there is no satisfactory answer.

And now this. Tuesday I'm traveling to Ireland. And you know what? Everywhere I go, and I will go to some pretty rural places, people I meet will want to know one thing. That one thing, loosely translated, is WTF is wrong with the US anyway? What kind of crazyland country has black sites, extralegal extraditions, Gitmo, Bagram, waterboarding, torture, Abu Ghraib AND, and this is the important AND, AND announces that nothing should be done about those who tortured or ordered torture or wrote bogus "legal" memos to justify torture? And what kind of country that does all of that has the chutzpah (that is a revered Irish word) to lecture other countries about human rights? Isn't that against the law in the US, to torture prisoners? Isn't that against International Law, to torture prisoners, and then also to fail or refuse to prosecute the torturers? Isn't that what the US prosecuted various Japanese soldiers for about 60 years ago? Didn't the US say that the excuse of "just following orders" just wasn't good enough to keep you from hanging? Trust me on this. On Tuesday evening, when I am sitting comfortably in a pub in Dublin, bemused by my good fortune and friendships, slowly working my way out of jet lag and into a reverie about James Joyce and looking greedily at the bottom of a pint, somebody will smile and ask me the question. And, of course, I don't have a good answer. How could I? I'm not inarticulate. I will buy a round from time to time. But for heaven's sake, WTF am I supposed to say about this? There really isn't a satisfactory answer.

Well, Mr. My Friend, I could begin, that's quite a question you're asking me. I'm as enraged and unhappy about this as anyone, well, almost anyone. I'm not nearly as enraged and unhappy as the people who were tortured or their families, but aside from them. I haven't got a f*cking clue why immunity or lack of action this was so prominently announced, and while we're at it, I have no idea WTF you or I or anybody else can do about it at this point other than raise a ruckus. Not at all. And, Mr. My Friend, a first step toward making a ruckus is that you really need to visit the torture petitions and sign them, one and all. And then, and only after yo do that, let's have another pint and see what kind of ruckus we can create.

Your pal,
davidseth