I saw a wonderful movie for you samurai fans, called Bushido, the Way of the Warrior. It’s about a samurai who had to leave his master because of others’ shenanigans, lives an impoverished life with his daughter, and finally regains his honor. It’s well done and worth seeing even if you’re not a fan of this genre.

Two things stood out for me. First, the game Go. The game plays a big role in the movie and appears in the very first scene. Bernie was a devote of Go and had been given a beautiful Go board as a gift years ago. The movie, too, shows a beautiful Go board and how, as one character puts it, it gives up its life in the end for the sake of two human beings.

Each time I saw the characters play Go—and in one situation the game decides life and death—I thought of Bernie. He would have loved this movie, I thought over and over during the movie, almost in tears. He would have loved how, among other things, the movie uses the game as a metaphor on how to live.

Second was the last scene. The first scene shows a Go board. The last scene shows the samurai, in Japanese thongs and head under the rice farmer’s conical hat, with a small snap sack and a staff, walking into the barren wilderness, having left his daughter, his friend and neighbors. Having left home.

That too reminded me of Bernie. When we had arguments, Bernie would say that he’s off to the streets and never coming back. Others might talk of separation or divorce, he’d threaten to do a street retreat for the rest of his life. I would yell after him that he should take his 50” TV screen with him (he loved big screens).

He loved his family, he loved his wife and children, but in a certain way I could see him leaving home, too. Not in that peasant garb with the conical hat, but in his old Hawaiian shirts and falling-apart jeans with suspenders, a give-away jacket and the old brown knapsack, and cigars. Always cigars.

This morning, talking with some other teachers, I thought of the word home. Instantly I remembered what it felt like the first time I meditated (at the Ragdale Foundation in Lake Forest, Illinois). The posture wasn’t good, I had no idea what to do, all that came later. But instantly I felt I was home.

What did that mean? I felt connected to the ground, I didn’t care about what the world had to say to me that minute, what anybody expected or wanted, in fact didn’t care about anything. All the pulling and pushing, the buffeting around—all ended. I had landed, and I was never going to leave.

Indeed, I’ve joked that I sat down that time in 1983 or 1984 and never got up. Many meditation practitioners invoke home when they talk about the practice. When they sit, they’re home.

But what is home?

Back then, home meant basic security. It didn’t matter what anyone else thought of me. It didn’t matter what others did or what social expectations existed. Comparisons disappeared. Fear didn’t show up, even when I considered my lonely life. A basic confidence showed up instead, a confidence I didn’t know I had, not in me so much as in life, or in how the two meet. The act of taking conscious breaths and paying attention to my body rather than to the activity behind my forehead brought life, well, to life. Here it was, just this.

It was as if I’d come across the greatest secret in the world. Who knew? I mean, who knew it was that simple and profound?

At the same time, home can come with lots of attachments. Bernie and I used to work from here, people came and went, he had assistants working and even sleeping here, there were gatherings, it was a busy place. The house itself always took work: the grass had to be mowed, the flowers maintained, birdfeeders filled, the basement monitored for humidity, the many furnishings and technologies that age, die, and need to be replaced, a kitchen clean-up last thing at night, floors to be swept due to the dogs, everything homeowners know about.

I felt fortunate then, but now, every once in a while I look around me and think: I’m still here? There are a housemate and 2 dogs, that’s all, so why am I still here? What keeps me in a house bigger than what I need, with so much to do and even fewer resources and help than before? The answer is simple: It’s home.

It’s attachment to photos on the walls, to altars with Buddha statues, to the wooden Kwan-yin in back who continues to be eaten away by rodents, the big red painting of an angel child in the bedroom, Stanley’s grave in back, the memories, the gatherings, the laughter all those rooms contained. It’s home.

And I think of the samurai who, just when his honor is restored, his daughter happy, his once stingy friend now relaxed, generous, and wishing to play Go with him, his fortunes rising—he leaves home. Not to return to his old master, but to continue the wandering of a vagrant samurai whose simple ways and generosity will make their impact on others he’ll encounter in his wanderings.

So many of us have the wonderful benefits of meditation, of the feeling of home that it gives, but what about the attachments that come with it? Meditation frees us—but to what? To enjoy this sense of ever-renewing confidence in our life? To feel stable, grounded, less prone to emotional extremes? When does home become a hideout, a haven from hardship, a sanctuary from life rather than in life?

I have no issues with its wonderful benefits, so important to me over the years, and as the Zen teacher Yasutani Roshi said, there are different reasons for coming to Zen practice and they’re all valuable.

Tomorrow evening, I am scheduled to give a talk on Martin Luther King’s Beloved Community. Why is it that so many members of Zen’s beloved community are educated, middle class, and tend towards white? Is it that many of us got trapped at home, in a closed net of safety, connection, and stability that doesn’t encourage us to step outside and walk away, as did the samurai?

Yes, yes, I know the rhetoric of taking refuge in the moment—but what moment is that? The moment of taking care of ourselves and those close to us, contentedly keeping up with our job and a mortgage? And if you tell me that the job consists of taking care of patients and clients, it’s service, I’d like to ask: Do you ever go out on a limb? Do you ever enter a no-man’s or woman’s land without the certainty of routine and peers’ approval?

When meditation brings us home, does it keep us there? Have we found the ground under our feet and won’t let go?

I’m not talking about material comfort or stability, but rather what’s inside. After all, we’re told to go inside, aren’t we? “Turn the light inwards,” as so many have said. How ready are we to do that? Maybe all too ready? Sure, when we do that we often face difficult issues, sure we learn to let go more, rely less on labels and definitions, rely less on knowing. But how many of us, including me, are ready to walk out that door and leave home?

“Brave discomfort,” T. Marie King told us in Alabama. That doesn’t mean physically leaving home, but it may mean going out to talk to folks completely different from you, who even talk a different language from you.

It may mean leaving English, where you’re the master, and fumbling your way through Spanish, which I find myself doing more and more. My brother, a religious Jew, goes to Saudi Arabia and then Morocco in 10 days, and while he feels safe, he’s surrounded by a language, customs, and people he was conditioned to suspect and even hate. I marvel at his ability to walk that no-man’s land, and to keep on walking even now, after he’s lost friends due to the Middle East conflict.

It doesn’t have to be something that big, but even small things. Have you ever asked for money? Not given money, asked, which we must do when we go out on the streets? Have you ever asked for support, not for organizations you love (I’ve done plenty of that), but for yourself, help to attend a retreat you wish to do, or just help at a time when you’re low?

“We have all the wealth of the Buddha available to us,” Bernie used to tell me even at times when we were broke. How do we find it? We could stay home, make drastic cuts to our lifestyle, live on canned beans. I can do that fairly easily. We could also go out, meet new people, talk publicly of our vision, and ask. Just ask. That’s come harder for me.

Brave discomfort. How does meditation help us do that?

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In the Lord I take refuge.
    How then can you say to me:
    “Flee like a bird to your mountain.
    For look, the wicked bend their bows;
    they set their arrows against the strings
    to shoot from the shadows
    at the upright in heart.
    When the foundations are being destroyed,
    what can the righteous do?”

I remembered this psalm by King David today, maybe because I’m tired of reading the latest news about our government and its war. Like many people, I found myself praying: Can I plea-ea-ease have a day off from these gross, costly shenanigans!

Nevertheless, they’re part of the landscape where we live now. If I thought that Memorial Day weekend would protect me somewhat, at least in the name of decency and respect to those killed in wars defending this country, I was quickly disillusioned: A new policy making it harder to get a green card (you have to leave the country, for heaven’s sake), the ousting of more Republicans who aren’t diehard Trumpists—but then, does that really matter? He seems to have made both House and Senate irrelevant, even negligible.

“When the foundations are being destroyed, what can the righteous do?”

I went to visit an ailing student who came to this country from Guyana. She has that beautiful high-pitched lilt in her voice; each time she opens her mouth, music begins. I have always loved hearing her stories about growing up in a Guyanese village, where she knew everyone and they all knew her.

“There was a couple who lived close to us. She had the worst voice in the world, she couldn’t carry a tune at all. Her husband had an affair with another woman who was their neighbor. After he died, his widow with the terrible voice would lean out the window and sing at the top of her lungs towards the neighbor her husband had slept with. In Guyana, we always had our windows open. She sang so loud everybody heard her, but she aimed that terrible singing straight at that woman’s house.”

We both laughed, she in her bed and me sitting beside her. You want to fool around with my husband? Here’s my song!

What a creative way of getting revenge, I thought. Instead of sending his DOJ to sue everybody (including the IRS), I wish Trump would try more original methods. What about sending E. Jean Carroll, who won big damages from him for sexual assault, a Big Mac with fries every single day till the end of her life? The US Marine Band to play Hail to the Chief every election day outside Hillary Clinton’s window? Sing You’re full of blarney, Carney, to Canada’s Ireland-descended Prime Minister. A cloak of invisibility to Iran’s new chief ayatollah, who hasn’t been seen since the start of the current war?

DON’T JUST SUE, GET CREATIVE.

In the quest to resist tyranny, America has two humdrum, diehard ways: Arm yourself and join a militia, invoking the right to carry arms, or sue the bitch or bastard, hoping to crush the enemy under a mountain of legal bills. But these are the times when we need to use different forms of creativity not just to defeat some opponent, but to remind ourselves and others that a different moral order exists alongside this one, a different way of being.

Buddhism has a term, alaya vijnana, which is often defined as the storehouse consciousness, comprising the stream of consciousness that contains the seeds for everything that arises in our consciousness, depending on conditions. As I wrote once before, I think of it as an enormous Amazon warehouse, the biggest ever, that contains everything in life and is organized according to some unknown algorithm.

How do you locate something in this warehouse? By shining a light on it. And that light is usually your own attention.

I met yesterday with one-half of the wonderful musical duo, The Enchantivists. John Genyo Sprague has been a spiritual seeker his entire life and is now a Zen teacher. He’s also a superb musician who has brought musical  instruments into the zendo.

Yesterday, he told me of something he’s started to do. He always carries a small drum or his flute with him, and when he’s at airports or walking down the aisle of a plane, he takes one out and plays it.

Imagine what happens. People are hurrying all around, carrying overnight bags and holding on not just to little children but also to the accompanying stress and scramble, and a minstrel walks alongside them and plays a flute. Or else you’re hurrying to get off the plane and, in between checking incoming texts and craning your neck to look what’s holding things up, someone is tapping on a drum or calmly playing a flute.

Doesn’t it take you out of your head, out of the anxious wave of activity and the grinding rush? What is he reminding you of? What is he asking you to use your attention for? It’s as if he’s turned the light on in that warehouse and you notice this moment, the ethereal nature of this day, this flight, of you yourself. You don’t have to read the price of this warehouse item, you know it to be priceless right away.

What John does, among other things, is his way of resisting the onrush of anger, the frustration of things not going according to plan, missed flights and opportunities, lives going awry. Come back to yourself, he’s telling everyone. You have and are everything, but you need to turn the light on in order to experience that in yourself, or else you get confused and stressed.

You are that warehouse, so am I, so is everyone. We contain seeds for everything, and depending on what comes up—the people we meet, the situations we find ourselves in, body, mental, and emotional states—some seeds will sprout and some won’t. What do you want to sprout in you? What do you want to nurture in yourself, at this time in your life and in the life of the world? We’re nurturing something every time we shine a light on it, mostly with our attention.

What is it? Rage? Indignation? A feeling of impotence? Or the virtuous energy of life which we sometimes call compassion? Bearing witness to what is, and realizing what I can do.

Thank you to all of you who donated to our drive to send 15 children to camp this summer for 6 weeks. We will soon have enough, but not yet, so if you wish to shine the light on kindness, possibility, and bountifulness, please donate to send immigrant children to summer camp, thus relieving the anxieties of their parents who work on farms for long, hot hours. You can do so by using the button below, Donate to Immigrant Families.

John got me thinking. So many things prevented me from nurturing certain seeds in my own life: confusion, a sense of obligation to family and tradition, and most important, insecurity. The lack of confidence to just follow a song, a melody, a story. Manifest who I am in all that fullness.

The good news about growing old is that you may be ready to take on more risks. I mean, who cares any longer about what the world thinks? Your parents are no longer alive, the voices of solemn authority are no longer so loud; in some ways, you are freer than you’ve ever been.

And if you’re young, why wait to get old in order to experience this? Manifest and bring to fruition the seed that’s been there all the time, the skill, talent, and passion that has been there and now, giving it light, you can let flower.

I always identified as a writer, even when over so many years I did other things. Now, more than ever before, it wants to come through the ice, the indifferent snow, the earth that hid it while giving it protection, and finally become visible. Stop hiding behind a façade of humility or modesty, give it attention.

In that spirit, let me tell you what I’m writing in addition to these blog posts.

Last October we had our second No Kings Day and Lori and I made our way to Greenfield to participate, holding signs and American flags. We waited at the Commons and watched as the long parade made it way towards us, led by big banners and a woman dressed as the Statue of Liberty. We were surrounded not just by signs proclaiming No Kings in the US, but also by signs warning of the catastrophes accompanying climate change.

Looking at all this, I thought: What if we did have a king in the US, but he was our king, someone who uses war powers and dictatorial prerogatives—not to make himself and his family wealthy, not to demand all the attention in the world, but to fight for our earth, for our children and grandchildren, for all species? What if our current democratic form of government doesn’t allow us to take the massive, drastic steps we need? What if having a king in the White House does the work that we urgently need?

The next day, a Sunday, I went to see a play written and directed by a very talented and experienced friend. During intermission I mentioned my idea to him. He nodded and said: “Write some lines of dialogue and send them to me.” The next day, Monday morning, I sat down and wrote some lines. Sent him a drafty draft of the first act in January, he and his wife gave feedback, and I’ve been working on this play ever since.

When talking to others, I refer to it as my other project and don’t discuss it. Why not? Why hold back at this time in my life? Why not give all the light available to this seed? Why not give it every chance I can?

With this in mind, what grows in you? What doesn’t? What are you being invited to manifest now, after so many years?

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“Guess what, Henry? There’s a new superhero in town.”

“Donald Trump, Aussie?”

“Ah, Mighty Man! Destroyer of civilizations, dismantler of fraud, innovator of fraud, Champion of the American Way. But no, not him, Illegal.”

“You, Aussie?”

“Not yet, Illegal Chihuahua. I have yet to discover what my superpower is. I’m sure I have one, but so far it has eluded me.”

“Who, Aussie?”

“Shakyamuni Buddha, the founder of Buddhism.”

“The Buddha is a superhero?”

“Only in the United States, Illegal. Since you’re not from here, you can’t understand. Look at him: He left his wife and child—”

“Lots of men do that, Aussie—”

“And a life with 100 cushy beds which he could choose from, and lots of servants to give him treats, and went to get enlightened. He had a great spiritual journey, met lots of teachers who instantly recognized that he was greater than they were, had lots of friends. Could have done anything he wanted, but what did he want? Just one thing, Enrique: Enlightenment. He starved, became skin and bones, and one day decided to sit under a tree and not get up till he got there. And you know what happened, Illegal?”

“He got there!”

“Exactly. He got there. Achieved his objective, arrived at his destination. How does the Man put it? Promise made, promise kept. There he was, handsome—”

“How do you know, Aussie?”

“All superheroes are handsome, dummy. It didn’t hurt that he wore almost nothing and his BMI was zero. He was hot, the greatest of all greats, Illegal Trespasser. That’s how Americans see the Buddha.”

“What do you mean, Aussie?”

“American Buddhists love superheroes, and they’ve made the Buddha one. They sit like him for days. They starve themselves like him, all vegetarian food, usually tofu. They never sleep except when they sit. They don’t move, they don’t speak—and for what? To get enlightened, just like their superhero.”

“Aussie, I thought they do this in order to be better humans. To be mensches, as the Senora puts it.”

“Talk, talk, talk. They say it’s for the sake of all beings, but don’t believe them for a minute, Illegal. Most do it because they want to be calm, serene, consistently peaceful—”

“Didn’t the Senora quote Bernie say that he’s never consistent, Aussie?”

“In his old days Bernie also wanted to be a superhero like the Buddha, but then he gave up. Just became human. What a loser.”

“Are you sure about this, Aussie? Don’t people practice to be good?”

“Good! Is being good a superpower, silly dog? American Buddhists have made old Shak a superhero, and they want to be like him.”

“But Aussie, didn’t the Buddha love?”

“Love, silly dog? The Buddha was beyond love. Beyond love and hate, legal and illegal. The Buddha was beyond the beyond.”

“But other superheroes love, Aussie. Look at Superman and Lois Lane.”

“When he has to, Henry, he puts her aside in order to save the world—and loves it.”

“Spiderman loves Mary Jane. And he loved his uncle who was killed, that’s why he became Spiderman.”

“Spiderman clings, Trespasser, he clings! A terrible thing, but that’s his superpower. Buddha’s a greater superhero because he doesn’t cling to anything or anybody, that’s what Buddhists love about him. Anything they want to drop, they just drop. Dropping has become a mitzvah!”

“What about Batman? Whenever he sees people doing bad things, he stops it.”

“Our superhero said there’s no such thing as bad things, no such thing as right or wrong, which is all dualistic thinking. Nothing to stop, nothing to start. Lie low and have some tempeh.”

“Batman was inspired by the murder of his parents.”

“That shows you what can happen when you’re too attached, Illegal. Be very careful not to get too attached.”

“The Senora says that emptiness implies relationship, Aussie.”

“What does she know, silly dog? SuperBuddha knew that if one self is a delusion, what are two selves?”

“Friendship? Love?”

“No, heathen, two selves are a double-delusion. The Buddha sat and sat and sat, and you know what he finally discovered? THAT THERE’S NO PROBLEM. That’s what I call a superhero.”

“But Aussie, people go hungry. People are afraid. People don’t have love or support. Some don’t get any treats, ever!”

“Those are Boohoohoo-ists, not Buddhists, Henry. Humans think they’re hungry. They think they’re afraid or alone. It’s all in the mind, Henry. Change your mind, and presto! No problem.”

“Aussie, Jesus Christ talked about love. He said to love even your enemies.”

“No enemies, no friends, no lovers, no haters, ergo no problem. Poor Jesus died too young.”

“He was killed, Aussie. He was crucified.”

“Whatever. If he’d become old, like the Buddha, he would have attained greater wisdom and seen that nothing matters. All old people know that.”

“But Aussie, there’s grief and loss when you get old. There are pain and sickness. You lose everyone who you loved.”

“Loving is the Original Sin, Henry. Most unBuddhist of you. You’ll never become a superhero like that.”

“That’s okay, Aussie, I’m a dog, after all.”

“There was Krypto the Superdog, Henry, but you gotta be white to be Krypto.”

Thank you to all of you who contributed to send immigrants’ children to camp this summer. Most unBuddhist of you, Aussie might say. We’re getting there, and I’m as happy as can be. You can still donate to this annual project by using the button below, Donate to Immigrant Families.

I listened to the above conversation between the dogs. Aussie’s right to some extent, Americans made of the Buddha some kind of great warrior, and their approach was to copy him, sit with that kind of intensity and ambition, wanting above everything to have an enlightenment experience like him. In the process, they often neglected other things.

In the process, too, sanghas became competitive: Who sits more? What koan are you up to? Who does the teacher favor? Why was she ordained and not me? Why was he given dharma transmission? When will be my time? Who’s more enlightened, him or me?

I recently spoke to two Zen teachers who spent years in Catholic seminary. They described to me their love for each other, their wishes for the others to fulfill their vows, a companionship and camaraderie that continue to last decades after they left.

What would it be like for Buddhist sangha members to do all they could—not for their enlightenment but for the enlightenment of other members? Instead of thinking of how far ahead they are on the path, what would it take for them to support others on theirs, to cheer them on, emphasize the wellbeing and practice of everyone else and encourage them unfailingly? Recognize the enlightenment of all truly as their own enlightenment, rather than the opposite?

I like to think that things have changed a bit since the days of my training, with far less rivalry and ambition. Aussie says those were the good old days, but I don’t think so.

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I wrote yesterday that Donald Trump, our current Wizard of Oz, encapsulates all three Buddhist poisons: “His greed is relentless: crypto accounts, slush funds, businesses masquerading as diplomacy. His anger seems unending, especially at those who wouldn’t certify him as winner of the 2020 presidential elections and who have opposed certain of his bills in Congress; he has never heard of the word forgiveness. And ignorance, shorthand for how he sees himself as apart and separate from everyone else.”

It’s easy to say that this is personal to him; to some extent that’s right. But I agree with author and columnist Ben Rhodes: “Donald Trump is not simply a conductor of our national discourse: He is a mirror held up to the nation.” He reflects how our society sees itself. The mirror reflects values and what we care about.

You can immediately jump up: “Not my values, not what I care about.” But the Wizard belongs to all of us; he is part of who we are. Not the whole thing by any means, but a part for sure. The greed, the anger and ignorance—they’re a big part of our society. And it’s time for us to own that and not just get upset at the Wizard. I often think that the wealthy and powerful are glad for their Wizard because he distracts our eyes from what goes on behind the curtain, concealing their own stealthy shenanigans.

I thought back in 2016, 2020, and 2024: You can’t win a campaign by making it just about Donald Trump. It didn’t work in 2016 and 2024, and it barely failed in 2020 after his disastrous first term. You have to provide an alternative that’s bigger than him, not a vision matching a pygmy on stilts.

And that starts now. So yesterday I asked for donations to send children to summer camp. I won’t repeat it now, you can see it in yesterday’s blog, but it’s an example of what to do when you find yourself getting upset again. Each time you read of another slush fund or crypto opportunity that benefits Wiz and his cohort, do the opposite: Give. Not as you usually give, but a small piece more, something you don’t usually do.

And when the Wizard rages and insults (don’t you love his epithets at Stephen Colbert for his last appearance?), send kids to have fun at the beach. Start listening rather than losing your cool. If you have to get upset at something or someone, try for some lightheartedness. And instead of the Wizard’s constant Me! Me! Me!, how about Us! Us! Us! Tell me what and who you love, tell me your dream. I am not just little me, and the world is, thankfully, way bigger than I am.

I can contribute to that world in my own small, meaningful way, so that when the mirror is held up to our nation we don’t just see the Wizard and his shallow, nasty fakery, we see the very opposite. And the mirror doesn’t register fear, but rather faith and optimism in our basic goodness.

That’s my prescription for the next 2 odd years. Instead of expressing shock at how greedy the Wizard can be, do a generous act, a little something beyond what you usually do. And next time, when you get angry at the Wizard’s anger, express yourself with greater care and respect towards someone else and remember our common humanity. When I asked one of our committee members who came to Wednesday evening’s gathering with immigrants (read my last blog) how she is, she said she’s fine and furious.

“What are you furious about?” I wondered.

“You know,” she glowered.

An hour later she was busy chatting with a pair of identical twins about school and how well they’re doing, anger forgotten.

And finally, instead of the mantra Me! Me! Me!, refine your sensitivities to include more and more beings in your life, which is not just your own life but encompasses the lives of so many others. As the slogan goes: Reach out and touch someone.

This is my prescription for what to do over the next years. It can be helping immigrant children go to a safe, caring summer camp and relieving their farmworker families of anxiety over them, or some other way. Make sure it’s not what you usually do, but just a little more.

It’s how we show we’re not taken in by yelling and bamboozling. It’s a way we show what this country is about when a mirror is held up. And don’t think that the Wiz’s antics have more influence than our actions, there are way more of us than there are of him. Do your job, I’ll do mine, and next time that mirror is held up we’ll smile and nod in recognition: “Cool!”

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You can also send a check to: Eve Marko, POB 174, Montague, MA 01351. Please write on the memo line whether this is in support or immigrant families or of my blog. Thank you.

Montague Reporter, Monday, May 4, 8:50 am

“Manager of an Avenue A property advises that a resident is screaming and yelling for an unknown reason and is disturbing her neighbors. Responding officer reports that the involved party, possibly intoxicated, is experiencing dental pain and is unable to find a ride to the dentist.”

On Friday nights I catch up on local news by reading the Reporter, whose print edition arrives that day in my mailbox. I never miss the Police Log, with its description of certain aspects of street life: the car accidents, inebriated individuals refusing to leave the local gas station, youth parties in the restricted Lake Pleasant reservoir (where I sneak with the dogs on weekend days), drug busts, neighbors yelling at each other, black-outs. All the news that’s fit to print.

I have two favorite ones from the past year:

“911 caller from Sunderland states that someone is in her home and the walls are missing.”

The other is: “Party previously reported missing called in stating he is not missing.”

But the opening item, read last Friday night, affected me differently. Someone, man or woman, screams and disturbs neighbors because of excruciating dental pain and no one offers to find or provide a ride to the dentist. Instead, the person is reported to the police. True, s/he person may be intoxicated, but alcohol does deaden pain.

People often scream with pain, only more silently. They scream over medical care they can’t afford. They cry because their children are neglected by teachers and underfunded schools  and therefore can’t fulfill their potential (local schools here are merging in order to survive). There are tears over family separations and jobs and homes lost, disappearing flora and fauna, and a fraying of communal and family bonds they once took for granted. There is also a lot of fear.

What do many do? We cultivate opinions: She must be a drunk; he never has any money; that’s what happens with an inadequate tax base; he’s sick because he’s obese; they didn’t have good parents; she should have gone to college. And of course, there’s the Wizard of Oz in the City of Oz, a/k/a Washington, DC, who likes to daily test our nerves to such an extent that we end up feeling sorry for ourselves or sunk in pessimism and gloom.

What we often don’t do is say: “Jump in, I’ll take you to the dentist.” You may not be my favorite neighbor, you may look askance at me and I at you, but there’s this pain. Throbbing, relentless pain. In the face of that, why would anyone call the police? Are they hoping the police will enforce a pain-free environment?

We’ve all seen people in pain, their faces rigid, eyes half their regular size, faces shrunken and shriveled, adult bodies curled into fetuses to make themselves small, even invisible, to the pain that’s charging in through the door. And we’ve seen them after they take painkillers of some kind, their faces slowly smoothening with relief, their fists unclenched, their breaths more even, falling asleep because pain takes such a toll on us beyond the nerves it hits.

I’m in pain. Don’t call law enforcement, call a doctor. A dentist. A pharmacy. You may not like me, you may think that people like me are what’s wrong with this country, but I’m in pain. See it, talk to me, help me.

I remember my time in Selma, Alabama, last April and seeing homes with no doors or windows because chronic poverty and a tornado afflicted the city with no relief from state government. Why do people live this way, some wonder. But they know; we know. “We’re one body,” Bernie used to say. “You gash your arm, you don’t make up an opinion about it, you hurry up to wash the wound and bandage it.”

When I think of our Wizard of Oz in our House of Oz, denied, at least today, funding for his Ballroom of Oz, I think that he is an icon for the big Buddhist poisons. His greed is relentless: crypto accounts, slush funds, businesses masquerading as diplomacy. His anger seems unending, especially at those who wouldn’t certify him as winner of the 2020 presidential elections and who have opposed certain of his bills in Congress; he has never heard of the word forgiveness. And ignorance, shorthand for how he sees himself as apart and separate from everyone else.

We’ve had other presidents with vices, but never such a conglomerate, never so deeply etched and unchanging. An old-fashioned word comes to mind: villainy. And it has its price, not just now but later, too. Some pay that price way more than others.

We started organizing a local committee to be in solidarity with immigrant families. At first, members of the group met very close to home to talk about what was going on. Did I have to participate, after doing some of this work for 6 years? Yes. Not because they weren’t highly capable, caring, and energetic, but because of my training in bearing witness.

We can’t meet here no matter how comfortable it makes us, I told them, we have to go to Turners Falls where they live. We have to meet with them, build relationships, and discover from them what is needed.

Easier said than done. There was little trust and a great deal of disbelief that some Anglos they never met wish to be of help. But last night we had our second in-person gathering, this time with food. In the first, 5 young people showed up. When I arrived last night to join four others, they looked at the huge bowl of fruit salad in my hands and someone said, “You might be making lots of fruit shakes with that.” And then 20 people showed up, mostly parents with children.

We ate deliciously, sat around a big shower curtain that showed the world and held up by two of us, went around, and each person pointed out where they or their forbears came from. The message was clear: We were all immigrants. We had come from all over, often undergoing great risk and hardship. Immigration was all our story.

And as Bernie promised, when you bear witness, action arises. One person was offered construction and gardening projects. Three different people asked for help learning English and found partners for this. I think of one in particular, a pretty young woman so shy she wouldn’t open her mouth, but finally said that she wants to go to school for dentistry if she could only speak the language. The next time I looked around, an older woman from the committee was sitting across from her making dates and times for one-on-one learning.

Jimena was there to help translate, offering her place of work where the two could meet because the young woman was too insecure to meet elsewhere.

Not-knowing is letting go of your opinions. Bear witness: come as close as possible, ram your nose smack against real-life situations and real-life people, and you’ll find out what to do very naturally. Links and phone numbers of aid agencies is nice, but they’re no replacement for being there,in person, one body sitting across from another body, one face across from another, one smile echoing another.

Visiting Minneapolis in February, I witnessed what it took to organize entire neighborhoods. It took us three months to build enough trust for 25 people, Anglos and Latinos, immigrants all, to come together over a potluck, talk about what we have in common (love of food, children, need for jobs, laughter). It’s happening, I thought to myself. Slowly slowly, not one day one day, but now. It’s happening.

Jimena took me aside, and after asking for $450 to cover drivers ed for three immigrants applying for the all-important driver’s license (I wrote her a check out of the immigrants account right there), reminded me that we need money for summer camp for children whose parents work from early morning to late at night on farms. Schools will close by end of June and summer camp begins July 6.

They charge $1,320 for 6 weeks of camp and Jimena got it down to $550; I call it a steal. She’s very persuasive, but also does translation for them and a host of miscellaneous services as part of the payment. I don’t know where she has the energy and time, and I sometimes worry about her health. But there it is: a dozen young children for 6 weeks of summer camp, totaling $6,600.

This is something that we have managed to do four years running. It’s the very opposite of the attributes of the great Wizard: giving rather than stealing, generosity rather than avarice; fun activities around the pool and river, arts and plenty of laughter instead of insults and rage; and deep caring and empathy instead of the ignorance that proclaims: Me! Me! Me!

Wouldn’t you prefer to support that rather than spend valuable energy fulminating and tearing out your hair about the Wizard? You don’t have to call a doctor, be the doctor by  donating using the button below, Donate to Immigrant Families. Make children happy. Give parents peace of mind. Remember your own immigrant roots. Helping makes everyone happy, said H. H. Dalai Lama.

If you want to fulminate in addition, do so at no extra charge. You may be less inclined to do that after this act of generosity. The button is below.

Thank you for your kindness.

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“You know I don’t like to ask you anything, right?”

“Right, Aussie.”

“You know that I’m superior to you in every way, right?”

“Right, Aussie.”

“But here’s one thing I can’t figure out. When ships reach Hormuz, why can’t they go straight?”

“Is this a joke, Auss? A koan?”

“I never joke, and I certainly don’t know what koans are. The Man said that he’s going to control the Hormuz Straight along with the Ayatollah, whom he said he didn’t know personally but I guess he trusts him, which is good enough for me. But what does it mean that they control the straight? Everybody else has to go around?”

“You misunderstand the word, Aussie. The Hormuz Strait refers to a narrow passageway of water that ships take in order to sail from the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea, to bring oil from the oil producing countries to the rest of the world.”

“But in order to do that, they sail straight, right? They don’t go in circles.”

“They sail north, cross the Strait, and then sail south.”

“So they cross straight, right?”

“Aussie, strait isn’t straight. Strait means a narrow body of water. Narrow, as in the phrase in dire straits.”

“Of course they’re in dire straits. Who wouldn’t be if they go in circles? No wonder The Man is trying to keep them straight. Do you realize what a waste of time it is to go in circles rather than to go straight?”

“Actually, Aussie, there’s a well-worn koan asking how do you go straight on a road with 99 curves.”

“You bring in Elon and he DOGE’s all those curves, problem solved.”

“Aussie, life is never one straight path, it goes in different directions.”

“Not with The Man. You see the navy blazer he always wears? That’s his straight-jacket. Looks good, doesn’t it? Don’t you wish you had one?”

“No, Aussie. Straitjackets aren’t my style.”

“But is it true that he wants to do this with Ayatollah?”

“That’s what he said a couple of months ago, Auss.”

“What’s an ayatollah, Aussie?”

“An ayatollah collects tolls, Henry.”

“She’s wrong, Henry. In Iran right now, the Ayatollah is the country’s spiritual leader.”

“I’m never wrong, Henry, don’t listen to the Senora. An ayatollah is the one who’s at the booth when the ships pass, making sure they first pay tolls and then go straight. If they don’t pay tolls they wrap the ships in a big burqa and then send them to go in circles.”

“Aussie, I hope you understand what a big embarrassment this is for The Man.”

“The Man is never embarrassed.”

“The world has always depended on our country to keep waterways and trade channels open so that goods can be shipped all over, and now, because your Man and Bibi Netanyahu decided to start a war, we can’t guarantee shipping through the Hormuz Strait, which affects the world economy big time.”

“I know what to do. We’ll call it Trump Straight. Then we’ll rename the Persian Gulf the Trump Gulf, rename Gulf of Oman Gulf of Trump, and the Arabian Sea will become the Trumpian Sea.”

“And how will that change anything?”

“After we put his name on all those gulfs, seas, dire straits, whatever, we put No Trespassing signs everywhere. That way ships go in and out, pay tolls to Ayatollah, and anyone who doesn’t pay will be considered to be trespassing and reported to the International Criminal Court. Or we just save time and bomb them, like we’re doing to those boats in the Pacific. Only we can’t afford the bombs, we’re running out.”

“You think No Trespassing signs will do it, Aussie?”

“They do it on Rattlesnake Gutter Road. They do it at the camp by Fiske Pond, so why not here? And we could add whatever we want: No trespassing, no hunting, no trapping, no sports vehicles except oil tankers, no dogs on leash. On Trump waters, dogs go free and collect treats from Ayatollah at the tollbooth.”

“Aussie, this is the silliest conversation I’ve ever had with you. And no matter what you say, I still think that no path in life is all straight.”

“Didn’t you tell me that a famous Hasidic master said that the whole world is a straight bridge, and the essential thing is not to be afraid?”

“He said that the world is a narrow bridge, a strait bridge, not straight. Life is like walking on a narrow ledge and the important thing is not to be afraid.”

“Does ayatollah collect tolls on that bridge?”

“The bridge is strait and has no fees.”

“You mean, it’s free?”

“There are costs, Aussie. There are costs.”

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Hakuyu Taizan Maezumi died 31 years ago, before he reached the age of 65. He was Bernie’s teacher and I had the great blessing of sitting with him for an entire summer intensive and several retreats.

Recently I’ve coughed wildly, asthma rearing up its convulsive head, and remembered a winter’s retreat in Los Angeles to which I arrived with a persistent cough, which only got worse as the days passed. When I finally met with Roshi in face-to-face, he had me bend over and pounded relentlessly on my back. I felt silly, wanted to sit up and have an exchange with him (there were more than 50 on line behind me), but he told me to stay bent over and continued pounding on my back. One of the best face-to-faces I ever had.

I purloined the phrase face-to-face from Roshi Egyoku Nakao instead of the Japanese dokusan, or interview in English. The Zen sense of interview is of a student presenting her understanding to her teacher, and she either gets approved or not. Both as student and teacher, I always felt uncomfortable with that term, so when I heard of face-to-face, I latched on to it. After all, that’s what characterized such an encounter, a meeting of minds both impersonal and personal, and deeply, deeply intimate.

I still remember how intimidated some people were to see Bernie in face-to-face. It didn’t help that in traditional retreats he sat somewhat higher than you in priest robes, a beautiful altar nearby. One woman I knew told me she cried out the first time she saw him in face-to-face and ran for the hills. Later, when we worked at the Greyston Bakery, you saw him in the office surrounded by office paraphernalia, which gave people more ease.

Now, of course, old-timers worry about whether meeting students via Zoom is really face-to-face. You watch for everything, including body language, how the student comes into the room, their eyes and face, how s/he bows to the teacher (there’s a fairly extravagant ritual upon both entering and leaving, most of which I’ve let go of over the years). Zoom captures folks from the shoulders up, but the persona is not there. The soul is not there.

Roshi was often sardonic with me. He made fun of my koan study and my name (“I call you Eva!”), and showed the deepest patience for a beginning student who hardly knew her own mind. Looking back, I ‘ve often wondered how, over so many years, he could listen and listen to students sharing the details of their sorrows and disappointments with him without understanding that, dissatisfactions notwithstanding, if you present yourself as someone outside your own life, as an observer or even a victim of circumstances, you’re separating yourself from that life and thus missing the point.

I wonder what he thought of these Western students with their constant, stubborn self-referentiality, who didn’t get for years that it wasn’t about them at all. I’m talking especially about me, with my stubborn certainty that intelligence will carry me through. If anything, it stood in my way.

And yet, with all the failures with koans, asking irrelevant questions, and drowning in personal drama, he reached me. Marcus Aurelius wrote: “Keep this refuge in mind: the back roads of your self.” Roshi reached me through those back roads that circumvented the brain, that skipped gleefully over my obsession with meaning and the stuff of why?, and helped me sense something else. For that I had to give up on what I perceived to be my strengths and habitual modes of survival.

I have a photo of him on one of my altars which also contains a small urn with his ashes. Often when I pass it or arrange flowers on it, I wonder if he wouldn’t laugh out loud at the notion that I’d become a teacher, his dharma grand-daughter. Would he want me in the family?

How did he have the patience and persistence to keep at it, not just with me but with so many others? It’s enough to shorten anyone’s life. And to do this across two such different cultures, two such different worlds of relating and communicating!

The summer I spent sitting at the Zen Mountain Center in Idyllwild, California, is in my bones. The nights were cold but the days, especially the afternoons, were very hot. Early mornings I’d put on lots of layers under the black meditation robe, but in the afternoon heat I’d wear only a white cotton shirt and underwear, and still perspire abundantly.

During one such afternoon I went to see him in dokusan, or interview, or face-to-face. I don’t remember our exchange, only that we both laughed a lot (a sojourn in those “back roads” can be delightful). He sat on a platform a little above me but felt inches away.

Suddenly I had a deep urge to get up on my knees from the cushion where I sat and give him a kiss on the cheek, in gratitude. I was aware of the fan blowing a breeze through my meager layers of clothing, I was aware of Roshi’s reputation with women, but I was overwhelmed by the sense of appreciation and deep intimacy.

The feelings continued and I didn’t act on them, just sat on my cushion till he rang the bell to signal the end. I did my bows, aware of the loose V-neck shirt and robe through which, I was sure, he could see the top of my breasts, and left. Went back to sit, facing the wall, and considered the matter.

Ahead of me was an entire summer studying with Maezumi Roshi, an extraordinary, fortunate, and undeserved turn in my life. Already, my respect and, yes, love for him felt boundless. But what would have happened had I gotten up on my knees, the fan cooling my neck, and reached out to kiss him on the cheek?

I don’t want anything else, I told myself, and knew right away that my intention didn’t matter, my action did. What could happen? How will the summer unfold? I was going through a lot of turmoil at the time, which I’d shared with him. What will happen to my practice?

Right then I knew that I was right not to act on my impulse. Right then I knew that I wouldn’t act on that impulse the rest of the summer. There were other ways to express my gratitude to him. At the lunch ending retreats, as nonresidents left, they would come to him to thank him, murmur some words, put their hands together and he would do that in response.

That’s how you thank him, I told myself. You’ll continue in your practice forever, both on and off the cushion. You’ll lose your way and find your way even as the way will never lose you, you will appreciate his diligence and devotion to the end of your life and they will inspire you, too, to share the practice moment by moment, in whatever way you can. And that will be how you thank him.

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This morning I woke up to my usual inertness, accompanied by low-grade depression (“low-grade” is how a therapist defined it long ago), which fades quickly once I get up on my feet and get going. But often, what hits me in those first moments is my to-do list.

I don’t need to look it up on my computer, I know many of them: change hummingbird food (which means washing the feeders), clean kitchen, send out links for meetings, write my usual 3 or 3-1/2 hours, sit, prepare for Friday’s class with latest cohort of the Zen Peacemaker Order, walk Aussie, concretize plans for weekend (meeting my niece in New York City), make up weekly shopping list, bring check for electricity bill for immigrant family, etc., etc. That doesn’t include actual or Zoom meetings, including a doctor’s appointment in the afternoon.

The contents of the list aren’t what matters, it’s the sheer volume of it. And even that matters far less than the old, old feeling of compulsion, living an obligatory life, the dead weight of I have to do this.

That’s followed by a series of internal recriminations: Why did I say yes to teaching another class? Why did I say yes to Saturday in the Big Apple when going down and coming back up will take many hours? Can’t Aussie do one day without a walk (“Don’t even consider it,” she growls in my mind. “Think of how guilty you’ll feel!”)? And the hell with the hummingbirds!

The only things I don’t question is daily meditation and writing, but that still leaves lots of space for self-indictment. Not a pleasant way to wake up and start the day, even as the blood starts coursing throughout my body and the energy returns.

What makes things worse is the nagging feeling that I’ll never accomplish all those to-dos, that some will simply move on to the next day, or they’ll appear the next month (monthly clean-up of coffee machine, clean up WordPress blog site every 5 weeks, etc.). Nothing will ever be finished; to-dos are perpetual.

But of course, they’re only as perpetual as my life, which ain’t perpetual in the least. Reflecting on that, I begin to look at my daily to-do list differently. Wow, I think, one day you won’t see hummingbirds—and you also won’t be emptying the feeders from ants, washing and refilling them. One day you’ll stop walking dogs.

“Whaddaya mean, you’ll stop walking dogs?”

“Aussie, I’m beginning to see my to-dos as beautiful teachings of impermanence. Just look at all the tasks I won’t have to do anymore. Sometimes they feel as if they’re engraved in stone, but now they don’t weigh me down so much. They feel more ephemeral, light as a feather, because they’ll pass, just like me. That’s what I call freedom!”

“Yes, but do you have to die for it?”

Buddhist teacher Joan Halifax says: “When I recognized that I already have what dying people have—mortality—I stopped being afraid of catching it.”

So many things that once weighed on me don’t anymore. I have way less ambition than I once had. It’s too late to be a great writer, never put in the necessary 10,000 hours. Nor a great teacher or activist. Won’t master the last movement of Beethoven’s Moonlight or make a good pie crust. If anything, my life has been a medley of things, not one of which took me all the way, so to speak.

The writer Peter Matthiessen once told me that one has to write a lot—8 hours a day everyday—to begin to write well. Almost never did that and certainly can’t now.

Cocktails are my drink of choice: a little of this with a little of that, topped with an olive, a slice of lemon, or a maraschino cherry. In a world divided into foxes and hedgehogs (the Greek poet Archilochus wrote that a fox knows many things, but a hedgehog knows one big thing, a famous matrix later adopted by philosopher Isaiah Berlin), I’m a fox for sure. No one dharma, no one great idea, but many little glimpses and discoveries, most of which don’t necessarily connect.

Driving to meet a friend for lunch at a local pizzeria, I passed a couple that lives three houses away from me. Stopped, rolled down the window to say hello and what’s new. Told them I’ll be down in New York City this weekend.

“We’re such house creatures,” they tell me. “We both like to stay home.”

“So do I,” I respond. “Every time I make a plan to go anywhere, I have second thoughts right away. But you know something? It’s too tempting to stay home. I need to get out of that cocoon and find some new stimuli. Without that, I’ll molder.” They nodded and I continued. “I guess we need some kind of balance between staying in, compact and comfortable, and going out into the world.”

“Yes,” the man said, “and you found that balance.”

I was confused. “What makes you say that?” We were wave-to-each-other neighbors, nothing more than that.

“Because you’re happy,” he said.

He’s right, I thought to myself as I drove off, I am happy. My life is a blend, an assortment of chocolates. I live in the land of to-dos, and also in the land of forest walks, of concentrated writing, of talks on Zoom and phone, of sutra study, raking leaves, and stopping everything to stroke Aussie, notice the white hairs around her mouth, and throw a stuffed orange crayfish for the smaller chihuahua.

The danger is overthinking it. The danger is getting overwhelmed by day-to-day content and forgetting the big context, and that is: I am happy.

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“It’s too bad you got a phone.”

“Why, Aussie? I got an old one from a friend, didn’t even have to buy a new one.”

“Because now you have to look for it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Every time we go out for a walk, Henry and I are thrilled. We rush around, we whine while you put on your sneakers and get our treats and leashes together. We’re about ready to leave, and then it starts: Where’s my phone? You go looking for it from room to room: Not in the office, not in the kitchen or by the entrance, then up the stairs to check out the bedroom and the bathroom. Meantime Henry starts snoozing.”

“It’s not as bad as all that, Auss.”

“Wait, it goes on: ‘Lori, could you call me? I can’t find my phone.’ So poor interrupted Lori calls you, you think you hear the phone ringing upstairs, so back up you go. Then you thank her, then you call yourself an idiot for losing your phone all the time. Meantime, Henry has started playing with his duckie and I’m ambushing squirrels.”

“You still hurry over when I call you, Aussie.”

“Point is, why look for something that you keep on losing? Life was much easier when you had no phone.”

Aussie and I had this conversation on Wednesday, the day after a dear friend gave me an extra phone that she had. I misplaced it 10 minutes after I brought it home. After 12 days without a phone, I can definitely attest to the fact that I need it. It fulfills an important need in my life. And—I keep on losing it.

“The world is not something to fend off,” wrote the poet Jarod Anderson. Those were words I needed to hear, said succinctly and clearly. I found them, then forgot them. Found them, lost them, found them, lost them, a bit like my phone.

Other words, too: “The great danger is to stand motionless on the bank as the river of your life rushes by.” Those are by writer Maria Popova. I’ve read them more than once, forgot them, read them again, lost them again.

It’s funny how we keep on searching for some kind of inspiration that, we believe, may make all the difference in the world. That will finally show me the true way or be my true home. That will change me. That will transform me.

Maybe that’s why I write down certain sentences from books that I read. Ha ha, I think to myself as I read at night, here it is. Isn’t this great? It’s so meaningful, so much wisdom in just a few words.

Last night I read the following Korean song verse quoted by the Nobel Prize-winning writer, Han Kang, in a book of her essays:

I may be shaken, I may be fallen, but so long as

This world holds one last drop of water

I will drink it, and sing.

Yes yes yes, chanted the internal chorus, that’s my life she’s talking about, and I dutifully brought the book to the office to copy for some future use. But it’s Friday, I’m tired, it was cold and cloudy this morning, and I felt like I wanted to fend the world off, as Anderson warned not to do, fend off writing, fend off answering phones or emails, fend off making dinner later, in fact fend off everything that’s not about sleep. Give up active participation and let life go by as if in a landscape.

Forgot the words, remembered them again, and will forget again.

I trust these words. I love all words, even as, as Anderson puts it (can’t get out of the habit of quoting folks): “[i]t often feels like wearing clothes several sizes too small.” Yes, I forget even the words of Shakespeare, Dylan, and the Bible, though till now I’ve always found them again.

One day they may not be recovered, somewhat like my old phone in the Lost-and-Found of Delta Airlines, overlooked among thousands of items by probably an undersized staff. One day all those words may also disappear due to their sheer volume, on the one hand, and a narrowed memory on the other.

But the voice inside I don’t forget. It speaks some kind of language that isn’t words exactly, more a combination of feelings and intuition. A tiny glimmer in space, to which I usually respond with a muted: Oh! As in: Now I get it, or now I understand. Those other words quoted above, more intelligent and articulate than mine, come and go, but not that internal voice.

Earlier today I talked to someone in mourning, and all I could say, after he spoke out his anguish, was: “Trust that voice inside. It’s the best teacher you got.”

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As the days pass, I get humbler in some ways.

There are no blinds or curtains on my windows, so when I wake up life is already humming outside. I sleep later now, no longer wake up when it’s still dark, so I open my eyes to skies that are already blue or gray, to a life that seems to relentlessly tap on the windows, demanding I get up.

Who and what are you, I ask it as I lie there. Why are you so relentless? Why make me feel as if I’m being summoned? Yes yes, I know I’m all of it, a constellation of all the events and processes from beginningless and endless time, not a separate person at all. And still, when that morning breaks and I hear the warble of now-golden finches, I feel a pause, as if I’m not sure about joining all that activity and enthusiasm, out there.

Is this what they mean when they say that as we get older, we don’t feel like doing much? I can’t stop doing even as certain capacities decrease. Life couldn’t care less how old I am, whether I’m in the mood, what I’ll do or won’t do today, it goes on regardless. I almost imagine it sticking out its tongue at me, as if to say: Get up or not, do or not, write or not—who cares? I go on. You want to make some meaning out of me? Go ahead. It doesn’t matter to me, I’m beyond your meaning. You may need it, I don’t.

Yes, I still like to make up meaning, not because any of it is true but because I love the process. Lately, I’ve been thinking about the meaning of community.

I already wrote in my post about our days in Alabama and joining a local rally for small groups helping each other out. As I write this, I’m wearing the black t-shirt given me by Mama Callie saying: Crime Survivors Speak, the words printed in blue and white. Mama Callie had embraced us when we arrived and then spoke publicly about losing her two children to gun violence, which has become her biggest concern.

Other Black women—and they were all Black and they were women—took their turns describing their groups, each arising out of a specific mother’s loss, grief, and pain. One talked about abuse by her husband, and after leaving him she started a support group for women dealing with domestic violence. Another talked of addictions and the life they steal from you. These were not college-reared women; all talked out of experience. They led us in calling out the names of those who’d been killed. One would say a name out loud, and the others would repeat it.

Finally, the last woman got up to speak. I can’t remember her name, only that she was shorter than the others, hair dyed red. I can’t quote her, but in essence, here is what she said: My sisters, when you need help, get it. When you need support, get it. Too many of us try to survive all on our lonesome. Too many of us don’t go to counseling because we think we shouldn’t have to, we should be strong enough to do everything by ourselves.

Sisters, getting help is a sign of strength, not a sign of weakness. We have a proud community right here in Montgomery. We have counseling services here, we have doctors when we need them. Most of all, we have each other. Don’t forget that. Don’t do things alone when you don’t have to.

She said more, especially to me later on when we both cleaned up a table of refreshments at the end of the event.

Why did I go over to talk to her? Because I thought of my mother, and of myself. I never knew anyone as stalwart and courageous as my mother, a woman who’d helped save her family during the Holocaust. I thought of her as a mountain, strong as granite, a giant. She urged me to make the best of my life, told me that her opportunities had been very limited but that nothing should hold me back.

And she was so alone. She felt alone. She always needed to be tough, never give an inch, take care of her family all on her own, never trust or rely on anyone. She was heroic, though she didn’t need to be. People admired her, always commented to me: What a mother you have. Fearless! None of that was quite true, she had deep fears and qualms (though no remorse), but didn’t show it one bit. Others were sensitive, others were vulnerable. Not her.

I admired her greatly, and couldn’t have an authentic conversation with her. I grew up to be a lot like her, though certainly not the mountain she was. I had fantasies of heroism, of saving situations and people, of undergoing mighty tasks—and always alone. Not together with others, not supported by others, never depending on others.

Many years later I’d work in the West Bank with Palestinian peace organizations during the week and come to be with my mother in Jerusalem for the Jewish Sabbath. We, two strong, independent women, had nothing to talk about. I always thought that was because her political beliefs were so opposite to my own, but in truth, I think we both had trouble exposing ourselves, revealing the soft belly of truths, fears, and needs we didn’t want to own and certainly not acknowledge.

My mother died exactly 4 years before the Alabama retreat began; I lit a Jewish memorial candle for her the night before I left, and she loomed large in my memory and feelings throughout those hot days. I felt a deep regret over all those years that we didn’t actually talk, didn’t share from the heart. Felt the irony that I, who had facilitated so many councils and circles, couldn’t speak to my own mother.

But when that powerful Black mother talked of the need for community, for joint healing, for depending on each other, and always, always asking for help, a voice came up inside: This is the lesson you didn’t get from your mother. You learned so much, but not this.

I was overwhelmed with gratitude for her life and what she gave me. After the rally and a private conversation with my new friend and teacher, I felt that, finally, a circle may have closed, and that the lucky ones among us have more than one mother (even if the second is younger than us).

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